Winter Vacation 2019

January 9, 2019March 7, 2019 / Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Happy New Year! I’m so excited to start my new year off with a lovely holiday adventure. Thanks once more to my fancy Korean University Job™, I get a nice long break from the students lasting from about Christmas until March 1st. While I did have some fiddly bits of professorial paperwork that keep me at my desk for part of that time, there’s no unending deskwarming like I was subjected to at that EPIK job. I’ve scrimped and saved on rent, food and local expat parties in order to treat myself to another 6 weeks on the road!

Jan 10- 19: Taiwan – I won’t get to see the Chinese New Year here, but I’m hoping to see some beautiful temples, museums, mountains, street food, and above all, the winter migration home of the Purple Crow Butterflies!!!! (pictured below) I’ll be in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. I’m brushing up on my Mandarin in DuoLingo!

Jan 20-28: Jordan – I’m meeting up with a friend who teaches in Japan to tour my old Middle East stomping grounds again. Last time I went, I didn’t get to see everything in Petra, and almost nothing else at all. This time, we’re spending a full three days in Petra to see everything, plus a day and night at a Dead Sea resort to take in the mud, and a couple days of wandering around Amman (below) to see the ruins and the markets.

Jan 29 – Feb 11: Egypt – In a complete turn around from my normal travel patterns, my friend and I booked a 13 day almost all-inclusive tour (a few meals are not covered). I actually found one that is in line with my desired budget and it will be a relief not to have to think about transport or scheduling while I’m there. I’m brushing up on my Arabic, too, but Egyptian Arabic is nothing like what I learned, so having a guide around will come in handy. We’re supposed to get to see Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Alexandria, and Sharm el-Sheik. We’ll even be taking a 5-star Nile River cruise for a few of those days. Considering how limited my time was last time I was in Egypt, I’m really excited!!!

Feb 12-22: Malaysia – specifically, Penang. I’ve booked an Airbnb in one place for the whole time. I was only there one day last time I passed through but it seemed like the kind of town I’d enjoy for longer. I’m staying in Georgetown where I can wander around to see the street art, shopping streets, and amazing food, but I may rent a scooter and head off on a mini road trip around the small island. Plus, my host says that the Lunar New year celebrations last 2 weeks or more, so even though the official day is Feb 5, there should still be lots of decorations and events while I’m there.

While I won’t be on the blog during my vacation time, I’ve written a lot more posts about last summer and set them up to auto-publish during January, February and March by which time I hope to have some new stories from the winter adventure for you. If you want to get a real-time experience of my travels, you’ll need to hop over to the Instagram or the Facebook page where I will do my best to post something cool every day. Thanks for following ❤

How to Plan a Holiday

September 24, 2018March 21, 2019 / Gallivantrix / 2 Comments

My last week got overrun by more vacation planning and I didn’t really have time to do much writing. However, since I’ve turned my gaze once more to the fun fun prospect of organizing my next international adventure, it seemed like a great time to share my process with you.

Plan? That sounds like WORK! Isn’t a holiday supposed to be FUN? Yes, but if you want to maximize your vacation time and money, taking the time and effort to plan ahead makes a world of difference. Unless you’re rich enough to just hire someone to plan the trip for you (and even then, finding the right tour company is important too!) you need to commit to planning. The time-money-quality triangle applies to everything, even holidays. The more time you put into the plan, the less money you need for high quality results.

Step 1: Find Your Holiday Mission Statement

Planning a trip doesn’t start with booking a hotel and flight. There are some pre-trip questions you should really think about before any web searches or bookings take place.

How do you want to feel?

One of my friends loves laying on the beach with a book for days on end, but that sounds boring as heck to me after about 3 hours. Neither of us is right or wrong, but we want different things from our holiday. It’s important to know what your goals are, it’s kind of your vacation mission statement. From then on, any time you’re faced with an option or choice you can check to see if it matches your mission statement. Much like for a business, a vacation mission statement works best when it’s as specific as possible, while still being brief.

What you want from your holiday? Leisure? Adventure? Food? Shopping? Change of scenery? Nightlife? Art? History? Be pampered? Get dirty?

What do you want to see?

Decide if you’re having a destination holiday or an experience holiday.

