loveliness.

Category: Philippines

• tips for traveling in the philippines

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on May 20, 2015

  

  Our time in the Philippines was not very long, but it was nothing short of amazing. I learned a few things during our travels that I wish I’d known before, so definitely wanted to pass those tips along. You can also check out my tips for traveling Australia, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia.

  Night Bus: We flew from Manila to Puerto Princesa on a late evening flight, and we had two choices. We could either spend a night in Puerto Princesa, and give up a full day of our travels to a bus ride, or we could suck it up, and take the night bus. We’d been told by a few people that the night buses were dangerous, not so much for the roads or the driving, but because of muggings and violence. I felt like the information we had gotten wasn’t very accurate, and was mostly driven by fear, as we didn’t really hear any specific stories of things that had happened, so we decided to go for it. Our experience was completely fine, we had no problems at all, and we were able to see a lot more in a short time because we didn’t waste our days on the bus.

  ATM: One of the things that is definitely good to know, is that there is no ATM in El Nido. If you are traveling there, make sure to bring enough cash to last you for the whole trip, because running out of money there would not be good.

  Boat to Coron: As I mentioned in this post, we took the boat from El Nido to Coron. The boat on the way there was amazing, nice and big, two levels, lots of room, with Wi-Fi. On the way back we had a tiny, one level boat, and we were squished in there for the whole 8 hours.It was $1500 pesos per person, each way. There was definitely no W-Fi. We left on a Wednesday from El Nido, and returned on a Friday. Make sure to check out the different options for boats, and take the good one both ways if you can.

  Diving Coron: Diving the shipwrecks in Coron is completely amazing, but there are a few things to be aware of. The wrecks are are very deep, starting at 30FT. The visibility isn’t great, it can be very dark down there, and you go deep inside the ships. Make sure you are a wreck certified diver and are very comfortable before you decide to go.

  Terminal fees: One other small thing to keep in mind is that there are terminal fees to fly out of airports in the Philippines. To fly domestic out of Manila, it was 20 pesos, domestic out of Puerto Princesa was 150 pesos, and to fly international out of Manila it was 550 pesos. Make sure you hold on to enough pesos to pay the fees at the airport when you’re flying out.

  I can not wait to get back to the Philippines, there are so many other amazing places I’d like to visit.

  While we were on our island hopping trip, one of our fellow travelers told us about a place near Cloud 9 Beach where you can swim in a lake filled with stinger-less jellyfish. STINGER-LESS JELLYFISH. It would be every Finding Nemo fantasy you’ve ever had come to life. I shall call you squishy, and you shall be my squishy.

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 2 Comments | Tagged coron, el nido, manila, philippines, scuba, tips for traveling, travel

• scuba diving: coron shipwrecks

  Posted at 8:33 am by jasminedesirees, on May 11, 2015

  This post is part love affair, part horror story, but that’s ok because it has a happy ending. While we were in the Philippines we decided to make the trip to Coron because we’d heard over and over again how amazing the diving is there, because there are several sunken ships to dive, a remnant of the Japanese fleet from WWII. We’d done one shipwreck dive in Bali, and loved it so much, that we were completely stoked to do it again.

  

  If you’ve been to the Philippines, you probably know already that things tend to work a little differently here than in other places. I’ve been diving quite a bit, in many different countries, and the safety standards are usually pretty much the same but after arriving in Coron, we realized that most of the shipwreck dives are supposed to be for advanced divers only.

  

  We thought we wouldn’t be able to dive them, but after visiting 4 different dive shops, all of them told us basically the same thing, that even though most of the wrecks were over 30M deep, and we’re technically only certified to dive to 18M, and we aren’t certified for wreck diving, that it wasn’t a problem, and that in the Philippines “we don’t have to follow the rules”.

  

  Now, let me stop and say that obviously, in the end it was my choice to go. Nobody forced me, and even thought I felt kind of uncomfortable, I wanted to try it so I went anyway.

  We were supposed to dive 3 wrecks, the Tangat, the Olympia, and the East Tangat. The Tangat was the first wreck, and it was also the deepest. Everything went smoothly for the first half of the dive, the wreck was amazing, and there was so much to see.

  

  I have to admit at this point that I am a bit claustrophobic, but it’s never been a problem for me before when I was diving. As long as I can keep moving in any direction at a constant pace, I never feel too boxed in (for me, as true as in life as it is in diving).

  This dive was different than any I’d done before because the water was very murky, and because we were down so far, and also so deep inside the ship, it was pretty dark, and we need to bring a flashlight with us to see anything.

