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?

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.

Emilie and I arrived Cebu city one humid February afternoon with the intention of leaving the next day to find a village where there we could get away from other travelers.  Over breakfast I thumbed through our Lonely Planet’s section on the Visayas. The book made it clear that the island of Cebu was too touristy for our mission. The closest island, Bohol to the south, would be less touristy, but would also be a difficult place to get away from other travelers. As I scanned the map looking for an alternative I noticed a speck in the straight between the Cebu and Bohol. It was labeled Cabilao Island.

The book contained only one paragraph about Cabilao Island. It said that it was eight-square kilometers, had one small village, and listed the names of two businesses that provided accommodations. It did not mention any way to get on or off the island, or any attractions on the island that would draw visitors. It was perfect.

By lunchtime we were on a ferry to Bohol, and by mid-afternoon we were walking among dozens of ornate local busses called jeepneys looking for one that would take us to the village of Calape. Calape was the black dot on our map nearest Cabilao Island.

We found our jeepney and crammed our stuff and ourselves into the back. When the jeepney was so full that nobody could move, it departed.

An hour later we arrived in Calape. The sun was beginning to sink into the palm trees casting long shadows across the potholed road. I looked in each direction. The road was lined with weather-beaten wooden structures for about 100 yards before giving way to jungle. The structures appeared to be stores, but I could not be sure because there were no signs and most of their doors were closed.

“What now?” Emilie asked.

“I guess we better find somebody with a boat and pay him to take us to the island.”

I walked up the road, looking inside open doorways to see if anyone was in any of the buildings. Inside one was an old woman.

“Hello.”

She looked up at me and said something in Tagalog. Then she shouted something over her shoulder. A man appeared in the doorway behind her.

“Hi. We’re trying to go to Cabilao.”

They looked at me blankly. I had thought that most people in the Philippines spoke English. I was wrong.

Outside Emilie was trying to talk to an old man who also didn’t speak English. A group of amused children watched the exchange. The news of our arrival spread quickly through the village and soon a small crowd surrounded us. One young man came forward.

“You go where?” He asked.

“We want to go to Cabilao Island.” I said and showed him the island on the map.

“Oh, Cabilao.” He turned and spoke rapidly in Tagalog to the crowd. Then he turned back to us.

“How will you go there?”

“Boat.”

“You have a friend with a boat?”

“No. We want to go to the docks.”

He turned and spoke again to the crowd. Everyone chattered for a moment, and then the crowd began to disperse.

A few minutes later a large sweaty man with a latino-style mustachio pulled up on a dirtbike.

“He will take you to the dock for 200 pesos (about $5 USD).” The young man told us.

“Can somebody there take us to Cabilao?”

“I don’t know.”

Emilie and I managed to squeeze onto the bike behind our rotund driver with our two large backpacks while I held my guitar in its hard case off the side. We drove first through the jungle, and then along dirt road to the end of a peninsula in the dwindling daylight. The air was thick with moisture and chlorophyll and the man smelled like sweat and rum. Of course, nobody had a helmet.

At the docks three fishermen were unloading the last boat of the day. They didn’t speak English, so I took a notebook and pen out of my bag. A spirited round of written bartering ensued, resulting in a price of 800 pesos (about $20 USD) each.  It was much more than we should have paid, but they had us over a barrel. At that point we didn’t really care anyways. We were almost at the island.

We reclined in the boat, proud that we had left Cebu that morning without so much as a plan, and managed to improvise our way all the way to Cabilao Island. We quietly gloated to ourselves about what awesome off-the-beaten-path travelers we were.

It was dark when we arrived.  The boat slid onto the sandy shore with a “shushhh”. We paid the fisherman, slung our packs, and started up the beach. About twenty yards inland stood a large building with bamboo walls, a grass roof, and light streaming from the windows.

A beautiful Filipino girl wearing a long flowered dress greeted us at the door.

“For two?” She asked.

