Blogs from Panglao, Bohol, Philippines, Asia - page 6

Alex and I got on the scooters and tried to ride them down the hill to the beach. It was his first time, so it was pretty interesting. he he. We both did the standard, walk the scooter with your feet on first gear- the telltale sign of a newbie. Some locals gestured to us to put up the kickstand (i forgot. ha ha) We met up with the others beside the Alona Kew, where the path to Alona Beach starts and where all scooters are parked. Melt and Agnes were off at one of the dive shops to compare prices and to look for goggles. He checked prices in another place and was surprised that they charged more than at the Bohol Beach Club. My first impression at the start of our walk on Alona ... read more

We arrived at the Tagbilaran docks where we waited in the shade for Christy's cousin. Christy's aunts and uncles were also with us, since they were returning from our wedding. We waited in the shade for roughly 15 minutes, which looked bad on him, because he was running late. Christy's tita kept apologizing, while she texted the cousin. I was burning in the heat and wanted to just grab a cab, but to save face I waited. The cousin finally arrived and we dropped off all of Christy's relatives at the bus terminal before we headed to the mall for some purchases. My brother, Meltom, had called us to get lots of water and some Korean or Japanese sweet tea the girls had discovered in CDO City. The tea ended up being a favorite of everyone, ... read more

Next stop on our tour of the Philippines was Alona Beach on the island of Panglao. After (another) ferry and a minibus, we ended up at this resort which unfortunately was mostly populated by large European men accompanied by small Filipino girls and wearing even smaller speedos (budgie smugglers for the antipodean readers!). This area seems to be popular with German and Swiss travelers which is great for us when we are looking for deli’s and bakeries. We spent our first evening trailing around in the stinking heat trying to find a place to stay that hadn’t raised its prices to extortionate rates. Being the organized kind of travelers, we had rung in advance a place called Bananaland in advance which had cottages with ensuite kitchens - a kitchen was top of our list because ... read more

Note that this blog is a lengthy one as we have done one big blog to cover the whole of our time in the Philippines! Our transit time in Singapore was 8 hours, this was because we were too cheap to pay for a room in Singapore for this little time! So we slept on the seats of Singapore's budget terminal, with bright flourescent lights and piped plinky-plink music versions of popular songs. Wandering around airport terminals late at night and taking a wrong turn past offices which had 'Navigational Control Centre' posted on them was probably not the best idea! Hours past (which seemed like days) but soon we were on our way to the Philippines (PI). The first observation we made about the PI was the jeepneys (a jeepney, as defined by Lonely Planet, ... read more

Here are some photos from the last few weeks. I'll add some more details about our adventures later!... read more