PHILIPPINES ADVENTURES 2011

PT1: Manila to Banaue

About Manila

The Philippines is awesome in almost every way. It’s cheap and exotic. The locals are charming and kind. The beaches look like postcards and the jungles look Indiana Jones movie sets. And there is rum, smooth delicious rum, for less than $2 USD per bottle. Go to the Philippines. Go now, go often, and go for a long time but, for the love of God, after you get off the plane get the hell out of Manila as fast as you can.

Unless you’re shopping, looking for hookers, or watching midget boxing, there’s nothing to do in Manila. Aside from a few colonial era churches, the city is devoid of historical attractions. The poverty is depressing, the beggars and touts are aggressive, the prices are the highest in the country, and crime aimed at tourists is common. There is no reason to stay there.

One saving grace of our time in Manila was our stay at the Where 2 Next Manila Hostel. Where 2 Next is a nice clean hostel run by two helpful and friendly Australian-Filipino sisters. It’s quiet, safe, fun, and clean, which makes it unique among budget accommodations in Manila. If you do stay in the city, I recommend you pass your time there. You can book a dorm bed or private room at Where 2 Next through Hostelbookers.com.

Where 2 Next Hostel

The Bus From Manila to Banaue

Jeannie Mark, aka Nomadic Chick (you can read her post about our trip here), and I spent one night in Manila at Where 2 Next while planning our escape for the following day. The owner, Elanore helped us to figure out the bus times. Several companies run busses to Banaue. It’s an 8 – 10 hour trip (give or take) so busses generally run in the morning (travel all day) or between 8pm and 11pm (travel all night). They generally run $400-450 pesos (around $10-12 USD). Don’t expect a lot of luxury. If you are traveling at night expect hard seats, bumps, and swerves to interfere with your rest. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, the bus is COLD. For reasons that I cannot explain, the bus drivers crank up the A/C like they’re trying to climate-control hell. Bring a sweater, jacket, and hat.

The Banaue Rice Terraces

Banaue, Batad, and the Best Ways to see the Rice Terraces

If you want to make your stay as comfortable as possible, stay in Banaue. Banaue is a small town at the foot of some very nice rice terraces. The town has several hotels and guest houses (though its quite hard to find information about them online) as well as a handful of restaurants and cafes with internet access and great views of the nearby terraces. However, the prices do reflect the large number of tourists that stay there and Banaue is about an hours bus ride from the Batad Saddle Point where you begin the walk into Batad where the most spectacular rice terraces are.

If you want to really explore the rice terraces (and save some time and money) I suggest that you try to skip Banaue and go straight to Batad where the most spectacular rice terraces are located. From Banaue you will need to take a jeepney to the Batad Saddle Point. The price per jeepney is $2000 pesos and is split between all occupants (12 at the very most). From the trailhead you will have to hike about 45 min – 1 hr (with all your gear) downhill into Banaue. Banaue has some inexpensive guesthouses with beds as cheap as $100 pesos per person per night. The restaurants are also reasonable and the views are epic.

Waking up in Banue and eating breakfast with a view of the amphitheatre of terraces is itself worth the trip. Even better, however, is geographic position of Batad among the terraces. Here you are in position to jump off into several hikes ranging from one to several days that will take you through thousands-of-years-old terraces and villages that are only accessible by foot.

On our visit, I didn’t have time to go on one of those hikes. Had we gone straight to Batad, I would have. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

The Batad Rice Terraces Amphitheater

Have you visited the Banaue Rice Terraces? What did you do while you were there?

It’s commonly understood among tree-planters, who spend several months of the year covered in the little winged leeches, that only two things will repel mosquitoes; a chemical called ‘deet’ (which is present in varying amounts in most mosquito repellents) and, for reasons that no one has explained, a lotion marketed to old women for a short time in the 90′s called ‘Skin So Soft’. Deet is toxic and the perfumed scent of Skin So Soft if vile, so many of us opted not to wear any repellent at all.

