Nightmare hostels,jellyfish and ziplinging


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Asia » Philippines » Bohol » Panglao
September 22nd 2010
Published: September 22nd 2010
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Apologies for my previous non descriptive entry. theres so much to take in!

The immediate effect is the heat..i dont need many reasons to be able to nap..but this heat plus i suppose end of jet lag is sending me into nap needing all over the place! Im sure its taking its toll on jimi..im just tierd all the time..to add to this,it gets dark here around 5pm which is quite strange,so come about 7 you feel like its deff bed time!

Last night however, we managed to fight the want to sleep after scoffing a 3 course meal for £2.50 and stayed on the beach until the wee hours watching this amazing live band play some classics..radiohead,queen,pearljam etcetc..with perfect accents to go with the songs too..it was geneous! D

Drink here is so so cheap its very tempting,but during the day its so hot all you can manage is water and come the evening you'll have half a san miguel (contrary to popular belief it is infact the local beer of the Philippines and is super cheap at 60p a bottle!! )and feel pissed..so no need to buy any of the cocktails on offer!ha.

After my last post, we met our friend Romanhito on the beach at 5 in the morning to go on our dolphin watching and island hopping tour. he told us his brother would be taking us as he had to collect some geese from a nearby town..or at least thats what i think he said..He told us he has 6 brothers and sisters..when i shared with him i had one younger sister he said 'ha you dont do it Filipino stylee'

We set off on the boat and soon saw the Dolphins..there were about 40 of them, very playfull..2 even came up to our boat! anthony,rhoms brother said that was very lucky, jimi quite rightly said that HE was very lucky to have the job of doing this every morning..and that qualified for a high five ha.

After we'd spent about an hour in awe of the dolphins, who really just wanted to eat their breakfast in peace, we went snorkelling on the coral reef off of Balicasian island. It was incredible..the water was warm..warmer than being in a bath and we soon turned into prunes!
Even just putting our masks under the surface of the water there were hundreds of fish right in front of your face! our guide who swam with us swam deeper to get some sort of welk thing and passed it to me, little did i know this would attract every fish i could see to my unsuspecting hand and the food was soon demolished! We explored underwater for a good hour..unfortunatley there were a few small jellyfish hanging about on the surface of the water which we got stung by a few times..thankfully they werent poisonus and we didnt end up like Dory and nemos dad..

We finished snorkelling and were whisked off to our next island..the Virgin Island.. which had a huge sandbar leading up to it. it was like something you see in travel magazines, it was so so beautiful and the island was so small you could walk around it!

They have a strange tradition here that would be thought of really weird back at home, we were on this desert island and when walking back to our boat a couple asked for a picture, cool i thought,thats normal ill take a photo for them..but no, they wanted a photo of each of them WITH US as a 'suvenier' of the island :s even thought theyd never met us before ha. we said hello and goodbye, then the next night, we saw them whilst eating dinner! so we shared a drink ha.

When we got back to Bohol we sat and had the biggest tastiest lunch ever.

It seems jimi and i bring much amusement to the local college students, and everytime we were on the beach,we'd get approached with a peice of paper and asked to read from it and they would record us talking.this amused us too though..and we'd put on accents every now and then.

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22nd September

Yesturday we decided to move on from Bohol. we want to go to some more islands,and to do that we have to go to a city,Cebu 😞
we had the last tour of Bohol, with a guy we met from the night with the band, his name is Tata and he gave us a very good price to drive us roudn the whole island and to take us to the seaport to catch our boat.
He was an absolute ledgend. hes 24 and had a well amusing taste of music from greenday to mettallica and maria Carie. We got talking about religion and wealth and how poor the Philippines is. He couldnt believe we got free education and healthcare back home..something he said he could only dream of. He said that his only dream was to touch snow,and that even if he worked his whole life he'd never be able to afford to leave his island let alone the country, as he couldnt even afford a passport. this made us really sad, he was so nice 😞 just reminded us how lucky we are to have this amazing experience, yeah we've worked solidly for the past year but with promise that we knbow we'll be going somewhere..not just to be able to survive.

He took us aroudn the island and to the famous spots, the islands oldest church and some statues..
Its ver yunusual here for people of our age not to be married, or for men and women to just be friend so im often reffered to as jimis wife ha.

He then took us to an 'adventure park' where jimi and i horizontally ziplined between 2 mountains and over loboc river. it was the most amazing experience, i felt like a bird ha.
We saw the worlds smallest monkies and to the 'chocolate hills' which is the islands natural wonder..really incredible..jsut hundred and hundreds of pointy little mounds as far as the eye could see,,,no chocolate to be found though!:*(

We got to the seaport in time and turns out we got the ryan air boat version :P 1 hour late and we were worried our luggage wasnt even on the boat. but it was a nice experience, about 2 hours boat journey to Cebu and we got to watch the sunset from the top of the boat.
We arrived in Cebu and it was dark, we just got a taxi to where we are staying..reccomended by lonely planet which we had bookedo nline the night before. Got there and they didnt have our booking. Very annoyed. they gave us the room we'ds booked anyway but its an absolute hole and we are very sad 😞 mould on the ceiling and looks like its about to cave in,bathroom looks like a scene straight out of saw and our aircon thatwe paid extra for just pushes out hot air 😞 when we got up to ask for a fan in the middle of the night they just looked at us and when we asked for a discount as what we brought wasnt working they said' no,no discount' so we are currently sitting in a very plush mall in an internet cafe trying to find somewhere else to stay that doesnt feel like we're in a horror movie for the night..before we hopefully move onto some islands tipped as 'the next boracay'.

Have to try and find a hospital too, as apprently buying malaria tablets from the pharmacy is impossible as its a restricted drug and you have to go to the hospital..shouldve brought some before i left home *sighs*
There is a plus side though! ive brought a hairbrush! 6 days without a hairbrush..not a good look!

Well thats it for now,from this currently smoggy paradise until we find another island and beach to chill on its bye from me! Hopefully get some photos and videos up asap so my blog isnt too tedious!

love to everyone at home xxx

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22nd September 2010

Hello Abi! I'm sorry for the late comment just wanted to say I'm so glad u both got their safely and having sucha good time! I love Reading ur latest blogs and finding out what exciting things your getting up to making me very jelous! Hehe how's the tan going? ;-) have u got ur factor 50 out!? Lol can't wait to hear from u again enjoy your day lots of love xxx
25th September 2010

:)
your having so much fun :) were all jealous :D love you lots

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