a day with no electricity..

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We have moved on from smoggy,expensive Cebu and are currently in Batayan. Its an island all the locals told us to go to, and so, without much more information other than 'its beautiful' and quick internet search for how to get there, we followed their advice..
I managed to blag us a free ride to the bus terminal in Cebu so we could get a £1.80 aircon coach to Hagnaya port so we could then get on a boat to Bantayan.

This coach journey was 3 hours long..and for cheaper than a single to eastbourne town centre I'd say that was just a bit of a bargain! We had to put up with a driver who, to say was 'over zealous' on the horn would be an understatement..he would hoot every few seconds, at nothing in particular..after the 2nd hour i actually stood up to see what the commotion was about..apparently an empty road is cause for a hoot or two! the journey was ok, but required a sports bra with the amount of bumps in the road.

When we got to hagnaya we were just in time for the depature of the shuttle boat that goes between the islands. Again, i managed to wangle us both a student ticket which was half the price of a regular fare (im getting good at this bargaining stuff) but even the full price fare was dirt cheap.



so,we have successfully navigated our way through airports,seaports and bus terminals..all we have left to concour is trains and trying to not get ripped off by the tuktuk drivers.

We arrived in Bantayan, apparently tipped to be the next Boracay,to a rather hectic and testing welcome, around 10 very persistent men relentlessly trying to sell me ME a place to stay,tours and a way to get there. literally as we stepped off the boat. After a million 'no thankyous' with a smile, it soon got old as they werent having any of it. Jimi just turned and said 'NO NO NO NO NO' continuously which still didnt get the message across. to get away from them we got onto the back of a bike and sidecar and insturcted him towards a place we'd seen on the internet...the persistent men jumped on ASWELL (i dont know how,with all our bags there was barely room for us!) and continued their touting. the driver ripped us off massively but we didnt care to be away from them.

LUckily the place had room and we were welcomed with the familiar Filipino smile and shown to our cottage, the cheapest and cleanest of all the places we have stayed so far, so we're very pleased with ourselves.

The island is very quite, the beaches still white and beautiful but not many tourists atal, so us white people are still very much a novelty. We will walk down the road and the stares are ridiculously unsubtle, but we just smile and wave and it is recpreicated. the children are the funniest, they will run along side us saying 'hello,how are you?what is your name my name is__ how old are you?' school rehtoric that they then run off laughing embarrassingly about, esp if we reply.

We havent met any back packers yet, it seems that the Philippines is still very new on the backpackers list of places to go. which is fine by me. its nice to have paradise to yourselves. There isnt a shortage of german and french men however. the majority of the bars and diving schools in the philippines we've visited so far have been owned by them.

Im glad we chose to come to the Philippines first. it seems like a nice transition for first time travellers to SEA. infact,in fairness you wouldnt know you were in the east atall. Its a catholic country, so there are churches all over the place and people are fairly conservative, there arent as many culture barriers as there are in other SEA countries like Thailand, simply because of religion. everyone speaks english here too, even if not very well its enough to get by and therefore we dont feel completely isolated, we have learnt some essential Filipino though, for courtesy.
The cuisine is also heavily influenced by the west, everywhere does pizza,spaghetti and lasange..plus they do it so well! ha. so again,its not a massive shock to have nothing on the menu that you recognize. we have indulged in a few local dishes, non of which dissapointed..def going to have to bring home some recipes!



It seems that the casper look is also highly sought after. We brought some showergel from the shop the other day,all of the bottles exclaim 'contains whitening enhancers! garenteed to make skin look whiter in 7 days' this was soon put into practice when going on the beach recently in some shorts (not even short shorts id like to add, just over the knee shorts) and some women telling me i was 'so beautiful'. its such a strange thing, that western girls seek to get more and more tanned, in essence ,to look more like eastern girls who are doing the opposite by trying to get whiter.

We are thinking of staying here for more than a couple of days just to chill and not worry about where our next place will be. we are slightly restricted to where we can immediately move onto because i didnt buy malaria tablets before i came here. stupid i know, but my nurse told me there was no point as where we were headed first wasnt a malarial zzone, fair enough, ill buy them out there i thought, nice and cheap and easy to get hold of. not so. when in Cebu, we went into several pharmacies who told us we'd have to go to the hospital. we went to the hospital to find that the clinic is a first come first served basis and the dr wasnt in until 2, and out bus left at 10.30 am. so we figured although we desperately want to go to the clean and mysterious Palawan..getting the tablets to do it is proving rather complicated. im kicking myself for not getting some before i came just as a back up, but i was assured by everyone it would be so easy to get hold of anti malarials out here. sigh.

The best way to get around this island is by tricycle. a man on a bike rides you around at his own pace while you sit under a canopy shaded side car. (even though to quote Garden State,'side cars are for bitches') its the nicest transport ive experienced yet, plus its uber cheap..cant go wrong!

Today we've had no electricity, from 4am until 5pm the whole islands power is cut off. we were under the impression this was a weekly event but when talking to a guy at the bar today he said its simply because they are having problems with the electrics haha. Unfortunately for us, this meant no air con, or fan,and apparently it cut off the water supply too so we couldnt even have a shower to cool ourselves down.
We did what the locals did though and got up early to have breakfast and potter before the heat of the day, then nap for a couple of hours and the peak and later decend to the beach for a cooling dip. what a wicked way to lead your day!

We intend to get some bikes tomorrow so we can explore the island more..and find a bank or atm to sort out our moneyings.

Hope everyone is doing well at home! love to you all.




xxx

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