Butanding!!

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Donsol claims to be the Whale Shark capital of the world and certainly lives up to its tag line!
We left Manila on the 9pm airconditioned, reclining seats bus that is due to arrive in Legaspi @ 7am, then we climbed into a aircon minivan for the 1 and a half hour trip to Donsol. We arrived in this small fishing village pretty exhausted. the suggested place to stay was far too overpriced so we walked, fully loaded, for about half an hour and found a bamboo hut instead.

Donsol is in the shadow of a live and perfectly cone shaped volcano complete with smoke emmitting from the crater. it is known to be one of the most active in the world. we had 5 small earthquakes while we were there but our bamboo hut stood up to them!!! thankfully no eruptions as i dont think our hut would have taken them.

The next day we were up at 6am( even after the previous days 10 hour bus journey!!) for Whale Shark day and we were put into a group of 7 per boat with our BIO (Butanding Information Officer) Bobby. They truely are the giants of the sea and we were less then a metre away from them!!! A few came a bit too close and I had to get out the way at the last minute with great difficulty. The big ones are over 10m long and about 3 -4 metres across at the head with a mouth the same size. They are much bigger then great white sharks but are gentle, toothless plankton eaters.

A truely amazing experience. Our pics are on a stills camera so will have to wait untill we are back to show them.

we saved some money on the way back by avoiding opting for the bus again. However, we ended up taking a 'local locals' bus instead which was incedibly cheap but had no aircon ( big open windows though), cramped seats and took close to 16hours to complete the journey. people were smoking on the bus, there was a guy with his fighting bird in a cardboard box ( a common phillipino sight) and the driver never once shut the doors. this is so when the bus slows down hoards of peanut sellers can jump on and shout 'Pilay(peanuts)'' for sale even though no-one wants or buys them. Also the bus can pick more people up, like the 80 bus but a 16 hour not 16minute journey. we arrived in manila at 3.30 am after setting off at 1 pm and then had to find a cab and find a hotel. thankfully the last two bits were a lot easier then expected and we treated ourselves the next day to some good food and we stayed in a $5 a night more expensive hotel room ( it makes a lot of difference believe me).

another update on the way soon

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