Dive, Eat, Sleep: Bali to Lombok

"Dive-Eat-Sleep-Dive-Shit-Repeat". You need to squint a bit, but this is what the Reef Creature book says. Well, with some embellishment.

The plan for Bali/Lombok had been "shop, eat, beach" with a couple of dives at the end. But after my last leg in Java, I craved headspace, not the shop-crammed streets of Bali's Ubud. So I binned the plan and took a day to recover, research, re-route. This entailed some fast lessons in Indonesian regulatory practice (any travel agent can set up a shack and plaster a "tourist information office" label across its frontage) and some hard negotiation on a speedboat ticket to Lombok's Gili islands. Ye internet chatterers talk about a cheaper "public boat" option, but after Cemora Lewang I wasn't taking a public anything to anywhere. I was also time-impoverished.

Speedboat ticket in sticky hand (the cost still made me sweat at nearly half price), I hopped on my bike and zipped along the beachfront promenade, ding-dinging gleefully at the pram brigade and other jumpy foreigners. Of course, Indonesians don't bat an eyelid: as elsewhere in the region, ding-dinging and hooting aren't acts of annoyance or aggression, but just polite ways of letting people know you're behind them, passing, and that for their own well-being they might want to stay out of the way.  I stopped to look at sarongs, picking up tips about what food to eat on Nusa Lembongan island (babi guling for sure - what a delightful name for roast suckling pig), and then to happy-snap boats and boys playing footie on the beach.

My ding-dinging wickedness did not go unnoticed by the universe and I soon found myself searching the sand on a very long beach at dusk for the lost key to my bicycle lock. Some cheery enquiries into whether bicycled locals nearby had a key for me to try soon turned into hairclip lock-picking attempts (mine - hopelessly amateur) followed by more persuasive methods involving a hammer and wirecutters (theirs - just as amateur, but successful). There then followed a debate about where I should go to buy a replacement at this time of night. Visions of a relaxed beachside supper evaporated, as I pedalled off to the supermarket at a more sedate pace, trying not to blind the nice pedestrians with my trusty headtorch. No locks at the supermarket, so I did a street poll of bike hirers on replacement costs and returned to confess my stupidity - using a very unfortunate looking bike lock as a visual aid - to my serious homestay folk.

Next stop: Nusa Lembongan island on the speedboat. After years of bus travel I chose a seat near the front, nattering away to a friendly Aussie couple. 2 hull-whacking minutes in I realised why my mate, TV, had said "eeee I've seen those boats - sit at the BACK". A surfer I met later summed up the experience in a relaxed drawl "I was thinking 'Oh my God, we're all gonna DIE'". This from a guy who surfs in spots where the breakers have names like "Lacerations" and "Shipwrecks".

I wasn't going to dive from Nusa L - v strong currents and too early to see mola mola, the rare sunfish. Yes, but literally seconds off the boat, I happened upon a diver going the other way. She'd seen mola mola the day before and pointed out just how few footsteps up the beach the dive shop was. Salivation. Fate delivered a lovely chatty French Divemaster (A) (these peoples' names really all do begin with A - I'm not just being lazy) to the room next to mine, and a forecast of wave-swell far to big to snorkel in the places on our wish list. Within minutes of checking out that dive shop, we were signed up for the next day...aaand the next day, changing our boat tickets at the mere mention of manta rays. No mola mola or mantas, but we saw some stunning coral.

Pics below: Temple-decor; transport (recycling deluxe); and seaweed farming and sun-drying on Nusa L.

The speedboat journey to the Gili islands (off the coast of Lombok) turned out to be not so speedy. One engine broke, forcing us to bank and swerve our way to a Bali bay where we had to moor offshore. No worries: the Aussies soon had most of us leaping waterwards off the top deck of the boat. The savvy staff brought out beer and fizzy drinks and whacked on a bit of Bob Marley. Nothing like beer and Bob to persuade people into thinking that they're on holiday and having a good time, and to prevent mutiny when "20 mins for another boat" really means 4hours. More drama when we reached the Gilis and a young female Aussie lifeguard ignored her parents' pleas and threw herself plus lifebuoy off our boat into churning current to rescue two screaming, drowning snorkellers. Terrifying. Very brave girl.

