Philippines: Coron, Palawan. Spring Festival 2025

 Finally, Spring Festival rolled around, and we were able to get away for a few weeks. After last year's hideously successful yet far too short trip to the Philippines, I knew I was heading back as soon as I could. 

View from the top of the hill

First stop this time was Coron, Palawan. Famed for its crystal clear waters, beautiful beaches and stunning sunsets. Sounds perfect! I was staying just a little out of town, but even so, it was only about a half-hour walk to the marina and the 'centre' of town. It really is a tiny place that is completely set up for day tours for the tourists, which made it very quiet during the day and chaotic first thing in the morning and again about 6pm when the boats came back. 

I had booked 4 days here with only one day trip planned. It seemed smart given how busy things had been, especially with going home and then coming straight back into finals and parents meetings, I was shattered and very much looking forward to sitting on a beach with a book. 

First day, I wandered into town before climbing the hill to catch a sunset view (see above), which was knackering in the heat but worth it. 

Second, I took on the day tours. These have a bit of a reputation for being long and tiring days despite the stunning views. Coron has 5 basic tours with similar itineraries and 'themes' but all are basically stunning place after stunning place. 

Lunch stop

I was collected from my hotel and dropped at the boat park where we were split into groups and went to rent all sorts of gear. I opted out of the kayak but did take the snorkelling equipment. Experience has told me I am not great at snorkelling as I just cant get the hang of fins. Diving was a little different but still not exactly graceful. 

Our tour started with a quick stop at a reef before lunch. The reef, although small, was packed with life and very Finding Nemo feeling. Next time I come back, I will have a GoPro or something so I can properly document the stunning colours and fish swarms in which I found myself (yes, there will be a next time). 

We then moseyed off to the next three places on our list, all of which were stunning and defied belief. I cannot take credit for these pictures, but instead of the very chatty Chinese guy with all the toys on my tour. I think in truth, he was so excited to find someone who spoke Chinese, as his English was not so amazing. Regardless, his pictures are stunning and we had a fun day. 

We finished up with a climb to the viewpoint overlooking this. It was a hot, gnarly climb of 400+ steps, but worth it. 

So. Many. Steps. 

Our tour concluded at sunset, and we were back in the marina just in time. 

Obligatory sunset picture

And another

Christmas in the homeland: Christmas 2024

 

Christmas in Menaul is a busy and stressful time. The Christmas party is a full day mess of performances and "fun" in a hotel usually attended by about 300 people. 

This year was no exception. After weeks of late nights, drama rehearsals, and speech run-throughs, not to mention all of the preparation I was having to do for the English fair immediately after Christmas. As soon as the craziness of the day was over, we went to a bar for a drink and to decompress. 

My flight home was the next afternoon via Shanghai, so I didn't need too early of a start. It still wants fun, though, especially when my flight was delayed 6 hours. Made for a very long journey. 

Once home, I was thrown straight into meeting Tom's kids and a haircut before I could get some rest. 

Jacki turned up the next day for her Christmas with the Barnes's, poor thing. There really isnt too much to do in Gosport, so we ended up just sitting and catching up. 

On Christmas Day, we went to Tom's for dinner and a few drinks. The kids were all excited and got tired quickly, but there was plenty of food and laughs. 

After Xmas, Jacki and I went to London for a sushi meal and an afternoon wandering about, enjoying the Xmas vibe. The food was incredible, and there was plenty of it! 

We spent the afternoon wandering between bars, trying to dodge the cold, and ending in a small Andy-recommended sherry bar. 

Makati and the shopping malls. Philippines Spring Festival 2024

Having recovered from the chaos of the bus trip from hell, we settled into Makati. 

Manila is made up of about 5 or 6 different areas, all of which have completely different feels and styles to them. We chose Makati as it is described as the best area for people new to Manila. It's also the nicest and cleanest area as it is the financial hub of the city. All the banks, embassies and international headquarters are in this areas so there is a lot of money. As a result, it's very pretty but had a very 'picture perfect' and manicured look. To me, it looked like so many other financial districts of other Asian countries. I could ahem been in Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong and they all would have looked the same. It was fine, but as a city, I did not take to Makati. 

We did however, have some of the best food of the whole trip. As luck would have it, the old red light district which has now been cleaned up and turned into a food night time area, was only a ten minute walk from our hotel. The focus of our trip became what to eat next as opposed to what to do or what to see.  

Our battle plan was to consult youtube "what to eat in Makati" videos and we made notes. Notes which we then followed. 

As I said, there really wasn't too much to do in Makati so wandering about became walking between shopping malls and restaurants, however we managed. 