Scattered throughout the room were several polished wooden tables surrounded by pale old Western tourists with wrinkly chicken waddle skin under their chins. Most of them wore t-shirts and speedo bottoms. As it turned out, the listings in our Lonely Planet, which included only names and telephone numbers, were not for cheap local hotels as the lack of description had led us to believe. They were first-class scuba resorts for fat rich Germans.  The people in the dining room stared at us for a moment before returning their attention to their schnitzel and gewürztraminer.

Defeated, we took an overpriced room, ate an overpriced schnitzel, and drank an overpriced beer. That night, while thinking back to figure out where we went wrong, I came up with three steps necessary to getting off the beaten path. We had failed in two.  These are the steps:

1)   Throw away your guidebook. Anyplace that is mentioned in a guidebook will have tourists by virtue of being mentioned in a guidebook.

2)   Get on a local bus out of town.

3)   When you arrive in a village with no tourists, hotels, or English speakers, where you feel completely uncomfortable and out of place, stop.

Boracay, Philippines

Location

Boracay is an island in the central eastern Philippines, about 315 km south of Manila.

Closest Town/City/Village

Boracay is a small island covered to a large extent by tourist facilities, so one is never far from amenities here.

Climate and Geography

Boracay is a small narrow island 7 km long and in places less than 1 km wide. It’s located in the central eastern Philippines, and is part of the Western Visayas island group. The island has 400 hectares of preserved forestland and one fairly impressive cave. The two most appealing parts of Boracay’s geography, however, are the white-sand beaches and the wind. The Amihan wind blows across the island from November to April at speeds of 10 – 30 knots. December and January are the best months for wind sports on Boracay.

Boracay has two main seasonal patterns: Amihan and Habagat. The Amihan season generally begins in early fall and ends in late spring, and the Habagat season stretches from late spring to early fall. The Amihan season is characterized by wind from the east, moderate temperatures (25 – 32°C), and little rainfall. The Habagat season, in contrast, sees wind from the west, higher temperatures (28 – 38°C), frequent heavy rains, and occasional typhoons.

Description

People who are looking for cheap beach holidays, but still want to be served their drinks in coconut shells on world-class white sand beaches are looking for Boracay. Voted one of the best beach destinations in the world the BMW Tropical Beach Handbook, and the world’s best tropical beach by TV Quick, Boracay is the place to go if you want to relax on the beach on a budget.

Boracay also has plenty of activities to satisfy wind and water sport lovers. With strong winds year-round Boracay is a brilliant destination for windsurfing, kiteboarding, and sailing. For this reason the Asian Windsurfing Tour usually stops here, and Boracay also hosts the Boracay International Funboard Cup every year in January. Those who prefer to delve below the surface of the ocean will find abundant diving and snorkeling facilities around the island.

Activities

• Diving (reefs, cave, wreck)
• Snorkeling
• Windsurfing
• Kiteboarding
• Skimboarding
• Sailing
• Cliff jumping

On a Budget?

• Beds in shared dormitories can be found for less than $5 USD per person per night and private rooms can be found for less than $20 USD per night.
• Food on Boracay tends to be more expensive than other places in the Philippines, with many tourist-oriented restaurants serving meals for upwards of $5-10 USD. However, if you look around, you will be able to find all your meals for just a few dollars each.

Photos

[Show as slideshow]

Photos courtesy of (in order of appearance) Anthony Alger, Eric Lindholm, Anthony Alger, and Anthony Alger from Wikipedia, and The Wandering Angel, Flair Candy, and Hulivili on Flickr.

Map

View Larger Map

I couldn’t make up my mind.  Neither midget had tried very hard. As far as I was concerned the whole fight was a sham.  But everyone in the bar, which included seven drunk tourists, thirty bored-looking strippers, one greasy Filipino announcer, and two midgets wearing boxing gloves the size of their heads, was staring at me.  I had to make a decision. I was the referee.

I bent over and grabbed the glove of the shorter of the two midgets and lifted it over his head.

“The winner,” the announcer shouted into the microphone.

Two people clapped.  Somebody coughed.