I bid sad goodbyes to A (great company) - she was headed to Gili Trawangan and tech diving and I to the quieter Gili Air and...umm....beach. Any beach. With such low ambition, I was bound to be delighted. There were lots of beaches and no motorised transport on the island: just cidomos (horse drawn carts), bicycles and feet. Yay.

I had visions of reading my book and drinking watermelon shakes for a few days. But the exploratory urge kicked in the next morning and by 10 I'd checked out most of the dive menus on the island and signed myself up for a chance of seeing sharks. I'm the perfect customer: just spin me any old rubbish about the lovely things I might see and I'll be handing over my plastic dosh, with little dive tank signs appearing in my eyes. No sharks and a Divemaster more interested in his sunglasses than leading a dive, but some intriguing coral gardens hiding lots of lionfish. I clocked the embellished Reef Creature book when completing my dive log book. This caused me to reflect that, living as I do on expensive Mud Island, a very very long way from warm clear waters, developing such an addiction to diving would be unwise.

So the rest of my time was spent dive-detoxing. Yoga, snorkelling (with lots of respect paid to currents), and learning to control a bicycle in sand as I skidded my way around the island, dodging bell-jingling horsecarts. Only one day on the beach in the end. I guess I'm just not a lying-on-the-beach kind of person. The sand gets in my teeth and being still gives me the itches, wondering what I might be missing out on.

 

The boat company had tighter t&c on the back of its ticket than those relaxed Filipino ferries. Refusing to reimburse me for failure to deliver me to Lombok in the 2hours I paid for, they proved their competence on the return journey when they arrived so late that they got stuck on low tide reef and made us all wade and rock clamber to dry land. Nevermind - they got me to Ubud in one piece.




Ubud felt like a crazy, traffic-jammed tourist trap after the islands, but I found a peaceful homestay run by a fabulous family, with hot water (mmmmm luxury after lots of cold salt-water showers on Gili A.). I could quite happily have whiled away my last few days chatting to the guy in the room next to me (special forces, then oil rig diver turned furniture entrepreneur), and watching homestay chicken - v - duck politics. But, I persuaded myself off to a Balinese dance performance at the Royal Palace, which was captivating. And I did much pavement mileage buying pressies, with plenty of pitstops involving platefuls of amazing food and massive, mountainous cones of gelato.

Pics below (Ubud): girls playing bekel; dancing with hands and eyes; lotus pond temple

My last night in Bali was spent at the charming Coconut Tree warung, eating delectable barbecued chicken, drinking iced rosella tea, smoking clove-scented cigarettes and chatting to the dudes running the place about traditional boats, fishing methods and fish stocks. A simple but memory-treasured conclusion to my travels.

Posted: 21 July 2012

Jamming in Java

Yogyakarta: Buddhists v Hindus

"Becak miss?". After a day in Yogya (pronounced "Jogja" by the locals) I'd worked out an answer to this oft-asked question. "No thanks, I'm walking. Exercise". I clearly wasn't the first to latch onto this excuse. The becak driver had a quick come back "ahhh, exercise is very good for you, but not very good for me!" l should have given him my custom just for making me laugh.

My main modes of transport in Yogya were motorbikes and the excellent and very cheap Transyogya public buses. Each bus stop is a miniature ticket office, with turnstile and waiting benches, and has a raised platform which the buses draw alongside.

For some reason, these quaint little booths (pics below) tickled me to smiles and I used them often. I could pay 3000 rupiah (about 30c) for an hour's journey with multiple stops and very little idea of exactly where I was. The efficient conductors would make sure I changed buses at the right places to get where I was going. And if they weren't attentive enough, the local friends I'd made would make sure I knew where to get off. Without fail, my presence on each bus provoked curiosity and conversations, usually (but not always) including me.

 

Transjogya booth

As for motorbikes, I took a couple of tours through Via Via cafe. A bit more expensive than the standard backpacker tours, but I like their philosophy. They believe in sustainable tourism, using local guides. After some involuntary lazing in the Philippines, it was time for some cultural enlightenment. So, temples.