When Haelium offered to send me an odorless sports shirt that was designed to repel insects of all kinds (including mosquitos), my curiosity was piqued. According to product literature, Haelium uses Insect Shield technology , which binds a man made version of a natural repellent found in flowers called permathrin to the fabric. The shirts sell for $35-40 USD.

The Haelium shirt is good-looking and functional. It’s a simple solid black (also available in a variety of basic colors),  is made of a breathable and quick-drying light synthetic fabric that is good for outdoors activities, wrinkles little, and takes up little luggage space compared to a cotton t-shirt–all things that I like.

I was, however, skeptical about the shirt’s ability to repel mosquitos.

Now, I have had the shirt for several months and have worn it in Taiwan and the Philippines. The first day that I wore my Haelium t-shirt around mosquitoes, I realized that there would be a problem with testing it: I would never know if a mosquito landed on the shirt because it’s black (so I wouldn’t be able to see them) and because mosquitoes rarely bite through clothing.

I must admit that while wearing the t-shirt, mosquitoes bit my legs as often as usual. I don’t know, however, if a shirt should repel mosquitoes from your legs. I suspect not. The occasional mosquito did land on my forearm. It’s hard to say whether the shirt repelled the mosquitos from my arms and sent them diving for my lower regions because mosquitoes, I’ve found, seem to have a special attraction to my calfs. My testing, it seems, was grossly unscientific.

I don’t often spend time in places where ticks and ants and the other insects that Insect Shield repels crawl on me, so, in the end, I cannot claim to be sure of how well Insect Sheild repels insects. The literature that came with the shirt did include some very impressive test data and testimonials, and the technology is used by several well-respected outdoors brands (such as Tilly, L.L. Bean, and Orvis) so I’m sure that Insect Shield must work to some degree.

Does it repel mosquitos as well as Deet or Skin So Soft? I can’t say for sure, but those products are so disgusting that I refuse to wear them. The Haelium shirt, on the other hand is comfortable, functional, good-looking and, as promised, ododorless. So, when given the option between a sports shirt that might repel mosquitoes and one that definitely won’t (the price is basically the same), I think it would be silly not to pick the Haelium shirt. In my opinion, Haelium Insect Shield clothes are definitely worth testing out.

Have you ever tried Insect Shield technology? What did you think?

I stopped buying expensive sunglasses whenI was nineteen after a pair of $100 sunglasses blew of my head while I was hanging out the window of a speeding pickup truck throwing an empty beer bottle at a road sign (a popular pastime for bored 19 year-olds living in small redneck mountain towns).I never wanted to buy another pair of expensive sunglasses because I was sure that I would just lose them hanging out of a pickup truck drunk, or doing something else equally stupid.

I’ve long since given up hobbies that involve large amounts of alcohol and proving my masculinity by lifting, throwing, or breaking inanimate objects and traded them for sober (well…almost) hobbies that involve large amounts of Gore-tex and fleece and involve proving my masculinity by walking, swimming, running, climbing, flying, and boating long distances while sober (usually). Despite this, the idea that if I bought expensive sunglasses I would lose them stuck with me. So, for the past ten years I wore nothing but $20 off-the-rack sunglasses.

Then, Switch Vision offered to send me me a pair of sunglasses to review on my blog. I chose their Boreal model. They’re totally my style: wraparound full-frame glasses that look sleek yet are large enough to block out most sunlight. I don’t know what the style is called, but I think of them as snowboarder and surfer sunglasses.

A pair of Boreal retails for $150. That’s similar to the prices of many other, better-known brands. The marketers at Switch know that they need to offer something more than just cool looking glasses to woo buyers away from those brands. So, Switch, as the name suggests, allows you to change the lenses in your glasses. The lenses are held firmly in place by a pair of strong magnets. They pop out with a firm push, but are unlikely to fall out unless you bail super hard (in which case the glasses will probably fly off your head anyways). Switch offers several different kinds of specialized lenses for different lighting situations, such as flat-light skiing, and also offer prescriptions. Switch glasses are usually sold in kits (around USD$150 give or take) that include a case, cleaning cloth, pouch, frames, and two sets of lenses. Not bad.