  

  We were inside the ship, and our guide was moving very slowly, basically stopped, to play with some clams and other little fishes on the bottom of the deck we were swimming on. I started looking around, and saw our bubbles coming out of our mouths, up to the opening of the deck above, and when it hit the opening, there was an effect like a shimmering mirror, and it looked really neat.

  

  But as soon as I saw it, my stomach flipped, and I started feeling like a heavy weight was on my chest. I could feel myself starting to panic, but I tried to keep calm and kept breathing as normally as I could. Right then, our guide indicated to us that we were going to be going down another opening into the deck below, and I knew I shouldn’t do it, and indicated that I needed to surface.

  

  We were down at least 35M, and at that depth you have to take your time to go up, and take decompression stops so your body can get rid of the excess nitrogen from breathing compressed air under the pressure of that much water. Our guide was totally great about it, and started getting us out of the ship and back up slowly to the surface. I felt better as soon as we were out of the wreck, even though we were still down pretty deep, but thought I better go up anyway.

  

  I went up and hung out on the boat for a bit, while the rest of the group (there were only 3 of us) went back down and finished the dive. After lunch and a surface interval, it was time to do the second dive. I wasn’t sure if I should do it, but I talked to the guide, and we made an alternate plan for if I was feeling uncomfortable going into the wreck.

  We started descending to the Olympia, and I was feeling good about it, but the visibility was really bad, and as soon as we got to the entrance to the first deck of the ship, I started feeling claustrophobic again, and had to come up almost immediately. The second time was actually worse than the first time, we were down about 30M, and I really started to panic.

  

  I couldn’t breathe, I was hyperventilating and crying into my mask. I had to force myself to stay where I was and keep breathing normally, even though a big part of me just wanted to go up as fast as possible. The 3 minute safety stop was probably the longest 3 minutes of my life. Needless to say, I skipped the third dive.

  In a way I’m kind of glad it happened, just because I always wondered how I would react in an emergency situation as a diver, and I think I handled it pretty well. If I hadn’t been able to keep calm and force myself to follow the procedure, it could have been really bad. It also gave me a brand new respect for people who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, because that was definitely not fun.

  

  So the moral of that story is, I’m probably never going to be a wreck diver, and enclosed spaces and I will never be friends. But if you are in Coron, and you are certified, definitely make it a point to dive some of the wrecks, because I was down there long enough to see how amazing they were.

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 5 Comments | Tagged coron, philippines, scuba diving, shipwreck, travel, wreck diving, wwII

• coron, busuaga

  Posted at 8:19 am by jasminedesirees, on May 7, 2015

  The morning after our island hopping adventures out of El Nido, we were up bright and early to catch the boat to Coron. You can buy tickets to Coron almost anywhere in El Nido, and I’d done a little reading about the trip, and it sounded pretty horrible.

  The only information I could find online from people taking this boat said that their boats sank and they had to swim to shore, or their captains were drunk, etc, so it was a little disheartening, but we weren’t not going to go. I feel like that happens a lot though, either we are the luckiest people in the world, or most people have absolutely no problems, but it’s only the few who do that post anything about their experience.

  

  

  

  Our boat left from the El Nido harbour, it’s pretty easy to get to, but once we were there, things were a little confusing. Nobody seemed very sure where we were supposed to go, and there was another boat leaving at the same time, so we didn’t want to end up taking the wrong one.

  

  

  

  We eventually got on the boat, and it was actually really wonderful. There were two decks, and not that many people, so everyone had tons of room. Once we were on our way, everyone kind of dispersed about the ship and carved out a little spot for themselves. I made a bed out of lifejackets and cuddled in with my laptop. I had rented a few movies for the boat ride since it was 8 hours, but I only ended up watching one of them, because the view outside was so amazing.

  

  

  

  The water colour is so beautiful, and there are all these little islands and outcroppings, we saw one with the most adorable little house on it, my dream home for sure. Also, there were these amazing little flying fish, they would jump out of the water and fly across the surface for a really long ways, and their fins would leave trails across the water. I watched them for hours, and must have taken about 4,000 pictures trying to get a decent one, but you never knew where they were going to come up from, so it was a bit tricksy.

  

  

  

  I completely forgot we were on a ferry from point A to point B, it was pretty much like a really beautiful booze cruise, although I forgot to bring any booze. The boat even had wi-fi. I was pretty impressed by the whole experience, but if I had to give anybody tips it would be, be sure to bring lots of water, it gets hot and there isn’t any on the boat, and bring snacks if you want some. They served us lunch, it was rice with veggies and chicken in sauce, but I wasn’t eating meat by then so I just stuck with my sleeve of Oreos, obviously the healthier choice.