In the 9th century, a Buddhist kingdom and rival Hindu empire had a temple build-off. Well, in simple terms. Tired of doing the "must-dos" and editing sunrise/sunset pictures (which never quite capture the spectacle) and not keen on a 3am wake-up 2 days running, I decided to head to Buddhist temple Borabudur at 5am instead of 3am, skipping sunrise. As it happened, a time-zone misunderstanding meant that I leapt out of bed around 3am anyway, only to be politely corrected by bleary guesthouse staff (oops! sorry for that). The call to prayer from the local mosques ensured I didn't oversleep, and a long, fingernail-challenging motorbike ride on dark bumpy roads delivered me to the temple in the early morning mist. One climbs the temple on a symbolic path to enlightenment, by circling through several levels of carved reliefs: from the world of earthly desires to nirvana at the summit, a massive stupa. I saved some of the path for later, and was unexpectedly captivated by the stark simplicity, peacefulness and vistas of nirvana. There was only a handful of people up there and I spent a good hour relishing the quiet and watching the sun burn the misty haze off the distant palm trees. My trip back to Yogya with my rider, a female university student with a cool pink bike, was a meditative meander along rural back roads lined with rice terraces fringed with banana trees and red-tiled rooves. My camera saw little action: sometimes you just want to drink it in rather than tracking it from behind an LCD screen.

 

Having parted with some money in an incident involving suspension of judgment, I decided to see the Hindu Prambanan temple complex (pics below) on the cheap, using Transjogja buses. The view of the main temple complex on approach was pretty impressive. Close up, the stone reliefs, telling gruesome tales, were better preserved than those of Borabudur. And the lintel-munching monsters (which I think are depictions of the god Batara Kala) were fascinating. But unfortunately the main Shiva temple was closed for repairs.

I was taken captive by a couple of school students who needed to practice their English. Their canny school had bussed a crowd of them in to the nearest tourist attraction to do just this. And some non-native English speakers are less forgiving, or maybe just crueller visitors, than me. Someone had given an articulate and chatty teenager with great vocab 20% on his scorecard. I gave him a score to cancel the scorching and voluntarily wrote ENGLAND as the country I'm from, even though that's flexing and weighting history a little. Hmm the first symptoms of jingoism perhaps. Folks, keep an eye on this one for me please and give me a slap if it worsens.

Although looking back at photos of Prambanam caused some wavering, overall - for me - the Bhuddhists have it.

Jamu in Jogja

A sold out train gave me an excuse to linger longer in Yogya. And I'm not talking about the 2 hour ticket wait, where I met a travel-hungry uni lecturer turned Ministry of Interior official (I restrained myself from mentioning Suharto). No, I just loved Yogya: a melting pot of religions with an arty, creative edge.


I spent some time getting lost in the ancient Kota Gede district, famous for its silversmiths. A place where the same street could host a massive old merchant house and a compact new-build with hot pink paintwork. And I also spent some time learning about jamu (traditional herbal medicine). A trip to the market to sample old-style, homemade, eeeeee...bitter jamu and to check out the mountains of herbs and barks and roots used as raw ingredients. Then a trip to a more modern shop with packaged, mix-it-yourself concoctions and a Jamu cocktail bar with menu. My bright young female guide and I spent some time chatting about the properties of papaya seeds, skin whiteners, and Javanese social expectations (female + 25 + unmarried = dire concerns that you're on the shelf), and giggling at the names and claims of some of the potions. When my guide expressed incredulity that I was from a certain southern African country, but not black, I couldn't resist ..."Good skin whitener hey?" (I got lots of laugh mileage out of that as a quick 'n' easy response to repeat incredulity over the following weeks). But, there was a sobering "oh nooooo!" moment when I learnt that a seahorse picture on one of the jamu packets means that seahorses are being caught and ground up not only by those in small fishing villages, but on an industrial, commercial scale.

