dolphins and whales!

so we were rushing down through all the philippines so we could get to pamilican island, where we'd organised some volunteer work. basically we were to be working on the dolphin and whale watching tours, doing some research for them whihc was all very exciting!

so we arrived by boat quite late, as we had to wait on the mainland for the manager, jojo to arrive from meeting some guests, before we could leave. it was really worthwhile- all he said was ok, enjoy the island, you start on thursday...it was quite a scary journey- so rough, and a little boat again, and all i could think about was that we d be on these boats every day... think it made it worse as it was in the dark!

we arrived safe and sound, but a wee bit overwhelmed as we were met with leis of frangipani, a brand new hut to stay in, and then dinner on a red tablecloth with everyone watching! was all a little bit much, and we went to bed a little freaked out,as to what we d got ourselves into...

the next day was much better. we awoke to find we were just living back from the beach, the water was turquoise, and the sand was pure white. we had a swim and walked round the island- its only about 1 1/2k across, and it was stunning. proper desert island, with no tourists staying it seemed. we got lots of hellos and everyone was really friendly.

a few days later, they had a meeting for the whole organisation to introduce us. of course, jojo hadn't told us what to expect and the next thing he s telling us to introduce ourselves and say a few words about what we'd be doing. well, actually we were hoping he would tell us!

pibosa (pamilican island boat operators and spotters association) is made up of the former whale hunters of the island. up until the ban on whale hunting in 1994 here, this was the main source of income on the island, so since then they've changed to running spotting tours. still, i'm not sure some of them don;t miss the good old days.
they made us watch a video of it the other day, and it was so gross but they were loving it- half of them were in the video or at least their family was there....

anyway, it became clear that jojo kind of wanted us there to get some money for staying at the accommodation, and also maybe wanted to start a science project, or at least look like it! we had a really good deal though, cost us 6 pounds a day for both of us, plus we got meals and water and coffee, and some little snacks now and again...and of course we got to go out dolphin spotting! so basically jojo just left it to us, so i kind of made a survey and we looked at all sorts of things, like numbers, location, behaviour, and things like that! and did a poster of the island, and drew maps and things like that. like a school project

when we went on the trips, we had to get up at around 2.30am. now that was a shock to the system....don;t think i've ever got up that early for work in my life!!! then we had to travel over to the mainland, which took about an hour or so, then we waited for between 30min to 1 1/2hrs for the tour to start at 6am! it was hard i can tell you! and then the boat went back over to pamilican island, before starting the spotting for dolphins. so we were away about 5 or 6 hr before anything happened! almost every day we were out we saw dolphins though, so it was all worth it! they have spinner dolphins there, which are so cool. they jump way up in the air and do lots of acrobatic things. often we'd see over a hundred in one area, we'd just be srrounded by them! also saw bottlenose dolphins, and frasiers dolphin there, plus the melon headed whales, which actually look like dolphins too! and one day we saw pilot whales from the beach, which are a bit bigger. sadly no really big whales though- dont think its the season. once we were out on the water and the sun had risen, it was a lovely trip and i felt pretty lucky to be out doing this!

one problem was that when we went out on the boats was quite random- sometimes they'd get us up, and we weren't on the tour. if we were lucky we'd find out then and go back to bed, if not we had an hours boat journey to the mainland, another half an hour wait, then you d find out, and it was 6am and you were stranded till the boats went back about 3pm. occasionally they'd tell us if we were going out the night before, but most of the time they didnt think to let us know and come knocking at the door at 2.30am....can you tell this guy didn't impress me?!!!

so we gradually settled into life on the island... we'd go out on trips in the morning (sometimes!), come back, have a swim or snorkel (gorgeous coral reef there - i saw a turtle a couple of times and a sea snake!), try and shoot some hoops at basketball (generally it took about 30sec before the kids heard the ball and came running to play- they are all amazing and its quite embarrassing when you cant even get it near the ring), then breakfast. generally this was rice (always rice for every meal!) and fish, which was lovely and fresh, and veggies. very healthy!! sometimes, we got corn beef or spam tho, which was a bit gross! anyway, we ate really well, and it probably did us some good!

after that, we'd have a walk round the island, read, play chess (marc made a lovely chess set from some scrap wood!) or make mobiles from coral...very relaxing. well, it was at first. the kids were really shy at first, but one day all of a sudden the barrier was broken and you couldn't get rid of them! they were always there, playing and in and out of your room, demanding attention and generally driving you mad! actually they were lovely, really nice smiley happy children, always playing and never fighting or anything. think i have a low patience threshold though. its all right in small doses, but i cant handle any more. the adults have little enough sense of privacy as it is, so you can imagine the kids. we spent half the time trying to find places to hide for a break!!! which is hard on an island that size!

