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Published: October 5th 2007
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...yes, we'll explain the blog title a little later.
Our ferry ride to the island of Siquijor made approximately 70% of passengers and crew vomit. We played on the knowledge that Filipinos don't really like to sit next to Westerners (on all other journeys we have been avoided like the plague!) and took a bench each to lie down and sleep through the rough ride! Hee hee how awful are we?
Siquijor is a volcanic and lush tropical island surrounded by superstition and intrigue as it is supposedly home to healers/witches with magical powers. Obviously this is bullshit, but we were told that the Filipinos are a very superstitious people and who are we to argue if they think Harry Potter and Sabrina live on the island?! Recently we even saw a Filipino made horror film advertised called 'Siquijor'.
We arrived at Kiwi Dive resort on Sandugan beach, which on first impressions seemed very good value. After all, they gave us a free pick up from Larena port to the resort which was 5km away and gave us a very nice cottage with fan, fridge, hot water and big balcony for 550 pesos (£5.50) a night. However,
as we have found with many of these isolated resorts, not only do you get peace and tranquillity but you get scammed a little on food and transport options as you are pretty much at the mercy of the resort. Our main bug bear was that if you wanted to go and see any of the main sites ie waterfalls, caves, witches etc you have to pay anything from 500-2000 pesos (£5-20) a day to get anywhere. The restaurant at Kiwi wasn't great value either with most meals being of child-size portions and costing on average 180 pesos (which at nearly £2, this is about double what you would usually pay) and the hot water in our room didn't work! However, the Kiwi staff were very friendly and accommodating and this sort of made up for many of it's other faults.
The staff gave us a map of the island which could be used as a guide to its attractions. Now this is where we get our blog title from, the map had useful notes such as 'Waterfall - beware child crimes'. We thought this was a bizarre note so we asked the staff to clarify. Apparently kids hang
around the waterfalls waiting to nick stuff from tourists when they go swimming. The map also said they hide in the trees and were fast like monkeys, therefore the staff said they advise tourists to ride their bikes in only swimwear and nothing else! So Donna wearing only her bikini and Neil wearing some banana hammock Speedos motorcycled through several local villages to the waterfalls...only joking! Despite us wanting to drive around the island in only skimpy swimwear and nothing else, embarrassingly neither of us can drive a manual or semi-automatic bike. We only only do automatics, darlings! The last time we tried to drive a manual, Neil crashed ungracefully into a resto-bar spraying plastic chairs and tables everywhere, scaring the waitresses half to death! We did make it to Siquijor Town (the 'capital') and Larena but unfortunately didn't get to see much else, particularly because the weather was so bad.
So after 3 days days we headed back to Dumaguete to catch a bus to Cebu. Of course this meant another early start (4am - we dont think that the Filipinos believe in lie-ins!) as the ferry left at 6am and of course, Kiwi resort charged a ridiculous
350 pesos (£3.50) for a 15 minute journey to the port (a trike to the port costs 60 pesos). We had no idea of the traumatic journey that we were about to experience...
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californio
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Chuckie is the best choco drink in the world.Enjoyed following your adventures in the homeland.