{ It's more fun in the Philippines. } - their moto, which became a 'that's what she said' quote for us. (we would add it after anything and everything we were doing!)
The Philippines is probably my most favorite place I've been so far... (out of the 14 countries I've been to - the U.S. (although home is great), South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, England, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, South Korea, Philippines and Malaysia) which is saying a lot. I want to move there. I want to live there. I want to work. I want to lay on the beach and relax. I want to talk to the people. I want to photograph them. I want to photograph the landscape. I want to eat as much of their exotic fruit as my body can handle. I want to buy a house there. And.. I kind of even want to marry a Filipino man. That's how much I loved it.
Why?.....
I can't really pin point it. But... hopefully you will be able to check it out one day and if not, I hope this post and my photographs do it some sort of justice. Like this one. Who wouldn't want to go/live/be here....?
So let's talk about the Philippines in general first. (so when I use 'filipino lingo' you'll understand what I'm referencing!) First a map. The Philippines is made up of 7,107 islands... meaning getting to different cities is kind of impossible by car... so you travel mostly by plane or boat.
Things are fairly cheap, but I guess prices are starting to rise. We could get a ride on a tricycle in Puerto Princesa for 3 of us for about a mile for about 60 cents most times. We could usually eat a really good meal for about 4-5 US dollars. We would also bargain with people for tricycle rides and for fruit a bit. It was kind of fun, but we sometimes felt bad.
So I am bad at keeping track of how much money I spent. I turn into my father when traveling 'and the sky becomes the limit' - although my sky is much much shorter than his. So the plane ticket to Manila was $150, then to Palawan and back was $80 (maybe). Spending money on top of that I think I spent somewhere around $300-400. (yup give or take a hundred!) So for the Philippines, with flights, it was about $600. That's for all we did, hotels, food. Everything for 8 days. and we didn't do it all that cheaply (like we weren't the penny pincher travelers). But why not spend it if you've saved it, right?
Transportation: Tricycles - a motorcycle with a side cart sort of contraption thing. You can bargain with them. Jeepneys - Inspired by WWII jeeps. They have 2 benches along the sides and an aisle down the middle. You get in the back of them and pay your money to the driver once seated - it's a fixed price. They are almost always decked out in bright colors with words/pictures all over the sides.
Food. There was fruit and fruit and more fruit. My favorite -- Mangosteen - They were FANTASTIC. I had never heard/seen or tasted them before. They are purple color on the outside and white in the middle. You just eat the white middle part. Others were durian (which we didn't try - I guess it kind of smells), mangoes - all sizes and some were green some yellow, purple avocados, melons, bananas - little and big, coconut and so much more. So many we didn't know the names of, but you better believe I ate ALL of them and enjoyed every second. I LOVE FRUIT! Oh and the rest of the food there was great as well... everything I ate was delicious! We had a lot of fish, noodle dishes and of course some burgers. They love meat there (just like in Korea) so vegetarians might find it harder - but with all this fresh fruit and veggies I think you'd do just fine!
Mangosteen - (not my picture).
Words we learned in Tagalog (said Ta-gal-og):
Sal-a-mat - Thank you
Kam-mu-sta ka - How are you?
Ma-hal ki-ta - I love you.
Ma-hal na Ma-hal Ki-ta - I love you very much.
OO (oh oh) - Yes
Ta-wad po - Make it cheaper.
Sa-rap - Delicious
Ma-gan-da - Beautiful
History: "As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, there followed in quick succession the Philippine Revolution, which spawned the short-lived First Philippine Republic; the Spanish-American War; and the Philippine–American War. In the aftermath, the United States emerged as the dominant power; aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands. After World War II, the Treaty of Manila established the Philippine Republic as an independent nation." -- wikipedia. (I know. Don't use wikipedia - well this isn't a report. so boom. and now that I'm done with college (YIPPEE) I'll do what I wish.)
Busan to Manila.