Destination holidays are those where you want to see a specific place like Rome or the Pyramids. There are awesome things everywhere in the world, but there’s only one Rome. Destination driven holidays should be more focused on off-season travel to maximize savings and also to avoid the high-season crowds.

Destination driven holidays also need to think about weather as well as expenses. My favorite Thai island is closed 6 months of the year. Last fall, I had to find a different magical island getaway. My friend wants to go to Egypt and for a minute she thought she’d go in the summer break until I showed her the weather reports that include regular temps in the 40s (C). Now we’re going in February.

Experience holidays are ones in which you first consider your time off, and then see what’s having an off season sale that you might be interested in at that time. Sometimes, you can’t help but go to the popular place at the popular time. Work and school schedules are not always cooperative, but it is worth considering what else is available.

How long do you want to go?

Long weekend? 10 days? A month? There are vacations for nearly every length of time. Bear in mind shorter times should focus on one or two main activities in a single place with minimal travel.

The less time you have in one place, the more detailed the planning needs to be. You might be fine spending an afternoon getting lost in town or just sitting at a cafe people watching if you have several days to spare, but if you get lost on your only day to do/see THE THING you’ll be really sad.

How much do you want to spend?

There are places in the developing world where you can book a luxury resort for 300$ a week (I did that in Egypt), places where you can eat amazing gourmet food for 25$ a meal or less (China and the Philippines for sure), there are places where a beer is 0.50 cents (Prague!) and places where a beer is 8-12$, places you can get a private room for 5$ a night with breakfast included, and others where a room in a dorm (sheets not included) costs 40$.

Don’t worry about the cost of individual things at this point, just think about how much you are willing to spend per day on average (take your total trip budget, subtract airfare, divide by the number of days you want to travel). Once you know your budget, you can check it against other travelers’ experiences to see if it’s enough for the place you’re dreaming of. I find that a lot of the blogs for backpackers are decently accurate for minimal daily expenses, and that the cost of living websites are more accurate for “family vacation” style spending. Most of SE Asia is 30-40$ a day for good times and EU is 80-100$ a day if you’re frugal.

Who are you going with?

Discuss the practical things – I almost forgot this one because I’m so used to travelling alone, but it is important. Not only do you have to ask all the previous questions of your travel buddies, you also have to think about room sharing (my mother snores so loud I’m not sure how that’s going to work when we travel together), as well as age or ability limitations (meeting my friend with a 3 yr old last summer, I had to think about 3yr old human needs). Travel buddies can be great company and help save money on things like renting a car or a room when you can share, but it’s a compromise on location and activities.

Be upfront about your goals and expectations – If possible, try to pick travel buddies who share your travel goals and habits. If you can’t do that, discuss them in advance so you have a way to handle when you want different things. It is so easy for a holiday to turn into resentment when people are tired, sunburnt, hungry and didn’t get to see/do the thing they wanted. If you are travelling with people who don’t share your goals, make sure you’re both ok splitting up sometimes so that no one’s feelings are hurt when you want to do something different.

Make time for each other – I don’t just mean plan with them, I mean that they need to have a place on your itinerary. What will you share together other than the hotel room? It’s almost impossible to make another person your top priority when you’re going on a (probably expensive and unique) travel experience, but it will help if part of every day is focused on each other more than the sites, even if it’s just one of your meals or a drink before bed. This applies to anyone, not just a romantic interest or spouse, but family, friends, and acquaintances.

Step 2: Accommodation and Transit

Wait! All that was Step 1??? Yes, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Step one is mostly thinking, and a little bit of research to help you get the answers to those questions. Don’t skip it, though, because you’ll use those answers to shape everything that comes next.

The Flight

The flight is the biggest purchase you’re going to make and it defines the rest of your holiday. I think of it as the spine of the vacation.

For a destination trip (or once you’ve decided your experience locations):
The flight search matrix used by Google is a great way to be able to see all available flights between to airports. Websites like Travelocity, Priceline, Expedia, and Kayak ALL use the matrix to search. It’s faster to go directly to the matrix instead of comparing 20 websites.