When I told my friends about the experience later they were jealous.  “How was it?” They wanted to know.

I can tell you this about refereeing a midget boxing match in a Manila strip club: it’s not as glamorous as it sounds.

“How did you get to do it?” They wanted to know.

The simple answer is this: I didn’t do anything.

That answer, however, didn’t satisfy my friends.  They demanded I explain how it came about that I, the “lucky bastard”, had the good fortune to stand in a boxing ring with two three-foot tall men hitting each other in the face for the amusement of a handful of drunk backpackers. It had nothing to do with good fortune.  It was a scam.

This is how it happened:

Some Filipino friends had brought my girlfriend Catherine, our friend Sarah, and I, to the red light district of Makati, a seedy strip of convenience stores, street prostitutes, and strip bars, for our only night in Manila. They brought us to a bar called Ringside to see what the marquee advertised as “Lady Boxing and Midget Oil Wrestling”.

The inside of the bar was dark, lit mainly by neon beer advertisements, with booths surrounding a realistic looking boxing ring in the center of the room.  There were only two or three other patrons sitting on the far side of the bar, all of whom were men. It wasn’t surprising the business was slow. It was Thursday night. What was surprising was the number of bikini wearing bar girls.  There were at least thirty. Several were talking to the men on the other side of the bar.

We all ordered drinks for about 250 pesos ($6.50 USD) each, which was expensive considering there are places where you can buy an entire bottle of rum for nearly one-tenth of that price. The price made it clear that it was not a bar for locals.  It was for tourists only. The way the girls were talked to the male patrons made it was clear that they had a price too.

We didn’t want to party.  We were tired from traveling all day. We didn’t want to stay out late much because we needed to get up early in the morning to catch a flight.  We had only come to see the show. So, when our drinks arrived, we sipped them slowly, killing time, waiting for the show.

As we waited, a masculine-looking Filipino woman came and stood behind Catherine in the booth.  She started to talk to Catherine and, after a moment, asked Catherine if she would mind a massage.  Before Catherine could answer, the husky mustached woman, who had several homemade tattoos on her arm, began rubbing her shoulders.  She was polite and friendly.  She told that she worked as a boxer, used to be a bar girl, and had spent time in jail for beating up her boyfriend.  She was scary.

The waitress asked Catherine if she would like to buy her manly masseuse a drink and Catherine agreed. That was the hustle. Girlie bars across Asia almost universally employ this scam. Girls talk to customers, and customers buy the girls drinks that cost much more than the customer’s drinks. The girls are paid a commission for the drinks they hustle.  The drink Catherine had just bought would probably cost around $400 pesos ($9 USD), more than the price of a modest room in a hostel. Catherine, however, didn’t know this. This was her first trip in Asia. Catherine hadn’t traveled much before and I was proud to see her on the receiving end of her first tourist scam.  It was kind of like her indoctrination into our tribe of travelers.  Now she was one of us.

Now that I think of it that way, it sounds kind of funny. My girlfriend was being hustled by a Filipino ex-convict prostitute, and I thought it was cute.

Most tourist scams operate on a simple principle: make the tourist feel obligated to give you money.  Shame him into paying.  Be overly friendly.  Offer help.  Assume the role of guide.  Hail a taxi.  Give her a massage. Then ask for money or, in this case, a drink.

Since our table comprised nearly half of the customers in the bar, I thought it likely that we would be on the receiving end of some kind of hustle beyond the usually girls-for-drinks maneuver.

After waiting a while, and seeing no indication that a fight would take place, I asked Catherine’s friend if there would be any boxing.  She told us there would. It was a special night. We would get to see midget boxing. Then she shouted at the only male Filipino in the bar, a middle-aged man with greased back hair and a shirt unbuttoned to his naval.  He came over.  “You want to see midget boxing?” He asked me.

“Yes.”

“You want to buy them some drinks?”

“No.”

“Come on. They work hard.  You buy them some drinks.”

“How many?”

“Six each.”

“No.”

“You don’t think they work hard?” He asked.  I didn’t reply.