So Leah and I went down to Busan the night before we were going to fly out. I of course made friends along the way... (since I guess I have a face that says please talk to me!! haha) I made a hair dresser friend headed to Seoul at the bus station, while I waited for Leah - we are now facebook friends. Then I met a nice guy who asked me if I needed help and then showed me the way on the subway so I could find Leah, we are now also facebook friends. And then on that train I talked to a few high school boys who started the conversation like this -- hi, giggle giggle.. me - hi - ohhhh giggle giggle more. We talked for a bit and that's how Leah knew it was me coming - she heard the English. She greeted me with a 'you would make friends on the Subway' look. We stayed the night in a Love Motel - yup like it sounds, known as a place for 'hook-ups'. But anyone can stay there. This one wasn't super sketchy, we made sure. We kind of slept till noon and got a call saying it was check out time. We got ready in about 10 minutes and were out. It was a rainy day in Busan so we couldn't do much, but we met up with our fellow TaLKer Rudolf, from South Africa - such a funny and great kid to hang out with! (and he's South African - so of course that is just a great little added bonus for me!! I LOVE SOUTH AFRICA. - or seth efrica - how they say it and I LOVE IT!)We, Leah and I (our 3rd member, Naomi, got in the next night), left Busan on Monday the 21st and landed in Manila at 12 something in the morning, not a very fun time to get to a brand new country but we had a ride and a place to stay, thanks to some great Mennonite connections. Cindy, a missionary in Manila with her husband and kids for almost 15 years, came to pick us up from the airport and drove us back to her house about an hour away from the airport, and set us up with our own room complete with bunk bets and a little couch.
Birthing Home {Shalom Christian Bahay Pa-Anak An}
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| Cindy talking to 3 boys in Tagalog outside the birthing home (brand new birthing home building is in the background). These boys wanted to climb up and get the coconuts off the tree to eat. She let them :) |
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| little baby boy only a few hours old. So precious. |
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| He scaled the tree and then twisted the coconuts till they fell down. A couple cracked open so they other kids at the bottom started eating them. It was fun to watch, but kind of nerve racking. He was super high up. But it seemed like he had done it many many many times - and he made it down safe. |
Can you find the boy in the tree above? Yup, he's just standing at the top of it. No big deal... I have dubbed him - Tarzan! I wanted to take their picture but they were a bit shy. However, I did manage to take a few. How old do they look? We guessed about 13 maybe 14 but I guess they are maybe 17 or 18!
The Taal Volcano. - I guess it's - 'The largest island within a lake on an island within a lake on an island.' Think about that for a minute. orrrr maybe just look at the pictures. :)(near Tagaytay City)
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| us girls with the volcano in the background: Carmen, me, Leah and Naomi. I am a GIANT. wow. - Naomi's photo. |
We started our trek down, down, down to get to the volcano and by trek I mean in the car. We arrived to the base of the volcano, by boat - the ones with the stick things on the sides. (you know the whole lake inside of the lake thing) so that was the first lake. We got out of the boat and were surrounded by people and horses and Koreans and horses (more like ponies). WAIT... hold up. Koreans? First of all how did I know? They were wearing big rimmed glasses, high heels, HUGE brimmed hats and looked way to 'put together' to be going on a hike up a volcano. Yup. Koreans. 
We got out of having to ride/pay for ponies (we were not going to ride those things up as they looked pretty small and plus we weren't going to stoop to the 'lazy American' status) So, we hiked. We had a guide who walked with us and we got hassled by guys on ponies for part of the way up, then they gave up, seeing we were truly going to be ok and could make it to the top. We also said a few 'an-young-ha-se-yo's to all the passing Koreans, who rode the ponies can I just say - psh. so lazy. haha (even the Filipinos knew some Korean) - I guess many of Koreans 1. vacation in the Philippines or they 2. move there for their kids to learn English. We made it to the top and then, there it was - lake number two - inside the volcano. It was beautiful and we finished our day at the top with some nice ice cold fresh coconut milk right out of the coconut.
Just a little game of basketball going on. They got me right up there to take pictures. I should have run out and started playing with them!
Manila.
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| View of Manila on the way home from the birthing home. |
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| scary, huge, giant people things. seriously terrifying. - in Intramuros. |
We got to see the old Spanish district - Intramuros - (since at one point the Spanish had control over the Philippines - but as we learned it seems like most countries did at one point or another. The Philippines has quite an interesting history! - see above) And as we were headed out of the city to go to the airport to fly to Palawan, we stopped by the boardwalk area to see the ocean. Next stop, Palawan. I was excited to finally see the ocean and be on the BEACH.