Sunglasses on in Taroko Gorge, Taiwan

This is Switch’s best selling point. When you have inevitably scratched the hell out of your lenses, you don’t need to buy new glasses. You only need buy new lenses, which only costs around $50 for most kinds.

It is true that good sunglasses help your vision. I realized it one day I while snowboarding on an overcast day in British Columbia. My high-contrast Switch lenses helped me to see the terrain much better. Another time, I was on a banca boat in the Philippines looking for whale sharks. It’s hard to see down through the water on a choppy day. The captain told me that his scouts work polarized sunglasses to reduce glare on the water. I put in my polarized lenses and I was able to see much more clearly down into the ocean. Ah, technology. How you enhance my life.

The one thing that worries me about my Boreal’s is that they are a bit large for me (my head is slightly smaller than average). However, that if your head isn’t disproportionately large or small, then Switch’s sunglasses will probably fit you just fine. I also found that after spending several months in the tropics my magnets began to rust (salty air will do that). I’m not positive, but I think that should be covered by the warranty.

Either way, Switch has converted me. Now that I know the difference that a good pair of sunglasses with the right lenses can make in different conditions, I can’t go back to cheap sunglasses. In fact, I think that I’d like to expand my lens collection.

I’m turning into such a techie-gear dork.

You can check out these glasses on Amazon using he link to the left. I am an Amazon affiliate, so Amazon will pay me a small commission if you make a purchase there after coming from my website (though it will not change the price you pay).

STEVEN’S BOOKS AND APPS
Taiwan for Culture Vultures (app)

**The above are affiliate links

Steven Crook, who’s lived in Taiwan for 20 years, grew up in England. He’s been writing travel and other kinds of feature articles for newspapers and magazines since 1996, and has had three books published. His most recently works include Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide and Taiwan For Culture Vultures, a smartphone travel app released by GuideGecko.

You’ve recently moved from freelance journalism into both guidebook and guide app writing. How did your experiences on these projects differ from your normal routine?

My routine didn’t change that much. I do most of my writing in the morning, a bit in the afternoon, and very little or none in the evening. Usually I’m working on half-a-dozen different things. Usually, that means about four articles and maybe two or three themes which, hopefully, will become ideas that win over an editor. With the guidebook and the app, I was still working on half-a-dozen things – just one was significantly more time-consuming that the other five. I’m used to putting aside and then returning to projects; for a feature article, six months from initial idea to publication isn’t unusual. Something I now make sure happens (and this is very important for anyone trying to make a living from freelance writing, I think), is that my projects cannibalize each other. Sizable chunks of both the guidebook and the app were based on old articles (the information had to be updated, of course, and rewritten to suit the format). Before the guidebook hit the shelves, I was selling feature articles based on the research I’d done for the book. Doing the app wasn’t so different. When I’m on a multi-day research trips, the schedule is more like this: Write from 5am to breakfast, then outside until 9pm or so, then write for an hour or more before sleeping.

App writing is a very new genre of writing. How does it differ from other forms of writing?

When I began talking to GuideGecko and examining the structure of their apps, two things appealed to me right away. The first is that each entry can be as long or short as you want – as long or as short as the destination deserves. With a print guidebook you’re always struggling to stay within the overall word limit, and to maintain some kind of balance between the various places and regions covered by the book. With an app you needn’t worry about this, because there’s really no size restriction. Secondly, you can add links from one attraction to another, or to background articles (my app has one about popular deities, for instance, and another about personalities in Taiwan’s history). This saves both writer and reader from repetition. The entries on individual destinations are leaner and meaner as a result.

