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Published: August 22nd 2011
Coconut
Laura climbing the coconut tree!Dear Blog Readers,
Welcome to our eighth and final part of the Philippine Blogs! You can read the other parts by clicking the links below:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Our final day on Siargao was a relaxing affair. We wanted to go to the Sohoton Caves but we needed at least 6 of us to go and there wasn’t enough interest. We did some souvenir shopping at Patrick’s On the Beach and got some lunch. This time we settled for a curry. The owners of the cafe where we bought the huge statue gave us a lift back to the Boardwalk. We saw in the evening with a light dinner at Hotel 101. Laura’s favourite cocktail, The Zombie, was ordered twice so I was carrying her home. I knew she was drunk because I told her that I’d never hiccupped before in my life and she completely believed me.
Luckily the weather had held out for us. The rain was only spitting by the time we arrived back at Siargao Airport. The check-in desk was just that. A desk. A police woman looked at our passports and waved us through the gates. There
Check-In Desk
Just one desk under a tent. was a second desk where some police looked through our bags. No X-ray needed here. In fact, the police men and women spent more time taking photos of themselves with foreigners than searching the bags. The departure lounge was a row of plastic chairs in a little hut. There was no need for an announcement about the incoming plane as we could hear it coming a mile away and it landed right in front of us!
An hour later we were in Cebu Airport. The taxi took us through the decrepit downtown area and into the more up-market uptown area. It was like two completely different cities in the same city. Our hotel was small and damp but it had a bed at least. We nipped out to the shops to get some t-shirts and food before getting back. Horror struck us with a humongous cockroach in the bathroom. We spent about ten minutes discussing how to get rid of it. I was wishing I’d watched the episode of Bear Gryll’s Worst Case Scenarios where he deals with this sort of catastrophe. We executed our SAS style plan perfectly and the cockroach was soon drowning down the toilet. The
Alodia Gosiengfiao
Me with Alodia Gosiengfiao (she's famous for dressing up as cartoon characters). I had no idea who she was at the time! air conditioner wasn’t much better. It felt like a man with chronic asthma was breathing onto us so we roasted off to sleep.
As soon as we left the hotel in the morning we were hassled more or less constantly. It was an unwelcome change from what we’d experienced in Siargao. I even got offered some Viagra! When we got to the airport we had our passports and visas checked over for a worryingly long time before eventually being allowed through. There was a bit of a commotion going on because a young woman was having lots of photos taken of her. I decided to get a photo with this ‘celebrity’ to add to my Tae Jin Ah collection. Unfortunately, I have no idea who she is. I’ve shown it to my students and co-workers and nobody recognises her. Embarrassingly, I have to ask that if anybody recognises who she is then let me know!
Our flight to Manila was great. Mid-way through, the cabin crew announced they were doing a quiz. The first hand up will get a prize. It went like this:
Woman: Ok, what is the currency in England?
Me: *Hand shoots up in
Cushion
Winner of a luxury cushion. the air (even some of my students could answer this one!)
Woman: *Points at me (!!!)
Laura: *whispers* “It’s the Pound.” (I’m offended she didn’t think I would know the answer.)
Me: It’s the Pound.
Woman: *Hands me a bright orange inflatable neck cushion.
Result! We had a long wait for our flight in Manila as it was at 1:30am. Luckily my neck cushion came into good use as I got some sleep on the seats. We were woken by the boarding call announcement. It was funny because the flight was predominantly Koreans but Cebu Pacific are a Philippine company where the main language is English, not Korean. Consequently, all of the foreigners got up and made their way to the plane as the hundred or so Koreans sat patiently waiting for the Korean translation of the boarding announcement that was never going to come.
After we’d all got seated on the plane, about 15 minutes later, an announcement that the air conditioning had stopped working so we all had to get back off the plane and wait for two hours! We were compensated at 3am with a free pot noodle. Our flight back to Incheon finally came
No Spitting
Why isn't this sign used in Korea? and went without a hitch and by 3pm we were back in beautiful Boeun!
Tink and Laura
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Lucia
non-member comment
Very impressed by this tree climbing lark! Also, fantastic rear view shot....more of these please! : P