Blogs from Donsol, Philippines, Asia

Wednesday January 29 Flight 1 Day 1 traveling from China to The Phillippines I woke up at 6:30 am to get ready for my very long, but exciting traveling day. The previous night I was so excited I drank a late evening latte and stayed awake for quite awhile. I ended up falling asleep at around 3 AM so by the time it was time to wake up I was pretty sleepy. I got dressed, had my last cup of coffee with milk and double checked that I had everything and left for the Quing Guai ride to Jin Jia jie and then a taxi to the Dalian airport. (I should have triple checked because I ended up forgetting my athletic sandals ahhhh!) The train ride and airport wait was smooth and pretty normal . I ... read more

Z bambusoveho domceka som sa vytratil 6/15. Vsetci este spali. Este ma napadlo skontrolovat maily,zla sprava,let do manily mi posunuli o 50 minut dozadu. Tiez to dali dost skoro vediet,keby mi to poslali este vcera,spal by som dlhsie ale takto sa mi tu uz nechcelo cakat tak som sa vybral na letisko. Po prejdeny polnej cesty som mal stastie,na asfaltke akurat stal tryciklista a naberal filipincov,pridal som do kroku,trocha sa pomackal a sup ho k aa hotelu. Tu som mal v plane hrncove ranajky,ale este nic nefungovalo,tak som skoncil len pri kolacikoch. Kedze som mal kopu casu,siel som na letisko pesibusom s tym,ze hadam po ceste bude dake jedlo. 5 km cesta presla v pohode,bohuzial ziadne jedlo,tak som aspon v supermarkete kupil vodu a corneto na osviezenie. Na mini letisku kalsika,najskor jedna kontorla pred vstupom,potom check ... read more

Goodbye Malaysia (at least for now, no worries Yean Yean, KL is still on our "need to revisit" list) and hello Philippines. Arriving to Clark airport we had to take a 2 hour bus, to get us to our first destination in the Philippines - Manila. As we were leaving the suburbs and getting closer to the city itself, I thought to myself "great, a couple of more minutes, and I will be enjoyin my well deserved shower, put my feet up, get some food..." Yeah sure, Manila is big people, BIG. The population in the capital of Philippines is 16 million and according to wiki it's the most densely populated city in the world! So, instead of arriving shortly to our destination, it started to look like we were never going to get to our ... read more

Dave and I are actually getting quite good at this traveling around business, it's a shame it's right at the end of our trip! After a short flight from Cebu to Legazpi, we managed to navigate our way to the local bus terminal by thriftily sharing a tricycle with another traveler. As with most places in Asia, there is no real timetable, buses just leave when they're full... Usually very full! We therefore squeezed us and our backpacks onto a (supposedly) aircon mini bus for the one hour drive to Donsol. Our hotel provided an airport transfer for 2000PP (£28), but we managed to do it for 170PP (£2.50) for both of us. It was sweaty, it was erratic, but it was a bargain! Paul would be proud. Our home for the next three nights is ... read more

It was time to leave Manila to head east to the small town of Donsol. Since booking the Philippines we’d heard amazing reviews about Donsol and how it’s the only place where you can swim with whale sharks. So we thought why not?!! Donsol is basically a small rural coastal town that survives mainly on tourists coming to experience the ‘experience of a lifetime’ swimming with the huge elephants of the sea! We both kept this pretty tight-lipped from our families back home just to save any unnecessary worrying!! So here’s how it works… we registered with the tourist company the day before and during this time we were shown a 10 minute observation video to prepare us for our 3 hours interaction – the do’s and don’t!! The do’s – listen and follow your instructors ... read more