  

  

  

  I would like to take this moment to point out a very important thing, in case you are thinking of taking this boat to Coron. Just because you take one boat there, does not mean you will be taking the same boat, or even a similar boat back. If the ride there was amazing, and it was, I wish I would have known how spoiled we were, because then I would have enjoyed it even more.

  

  

  

  When we took the boat back to El Nido two days later, we were on a tiny, one deck little fishing boat. There were about 40 people on it, we were literally sitting side by side on a wooden plank for 8 hours. Because the boat was so small, one side was always fully in the sun, so whoever was sitting there had to put up makeshift tents made from sarongs and towels.

  

  

  

  D ended up chatting with one of the deck hands, and he told us we could go up on top of the boat topper, so we did, which was nice because we actually had some room, but it was realllly hot up there. The ride back really wasn’t that bad, it was nothing like the horror stories I’d read about online, but it was a lot less comfortable than the ride there. Both boats go back and forth several times a week, so if you have any flexibility in your dates, try to take the good boat both ways, I promise you will thank me for it.

  

  

  

  Coron itself wasn’t really what I was expecting. It’s a small island, but it’s very busy because of all of the divers, so walking down the street was kind of like taking your life into your hands, there were tricycles racing back and forth all over the place.

  

  

  

  We stayed at a nice little hostel we had found online, it ended up being a great place to stay, but as we were walking down from the road across wooden beams over a muddy pit to check in, I wasn’t sure what we were going to find. The people next door actually had a few little pigs, and you could hear them and see them from the shower.

  

  

  We were’t in Coron very long, just one full day that was spent diving (more about that in my next post) but we met some nice people while we were there. They also had a vegetarian restaurant in town. You had to order the hummus 24 hours in advance, but I was having such bad withdrawals after being in Bali for two months that I decided to go for it, and we came back to eat it the next night, after our day of diving. It was definitely worth the wait.

  

  

  

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 4 Comments | Tagged busuaga, coron, el nido, islands, philippines, scuba, travel

• island hopping in el nido: part 2

  Posted at 8:19 am by jasminedesirees, on April 28, 2015

  Continued from Part 1.

  After our morning of frolicking and getting pretty sunburnt on Hidden Beach, we loaded back up on the boat and headed to Matinloc, which was about a 20 minute boat ride away.

  

  

  

  Matinloc is an absolutely stunning island. It has an abandoned mansion and religious shrine built on it, although the mansion is in decay and has been looted. It’s pretty mysterious, and if you feel like doing more research, there are some theories about buried treasure on Matinloc that are kind of cool.

  

  

  

  We had about an hour there to explore and take pictures. There is a set of stairs carved into the side of one of the hills, and you can climb up to the top to get a vista view of the turquoise bay and the emerald green cliffs.

  

  

  

  It is one of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen, but you take your life into your hands a little bit. The cliffs are made from very sharp rock, and you have to climb up a little bit to really get the best view, and if you slipped, even just a little bit, it would have been agony.

  

  

  

  

  After Matinloc, we headed to Talisay to relax and have lunch. The beach was gorgeous and the water was super clear, I went snorkeling and chased fish around for ages.  Our lunch was really good, our tour guides caught and grilled fish on a BBQ right alongside the boat, and one of the Swedish girls that was in our group had a portal speaker, so once we finished eating we just lazed in the sun and listened to reggae. It was perfect.

  

  

  

  

  The last stop on our tour was Secret Beach. When we were about 1/2 an hour from Talisay the driver stopped our boat right in front of a solid cliff, and told us to jump out. We all kind of looked at each other, and then did what we were told, and our guide led us to a hole in the cliffs under the water.

  

  

  

  

  We had to swim up through it, and on the other side was a circular lagoon type beach with towering cliffs all around it. One of our guides showed us that right when you come in, you can actually swim underneath the rocks that make up part of the lagoon floor in tunnels, and go almost to the other side.

  

  

  

  

  It was the stuff of my worst, most claustrophobic nightmares, but he took our go pro with him, and it’s a pretty cool video.

  

  

  

  El Nido, and especially this tour, was my favourite part of the Philippines. I know there are so many pictures in this post, but I honestly couldn’t choose, the whole day felt like magic.

  

  

  

  

  Next time we’re in Palawan, I’d like to go diving at the Tubbataha reefs, and check out the Underground River, but I will definitely make time to come back to El Nido.