First of all I have a quick 'small world' story. I ran into some LDS missionaries, who were on our flight. I of course talked to them, especially since my best friends' brother had just arrived in the Philippines. So I was finding out where they were from and when they got in. Then I just had to ask.... do you know Elder M? YES. He was my good friend in the MTC (the training center). Small, small world folks. Soooo small.
Puerto Princesa, Palawan
We landed, grabbed our bags and were ready to figure out where this hotel (Big Brother) was that we had booked. So we walked outside, in the 'winter' warmth, and got hassled by some tricycle guys. We saw some 'official' looking people and decided to ask them how we should get around. Well, tricycle was our only option. - no taxis on the island, but that's ok because it's more fun in the Philippines! No, not a little kid tricycle, but it was a motorcycle/mo-ped thing with a side cart rigged all around it to provide more seating off to the side - like a side cart (like I talked about in the beginning). We crammed in on of those with all our luggage and headed to our hotel. We had some flooding issues in our bathroom - so we kind of ended up having 2 rooms which equated to a whole wing. Living like queens in the Philippines. HUZZAH.
The next day, Friday Jan. 25th - we wandered around a bit and found a new hotel because we decided we were for sure staying in Puerto Princesa and not going to El Nido. Ok, where/what's El Nido? Apparently the BEST place to go on the Palawan island. How do we know? Because everyone was so shocked/disappointed that we WEREN'T GOING TO EL NIDO. So by the end of the trip I almost resented 'El Nido'. I would respond. NO, we are NOT going to El Nido because we didn't want to. And it's probably not that great, since we aren't there. Boom. What do you have to say to that y'all. Ok, enough about what we didn't do.... (but if you go to Palawan and have lots of time (like more than a 4 days like us) then GO TO EL NIDO -- and then tell me how it is!)
That day after we settled into our new hotel, we tried to go to the boardwalk and took the wrong turn (we found out later), which turned out to be an awesome thing. We ended up walking down a street lined with shanty buildings trying to find the ocean. We found a few kids who showed us the way. We said, water, we want to see the water. They said, ok and then led us around the shacks and trash and people onto the rocky area right up to the ocean. The sun was setting and it was perfect. We soon attracted all the kids from the area and were 'attempting' to communicate with them (although these kids were much better at English then our Korean students) and we also learned a few Tagalog words! This was probably one of my best memories of Palawan. It was real. We were talking with the kids from the Philippines. We were by the ocean, seeing their fathers coming in with their catch from the day. Seeing how happy these kids were despite where they lived and their ragged clothes and dirty faces, they were truly happy. The sense of community in areas like this is incredible. Everyone looks out for each other, such a beautiful thing.
How cute are they? Gosh... I just love this little boys smile. So much joy and happiness :)
The Hotel. {Matutina Pensionne}
Yes, it get's its own title because it was THAT awesome. The owner/head - Malu was the sweetest little Filipino lady on the planet. The other workers were so sweet as well - Aiya and a few younger workers. There were 2 young boys who had to let us in when we came back at 2 in the morning and they always had a huge smile on their faces :) Malu booked everything we wanted to do. She would say, ok, they will come at 6:15 be ready. It was that easy. And we just paid for everything at the end. It was fantastic!! I highly recommend this hotel to ANYONE going to Puerto. It was quiet and quaint and beautiful and cozy. We had no problems what so ever and the people, again, really made it fantastic.  |
| Naomi, me, Malu, Leah, and the 2 boys :) - Naomi's photo. |
Honda Bay Island Hopping
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| Me, Leah and Naomi at the first snorkeling stop! - Naomi's photo. |
Snorkeling.