I write a blog, but rarely read them. After writing a guide app, would you consider using one?
Absolutely yes! An app is almost certainly going to be more up-to-date than a printed guidebook. It’s also a lot lighter to carry around, and cheaper.

What are some of the better sights from the Guide Gecko app that you’d recommend?

I enjoyed writing about some new attractions which opened after I’d finished researching my guidebook. Houtong Coal Ecological Park offers a bit of history and a good outdoors experience. The Magic School of Green Technology showcases sustainable architecture, a field in which Taiwan leads Asia. If you’re interested in Taiwan’s religious culture and traditional arts, then Tainan and Lugang are must-sees.
You write for some print-only publications like inflight magazines, and some web-only publications. How do you feel that these two markets differ?

Web-only publications seem to pay less than print newspapers and magazines. I assume that’s because almost anyone can set up a website, whereas a print magazine requires more investment and certain skills, such as building a distribution network.

Last year you finished your first guidebook and this year your first app. Do you have any big plans for next year?

I’d love to write another book, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. (That’s a hint to publishers: I’m available!) Certainly I’ll be updating and expanding the app, and continuing to write feature articles.

I shot this video using my favorite new toy, GoPro® HD Helmet HERO™ Camera(affiliate link). It’s small, tough, cheap, fisheyed, waterproof, and can be mounted to anything. Great for outdoors adventure stuff!

About the Jhuliu Trail

The Jhuliu Trail in Taiwan’s Taroko Gorge is nicknamed the Vertigo Trail because of an insane stretch where the trail is just a few feet wide beside a 500 meter sheer drop to the bottom of the gorge.

If you go there I recommend staying with Rihang near the bottom of the gorge.

If you’d like a guide to take care of the details for you then definitely check out Barking Deer Adventures (they first showed me this place)

Special thanks to Freestyle Percussion Magik for the great CC licensed music.

About a year ago I received an email from a company called Leopard Films. It asked if I would like to be on a television show called House Hunters International. I don’t watch TV, so I’d never heard of the show. From the cheesy name of the production company and the strange disco-ball logo on their letterhead I assumed that the email was from a low-budget cable access network of some kind and ignored it. A few days later I happened across the email again. This time I decided to answer it out of curiosity.

The production company asked me to send them a three-minute audition video (you can watch it below if you’re really interested).

On the basis of those three minutes the producers at House Hunters International decided to do an episode about me looking for a house in Taiwan.

I didn’t know how popular the show was until I wrote on Facebook that I would be appearing on the show. Several of my friends commented that it was their favorite show or that they watched it all the time. The director of the episode later told me, if I recall correctly, that the show has somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million viewers.

Two weeks ago an Australian director, Paul, and a British cameraman who lives in Bangkok, Julian, came to Taiwan to film the episode in a very busy three days. Jeannie Mark, also known as Nomadic Chick, happened to be in Taiwan visiting, so she joined in as my sidekick with whom I looked at houses and discussed the pros and cons of each house. My friend, photographer Richard Matheson, also made an appearance playing the role of the helpful seasoned expat showing me the houses.

Rich Matheson and I goofing around on set.

We hammed it up quite a bit for the camera. Many jokes about my personal habits were made. Several references to the suitability of each house for orgies were uttered (although I assume that they will be edited out). Paul and Julian were extremely professional and laidback, so the whole shoot was very chill.

In short, it went great.

And, sometime next year, most likely in May or June, the episode will run and I will have my 3 minutes of reality TV fame.

I was kind of hoping that I would become the next Tim Cahill, but now it looks like I’m closer to being the next Kim Kardashian.

Joking around on camera.

We haven’t finished booking sponsors for the end of the trip, so if you have a business and would like to be featured on our websites, please feel free to contact me for more information.