“Come on man.  Just buy them some drinks.”

“No.”

He shook his head and walked away, disgusted.

The man came back several times. Each time we repeated our conversation. Then he took a different approach.  He walked up to me.

“My friend.” He said.

“No.” I replied.

“No, no, no.” He grinned. “The midgets.  They box for you.  OK?”

“Cool.”

“You want to be referee, friend?”

“No thanks.”

“Come on buddy. We need a referee.”

Everyone was looking at me.

“Do it.” They urged.  “It’ll be great.  We’ll take pictures.”

I agreed.

A moment later, I was in the ring with two men whose heads barely reached my waist.  They each high-fived me.  The greasy announcer introduced them.  When announced, the first did a cartwheel, and the second jumped in the air and kicked himself in the head with both feet.  Then they went to their corners, the bell rang, and the fight was on.

Mostly I just stood here leaning on the ropes and drinking my beer.  Like I said before, the fight wasn’t very exciting.  When one of the midgets went down, I’d get down on one knee and do an exaggerated ten count (as you can see in the video taken by my friend, below).

Finally, after several boring rounds, I was asked to choose the winner.

Then the announcer asked me, “How did they do?” He held the microphone to my mouth.

“Great.”

“So,” he continued, “you will buy the fighters some drinks, for their great job?”

Everyone was silent.  The midgets were both looking at me. It seemed like everyone had stopped what they were doing and was staring at me.  He held the mike to my mouth.

“Uhhh.”

If I said no, I would basically be insulting the midgets to their faces and I would look like a cheapskate in front of everyone.  This was the hustle. I did a fast calculation. If the drinks cost 400 pesos each ($9 USD).  Six drinks each would cost nearly $110 USD. Was that worth insulting the midgets and losing face in front of thirty scantily clad Filipino prostitutes?

Definitely.

“No.” I climbed out of the ring and walked back to the table.

“That asshole!” Said my girlfriend. “He knew you didn’t want to buy the drinks, and then he did that!”

“Yes, that’s what they do. It’s their job.”

A couple of minutes later the midgets came over shook my hand to show that there were no hard feelings. It seemed like they knew I was being pressured unwillingly. They were so gracious that after they left I called the waitress and asked her to take them a couple of beers.

My travels in third world Asia may have made me good at resisting all manner of scams, but I think I’ll always be a sucker for good ‘ol fashioned decency.

The Ringside Bar can be found at:
4853 Kalayaan corner P. Burgos St., Makati City
Opens at 8 p.m. everyday
For more info or reservations call 8997106.

Don’t worry about my feelings.  Be ruthless.  Telling me which ones you hate will help more than telling me which ones you like.  But, of course, I hope you like them all.

To escape the suffocating traffic and staccato of firecrackers that besiege Taiwan every Chinese New Year, several friends and I booked tickets on a budget carrier, Spirit of Manila, to the city of Coron on Busuanga Island in the Philippines for five days of snorkeling, island hopping, and rum drinking.  The tickets were very cheap, about USD$200 round-trip.  In the end the trip only cost me about $USD650, including a shopping trip in Manila on the way home. For further travel information and great accommodation deals visit Manila hotels.

It’s worth noting that Busuanga wasn’t the only highlight of the trip.  During a layover in Manila on the first night I was fortunate enough to referee a midget boxing match in a local strip bar.

Day 1

We arrived and found our room, a stick and thatched grass cottage on stilts over the water with a bar and sunset view. Five of us split it for about USD$30 per night. Our arrival celebration that night resulted in several scrapes and bruises from wrestling, one very large angry Swede with a broken cell phone, and several empty bottles of Tanduay (the cheap local rum).

The first supper

The walkway to our hotel

The view from our room

Our living room and bar

Day 2

We went island hopping for the day on a traditional banca boat, a slender vessel with bamboo pontoons.  The seas and islands around Busuanga contain some of the finest dive sites in the world, partially because of numerous wrecks from a Japanese supply fleet sunk during WWII. There are 12 diveable wrecks within a day’s boat ride from Busuanga in addition to the famous Barracuda Lake and Cathedral Cave dive sites.  On Day 2 we snorkeled the Skeleton Wreck which was just 5m deep—shallow enough for me to dive down and swim through it.