One of the days we went to the science center and joined the kids having a great time watching dancing robots and 3D videos about space and earthquakes. The science center wasn't big but we still had a good time. Actually this day was Eddy's birthday so I spent a long time trying to make a birthday video in front of the dinosaur but had to keep starting again because of the endless announcements. 

Tagaytay part 2: Philippines Spring Festival 2024.

Once we had seen the volcano there really wasn't much else to do in Tagaytay. We spent a long time in restaurants and bars with amazing views, and beer of course. Sadly the town is not pedestrian friendly so wandering about has a treacherous feel when you're on the side of main roads with cars and lorries speeding past at a few centimeters distance. 

Dan found a small theme park like place that he wanted to visit so we made our way over to 'Sky Ranch' a small theme park perched on the top of a cliff. 

We found ourselves in a serious of long queues that were all very confusing. Basically entrance is very cheap, less than 2 pound per person, but then you pay for each ride separately. Each one costing about 2 pound so it has potential to mount up. It didn't, we weren't too fussed about most of them but did go on a pirate ship, naturally, and the ferris wheel. Again, naturally. I think we might have been the only people in the park without kids. Most rides were designed for small children so we were a little too old. Theme parks really aren't my thing but the wheel gave us the most beautiful views of the lake and the volcano so I was happy. 

Outside the park, we found a very nice large craft beer place where we got comfy for a few hours. Just as we were leaving the staff took us and a few other tables of customers on a tour of the brewing operations which we thought was  really nice touch.  

Other than the park, we couldn't really find much to do in the tiny town of Tagaytay. We had some amazing food, tasty beers and met some very friendly people. All in all a very chilled trip. 

Next stop Makati, Manila. We got the bus, which turned out to be a fairly horrific experience. I don't do well traveling anyway so being in a hot, cramped, uncomfortable bus for four hours was my idea of hell. We were finally thrown off the bus on the side of a highway thing near Manila airport. We stopped in a KFC so I could calm down before getting a grab to our hotel in town. 

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Tagaytay and Taal volcano. Philippines Spring Festival 2024

Originally Dan and my plan was to land as close time was as possible and then just meet in the airport terminal of the last to arrive. Naturally the universe had other plans and Dan's flight was delayed but quite a bit. I landed at T4 and had to try to get to T3 to meet him. Luckily there is no bus or passenger transfer system in place to get between the terminals, (according to one Taxi guy, it went away with COVID and hasn't come back yet) so I had to wait for a taxi to drive me the 1km to the other terminal. It wasn't possible to walk as it is all closed off to anything except cars. 

Finally getting to the right terminal, I found somewhere to sit and waited for Dan to get through customs and immigration. It took hours! 

Paperwork complete, we found a driver to get us to Tagaytay which we had read was between a 2 and 3 hour drive. Luckily, it was decent roads and not too difficult. We got to our hotel about 11pm and wandered off to find a quick beer to wash off the events of the day. 

We discovered our hotel was basically on the side of a main road with nothing on it. about a 15 minute walk away was a 711, so we stopped and got some beers and just stood outside until a very friendly police office told us off. We suspect he was just bored as there were other people doing the same. 

Our reason for coming here was the volcano. Taal Volcano which sits in the middle of a large lake. In 2020 it erupted and so since then you have no been able to get onto the island and climb the volcano itself as it is still too dangerous. So we had to settle for a boat trip around it instead. 

We were out walking when one of the tuktuk guys approached us and told us he would take us to the boat trip area. We had no information on this area so were very much winging it and agreed. we drove down to the lake for what seemed like hours. In actual fact, it was about half an hour but being thrown about in the back of a tuktuk does make time slow considerably. 

Once at the bottom he took us straight to a boat rental place and we were presented with a massive stack of options. In the end, we decided to do the whole tour, a 2 hour boat ride, complete with our own personal  guide. It worked out quite expensive but this because there were only two of us, the boat could have held 6 easily. 

Ruins of houses that were once 50+ meters from the water's edge

We went all around the volcano, seeing the remains of houses and villages, many schools and churches. he showed us how much the island has sank and the luxury houses that were now abandoned, too dangerous to live in. 

From the back of the island we could see steam rising from the crater as well as the lava tracks on the back. It was beautiful and I actually really enjoyed pottering about the lake for a few hours. Our guide was very knowledgable and chatty. 

It's a shame it's not possible to hike to the top anymore but safety is a fair enough reason when dealing with a volcano I suppose. 

