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Published: October 19th 2008
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The Philippines - Manila to Apo Island - SEPT. 19 to OCT. 2, 2008
The Philippines -about 90 million people living on 7000 islands, voted the happiest people on our planet in a 2005 global survey (reference -The Lonely Planet -who else?!). 90% are Christian, mostly Roman Catholic, and 5% are Muslim. As we travel around the country we have seen a distressing number of signs of varied Christian sects including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and Baptists.
On the flight here, we also read in the Philippines Star Newspaper that the Philippines is the Capital of Text Messaging! And we have certainly witnessed this everywhere here where people walk along texting while not even looking up! And for our selves, we have never texted a message in our life! When we tell Filipinos this (and maybe when we tell you!) they are shocked!
We landed in MANILA from Hong Kong on September 19th and saw only a few blocks of this busy bustling capital city of 11 million as we flew the next day to Cebu City.
CEBU CITY has over 2 million people and Cebu Island itself is the most densely populated in the Philippines. We flew
in to the airport on Mactan Island and explored here later visiting the Allegre Guitar factory, the countryside and the beaches. Cebu City itself we found noisy and dirty and busy. The downtown was depressing to walk about - many children begging, darting in and out of traffic to do so -scary! - people living on the streets, vendors set up everywhere selling everything you can imagine.
The highlight in Cebu was connecting with our friend Cristine who we met on our GAP Galapagos trip and who is originally from Cebu. We had fun together and explored the Uptown life of Cebu and saw the very modern fancy hotels and shopping malls and the casino - no we did not play. Thank you Cristine for timing your visit here with ours! Hope we connect again soon!
What we really wanted to do was get away from cities and snorkel so we headed first to MOALBOAL (“mo-all-bo-all”) and a bumpy ride just outside of the town to Panagsama Beach and Love’s Lodge. Panagsama is a funky little resort town - very quiet with very few tourists in sight (September is low season). We stayed at the very end of
Panagsama Beach and after the first night we were the only guests! We had some good snorkelling here in House Reef right off shore from Love’s Lodge and then by boat to Looc Reef.
We then had an adventure getting to DAUIN on Negros Oriental Island. First a tricycle drive into Moalboal then the local bus which stops and starts to let people on and off here and there…then another bus to Liloan where we were dropped off on the highway. The bus conductor (there is always a driver then also the conductor who collects ticket money and makes sure people get on and off where they should - very intelligent system!) lined up a tricycle that took us down the short bumpy road to the “Fast Craft” ferry -with people telling us to hurry with our bags as the ferry was waiting for us! Who knew?! Quickly got our tickets and rushed on to the ferry boat before it pulled away and headed across the seas to Negros Oriental and the small town of Sibolan where a driver and van waited to take us to the very beautiful Pura Vida Dive resort near Dauin.
Pura Vida was
delightful luxury but really was all about diving and we are snorkelers…did have a bit of good snorkelling just off the beach but headed the next day to Antulang Resort, owned by a friend of Cristine’s and also on Negros. The location was fantastic and there was some good snorkeling here and we had a wonderful morning with Rolly, one of the resort staff, who took us to meet his lovely family and to serve us with fresh coconut for breakfast! He and his brother in law also gave us an interesting boat ride in their very little boat through beautiful Tambobo Bay, filled with yachts owned by foreigners (including some Canadians) and local fishing boats. There was only one other couple staying at Antulang and they were honeymooners so we hardly saw them; it felt a bit weird plus we needed more snorkelling so we decided to head to Apo Island.
APO ISLAND -absolutely glorious bliss! Thank you to Sherry, the Peace Corps Volunteer who we met by chance at a funky café in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and who said we MUST go to Apo. We headed to Malatapay and took a “pumpboat” across to Apo. It is
a small island, just a dot on the map off the south tip of Negros Oriental, in the Mindanao Strait. A population of 1000 people with an elementary school, a high school and a health centre run by a midwife. And gorgeous white sand beaches, rugged volcanic rocks and a pristine marine sanctuary where we spent hours snorkeling our little eyeballs out! A 10-10-10 on Al’s 10 point scale of water clarity/ fishes/ corals! A magical underwater garden of beautiful colours and we actually saw CITIES of clown fish -finding Nemo everywhere!!! Apo Island truly was a blissful spot to stay and 2 nights was definitely not long enough. The villagers were wonderful and welcoming and friendly and the staff of the resort and also next door at Liberty’s Resort was great. Apo only has electric power from 6 pm to 11 pm for the 2 resorts and only 6 pm to 9 pm for the village itself. And no internet anywhere and no vehicles except bicycles. Each day a man refilled our saltwater bucket for flushing the toilet and delivered fresh water from Negors for our shower water -a bucket system. A new lifestyle.
It was truly a
privilege to see the Apo Island Marine Reserve and Fish Sanctuary. There is a partnership between the community and the Silliman University in Dumaguete to keep this area protected and because of their success we can explore the underwater beauty. Apo is a true jewel on this planet of ours.
Next stop - the Island of Palawan for more wonderful marine experiences!
Take care all!
Love Al and Robin
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ScobieDobie
Allan Dobie and Robin Scobie
hugs to you Christoph and Julia
Hey you 2! Great to hear from you and we are sooooooooo sorry you are sick but trust that you will both be all better soon and you are in China And have more amazing advenures ahead of you! Our nephew just came back from an amazing trip in Nepal and alas he came back home with Malaria. So keep taking those little pills and take care. All is going to be wonderful for you 2. We shall keep checking your blog! Love from Al and me Robin