Blogs from Legaspi, Philippines, Asia

It was brutal, but I finally got there. Traversing almost the entire length of Luzon, from the northwest to the southeast, it took two legs of lengthy bus rides, first 11h from Vigan to Manila for a quick overnighter, then another 12h before I finally arrived in Legazpi, in the dead of the night at 4 a.m. Where possible I normally try not to arrive at a new city at such unearthly hours, as it makes for challenging guest-house hunting. But the bus schedule was as such, and the last time I remember arriving in a new city at such hours (Mandalay in Myanmar, back in July last year), it took only two tries before I found one with a vacancy, so I thought surely it couldn't be so difficult this time. How wrong I was. ... read more

Budicek pdola planu.Kupenie kolacikov na ranajky a odchytenie tryciklu na ulici. Bohuzial o 6/10 len jeden na ulici,tak dvojnasobna cena k tur.centru za 40p,peso sa mi slapat nechcelo. Centrum este zavrete,tak som z terasy pozoroval more.Slniecko postupne vychadzalo,vyzeralo to na pekny den. Pri tur.centre prenajimaju plutvy a komplet snorchel supravu za 400p. Tu nepoziciavat,treba ist kusok ku terase a tam po lavej strane je dalsi prenajimatel,ten to dava za 300p, po zjedanani za 200p. Nakonec som zobral len okuliare a snorchel za 100p. Pri cakani som tu stretol kanadana co chcel na letisku so mnou share taxi a neskor aj kanadanov zo sabangu. V centre som vyplnil registraciu,bolo tam treba vypisat aj meno cloveka,ktoreho maju kontaktovat keby sa daco stalo. Registracia/vstup na more stoji 330p a plati 5 dni. Za pomoci pracovnicok centra sme vytvorili 5 ... read more

Woohhhhooo - Whale Sharks After leaving Palawan, we flew back into Manila and spent an afternoon of Westernisation (I know, sad...but we were only really after the air-con!). We headed to the Mall of Asia and went to the movies! Saw some stupid American comedy - stupid, but chilled out for a few hours. Ashamed to admit it, but we then ate McDonalds! Our overnight bus journey departed at 7pm, so we headed to the bus station and the bus left right on the dot. They showed a movie on board (Bedtime Stories, way better than the one we saw at the cinema!) and then we popped one of the 'little yellow pills' and tried to sleep. I managed to get quite a bit. We arrived in Legaspi - and were both dead. Even though we ... read more

So Foggy, Eddie and I headed to a small, unfrequented (and unexpecting) town in the region of Bicol called Legaspi with the main aim of spotting some whale sharks in the region. Day 1 we arrive there (don't ask me the day or date!), get picked up and find a hotel. The landing passed over this active volcano, but more about that later. Hotel was the only place in town with it's own pool so we were pretty happy with that! Think the name was Vista del Mayon if anyone is interested. It has a view of Mount Mayon (the volcano) out the back and at night you can really see the orange glow from the crater at the top. We went and had something to eat and then set off to do some Zip-Lining up ... read more

UP AGAIN! We had arranged for guidance up Mt. Mayon volcano and transportation back and forth for P600 each for 5 people. This didn't include food, so we went grocery shopping before we went to bed the night before. We slept a bit but had to wake up at 4:30AM and out the door at 5:00AM. We started the trail at the end of the local golf course as the sun was rising in the distance. It seemed that we were starting pretty far way from the volcano, unlike with Mt. Merapi in Java where we started right at the base. It was a long hike to camp 1 where were able to fill our water bottles in a flowing freshwater stream. All of us were pretty sweaty and tired already, but there was a lot ... read more