Blogs from Negros, Philippines, Asia

Day 1: To be honest I thought the APO Island Tour package was too pricey. We basically paid 2200/each for a 45ish minutes boat ride and for the snorkelling gears. We had to pay for our lunch ourselves too. There's really not much of competition around since there were no commuter boats, one would have to hire a private boat anyhow. Now on the brighter side...it felt totally amazing swimming with huge sea turtles in the open sea! They were feeding on dead corals (algae) and seaweeds and seemed pretty used to swimming along with people. They won't budge unless you invade their space. I wasn't expecting they'd really be huge and plenty. We saw groups of them, it was a great snorkel experience. Just a shame some of the tourists kept holding them, the guides ... read more

Getting to Negros from Bantayan is for the well-travelled. People gather at the ferry station in Bantayan town (where there are, so to speak, no tourists), and depending on the day, the ferry may go to one of two ports on Negros. This means you may or may not have to take an 8-hour bus to Bacolod instead of a 4-hour one. Also everyone gets there early, adding to the excitement, even though the boat has no chance of leaving before the tide is high enough (about 2-3 hours into the wait). All of this is not as arbitrary as it sounds, but while in the planning stages it seemed apparent that getting from Bantayan all the way to Sipalay in one day was out of the question. And we were indeed glad we hadn't tried. ... read more

We opted for Harold’s again on our return to Dumaguete and instantly fell in love with the huge air con room we were allocated (P800). It was a real treat to have wardrobes, a massive window and air con for less than we were paying in Siquijor.. ok it didn’t have the beach views but we were still happy! It’s the little things that matter! First on the list was trying to find someone to help with Dale’s camera. We didn’t really want to take it to a random electronic repair place so headed over to Robinson’s Mall in the hope that someone in a shiny shop might be our saviour, and they were! We were checking out prices in the first place we came to - we didn’t want to fork out for a new ... read more

KM 170 It had been three years since I had been on a bike tour, so I was raring to go on my first official riding day (I had put in 25 kms yesterday). I bolted out of the gates at 5:30 and I had great start with the first 20 kms being four lanes. After another 30, the traffic died down noticeably and by kilometre 75 it was dead quiet. The other nice thing was that the roads were all nicely sealed even though they didn't have a shoulder. But then again, vehicles were not passing by at 100 km/hr. One of those random moments I had was next. As I rode past an elementary school at about 8:00, I could hear the song Let's Get Physical by Olivia Newton John blaring out. At the ... read more

Samstag, 24. März 2012 Nach einer nicht sehr erholsamen Nacht wurden wir um 07:30 überflüssigerweise vom Wecker ermahnt, aufzustehen. Um 08:00 wurden wir von Jimmy Boyd abgeholt. Jimmy ist nebst den zahlreichen Bordellen in Angeles so ziemlich alles, was von der 1991 aufgegebenen Basis der US Air Force in Clark noch übrig geblieben ist. Er ist ehemaliger Starfighter-Pilot und durch und durch Amerikaner. Wir schätzten ihn auf ca. achtzig Lenzen, er war aber immer noch rüstig und mit einem imposanten Schnauzer ausgestattet. Mit seinem schwarzen Willys-Jeep fuhr er uns uns und unser Gepäck in gemächlichem Tempo zur Airbase, wo er letzteres durch ein simples „Howdy; got some bags back there!“ problemlos an der Security vorbei brachte. Beim Hangar angekommen, zog er seine Flugzeug trotz seines Alters problemlos von Hand aus dem Hangar. Die Ryan Navionair ist ... read more