For experience vacations (or to narrow a list of potentials in a specific area):
You can look at a website like Kiwi.com to search “Anywhere” and see the cheapest flights during your holiday time, or you can search by country, or you can use the map function to just scroll around the globe and see where cheap prices are. I love this for wanderlusties who find themselves with time and money restraints because there’s always something awesome at the other end and discovering can be fun.

My trip to the EU was I’d say 40% destination 60% experience. I wanted to go to north Europe, I was less picky about the specifics. I looked around at prices and noticed that CDG is cheap and convenient to fly into. I could have opted for round trip, but it would have meant making my route a circle or doing a long backtrack and I wanted to get at least one Nordic country in on this trip. I did a quick check on some sample bus prices (like Paris to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Oslo) and decided I could do it. Thus my return flight airport was decided, and I went over to the Matrix to find the cheapest flight. I got a ticket with Russian airline Aeroflot through Moscow for under 1000$. The cheapest options on flight booking websites were 500-700 more.

Conversely, my winter holiday is far more destination driven. It’s going to be much harder to find such a great deal. I originally wanted to do Morocco, Israel, Jordan and Egypt (my friend is joining me for Jordan and Egypt). I haven’t found the perfect ticket yet. Kiwi thinks it will be around $2000 to fly Korea to Morocco to Jordan to Egypt and back to Korea. It IS a lot of flights, but I hold out hope that several hours of testing options on the flight matrix will save me a few hundred dollars.

Search nearby airports – Flying one airport and then taking a bus or train out to a cheaper destination could save you hundreds of dollars. It’s worth comparing airports, and checking the price and timing of the ground transit before you buy, just to be sure. I don’t recommend this for short holidays (less than 3 days), but the longer your holiday is, the more worthwhile this becomes. In New Zealand, I flew in and out of Auckland even though I didn’t want to do anything in that city. In the Philippines, I had to fly into Manila, sleep in a little airport hostel, then fly to Bohol the next morning.

Choosing Your City/Cities

Destination vacation people will have done this step before buying plane tickets.

Experience vacation – “I’ll just see what’s there when I land” is not a reliable recipe for a great holiday. It’s a little like the lottery. Stack the odds in your favor and read up. Even if you think you know where you’re going, it doesn’t hurt to read about your destination on something other than Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet.

In the winter of 2016/17 my destination was “the Malay peninsula”. It looks small on a map, but it is big on the ground. I almost ended up missing out on Koh Lipe because Langkawi has been famous longer. Reading more sources gave me more options, and better information to make my decision with.

Read the blogs – Find some bloggers who share your holiday mission statement. It doesn’t do me any good to read bloggers who love to bike across Europe because I will not be doing that. Ever. I found a blog that talked about running tours of cities and nearly fainted from thinking about it. Find unique bloggers who share real details. Mainstream bloggers like Nomadic Matt are fine for finding out the basic details and some run off the mill travelling advice, but for my taste, when I’m trying to decide where to go, I need the atmosphere, the mood, and the experiences of someone like me.

Check the local transport options – In addition to attractions, hotels and ground transit can shape your city choices. If you’re going to places with good public transit, it’s easy to land in one place for a bit and then move to another hub. If rental cars are cheap, you might consider driving around some of the rural parts of your chosen holiday spot.

Move at least once a week – Happiness experts say that the shiny new vacation smell wears off after about 7 days in the same place. I like to change cities at least once a week, but if you want to spend your whole summer in the Maldives laying on the beach, it’s still a good idea to break it up by moving to a hotel on the other side of the island or taking a weekend to explore the mainland. After 7 days, things become a “routine” and the mental mood boosting benefits of vacationing begin to taper off sharply. Relaxing holidays will tend to move less, while exploring holidays will need to move more. How much more often than every 7-8 days you move will depend on your goal.

Finding Accomodation

Don’t stay anywhere you don’t feel safe or can’t get good sleep. It’s not worth saving money if you’re stressed or too tired to enjoy the next day’s activities.

Do try to minimize your accommodation costs unless the resort itself is the center of your holiday (which is fine, private beaches are dreamy).

Shop around – It’s good to have a range of search options to keep your prices down. I like Airbnb and Booking.com the best, but I’ve been known to poke around Hostelworld. Sometimes I’ve just made email arrangements because I’m traveling to the back end of nowhere. Most of these places give discounts to non-cancellable reservations, but if you want to maintain flexibility, its a good idea to book places you can change later in case you find something better or change your plan altogether.

