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Published: September 14th 2006
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Backpacking
Liz sporting new designer haircut thanks to Tom and his swiss army pen knife Hello everyone!
So glad that we changed our minds and made some time to visit Manila, we arrived this afternoon on the bus and it's a wicked place. We are staying in the area called Malate which is meant to be one of the nicer areas around the university and it defiantly isn't as intimidating as we would have thought. We have just returned from a quick window shop around the HUGE air conditioned shopping centre which is another world compared to the rest of the places we have visited in the phils.
Since we wrote last we travelled from Borocay to a town called Calapan where we spent a rather uneventful evening at the hotel eating what tasted like tinned mushroom soup and frozen peas and sweetcorn (we ordered from the 'executive' menu). After dinner we spent some time singing along to the Karaoke Chanel, including a rather special 'Islands in the Stream' duet (ala Dolly Parton and Kenny Rodgers). Bright and early the next morn we headed to (another) White Beach near the town of Peuto Galera. We planned to spend our first night here in a little place called Sabang which is famed as
a scuba diving base, but it also turns out to be one of the major red light destinations in the Philippines so it was pretty horrible. When we arrived we walked along the beach (although a man did offer to take us the equivalent of a 5 minute walk in his boat for 500 php, which would have been daylight robbery) and were immediately accosted by a random guy who asked us loads of questions about where we wanted to stay and followed us around everywhere as we looked for a room.
Having checked out a hostel in small la laguna that we had seen in the Lonely Planet guide book we discovered that it was a) completely empty b) horrible. After a loud shouted argument with her boss in a back room somewhere the lady on reception offered us a really unimpressive room for 1,080 php which was twice what we had payed for our cottage in Borocay. Surprising since they were clearly no customers they refused to negotiate on the price so we cut our losses and left. Of course our self appointed new best friend had a great deal for us somewhere down the beach
but we have a general strategy of not buying things from people who endlessly pester us, just on principle. Finally getting rid of him after making non committal noises about visiting his friends hotel later/go snorkeling tomorrow/ charter his friends boat (whilst of course having no intention to be anywhere near this particular beach the next day) we walked along the beach and had a beer in a cafe to work out a plan.
Since the town place was really not very nice and the beach non existent we were just about to head off again and catch a bus further along the coast when a really nice woman offered to show us a room she had for 600, this was more like it, away from the main sea front it was in a little courtyard, basic but clean and much cheaper so we decided to stay one night and head off in the morning.
The next day we found ourselves on another beach, this time much nicer, and checking into another empty beach hostel. Liz made the mistake of agreeing to view a room with a woman called Edna who took this as an invitation
to try and adopt her and arrange every possible aspect of our stay from bbq's to snorkeling trips to laundry and hotel rooms. Mustn't grumble of course but the hawkers on the beach there are unbelievably persistent and every couple of minutes we found ourselves having to say 'no thanks' to the multiple pearl sellers, several offers of massages and attempts to sell us strange dart blow-pipe things. Really, its not that the price isn't good (although lets be honest it probably isn't) its just that we REALLY didn't want any of the things on offer, that's when it gets a little bit much. Although to be honest we did crack and buy something, ok we got some pearls, ok ok we have no idea if they are real but JR assured us that they were a bargin.. and that we were his best customers.. worked out really cheap so not the end of the world if they are not and they are pretty..
Anyway, we ended up in a nice place called Summer Connections in a cottage with amazing view of the sea. White Beach is much nicer than Sabang and is really pretty and there are
lots of other beaches and bays up and down the coast just short boat trips away, just ask for Edna. The weather here is still fantastic, no sign of those typhoons yet, and even the sea is warm. There is coral just offshore which tom went to explore but a lot of it has been damaged which is a shame.
A couple of days later we took a short boat trip to the 'mainland' (well the island with Manila on) and a jeepney to lake Taal we stayed in a really nice hotel overlooking the volcano and the lake. It was super misty though so the expensive view was a little lost on us but the town was nice and really cool as it is in the mountains, almost (shock) jumper weather.
As usual getting to our next destination was stupidly easy as you can generally flag busses down anywhere on their route rather than trudging to a bus stop. In no time at all we were in the air conditioned comfort of the LTR (light railway) in Manila. On the railway as well as a lot of the ferries here there is reasonably tight security
and we are often asked to open our bags to be searched. Since this usually involves a timely search for various padlock keys we have decided that the security guards must be a bit disappointed when confronted with only our dirty washing, still they usually make a cursory attempt at looking through it, often poking at it with a stick. After alighting at Pedro Gil station it was but a short (if rather sweaty) walk to the hostel with the aid of our hand drawn map copied from the Lonely Planet - the idea being so not to look quite as much like complete tourists with by getting the guidebook out on every street corner, although to be honest the two enormous rucksacks might just give it away.
So there it is, another blog for the collection, yet another detailed description of all the places where we have eaten, drunk, sunbathed and slept in the last few days and of course how we travelled between each of these places, sorry about this but that is really all we have been doing recently.. But we are resolved that Tomorrow we are going to go and visit some sights, some
of Manila's old Spanish areas for example, perhaps a museum or two. We are going to go get us some culture. For now we are in an internet cafe opposite the Malate Pension and off to find some cheap food. Cheap because we are at that rather awkward stage where we don't want to change any more money as we are leaving the country in a couple of days but also trying to make sure that we have enough money left to the airport and to pay the departure taxes and stuff, yawn. Still, there is a place across the road from the hostel called Bedrock where (you guessed it) all the staff are dressed as the Flintstones, or we could go to Hobbit House (yep, its a folk music bar staffed by dwarfs) decisions decisions..
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