  

  

  

  

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 2 Comments | Tagged el nido, Hidden Beach, island, matinloc, palawan, philippines, secret beach, tour c, travel

• island hopping in el nido: part 1

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on April 16, 2015

  We only had a couple of days to spend between El Nido and Coron, so after taking the night bus from Puerto Princessa to El Nido, hunting aimlessly for our hostel, and then getting 3 hours of sleep, we were up at 7 am to take the El Nido Island Hopping tour the next day.

  

  

  

  There are 4 tours that take you to different beaches and coves, but we were told tours A and C were the best, and they looked like the ones we would enjoy the most. We ended up choosing Tour C, which included stops at Secret Beach, Matinloc Shrine, Hidden Beach, and Talisay Island.

  

  

  

  There were about 10 people in our tour group, from all over the world, and they were all pretty cool. We spent the initial boat ride chatting about the Philippines, places we’d been, and places we’d like to go. Our first tour stop was Hidden Beach, and that’s where most of the pictures in this post are from because it was absolutely awesome.

  

  

  

  Our captain parked the boat, and encouraged us to get off and look around. We got off the boat onto a shallow little rock ledge, and weren’t sure exactly what we were looking at, the cliffs were pretty, but nothing amazing. I guess that’s why they call it Hidden Beach? Cleverrrr…..

  

  

  

  He directed us to walk to the right towards an opening in the cliffs, which we did, with some difficulty, as the waves were crashing against the rocks, and people kept losing their balance and falling over. It was actually pretty funny, except most of us, including me, were a little scraped up by the time we got to the opening. Do not attempt this journey without some kind of shoes, you’ll be sorry.

  

  

  

  Once we got through the opening, we were faced with one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. The towering cliffs loomed overhead, hundreds of feet in the air, almost completely surrounding the beach except for the openings at each end. The water was crystal clear turquoise, and it was so peaceful and serene inside.

  

  

  

  We spent about 40 minutes there, taking pictures and then swimming and relaxing and just enjoying it. Once we were back on the boat, we set off for the Matinloc Shrine, more pictures of that in my next post.

  

  

  

  The Island Hopping tours are an absolute must if you are in El Nido, it was one of the best days of our entire trip. The tour only makes 4 stops, but there are so many beautiful beaches and rock formations in that area that the entire day on the boat feels like part of it, you don’t feel like you are just commuting from sight seeing point to sight seeing point.

  

  

  To Be Continued…

  

  

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged beaches, el nido, island, island hopping, palawan, philippines, tour c, travel

• el nido, palawan

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on April 14, 2015

  After a few days in Manila, we took a one hour flight across to the island of Palawan. It was a night flight, and we arrived in Puerto Princessa around 9pm.

  We’d been told repeatedly not to take a night bus in the Philippines, because the roads are bad, and we were even told that people had been robbed on them before, but we only had a few days left in the Philippines, and if we wanted to go diving in Coron (which we did) we had to take night buses so we didn’t spend our days traveling, so we decided to go for it.

  

  At the Puerto Princessa airport, we hopped in a “tricycle”, the Philippine equivalent of a Tuk Tuk, and got a ride to the bus station. There was a full sized bus leaving for El Nido an hour later, so we grabbed some snacks and settled in to wait. They also have 12 passenger vans running, but we figured a big bus was probably safer, even though it was a longer ride.

  It was a 6 hour bus ride, but we slept the entire time, even though they were showing Jurassic Park on VHS at the front of the bus, so I desperately wanted to stay awake. We arrived in El Nido around 3 in the morning, and luckily there was a tricycle waiting at the bus stop.

  

  We had a room booked at a hostel in town, but we had no idea where it was, and neither did our driver, so we had to creep around the dark streets until we found somewhere with wi-fi so we could look it up.

  We eventually got checked in, and finally got to bed around 4am. The next morning was a bit of a struggle, because we were up bright and early to do an island tour around El Nido before we left for Coron the next day.

  

  We only spent two nights in El Nido, but it was seriously one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. We walked down the street to get to the ocean to leave for our tour that morning, and as we rounded the corner and saw the beach, I actually gasped. It is literally breathtaking.

  Even though El Nido was a bit of a trek to get to, it was so, so worth the trip. And even though we were warned over and over again not to take night buses, we had a great experience, and the extra time we gained allowed us to see as much of the Philippines as we possibly could.

  

  Posted in beach, Philippines, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged el nido, manila, palawan, philippines, travel

• sight seeing in manila: part 2

  Posted at 9:48 am by jasminedesirees, on March 30, 2015

  A few more pictures from our time in Manila and the surrounding area.

  

  We visited Fort Santiago in Manila. It is a citadel built by Spanish conquistadors during the time when the Philippines was under the rule of Spain. Jose Rizal was held captive there, so part of the structure has been turned into a shrine.