Beware hidden costs – Things to think about besides the room price: are any meals included? Do you need parking? Do you need a shuttle service? Will you need laundry service? Is it close to public transit? A great room price can be ruined if you have to pay 20$ a night for parking, if you have to walk a mile to the bus stop, or if there’s no place to eat nearby (this happened to me once in Korea and my hostess, bless her heart, fed us, but it was embarrassing!)

Location, location, location – When booking my rooms, I’m typically going back and forth between the booking site, a map of the region, and some travel blogs. Sometimes the map will show me something interesting because Google does that now. Sometimes the hotel will mention famous nearby sights to check out, and always travel bloggers will tell you about their own experiences there. I spend ages staring at maps, reading blogs, and looking at the map function of Airbnb. It can show you the prices of a large geographical region. Sometimes I find great prices and realize I don’t really want to GO to that place so it’s useless.

Quality is subjective – Reading reviews of accommodation is tricky. If the person leaving the review has a different set of values and expectations than you, their review may not be helpful. Don’t just look at stars. Look at how many people reviewed something. A 4 star rating from 200 reviews is better than a 5 star rating from only 10 reviews. Read the things people liked, but also read what they didn’t like. Are those things important to you? Can you sleep in a room where you might see a rat to save $$? Do you HAVE to have A/C? Do you want to meet other guests or have more privacy? What is the standard in that country? I found that a 2-3 star (of 5) rating in developed countries is equivalent to a 4 or 5 star place in developing nations.

Prioritize – For me, feeling safe is #1. I don’t like to stay in co-ed dorms if I can avoid it but female only dorms are often more expensive. I also won’t stay in an Airbnb with all men (one or many, I don’t do it unless there’s a female in the house). I’ve learned I can sleep just about anywhere for one night, but I prefer a single room, or a women only dorm in a clean place in a non-party part of town (I do not like hearing people throwing up from being drunk while I’m trying to sleep). I also look for transportation options (parking if I have a car, bus stop if I don’t).

Things like lux decorations, pools, spas, and services are less important to me, but you need to know your own priorities. If you want to party all night, stay in the party zone. If you can’t enjoy yourself unless you’re staying in the Marriott, then increase your budget or pick cheaper parts of the world where those resorts are affordable. Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt is great for that. You can stay in fancy beach resorts for a fraction of the cost of other countries.

Local Transportation

Minimize travel time – I’ve seen tourists travel for hours to reach someplace and look for 15 minutes, take a few pics, and then get back on the bus. I don’t understand this method of travel. I think transit should be minimized. I don’t like to spend more than 4 hours a day in transit (except the flights in and out). It’s not always possible, but it is important. The comfort level of your transit is also important, as I learned in Thailand. A 3 hr bus ride in a plush comfy air conditioned seat is much more tolerable than a 3 hr ride in a cramped, hot, minivan.

Travel in your down time – In EU this summer, I traveled on Saturday so I wouldn’t have to fight weekend crowds at popular venues, and I used them as rest days where I could just relax and travel from one place to another. On shorter trips, I like to do intercity transit early in the morning or last thing at night. If you have to go a long way, it might be worth looking into sleeper cars. When we were in China (a huge landscape) we did that a couple times and skipped out on hotels for the 8-10 hour train rides overnight.

Research the details – If you’re going in the off season, you can probably buy tickets the day of your travel, but in the high season it’s best to make reservations. Look at the time tables and make sure you can get to the bus/train station on time. Compare the bus and train costs. I found that taking the bus around France and Holland was great, but that in Germany the train was cheaper. I took a bus from Singapore to KL, but a train from KL to Ipoh.

Look at alternative travel options – Sometimes local flights can be more efficient and cheaper than bus or train. Sometimes there are even boats. Which I love. I took a ferry from Jordan to Egypt last time I was there. It was not any cheaper than flying, but it was a much cooler experience. I also had to take a boat to get to Koh Lipe and back since there are no airports on the tiny little island. Now that I’ve been, I know I probably could have bought my ticket when I got to the port, but at the time I had no idea how full it would be so I made sure to book online.