(Pics above from Kota Gede district. Pics below: jamu ingredients, market; modern packet jamu)

 

 

We're scamming jamming

Yogya wasn't all loveliness and light. I got scammed into buying some "original batik paintings" in what I like to tell myself was a sophisticated operation. It involved two separate chatty men skilled in the art of organic conversation; a tale of a government-sponsored gallery only open over the weekend ("closing at 4pm today") exhibiting the work of art students and teachers with government-controlled, listed prices to avoid tourists being scammed by the batik mafia; helpful directions scribbled on my map by one man, so I could find my own way there, backed up by a man I happened to meet on the way there, who confirmed my luck in learning about this place (there were thanks offered to Allah) and as it was on his way home, he could point it out to me. I thanked him profusely, reflecting on my luck (I wouldn't have found the place on my own) and asked his name. "Christian".

Oh the exquisite irony. I don't know how either of them kept straight faces, or quite how I chose to ignore the red lights and suspend my judgment so willingly. I think it was partly that I'd become used to friendly folk chatting to me everywhere and partly that the scam was designed to push certain traveller buttons: a project supporting art students, safety of government backing and controlled anti-scam prices. Oh, and partly naked stupidity. As I left the gallery clutching my purchases after an uncharacteristic lack of bargaining, I started to reflect that...hmm, actually, that was quite a lot of money to spend. By the time I got to an internet connection having properly inpected my purchases (lookin' printed) I kind of knew what the "Yogyakarta batik scam" search would throw up. Yep. Scam city. Over Skype, my close adviser sensibly urged me to drop it - it's $35! But I was so pissed off with myself for falling for it that outwitting the scammers and getting my dosh back (dosh enough for a few nights' accommodation) was a matter of self-respect. After mulling-time on a long temple-related bus journey, I headed back to the "gallery". It was Monday and, hah...surprise...it was open. I first deleted my email address from their "we'll email you the story behind the artwork" book and scribbled a warning in there to others. Then, drawing on recently-met real life acquaintances for inspiration, with some...uhhh poetic licence...and relying heavily on how busy the place was, I spun them a story, and added in some authoritative nonsense about the lack of a receipt and their tax affairs. I got my money back and departed at London-pace before they changed their minds, with Bob Marley's "Jamming" (with a slightly revised first line of lyrics) playing in my head to the tempo of my quickened heartbeat.

The "public" bus to Cemora Lewang

Well, scamming the batik scammers was one thing, but I was not so lucky in seeing off the transport mafia on my way to Mount Bromo. Attracted by the idea of travelling independently on public transport, rather than hopping on a standard backpacker minivan tour, I did some research and offered silent thanks to one particularly knowledgeable soul who outlined the route in his posts on a well-known travel forum. I figured I would arrive before the cramped minivans, search for a homestay (avoiding tedious guidebook accomms) find a good deal on a jeep up the mountain for sunrise over the volcanoes, and settle down for some leisurely noshing at a local warung. My lesson? The well-travelled are not always wise.

The first leg - a train ride to Surabaya - was great fun. There was a large Dutch tour group in my carriage. I shared mung bean krupuk (crackers) with the women and joined the men in propping the end-of-carriage doors open with one set of toes, squatting for a bit of balance, and leaning out of the train for photos and adrenalin. On the cheapo Surabaya-Probolinggo bus leg I congratulated myself for avoiding the notorious ticket tout scammers. And when I got to Probolinggo all I had to do was hop on the cheap public bus, wait for it to fill up, and head up the mountain to Cemora Lewang. A man in charge confirmed the price I expected to pay - 25000R (about $2.50). This was at 4pm.

Yeeeees. By 5pm I was receiving offers of a motorbike ride (flimsy; too dangerous on winding roads with my luggage load) and private charter minivan for 150 000R by the same taxi demons people in charge of the "public" bus. We stared each other down for another 2hours, with me adopting an "I'm happy to kip here" position on my backpack. Darkness hit and at least one potential local passenger had given up waiting and hired a bike up the mountain. I seriously thought of turning back. Determination to see at least one volcano in my time on this planet compelled me to start negotiating. I would negotiate and agree something with one person and he would disappear, so I had to start again with someone else. Eventually I agreed a price (70 000R) to get on a bus from Yogya, which I soon realised was the tourist minivan I'd turned my nose up at! Argh. And they were a lovely bunch, with some dire DIY-travel tales of their own to share.