So, I've never been snorkeling and was honestly a little nervous. I was like um.. how do I breathe out of this mouth piece thing? I want to use my nose... but can't. I was scared I would not be able to figure it out, but thankfully I am 'smarter' than I give myself credit and it was easier than I thought. We got our gear on and headed into the water... it was a bit chilly but once I got in it was fine. My first look under the water I lost my breathe. It was amazing, that soooo much could be under there and hidden. When you stand up and just look out over the ocean or even look down you can see a few plants, maybe see the sandy bottom, maybe a fish or 2. But I put my face in and it all became clear - there were 100's of plants, corals and fish. It went on forever in all directions. I was in awe. I swam/floated along, just looking and looking and looking and photographing (or attempting to) I couldn't see what I was doing - at all! point and shoot - literally just point and hoping. I would only come up when I would get water in my mouth, or hit someone, or my goggles would fill up with water. And every time I would make sure I wasn't standing on coral - since I learned from Leah that they are kind of poisonous. That terrified me! I was so scared to touch them. So I would float/swim to an open area and carefully put my feet down with my head still in the water. Such a goof, but I didn't get stung/or whatever they do to you.
The next/last stop, was just a rigged up floating platform, since it was out in the middle of nowhere. This was the best, at least in terms of the quality of the coral and the size. The coral was about 10 feet down, so out of reach. It was all colors of the rainbow. Yellows and oranges and deep blues and some purple and pinks. And there were more fish and kinds than I could ever count. We also got to see a small, clear jelly fish. There was way too much to look at, it was overwhelming. I wanted to go down and get closer, but that was not allowed. I think I could snorkel ALL day and keep looking and looking. It's such a cool/unusual/intriguing thing. Do it if you get the chance!
my quick little soap box about coral reef pollution/destruction...
Ok, now my little 2 cents about saving the Earth. I was in the process of writing a paper for my final online class that I had to take to graduate about ocean pollution (which I HAVE finished - YIPPEE :) So, I didn't realize how dead the coral was at the first 2 snorkel places until we were at the last place, which was out of our reach and further under the water. It was so much more colorful. I remembered, oh yeah, coral is supposed to be colorful not brown - from all the people who step on it, and kick it etc. and maybe some damage from the sun. When I got home and was finishing my paper, I was sad to also learn about cyanide fishing, which happens a lot in the Philippines, where it started in the 60's. It's a way of farming and getting the reef fish to come out of their homes/hiding places. It stuns them and allows the fishermen to catch them easily. However, the gas kills the coral and harms the fish as well. So what's the damage? Well I learned that only 5 percent of the reefs in the Philippines are in good condition. 5 PERCENT. - that's ridiculous. We, as humans, have got to stop destroying EVERYTHING. I know it's out of site (until you stick your head under the water with a snorkel on) and I know most of us don't live near the ocean, but just because you don't live on the ocean doesn't mean you don't pollute it. Don't think that you're only one person and can't affect the world (either in a positive or negative way). You can. Each person throws away 185 pounds of plastic a year. 185 pounds!!!! That's ridiculous and most of that ends up in the ocean. So step up and do your part and let's stop destroying this beautiful Earth. I am not perfect and I'm not the best at being Earth conscious, but ignorance is not an excuse. Educate yourself and at least try to be an Earth friendly human. Please.
Phew. Ok. I feel better. Moving on.... That night we ate at Kinabuch's, which was a fabulous all outdoor restaurant where we got some seafood dishes. Later we luckily (since we had no working phones - except my iphone that could connect with wifi) were able to met up with some of our new friends that we met on the snorkeling tour, Augustino - a South African who's lived all over. We went to a local bar, Katabom, with a live band and met lots of people. Our favorites were 3 Filipino guys (Taz, Ranz and Renwick) who some how knew each other. Crocodile Farm and Baker's Hill
So, the next day (Sunday, Jan. 27th -- oh hey, my half birthday) the boys we met at the bar gave us a nice little tour of the Puerto Princesa area. Ok, so maybe that was a bad idea? Going with 3 men we had just met... but hey, I'm alive. I even brought it up to the group -- Why are we trusting these guys? haha but seriously. They just led us and we had noooo clue where we were going or how to even begin to get back if we wanted to! I'm so trusting, but they seemed pretty harmless :) I mean look at that face? (left) how could you not trust that?! So they took us to the crocodile farm, where we saw a huge skeleton of a croc. that killed a man. Best quote by our guide... 'Unfortunately he died because half of him was in the crocodile' - yes, good point. that could be why! 
