Famous in the Philippines!

We arrived in the Philippines on May 18th and have spent the past 3 weeks island hoping around the Visaya's.

We had heard a few bad stories about the Philippines before we came - terrible infrastructure, unreliable transport, dodgy planes, boats that sink, constant hassle from people trying to sell you stuff and rip you off and the really bad stuff like muggings, kidnappings, bombs.... But my experience here has only been positive and aside from a few minor points I don't have a bad word to say about the place. Everyone is extremely polite, shop doors are opened for us by security guards and we are constantly greeted with "good morning Sir, good morning Mame". The Philippines is actually the worlds3rd largest English speaking country after the US and UK, beating countries like Australia because of its population size - 78 million. As such it is an extremely easy place to travel around.

But of course you cant be lax or blase about safety etc, a point which was hammered home to us on our 1st night in Manila by a Spanish guy who had been living in the country for years. He told us about a young Japanese guy they found in the road in Malate (the budget accommodation area in Manila) beaten and unconscious. The owner of one of the guest houses brought him in and put him in a bed. After 4 days he woke up. The first thing he said was "where is my girlfriend?". It tuned out that the couple had gotten into a 'taxi' at the airport, the driver had told them he would take them somewhere nice, driven them out somewhere .... he didn't remember anything more. What became of the girlfriend the Spanish guy didn't know, the Japanese guy took off for the Japanese embassy to get help. Then there was the story about the western guy (living in Manila) that was found dead in the road. Apparently this wasn't such a bad thing though and all of the other westerns that live there drank champagne when they found out! We were obviously a bit shitted up by these stories but we were assured that we were in the 'green zone' of Manila and that as long as we didn't stray out no harm would come of us. The green zone turned out to span 2 blocks north, 5 blocks south and a couple east and west of where we were staying! Ive probably just pained a pretty bad picture of manila and to be honest I'm sure in all reality it isn't 'that' bad, i mean nasty stuff happens everywhere and the guy we were talking to was a complete nutcase! But it certainly put the willies up us on our first night!

The next morning we got up early and went straight to the travel agents where we booked a same day flight out of Manila. The Philippines is actually made up of over 7000 islands so it want easy to decide where to go! In the end we opted for Cebu which is right in the middle of the Visaya's and would give us plenty of options for island hoping.

PANGLAO ISLAND
We spent one night in Cebu city and then jumped on a boat for Tagbilaran which is the port of Bohol island (nicknamed Bum Hole island by us). From there it is a short drive over a bridge to Panglao which is a lovely little island with while sand beaches. We were going to head straight for Alona Beach, the most developed of the beaches but our taxi driver talked us into going to Dumaluan beach, and we're glad he did! Dumaluan has one very expensive resort (40GBP a night up), one slightly expensive resort and one cheap one in the back. We spent 3 nights in the cheap one (followed by 2 at Alona where there is more in the way of bars etc) and took a few liberties and invited ourselves into the v. expensive during the day time! The beach is just like something out of a Bounty advert! A tropical paradise!

On the beach front next to our accommodation was a picnic and BBQ area frequented by Filipino families. And when I say families I mean big extended families! Everyday about 15 families of about 20 would arrive and spend the whole day eating and playing in the sea. Me and Dan were the only white people there and were quite a novelty! Everybody wanted to say hello to us (and erupt in fits of giggles when we said something back!), take our pictures, invite us for something to eat or drink! One boy that worked in the food hut even asked me for my autograph! When I laughed and said that I wasn't famous he said "it doesn't matter, you are famous here"!

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