it was really funny to not have really obvious things like running water for washing in. they had to get the water from a well, and we used a bucket for our shower. it was fine actually, but i really appreciate a real shower now- even if its cold! another thing was that they only had electricity from 6pm till 10pm. the second it was on, all you could hear was the karaoke starting- with songs like 'only you', 'sealed with a kiss', 'delilah' and others which will never sound the same again to me! think karaoke philippines is only 2nd in popularity to basketball!
one day one of the guys who worked there, raymond, came in to put a light switch into the light in our room, and i just realised i was just so chuffed that now we could turn on and off the lights! ....the things we don't appreciate ; )

we got to go over to the mainland a few times on the boat, and what we mainly did was jump on a jeepney to the city and go and get a burger from kfc or a dunkin donuts! so bad, but anything to not have rice!!!! it was always a bit of a rush to try and jump on email, and get some essentials before we had to get back. they always seemed to tell us we needed to be back at 3 or so, and then we'd end up sitting around the port for about 2 or 3 hrs. it would've been fine, if someone had let us know, and it really frustrated me, that noone ever told us anything. then one day, marc was still in the city and i was doing some work for the project in the office and everyone was in some kind of panic to get back to the island and were going on and on to me about where he was! then they ended up leaving without us! which was fine actually,.. we spent the night in the city, and went to pizza hut ; )

we managed to go on a short trip to bohol for a couple of days. the first day we went to see the tarsiers- the smallest monkey in the world...and they are just sooo gorgeous. so tiny and cute, with massive saucer eyes, and a head that can turn almost 360 degrees. i want one (to go with the baby bear!). we stayed in nuts huts, which are lovely, down about a million steps into a valley, and built on stilts by the river. it felt like you were right in the jungle and river was the most beautiful colour of green. so calm and peaceful, with the noises of the jungle at night! the next day we went to the chocolate hills. nice, but not that chocolate-like, sadly! more like rounded hills....!

then it was back to the island, and back to life!!! at the end of the stay we had to give some feedback on the organisation, but it felt like jojo was trying to get us to do his dirty work, and say the boatmen and guide should be doing things differently, whihc we really weren't going to!....so i bored them for a bit with the science (i.e. the work we were actually trying to do!), even though jojo was totally uninterested the whole time. He really is a strange man!

Anyway, so in the end we spent a month there- there were ups and downs as you can see, but on the whole it was quite amazing really, and we had a great time. such an experience, and a really beautiful island....It really was sad to go, but we'll be back there for sure we hope.

Today we got the boat to Dumaguete in Negros so at last i'm offically up to date with my blog...hoooray!!! its a lovely city, seems nice and leafy, with young pe and a big university. mind you, we've been in this internet cafe for the last 2 1/2 hrs so we havent seen that much of it! so with that i will go, speak soon!

here's out little bangka that we paddled round malapascua, and the view from the bar where we parked it afterwards!

here's our hut on the beach in esperanza

here's me going whale shark spotting...beautiful...!

and here's those crazy kids from legaspi

a few quick pics that marc just got burned to cd...

here's daet- one of the first few days in philippines and a bit miserable!

travelling in the philippines!

talked about jeepneys and tricycles before, so here's a couple of pictures. the jeepneys are just brilliant and best of all they are all different and all look amazing... you gotta be happy if this is the way you travel ; )

to the city and back to the beach...

we travelled back to cebu and down to cebu city for a few days of city life! it was fun, but not the most amazing city. it did sound like it from the guide book and we had a whole day walking tour planned involving: a home made ice cream place (non-existant), a 2nd hand book shop (same), a laundry and bookshop in one (also gone), and a cheese deli...yes, you ve guessed it- it was no more. i dont know when they last updated that book, but i think they should!

we managed to get our visas extended to 2 months while we were there so we did achieve something worthwhile! and we went to the mall and got lots of bits and pieces that we needed. after all our traipsing round the city, everything we needed turned out to be under one roof in air-con! also our room (which was lovely too) had a tv so we got to catch up on some trash which was good- cape fear...

after that we headed off to the next island- bohol. we arrived pretty late and ended up on a little tricycle down a little dirt track which took us down to a place built on mangroves. very different- and they served us massive plates of prawns and rice for really cheap.

next stop was panglao island, just off the bottom of bohol. its quite expensive but we managed to persuade someone to let us camp at the front of their ground, so we had a prime spot right on the beach! spent a lovely night there, its beautiful, in a nice cove, with lots of pretty looking boats and white sand...here's a pic of it...

here's malapascua....

Malapascua Island

We had to go out on a little boat to get onto the ferry which was fun, but quite scary. would have been quite easy to get conked on the head by one of the sides. Here's what all the boats (bangkas) look like...

We arrived in Cebu island, then transferred to another boat to Malapascua Island.

Its beautiful there- and they have tourists, which unfortunately make it a bit expensive, and there are lots of people who, when you arrive want to 'guide' to to accommodation, free of charge! And the islands only 1 or 2 k long...! Anyway, we got somewhere cheapish in the end, nowhere near the beach tho! but they did great cheap food and it was nice all the same.

The snorkelling wasn;t up to much- too much seaweed, but we did hire a small bangka for the day and paddled round the island. So much fun! At one end there was quite high seas but we battled round and got to the other side ok. There are lots of nice secluded beaches round the island so we could just jump on and off our little boat. The best thing was this bar out in the sea. The y had a free boat from the beach but we were bale to just come round the island, paddle up and sit there enjoying a beer. Lovely!