A banca boat

Boat boy surveying the sea

My dream house

Day 3

Most of us took the day off.  I worked on an article about blogging for TransitionsAbroad.com.  That evening we planned a two-day island-hopping trip we would take with a local guide.

Downtown Coron

A tuk tuk in downtown Coron

A Filipino boy giving me a present

Day 4

We woke up to a breakfast of fruit shakes, Tanduay, and Extra Joss (a Philipino energy booster illegal in most Western countries) and found our way to the docks to hop on our banca boat where we started drinking the beer because, well, drinking straight rum all day long just plain excessive, and also a mild safety hazard when you’re planning to swim.

All aboard

bottoms up

The rum ninja in repose

Day 4 (cont’d)

The first site we snorkeled was a reef around a jagged limestone rock rising about 20m out of the narrows between islands.  The reef was lush and colorful and swarming with fish.  The current, however, was very strong and many of us returned to the boat after just 20 or 30 minutes.

Afterwards we moved on to Cayangan Lake on Coron Island.  The cove where we docked was spectacular (pictures below).  A short steep hike over a small pass lead us to the freshwater lake where we spent the afternoon swimming and taking goofy pictures.

The dock on Coron Island

The second stop

Myself, Christine, Sarah, and an enormous yellow hat

Filipino cave dwellers can be dangerous, but these two were very friendly and appeared to be intoxicated

Tim and Lauren by Cayuga Lake

Day 4 (cont’d)

That evening we headed for a small private beach where would camp.  As we approached the beach we were overtaken by another banca boat with foreigners on it.  It landed on the beach a few minutes ahead of us. We were upset that these tourists had spoiled our private paradise; we decided that the most appropriate course of action would be to consume large quantities of rum, talk loudly, and wrestle each other in the sand until the invaders either joined us or fled in fear.

As the banca pulled up to the shore I heard somebody shout, “Matt”.  On the beach I saw Rose, a friend from Tainan.  All of the foreigners on the beach were our friends, English teachers, from the city where we lived in Taiwan.

That night we drank rum on the beach and talked by candlelight under a shimmering dome of stars.  The ocean glittered with phosphorescence.  When we swam we were adrift in a symphony of light.

Kayak boy

A dog on the beach

Postcard sunset

Day 5

Day 5 was quiet. We visited the famous Barracuda Lake, where the limestone rock formations flicker up from the earth in sharp spiny formations. The rocks are impossible to walk on without shoes and look enormous cathedrals of stone flames.  Underwater the walls of the lake look like vast intricate underwater cities.

That evening we ate our last supper in Coron, and the next morning flew home.

The last supper

The children that lived along the pathway to our hotel

Postcard Sunset

Since Thailand and the Philippines are both relatively cheap countries with postcard beaches and vibrant cultures, and are usually cheaper to fly to than other Asian countries, they’ve become favorites among expats in Taiwan and are your best bet for an economical Chinese New Year Vacation.

With this in mind, this morning I compared prices from three popular budget airlines, Cebu Pacific Air, Asia Air, and Eva Air, for Chinese New Year tickets from Taipei to Bangkok and Manila.

First, I ran into a problem.  Eva Air had no tickets flying to Bangkok on Saturday, February 14^th.  They were sold out.  So, the prices I’ve listed for Bangkok are for flights flying out on the 15^th and returning on the 21^st.

The cheapest airline tickets to a cheap and beautiful destination are from Cebu Pacific Air from Taipei to Manila by a significant margin.  So, Manila will definitely be your best bet if you want to fly somewhere in Asia, but you should be prepared to purchase ferry tickets or a flight to another island because Manila is not the kind of place most people enjoy spending their vacations.  Of course you will have the same issue if you fly to Bangkok, Phenom Penh, or any other major Asian city.