Check the reviews – In some cases you won’t have choices, but when you do it’s best to check and see if you can find a picture of the fleet that is NOT on the company website. I thought the boat to Koh Lipe would be like the ferries I’m used to where we could go up on deck and with that in mind, I was looking into a 3 hr boat ride. When I read more and realized that the Thai ferries in the region are all very restrictive and make passengers stay seated below decks, I opted for the shortest possible ride instead.

When in Rome – Not literally, but when it comes to getting around, it’s a good idea to see what locals do. I did so much research on inter-city transit to get from one place to another, I neglected to pre-research city buses to learn how to get around once I was there! It turns out, every one is different and it was a huge source of stress for me last summer. How do you use the bus/tram/metro system? Do you need a bus pass? Where do you buy tickets? Does it cost more to buy one at a time or get a pass? Is the tourist pass worth it? Don’t assume it will be easy to figure out when you get there… it won’t be.

Step 3: The Details

Now you have your cities chosen, your hotels booked, and a solid idea of how you’ll get around. Time to narrow your focus and figure out what you’ll do in each location. Show up and see what happens is not a strategy that works for most people. It seems very romantic, but most people find they end up sitting around on Google trying to do the research they should have done before they arrived.

Brainstorm

Write a list – Just make a list of names of all the places you can find where you’re going. Websites like Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet come in handy at this stage. They are great resources for building a basic list of things to see. They are a bit limited to the most popular tourist attractions, however, so try adding something like Atlas Obscura to your search.

Dig deeper– For more unique travel opportunities, check travel blogs and Facebook pages and other types of social media from smaller voices to see what isn’t being seen by the big famous travel sites. I found a magical heated waterfall in NZ this way. I’ve learned about unique food in tiny restaurants, and the less famous but just as beautiful temple or church next to the one full of tourists. You get beautiful memories and you often get the place mostly or even all the way to yourself. I can’t provide links because each blogger focuses on different places and experiences, but if you type the name of the place + “blog” or “travel blog” you should get some decent results.

Check the map– Once you get a list written down, you can start searching for what’s near them geographically. Pull up the Google Map and see what pops up next to your famous site or on the route from your hotel to that site. Read more blogs about people who went to a famous site and see if they did any side trips. I had a side trip for buffalo ice cream on my way back from a famous site in Bohol. Local water-buffalo being milked for ice cream… that’s a unique holiday experience.

Expand your search – If your’e staying in one hotel more than 3 days (it hardly ever takes longer to see the highlights of one city, although of course you could explore a single city for years and not see everything, many people on holiday like to maximize experiences), you can look at day trips from the city you’re in. Can you do a tour to a nearby natural reserve for hiking, kayaking, fishing, etc? Can you get a bus to a neighboring city and see their sights? I found an amazing spa in Aachen Germany about 2 hours away from my hotel in Lanaken Belgium.

Read until your eyes blur – Keep adding things to your list. Make your list as long as you like, don’t worry about all the details of each place yet, this is the brainstorm phase. Anything that sounds interesting, put it on the list.

Edit the List

Location, Location, Location – things that are close together can be done on the same day, while things that are far away, not on the public transit line, or not near anything else cool might be cut from the list. I had the Tower of Eben-Ezer on my list, but when I realized how far out it was and that it would take me hours each way without a car, I reluctantly took it off the list. Other times I’ve gone to a place I was only semi-interested in because it was 5 minutes walk from my primary stop and had a great experience.

Timing is everything – Check the days and hours of operation, and the price. If it’s not open when you’re there, if it conflicts with something you want more, if it costs too much, cross it off the list. Do you need to book in advance or can you buy tickets at the door? How long is the line? Many attractions have “skip the line” tickets that let you save time. When we went to the Catecombs in Paris, the line was 3 hours long. We had skip the line tickets and got in with only about 5 minutes wait. I completely failed to buy my Kremlin tickets ahead of time, and had to choose between standing in line and seeing the Kremlin or doing literally anything else in Moscow that day.

Read the reviews – Read reviews, look at pictures, visit the website. Look beyond rating and see what people are saying. Are the things they talk about important to you? Does this seem like something you’ll like? More than once I’ve declined to visit a city’s most popular tourist destination because it just didn’t seem that interesting to me.