  
  

  It was neat to see, but there was a group of high school students visiting the same time we were, and there were so many people inside that I had to leave and wait outside in the gardens. Claustrophobia, it’s a problem.

  We stopped in to check out the Manila Cathedral as well. It was quite close to Fort Santiago, and in a nice area so worth checking out if you are looking for some interesting and historic places to visit in Manila.

  
  

  We also took the 2 hour drive out to Taygaytay volcano, but sadly it was very cloudy that day, so it was hard to see. We considered taking a boat ride across the crater lake to see the volcano up close, but it was really cold and windy, we were dressed inappropriately (for a change) and a 2 hour boat ride sounded kind of miserable.

  
  

  Instead we drove down to a beach on the coast where you could rent little rafts to hang out on for the day. There were restaurants all along the beach, but they didn’t cook anything there, instead they would bring freshly caught seafood and veggies out to your raft, and cook it for you there on a little fire pit.

  
  
  

  On the drive back we were stopped in traffic (traffic is really bad there and it took us forever to get back) and I was looking out the window and saw what looked like a net with big black blobs on it.

  
  
  

  Upon closer inspection, it was the most massive spider web I’ve ever seen, covered in enormous spiders. I’m not even really that scared of spiders, but it was terrifying, like something out of a horror movie.

  
  
  

  Another thing that I noticed while we were cruising around in the countryside was that the grocery stands on the side of the road all had raw chickens and massive sides of beef hanging from them.

  
  
  

  There were little fans to keep the flies away, but it was so different from the way I’ve seen meat displayed and sold in any other country. It was very common though, so obviously it isn’t that dangerous, if it made everybody sick they wouldn’t do it anymore, right?

  
  
  

  We were only in Manila for two days, and we wanted to see as much as possible, so we slept on the plane for Indonesia (after a 13 hour wait at the airport!) and just arrived ready to get going when we landed.

  
  
  
  

  We did pretty well, considering we hadn’t been to bed the night before, but by supper time on our first day there we were basically walking zombies.

  
  
  
  
  

  There were a few places I wanted to see that we weren’t able to get to because of our very short timeline (we really wanted to go to Palawan, and go diving!) but the Philippines has so many beautiful places to visit that two days in Manila is probably all I’ll ever get.

  
  
  

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 2 Comments | Tagged Fort Santiago, jose rizal, manila, Manila Cathedral, philippines, Spanish conquistadors, taygaytay, travel, volcano

• sight seeing in manila: part 1

  Posted at 9:37 am by jasminedesirees, on March 23, 2015

  I’ve been a little bit AWOL the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot going on at work, and also I’ve been looking for a new job. Last week I got two really good offers, so now that the initial horror of trying to choose between them is over with, I can relax a little bit for the next few weeks until it starts.

  So now we can continue on with our journey.

  
  

  After spending more than two months on our second visit to Indonesia, we were starting to make plans to head back to Australia, spend a few days in New Zealand, and then head back to the states, when we heard from The Boy’s grandparents that they were going to be in the Philippines for a few weeks.

  
  
  

  He has always wanted to visit there, and so had I, plus I heard amazing things about the diving there the whole time we were traveling, so we found a pretty cheap flight, and decided to go check it out.

  
  
  

  We spent a few days in Manila and surround area, before heading off to El Nido and Coron.

  
  

  While we were in Manila we visited a few of the beautiful old churches including the Manila Cathedral. I’m not religious but I love the architecture and history, and the stained glass windows were amazing.

  
  
  

  We also visited the Rizal monument, erected in memory of Jose Rizal, a Philippine national hero, who believed that the Philippines should be independent, and encouraged the people of the Philippines to fight for freedom from the government of Spain.

  It was in a beautiful green park in metro-manila, and it was nice to relax and just walk around there for awhile.

  
  

  My favourite thing about Manila was the mangos and also the pan de sol, these delicious little buns that we got fresh from the bakery every morning.

  I had been vegetarian for about 3 months by the time we got to Manila, and out of all of the places we visited, it was the only place where it was kind of hard for me to find things to eat that didn’t have meat in them, but I didn’t really care because the mangos were sooooo good I was happy to eat them for every meal.

  
  
  

  Manila was very busy, that’s what everyone says but it really is true. It was really interesting to go see it and spend some time there, and parts of it are really beautiful, but when we go back to the Philippines (we will definitely be back!), we will probably just fly straight out to some of the other islands.

  
  

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged jose rizal, manila, Manila Cathedral, philippines, travel

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