Next we went to Baker's Hill - yup called that because it was a place full of goodies, which was exciting since we had been in the land of non-sweet, rice desserts a.k.a Korea. We bought some of their favorites (Ule Bread) and then hopped in some tricycles and headed up to a hill, with a nice view to eat our treats. On the way back down we had ALL 6 of us in 1 tricycle. We jumped straight to being super Filipino. Having way too many pple on these things was pretty 'normal'.
Estrella Falls.
We headed back after a few hours and showered and then got dinner at Jerry's in a shopping complex that was forever and a day away - especially when we were STARVING - since we hadn't really eaten ALL day. We were pretty ravenous and tired so everything was funny but not funny all at the same time. A couple of the waiters were pretty cute too, always a bonus! We left and went to grab a trike. We asked how much and they said 50 PHP and we knew we had been getting it for much cheaper. We said no 30, we got it for 30 before, I finally won and felt pretty good about that. However, we made fun of ourselves later for not paying a WHOLE dollar for a trike ride, we had to bargain it down. It just seems like so much more but when you convert it, you realize. We were rolling on the floor laughing about how we were figuring it out down to the 10 PHP of what we owed each other - which is a quarter. a quarter. that's it. NO, I will NOT spot you a quarter to buy that. No, sir I refuse to pay you 1 dollars for 3 of us to get a ride back into town. That's ridiculous, but I'll pay 60 cents. I guess. haha
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| Halo Halo, an icy, ice creamy goodness. Reminded me of pat-bing-su from Korea. |
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| Me, Taz, Leah, Renwick, I forget (I'm the worst), Naomi, Ranz |
Underground River Tour. (one of the new 7 wonders of nature)
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| From Naomi's camera. |
We arrived and waited to hop on a boat yup one of those with the side pole things to help it from tipping over, I guess, and this time the sea was much more angry - so I was thankful we had those. We pulled into where we would do the tour and got out of the boat by wading in the water. Ok, so we were warned don't have plastic bags, because of the monkeys they know that they usually have food in them - those smart things. We were walking up and saw a couple but we had no plastic so we thought we should be fine. NO, this one monkey comes flying out of the bushes and grabs onto Naomi's little waterproof bag. She starts to swing it, trying to get the monkey to let go and he won't. He is attached and determined. She is screaming, people are watching, I wanted to video it but thought that might be mean but I had no idea what to do to help. She ended up winning the fight and the monkey ran off without any of her belongings, thankfully. AGAIN I HATE MONKEYS. and apparently they really dislike Naomi... so ridiculous. We didn't laugh about it for awhile, but now I think we can :)
We got our bright orange life jackets and hard hats and headed to get into our little boat. Then we were off... to the underground river. We had a guide who paddled the whole time and then a guy in the front was in charge of the light and had to point it in the direction the guide said to (but he was kind of horrible at it, I think because he was hard of hearing, maybe!) I was in the back near the guide so I chatted with him a bit.  |
| photo by: Naomi. |
So it was hard to get pictures of the inside since it was pretty dark (you know since it's a cave). But it was pretty cool - there were many formations. One looked like Jesus' face another was the nativity scene (or so they named it) another an ear of corn (yup it really did look like that - says the Iowa girl!) It was pretty relaxing and quiet. I guess tours just started pretty recent like maybe in the 1970's. I would highly recommend it if you go to Palawan. Actually you for sure should go to Palawan. It was fantastic! Not packed with tourists, you still get a feel for what the Philippines really is. The people still like foreigners (dumb people haven't ruined it for the rest of us.... yet!)
We got out of the cave, took a few pictures - did a mini photo shoot and then headed back to where we began the trip - by boat of course.
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| these 3 photos by: Naomi. |
Then it was time for us to head back to Puerto Princesa, so we could catch our flight to Clark, which is about 1.5 hours north of Manila, since that's where our flight to Kuala Lumpur was out of the next day. It was time to say good-bye to PP and Palawan. I almost cried. I was so sad. I had never really felt that connected to a place after just a few short days before. I loved everything about my time in Puerto Princesa and I would HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it to anyone!
Our night in Clark consisted of us going to our hostel, getting dinner, and then heading to bed. We were off in the morning and headed to Kuala Lumpur.
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| Us, realizing there was no pilot and that the plane was going down. We are dorks. - at the Clark Airport. from Naomi's camera. |
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