Days 1 and 2

Activities

Manila Midget Madness
We will spend our first two days getting acquainted with Manila, picking up a few items for the trip, making last-minute arrangements with sponsors, and, most importantly, visiting Manila’s finest cultural establishments: a restaurant called the Hobbit House, which is staffed entirely by midgets, and a bar where they have regular midget boxing matches.

Attractions

Hobbit House Restaurant and Bar
Phone: +63 2-521-7604
Address: 1801 A Mabini St., Malate, Manila, Philippines

Ringside Bar
Phone: +63 2-899-7106
Address: 4853 Kalayaan at the corner of P. Burgos St., Makati City, Manila, Philippines

Accomodations

Where to Next Hostel
Email | Facebook | Twitter
Phone: +63 2-354-3533
Address: 1776 M. Adriatico Street, Malate, Manila, Philippines

Days 3 -6

Activities

Banaue Rice Terraces Next we will move on to the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Banaue Rice Terraces, where we will spend a few days trekking among these thousands of year old rice farms that were hand-carved into the mountainsides. I’ve heard great things about this place, and am eager to see it!

Accomodations

Native Village Inn
Email
Phone: +63-916-405-4743
+63-908-864-6658

Day 7

Activities

Travel to Bohol

Days 8 and 9

Activities

Chilling on Bohol
with Anna Cleal of Flip Flop Tours We will be hanging out and staying with Anna Cleal, an acquaintance of Jeannie’s and the founder of Flip Flop tours. We also hope to find time to check out the very cute, very weird, very tiny, bug eyed, and rare tarsier monkey.

Attractions

Philippine Tarsier Foundation

Accomodations

Flip Flop Tours
Email | Facebook | Twitter
Address: Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines

Days 10 – 15

Activities

Bohol Mountain Tribe My friend’s wife is from Bohol and her family once took a group of our friends to visit a remote hill tribe on the island. The trip sounded spectacular, so I asked if she could arrange for us to visit as well. I’m not sure what to expect.

Day 16

Travel to Puerto Princessa, Palawan.

Days 17 – 19

Activities

Iwahig Penal Colony and Prison Farm
Iwahig is a unique prison colony in which prisoners are not physically detained, but stay primarily because the island makes escape difficult, and because they are allowed to work the land freely and even make money from their labor. It is said that some prisoners even bring their families to join them

Honda Bay Island Hopping
Honda Bay on Palawan is a classic island hopping spot with white sand beaches and lots of coral reefs and marine life for snorkeling.

Subterranean National Park
Recently named one of the Seven New Natural Wonders of the World, this park features the second longest underground river in the world, a full mountain-to-ocean ecosystem, and what are considered to be some of the most important forests in Asia.

Tour Operator

MAG Tours
Email | Facebook
Phone: +63927 234 9293 or +63919-889-2851 or +63 (048) 723-3258
Address #18 Fernandez Street, Masangcay Building, Room 6, 2nd Floor Puerto Princesa City Palawan, Philippines

Accomodations

House of Rose Hotel | Andy and Rose
Email
Phone: +63 (0)48 4341316
Mobile: +63 (0)9065051829
Address: Abueg Road Bagong Sikat, Puerto Princessa City, Palawan, Philippines

Day 20

Travel to El Nido, Palawan.

Day 21 – 29

Activities

We haven’t decided yet.
We have no firm plans, but in El Nido we hope to snorkel and maybe learn to scuba dive, and go kayaking, island hopping and trekking.

Tour Operator

We haven’t booked a tour operator to sponsor our trips in El Nido. If you’d like to be featured on our websites, please feel free to contact me.

Accommodations

We haven’t booked accommodations in El Nido yet. If you’d like to be featured on our websites, please feel free to contact me.

Days 30 – 31

Sadly return to Manila to catch our flight home.

We’d especially like to thank Hostelbookers.com for helping us to arrange our accommodations at the Where 2 Next Hostel (affiliate link) and the House of Rose (affiliate link).

Lead photo by chooyutshing on Flickr.

A performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre | Photo: TGIGreeny

London’s Incredible Venues

London has some of the best-known entertainment venues in Europe. Some famous for their history and others for their modernity. Some of the best-known theaters in London include the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and London’s theatre district (around Shaftesbury Avenue, the Strand, and the West End) includes dozens more. For Opera and dance one would visit the Royal Opera House, the London Coliseum, Sadler’s Wells, or the Savoy. Some of the most popular music venues include the world-renowned O2 Stadium, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wembly Stadium, and many, many more. It’s safe to say that in London one can find a world-class act to suit any taste.

Bloc Party at the Somerset House | Photo: Luke Robinson

Theatre, Plays, Concerts, and More

As families flock to the city for the holidays, it will be best to book tickets early. Whether you’re looking for the eighties rock stylings of Canadian rocker Bryan Adams (playing at the 02 Arena this December) or Duran Duran (who will also be playing the venue this month), Legally Blonde the play, or an exhibition focusing on Degas’s portrayal of ballet in his paintings, there will be no shortage of cultural events in London this holiday season.

Lead image by stumayhew

This post contains sponsored links.

I had to choose between two types of insurance: travel insurance and expatriate insurance.

Travel insurance offers limited medical and theft benefits, but is very affordable. Expatriate insurance offers much better benefits, similar to those that people receive from insurance companies in their home countries, but is much more expensive than travel insurance.

It was easy for me to compare travel insurance policies because there are few that are tailored to long-term travelers and cover outdoors adventure activities like surfing and paragliding, and the other things I planned to do. The travel insurance policies that I found cost between $50 and $100 USD per month.

It was very hard, however, to compare expatriate insurance policies. Many companies offer them and the prices, benefits, and exclusions varied greatly. After some searching, I stumbled across BrokerFish.com, a website that allows you to compare international health insurance policies side-by-side the same way Expedia allows you to compare airline tickets.

After comparing several expatriate insurance plans I realized that they probably weren’t appropriate for my situation. Although the coverage was good, the terms of most were fuzzy with regard to things such as having belongings stolen while traveling. Expatriate insurance plans are mainly designed for expatriates who require quality medical cover while living away from their home country and not for somebody like me who needs additional cover for expensive photography equipment.

So, travel insurance it would be. I first looked at travel insurance from Worldnomads.com. Unfortunately, I found a disclaimer in the policy that drastically reduced my medical benefits if I did not have government health care in my home country, Canada. Since I spend more than six months each year outside of Canada, I’m not eligible for Canadian health care. So, World Nomads was out.

After some searching I came across STA Travel. I spoke to an agent who assured me that my lack of Canadian health insurance would not be a problem and that they would cover me for all of the outdoors sports that I planned to do. It only cost $55 per month so the price was right.

There were two problems though. First, if I was seriously hurt or sick they would pay to bring me back to Canada, but then I would be on my own. So, if I got into serious trouble, I would have to pay my own Canadian medical bills for the first three months I was in the country (after that I would qualify for Canadian health care).

Second, the theft policy would not fully cover my expensive laptop and camera should they be stolen (few travel insurance policies fully cover these items). I asked around on some travel blogging forums to find out how others dealt with these problems. They referred me to a specialized insurance agency that offers special travel insurance for specific items. Through that agency I was able to insure my electronics for about $150 per year.

So, although I was not able to find an ideal insurance solution, I found one that seemed OK. My electronics were insured. I would be taken care of in case of a medical emergency. The only problem is that if something goes terribly wrong, I may end up with three months worth of expensive Canadian hospital bills. But, to be honest, I could not find a better option.

But, since I’m only paying about $70 per month for insurance, I think the risk is manageable.

Header photo: olarte.ollie

I shot this video using my favorite new toy, GoPro® HD Helmet HERO™ Camera(affiliate link). It’s small, inexpensive, fisheyed, waterproof, and can be mounted to anything. I love it!