Masbate

We then headed off on first of many boats, to Masbate Island. Lovely journey on a large banca-kind of a wooden catamaran- past lovely smaller islands and deserted beaches. This was more like it! We arrived in Masbate city, grabbed a spot of lunch at a random but totally delicious restaurant. Somehow we ended up with sizzling hotplates of steak, and fish in some caramelised sauce. So nice to have something good to eat!

after that we had some bad luck in trying to get to where we were going and took several tricycles (quite a funny way to get around and very squashed!) down a bumpy road, to a beach. The only place to stay seemed to be inhabited by about 20 rabid dogs, and a woman who just poked here head out to say they were closed, and when we looked around we were surrounded by gaping schoolchildren again. About 50 or so just staring...So disconcerting! Think we decided not to stay there then and had to walk back up the hill for a few km with our bags, and surrounded by curious kids. I don't know what they must think of these weird white people who carry giant bags up hills and sweat profusely. To be fair, I d probably wonder as well if I saw someone walking round bryansglen like that.

anyway, after another few tricycles, we ended up at bituon beach not far away. Now that was strange place. Apart from the fact that they had armed guards at the gate, there was funny giant Disney characters everywhere, a kids playground, a swimming pool, basketball court, and seriously- a bowling alley. And this was just a cove at the end of a dirt track, and we were the only guests. We camped by the beach, which was so nice- just weird to have all the other stuff there!

after that we carried on south to try and catch the boat over to the next island. When we arrived in esperanza we got pointed towards the accommodation, and it was fantastic. Right at the end of the beach, stunning white sand, clear water, and of course, no other people...The only problem was that the woman who owned it, lovely as she was, kept coming up to our balcony, sitting herself down and staying there for an hour or two. Even when I was trying to hide in the room, she'd come and sit down and wait for me to come out. Not very relaxing, especially cos we couldn;t really communicate as it was. It was quite funny, but it kind of drove me a bit nuts. We ended up having to stay for a couple of days to wait for the next boat but it was such a gorgeous spot we were quite happy...

life in the philipinnes

We arrived into Clarke airport, to find it was in the middle of nowhere, the cash machine was broken and the foreign exchnage desk didn't accept travellers cheques. Oh dear. Was all fine tho- we managed to get taxi/bus and get on the road pretty quick. We just passed through Manila this time. Can't say i minded. Looked very grotty indeed. We travelled on by bus to Pagjasan, where the big attraction is that you can go upstream on bamboo rafts to a beautiful waterfall and then shoot the rapids on the way back. Also the final scenes of Apocalyse Now were filmed there. When you arrive there you begin to realise that this is the only thing the town has, as absolutely everyone is trying ot get you on their boat or to their hotel. Big of a shock to the system. Just too much! One guy in particular just would not go away. He was everywhere-so annoying! And when we did the trip in the morning he was one of the boatmen! Argh. Anyway, the trip was fun, but weird. The guys nearly kill themselves trying to get the rafts up the rapids, then on the way down they don't even go over most of them..just roll the rafts over some metal bars! Anyway, the surrounding were gorgeous, but think the whole thing was a bit pricey for what you got!

After travelling all the next day (we wanted to get out of that town as fast as possible), we arrived Daet at night. Supposed to be a nice surf town, but when we arrived it was dark and we could only find one place open to stay (the others you could rent by the hour...hmm). We stayed in a crappy dormitory, with a bathroom with no running water (what was the point of having it?), so we couldn't even shower. The bathroom in the main house also had about 30 cockroaches. The next morning, the rain was torrential, and the place looked so grotty and miserable. Around about this time I decided I really didn't think i liked the Philippines after all, but we decided to keep on heading south and try and find somewhere nice!

The next night we arrived Legaspi, a town right beside the Philipinnes most active volcano. Luckily it wasn’t doing anything but looks amazing- a perfect cone shape. That night we went and had a walk around the town and ended up down at the beach. All of a sudden tehre were all these kids coming around us, saying hello and and then they started following us-there were so many of them, and it was just getting more and more. At one stage they made us sit down amongst them while they all gathered round and stared at us. They were all telling us their names and shaking hands with us, and cheering and jumpiung up and down. It was seriously mad. We didn't really know what to do so we just kind of sat there and smiled and nodded like idiots. When we were leaving they all came with us, and were just yelling and screamin grunning up the street. I thought there was going ot be a riot. Amazing kids...and quite exhausting!!

The next day we headed off to Donsol, where you can swim with whale sharks- they only have similar numbers in West Australia, and Galapagos Islands. We weren't really sure if we were going to do it as it seemed bit pricey, but it turned out that the cost was for the boat and you got put in with a few other people so it worked out really cheap, in fact, more that 15 times cheaper than in Australia! And it was amazing. We saw so many. They were just everywhere. At one stage we had 2 around us! It was quite tricky to see though, so we kept getting in the water, try to find it, and the next thing you just see a giant mouth in front of you! (don;t worry they only eat plankton). At one stage we all jumped out of the boat and on top of it. And as well as that, the weather was calm and we were in a great little boat, whereas in Australai the weather was so bad and the entire boat was sick...so it was much better this time!