My mood on 8.30pm arrival at, I confess, guidebook accommodation was not helped by grim bedding in my room and the news that all the jeeps to the highest sunrise viewpoint were full (confirmed by my call to another guesthouse). Oh noooooo!!! As I teetered on the brink of infuriated, exhausted tears, gentle questions from a group of lovely hotel staff "are you ok? Were you cheated? You can tell us..." gave me a nudge into a few heaving sobs, with the staff handing out paper napkins for snot-control. One of them (A) set out the options: he could call around to see if there were jeeps to the lower viewpoint; I could hire a motorbike rider; or I could walk. Or if there were no jeeps, he'd bike me up to the higher point for the same price the jeeps would have charged. I had one question: "is the road bad?". Simple answer: "Yes". That frankness was enough for me to take the offer, too tired to care whether it was a good deal, bad deal or just another scam.

After a night of shivering and folding my dirty blankets for extra warmth, at 3am I donned my trusty headtorch and nearly every item of clothing in my backpack and hauled my chattering teeth onto the back of that bike. At 7degrees C (minus windchill) my brain was transmitting unhelpful thoughts like "brrr I hope my insurer covers me for hypothermia". There is of course a reason why this journey up across a sand plain and then up an extremely steep, rocky mountainside is taken by JEEPS. Chilly thoughts were soon replaced by pragmatic calculation that when I came off (I was calmly certain this would happen) at least we were travelling slowly enough for it not to be disastrous.

I made it to the top ungrazed and, my oh MY, was the view spectacular! Exceeded all of my expectations. As my nearest and dearest will sigh, this is a rare thing. And A turned out to be a fantastic amateur guide. Over the deep-fried bananas he'd suggested ("they'll warm you up"), I learnt that he was a keen hiker, knew loads about the surrounding peaks and had pics on his phone from Bromo's 2011 eruption. Hmmm... a hotel proprietor keeping their staff on while a volcano erupted a couple of kilometres away...bit of a regulatory culture gap for me. Then a skiddy slalom over the Sea of Sand, a dusty climb to the crater's edge to peer into the steaming pit and back to Cemora Lewang to brave the taxi mafia back down the mountain (at least I shared the scam pain with 4 others this time).

All proving that, with stubbornness and a bit of luck, the worst experiences can often metamorpha-whatnot into the BEST.

(Pics below: top viewpoint with Mt Bromo crater bottom left, Mt Semeru in far distance; Sea of Sand below the mountains; Sea of Sand with jeep-ants; crater climb; crater's edge)

 

Posted: 9 July 2012

 

Philippines

The Zimdians had warned me that travelling in the Phillipines was hard work. In my head, I was a little bit dismissive, thinking "yeah yeah, how hard can it be? Probably no worse than travelling on buses in Zim." I now know to mostly heed the words of the well-travelled.

Check-in time approached for my domestic flight from Manila to Cebu city, after 24hours of no sleep, 2 very long airport waits, and a taxi driver who lost his perfect English, come payment time and my discovery that he hadn't actually turned the meter on as we'd agreed. I sidled hopefully over to the check-in desk, keen to dump my backpack and clear security to get something to eat. "Ma'am the check-in limit is 10kgs." Discussion about the absence of this information when I bought my ticket and about my teeny tiny carry on bag was met with polite firmness. So, along with half the other passengers in the airport, I set about re-packing. In logic which escaped me, there seemed to be no weight or piece limit on what you could carry on. Maybe not so different from an Air Zim flight.


When I made it through security, a Filipina looked at me, did a double-take, turned to her family. Stolen glances, chatter, and suppressed laughter until I shrugged and laughed with them with shared understanding at what was so funny. My daypack looked like a chicken bus: seams and zips straining, shoes in tatty plastic bags squashed into every side pocket and a packet of incense protruding. Only a trussed rooster missing. Dearie me. And then the flight was delayed.