On the way back, we went past the Tilapia farms and were lucky enough to see people feeding the fish. The water boiled with the amount of hungry fish jumping about to get their lunch. I thought it was fantastic, Dan was less impressed. 

El Nido and the beaches of joy. Philippines Spring Festival 2024

From Cebu, El Nido is a short hour and a half flight on a tiny tiny plane. It had propellors and not much else. 

I landed into El Nido very grateful to be back on the ground after a hideously nerve-racking flight but it was all fine. 

My hotel was only a 20 minute tuktuk from the airport as I was staying in the closest area and probably the biggest, not sure, didn't make it too far away from the beach. I really didn't have enough time to actually do much in this trip. It was more of a taster for a future return journey (Spring Festival 2025, already decided) so I wasn't in too much of a panic to see things, especially as I am still in the first part of my long epic trip. 

My hotel had the most amazing view but was a slightly disappointing place in every other respect. It's always a little sad to see nice hotels that use aren't being looked after so well, whole place just felt tired and a little run down. But like I say, look that this view! 

The area around the hotel wasn't big but had a very tourist hotspot feel to it. Lots of pizza and pasta restaurants and a very tasty Thai place. Again, not worried about rushing about, I chilled in bars, cafes and restaurants and read my book. On one occasion, I walked to the other end of the town and sat with a beer, ordered food, then realized I forgot my wallet and had to run back. I offered to leave all sorts with them as a deposit, but the manager thought it was hilarious and said he didn't mind at all. Said I could just come back later if I wanted, but I didn't feel right doing that, went and got my wallet anyway. 

I spent three days thoroughly chilled and relaxed before getting back on the tiny tiny plane to meet Dan in Manilla. Our planes were landing within an hour of each other so in theory meeting up should have been quite simple and easy. Let's see how the universe messes that one up for us. 

Oslob and the sharks! Philippines Spring festival 2024

 

Now time for one of my all time bucket list items!!! Diving with whale sharks. 

Oslob on Cebu Island is one of only two places in the world where you can reliably swim with sharks. The other is in Mexico I think. 

From where I was staying it was about a 20 minute tuktuk ride to the beach area where the sharks come for their breakfast. I was lucky that I wanted to dive and not snorkel so I skipped the ling lines of people being taken out in the boats. We got suited up and after a very fast safety refresher we walked pasted everyone waiting for their boats ( a very gratifying experience) and my 40 minute dive began. We had to swim out about 40 meters and stayed in quite shallow water, less than 20 minutes at deepest. 

My dive buddy Ming took control of the camera and that left me on my own to just enjoy and float about with these 'gentle giants'. 

I was underneath a lot of people snorkeling so it was quite difficult to resist the urge to grab their feet, but I did. Just. 

We swam with 4 in total but not at the same time. I believe they have a complicated ticketing and waiting system same as the divers. 

Just amazing!!!

I smiled for about 3 days after that one. There is little more to say, just amazing!  The whole reason I came to Cebu and to the Philippines actually. Once in a lifetime and truly unbelievable. 

Oslob, Philippines Spring Festival 2024

Spring Festival has arrived and finally international travel is not only possible but quite reasonable again. So time to get back on the bucket list and start enjoying a world outside China again. 

To the Philippines!!!

This trip became a long and shattering one with bouncing between multiple countries and people. In just over three weeks I did 3 countries, 2 reunions, 8 flights and a whole lot of chatting and eating. 

The first part I was on my own for a week. In the second week I met Dan (Taiwan, friend from Kunming) but given our long trips to get to the Philippines, he wasn't so keen on traveling about during the trip. I knew that part of my trip was going to be more of a chilled city break so I decided to hit the islands and beaches on my own. Even though I live by the sea nowadays, I still love going to the coast. 

My first stop was Oslob which is about a 3-4 hour drive from Cebu. I landed late night and so just got a driver to my hotel. I wasn't aware of it at the time but he managed that drive in just under 2 hours. Rollercoaster and scary would be an understatement. I crashed out and woke up to a hell of a view! 

The first day I'm in a place I like to just pick a direction and walk. I walked all along the coast into the 'town' which was more of a few houses, a 711 and a market. Most people come here on a day trip from Cebu city for the sharks, so someone actually staying in the area is a bit unusual. 

I sampled my first Filipino food, Sesig (picture) and calamari. The lady handed me a menu but it didn't really clarify anything so I asked three school aged kids wat they thought I should try and I trusted them. Didn't disappoint. 

The water here is just so blue, it's like nothing I have ever seen before and just stunning. 

Tomorrow morning is an early one for the sharks, which is basically my whole reasons for being here.