Philippines cont'd

We also stayed in El Nido town for a night. It is one of those picturesque little beach towns...no high rise hotels or chain stores to name and instead lots of little restaurants and bars lining the beach. We rented a kayak for the day and made it to a couple of the smaller islands around the area.

While in the Philippines, the areas that we visited were mostly unscathed by typhoon Haiyan, and we didn’t hear much about it from the locals. As a result we probably know less about it than you do at this point.

Overall, we had a great time in the Philippines...good food, nice people, so much English (even signs were sometimes ONLY in English) and great weather. It wasn't until we were on the plane to Tokyo that Cindy had some stomach pain...and the food poisoning hit again!

El Nido

Lots of places to eat along the beach. It was a very laidback place and there is concern about development here (they're resisting for good reasons). 

We found a local volleyball game 

Lots of Christmas decorations here since the population is predominantly Catholic...it is still weird for us to see so much Christmas stuff when it's 30 degrees outside.


Kayaking in El Nido to a hidden lagoon. Ignore the weird tan lines.

Ride to the airport in a tricycle...hopefully Mike can fit in since I have been eating a lot of buffets!

Nice villages

Another jeepney 

Cute goodbye song at the airport

Back in Pasay for a night (and back at the same hotel)

Mall of Asia - this felt like a mall in North America

It even has an ice rink 

Mean trick - just as I was meant to be cutting back, the restaurant surprised us with a FREE piece of chocolate cake. Oh dear.

Big guns carried by the security guards

Playing in the Philippines

We flew into Manila and stayed in a hotel close to Manila airport (in Pasay City). The closest landmark is the Victoria Court Cuneta, known as Manila’s Shangri-la of love hotels. This is a poor part of town, with masses of homeless families sleeping on sidewalks. With only 10 hours between our incoming flight and our flight to El Nido, we weren’t able to take in any sights of Manila beyond our brothelly and poor neighbourhood. Traffic was what you’d expect of a big third-world city, with the exception of the presence of Jeepneys. Jeepneys are the uniquely Filipino and incredibly pimp-looking WWII-era Jeeps that have been converted for use as public transportation.

We left our hotel at 5:15am and the streets were already packed with pedestrians, cars, tricycles and jeepneys. We weren’t sure if people get up early here or just never go to bed. Amid the squalor, of course, there were 7 Elevens, KFCs and McDonalds everywhere, not to mention the massive Mall of Asia containing every store you’ve ever heard of. Kind of strange to see the 2 worlds colliding. It was hard to see children sleeping on the street and to know that we were only seeing a small part of this reality.

We flew to El Nido, Palawan and headed straight to Apulit Island, a self-proclaimed “eco-resort” about 3 hours of driving and boating from El Nido. Our cabin was built overwater with a staircase to the ocean below, allowing us to just walk right in and start swimming. We were a bit nervous about the baby black-tip sharks that also prowl around the shore. Thankfully, we never met their parents.

We tried diving for the first time, and it was a lot of fun -- definitely something to pursue further.

Oh and Mike lost his something that he couldn't get back - his wedding ring! It fell off while he was snorkelling and he casually mentioned it a bit later. Wasn't the best day for him either since he subsequently stepped on a sea urchin...thankfully they had vinegar available to pour on his foot so that I didn't have to pee on it! 

Here's one of those jeepneys

As close as we got

On our way to Apulit

Getting the hang of this!

Is that a baby shark? 

Isla Blanca...looks so serene and beautiful so one wouldn't think...

To look out for these! Watch out for sea urchins!

Or else you'll be in serious pain! Luckily there was some medical aid aka vinegar available.

Dinner! Ok, not our dinner but someone's.

Hmm...that's a nice hand you have there...what's missing though? :) 

Maybe that's the shark!

Mike tried some rappelling...

Long way down! 

Apparently the harnesses were a little painful! Still smiling though.

Finally saw one - there's the baby black tip shark 

Someone has come to pick me up :)

Kayaking to watch the sunset. It's a very peaceful place here. 

On our way back to El NIdo and oops, was that our tire that just fell off? Luckily, it was only a spare.

Langkawi, Malaysia

We decided to rent a car for this part of the trip and Mike’s been having a blast driving manual transmission on the left side of the road. I think he likes it even better every time I cover my eyes! He just has to watch out for monkeys on the road but so far, no casualties. This place reminds us of Hawaii (and Maui in particular)…not as developed as Hawaii but perhaps what it was like 30 years ago. We’re staying in a lodge in a rainforest and it looks like we’ve had a couple of visits from an animal while we’ve been out (it’s either a monkey or this badger creature we saw in the trees)…our garbage can was overturned and a package of pea snacks scattered everywhere! Too bad we didn’t set up a security camera.

We checked out a waterfall and went for a walk in one of the geoparks and I had my first encounter with leeches...nothing serious at all but they sure are hard to get off! Just call me Leechy (Mike does). 

Dinner times have been later here but since we’re on Nepalese time, we’ve been eating early and wondering why the restaurants are not busy. When we had our last dinner on the island, we had the whole place to ourselves, until it got full around 7:30pm while we were eating dessert.

Islam is the dominant religion here and so we’ve seen many women wearing hijabs(I think the majority) and some women wearing niqabs. 

Thanks for getting the leeches off Mike!

Our ride 

Night market

His hair's getting long enough to blow in the breeze

Is this our guide?

We hung out here for a bit...nice and private. :) 

This is what you get when you make a reso...name written on a banana leaf!

Wolfberries for dessert, also known as goji berries

Guess this is where the monkeys jump into our livingroom!