It was in Cebu city that I not only became an expert in ferry travel to Leyte island, but also came to the conclusion that the universe was testing me. After a good sleep I walked the traffic-choked streets of the city, making my way to a big mall to find an agent to sell me a ferry ticket for that night to get to Maasin, Leyte island. This was my hopping off point for Sogod Bay - place of whale sharks and wall dives. There are massive ship-like ferries which ply this route. Plenty of room. Nah. Sold out!!!! Whaaat? I hadn't accounted for Friday night, school holidays and local fiestas (big religious parties that happen to a timetable too complicated perhaps for my guidebook to even mention). So off to pier 3 to get a ticket direct, from another ferry company to a different place on the island: Hilongos, which would involve a punishingly expensive transfer. Success after 2hours. Back to pier 1 to get the return ticket from Maasin. Sent to head office, pier 4. Closed. Distress! How could I be so stupid as to find myself in docklands in a foreign country at dusk? Never mind: 5 helpful and concerned staff and security folk were at hand to give travel advice. Don't walk back to guesthouse - very dangerous. Taxis (cheap in Cebu) all full? Ok take this number jeepney to here, then that number jeepney to there. I eventually walked some, taxied some and with migraine pending wrote off the 9pm ferry ride and checked back into bed.

Things always look brighter in the morning, so at 8.30 I was queuing for another ferry ticket next to Christopher who made sure I was in the right place. An hour later, as I shifted up to second in line, ticket systems went down. Sorry, we're offline. Advice: go to our office on pier 4. Shit. The communal decision of the queue was that Pier 4 was a better bet than waiting for the system to come online. So we all piled into jeepney no. 7. Price? Otto pesos. Christopher made sure I got local price and the right change. The upside of all of this was that - out of pure boredom - I read the small print and realised that despite having already missed my boat, I could "re-validate" my ticket for a small admin fee, instead of buying a new one. Happy days. If only Easyjet and Ryanair were this easy. Mad dash across town and back to collect luggage with a brief stop to buy crackers and a couple of green mangos for the ride. I hadn't time-accounted for the departure being from a completely different pier to check-in, but a student next to me reassured me that we'd make it: ferries run to "Filipino time". Ah, like Africa time. This concept I know and put into practice myself. My relief as the ferry shuttle bus pulled up was short-lived as I suddenly realised that I'd left a very expensive and patchily-insured piece of technology in the guesthouse safe. Universe definitely testing me. Should I turn back? No way. The obstacles only made me more determined. I was getting on that ferry to Leyte dead or alive. Ok that's exaggerating...web-connected or unconnected.

So Leyte it was. I was staying near Padre Burgos a small village in the south of Leyte. There are a few dive "resorts" which milk you for money if you dive with them and milk you for much more if you don't. I found one which had cheap dorm beds, and, as it turned out, the best pork adobo I ate in the Philippines (mmm).

I arrived late at night, knackerooned, and opened an external door for air, to find that my room had a balcony with sea view and a lullaby of waves a-lapping - niiice!

There was only one other guest there - a german guy (A) I got on really well with, who'd been working in the Philippines for 4 years. Although there were too few of us to do a whale shark trip, we did some absolutely incredible dives in the marine protected areas of Sogod Bay with names like "Max Climax" (are men naming these sites?). Drift dives, where you let the current take you along steep walls of stunning, vibrant coral, with abundant fish hovering stationary against the current. The walls go so deep that you can't see the bottom of the ocean - exhilarating! I only have 17dives under my increasingly heavy weight belt (good food, man) but those were the best, and I fear I will struggle to match them - unless I win the lottery soon.

Following an incident on our last dive, involving strong-ish current, the loss of our Divemaster, and a distinct lack of botheredness on his part when we surfaced okay thanks to A and his dive computer, I spent my last couple of days walking and snorkelling. And watching the final of American Idol with the restaurant staff, who, along with the rest of the country were supporting half-Filipino Jessica Sanchez (in my expert opinion she should have won).

The snorkelling was great. First time in, my heart sank when I spotted a bright purplish-blue object. Ugh, a plastic crisp packet, but no, it was one of many lovely starfish. And in the late afternoons, lionfish at 4metres, and...a turtle. Slowly, silently sculling it's way down to the seabed to graze on seagrass, then up to the surface for a few sips of air. What a treat!

In general, I was a bit of a novelty to Filipinos, who found it surprising that I was a female travelling alone. After the usual questions "where are you from? how old are you?" came "are you alone? aren't you scared?!" In Padre Burgos this was magnified x20. But, as elsewhere in the Philippines, people were super-helpful, and genuinely friendly. Which made for many great conversations, the occasional crowd of curious kids, and acts of kindness. Like the time I was unable to find "load" (top up credit) for my Filipino sim card. I asked a group of young folk where I could buy some. Easy. One of them put me on the back of his motorbike and zipped me around the village until we found load.

Pics of sleepy Padre Burgos below.

 

The return journey on the overnight ferry was great: comfy bunks and a little cafe for my morning coffee. I thought I'd escaped the roosters for a night (cock-fighting is big in the Philippines) but no my friends. As surely as the clock strikes 4.20am there was a rooster on that boat and it crowed. Tunefully at least, which is not always the case.

Ferry arrival Filipino time still allowed me to collect my technology and catch my flight to Palawan island. A brief stop in Puerto Princessa to work out another ATM-less budget and then onwards to El Nido in a speedy minivan. Small bangka (boat) trips out of El Nido are the best way to see the islands of the Bacuit archipelago. Dramatic limekarst scenery, secret lagoons (accessed by climbing or swimming through holes/passages in the rocks) and such white sand and clear blue water that your brain struggles to process the beauty. A day on a boat is spent island hopping, snorkelling and lagoon exploring, with one of the boat guys to check wave safety and guide your clamber/swim through the sharp rocks. Interrupted only by a couple of hours on a beach (first pic below) for freshly BBQ'd fish with rice and fresh salad, mmm. And all waste and equipment is taken there and away at the end - even the table.







(Last pic above: coconut crafty - how to park your bike in the sand)

I had a bit of bad luck with the weather in El Nido: torrential rain for several days which, at the start, had restaurant staff muttering "typhoon?" (it wasn't). But I caught the live drama of impeachment proceedings in the Senate against the Chief Justice on corruption charges, for failure to declare something like US$5million of...uhhh... earnings in his statement of assets and liabilities. It bumped the coverage of Jessica Sanchez's every blink off the news and was an all day affair with Senate members making long speeches as they cast their votes. The score? 20 votes for impeachment; 3 against. I reckon every TV in town was on that channel - well, between powercuts. It's good news for the President's anti-corruption mission, amidst fears (so my Filipina friends told me a few days before the result) that the Senate will not give him the support he needs to succeed.

With a raging cold from the damp and cold showers (my delicate constitution not used to temperatures below 30degrees!) I was glad to get back to Puerto Princessa sunshine and dry air.

(Pics above: tailor shop; street food - "lechon", Puerto Princessa)

My route out of the Philippines involved two challenges: to find a non-sex-tourist hotel in Angeles city (near Clark airport) for less than $30, and to avoid the notorious taxi mafia at Clark. There were some tense moments when I couldn't find my pre-arranged taxi dude, the airport had closed and I was the only passenger left at 9.30pm, resisting the circling taxi sharks. But it all worked out. The bitter taste this left was completely abolished in the morning when wonderful, chatty, helpful hotel staff came with me down to the jeepney terminal and helped me to sort out a jeepney back to the airport.

The Philippines were brilliant. Time and time again, I was struck by how genuinely friendly people were, and how often they would go out of their way to help. Oh and, I know it may be weird to mention, but the loos everywhere, euphemistically called "Comfort Rooms" or "CRs" (don't look for the international "WC"), were unfailingly clean. The travel planning was sometimes tough and time-consuming, but the beauty of the places I visited were worth every minute of frustration and there was always a mate to be made whilst queuing. So, 2 Filipino islands down. Only 7105 now on my "to travel to" list.

Posted: 26 June 2012 (I think - criss-crossing time zones at the moment)