Prioritize – Your list should be divided into “must see” and “see if there’s time”, with a side of “bad weather options”. Make sure you have no more than 50% of your list as “must see”. Even after editing out all the places you can’t get to, can’t afford, aren’t open, or aren’t interesting, the list should still be huge, and contain more things that you can actually do in the time you have because you might need to change something based on weather, unexpected closures, illness, or random acts of gods.

Step 4: The Schedule

It’s a good idea to have a schedule, as long as you know that it will change. I don’t want to spend my precious vacation time thinking about what to do each day. Sometimes I write detailed schedules down to the half hour, other times I make “day itineraries” grouping nearby activities together so I can wake up and say, ok today I’ll do itinerary 3.

Booking in Advance

Use your priority list and start with things on your “must see” list that require (or strongly suggest) advance reservations. Once those are filled in, you can start adding things that have variable times and things from your “see if there’s time” list.

Visit the website – Almost all of them have an English page and will tell you how important it is to buy tickets in advance. Some places don’t even sell tickets at the door.

Don’t Over-schedule

The temptation to squeeze sightseeing into every moment of the day is strong. Avoid it. A single event or a bike/walking tour that lasts 2-3 hours is a “half day” event (2 per day). Anything more than 5 hours is an “all day” event (1 per day). I can’t make you slow down, but thousands of travelers over several decades agree that seeing fewer things, but experiencing them more fully is a more satisfying experience.

Make time for meals! Oh man, the number of times I’ve ended up not getting food because I’ve been so busy looking around. It’s a tragedy especially if you’re travelling anywhere with good food… soooo basically everywhere. Street food is awesome and should be tried, but you need to sit down and rest too.

Organize by geography – When I was in the Philippines, I had itineraries that could be done on any day, as long as the items were done as a group because they were all close together. You can sneak tiny things into a day this way. If there’s something that will take less than an hour quite close to one of your half or all-day events you can work that in without killing yourself.

Time is a Gift – You look at an itinerary like this and you think, OH we’re wasting so much time, but you are not. You are giving yourself a precious gift. Now you have time to get lost, to explore, to check out that cool thing on the way you didn’t know about, to stop for an ice cream or coffee, to meet people along the way.

Be Prepared to chuck the plan – If you travel with an open eye and open mind, you’ll also find new and interesting things along the way. Sometimes it’s meeting people who invite you along, sometimes the concierge or Airbnb host tells you about a local secret, sometimes you just walk into a wine festival in the park (true story, happened to me in Prague). You want to be able to make time for these things, and in order to do that you need things you can move around in your itinerary.

Step 5: Organize Your Documents

Gone are the days of having to print our whole holiday itinerary and carry them around in waterproof document cases! Yes, people did that. Sometimes I still see older couples doing it. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, and if you’re not going to be around computers or the internet, it’s VITAL, but now that we can store everything in the cloud, we can access schedules, booking details, and vouchers with our phones!

At a Glance – There are countless apps you can use to organize your itinerary, but be sure you get one that is easy to read at a glance. You’ve seen my color coded spreadsheet that shows a calendar where I put the things I’ve scheduled and bought tickets for, but I also use something like a Word.doc for the list of things I can do more or less whenever that includes addresses, websites and phone numbers I may need, and any itinerary groupings.

On the Cloud – I make a dedicated folder in my cloud storage for all vouchers and receipts for everything I bought online from hotel reservations to museum tickets for each trip. I filter all my emails related to the holiday into a dedicated email folder for easy reference. I also keep photos of my critical documents. I know not everyone is comfortable with this, but if you lose your passport or ID, it will be easier to show your Embassy a picture of your missing credentials so they can help you faster.

Offline – If you won’t have data or internet when you arrive you can also download the documents you need to the phone’s storage. Some strange places in the world are still requiring printed vouchers/ tickets, so double check when you make reservations if you can use the pdf or email as proof or not.

What is all this for?

Planning a holiday can certainly be fun and help you build anticipation for your upcoming adventure. However, it can also be a lot of work and there are days when you’ll want to throw the towel in and just wing it when you get there. Trust me. Don’t.

All of this painstaking work helps make sure you get to see the best your holiday destination has to offer you.

make sure you don’t show up to a venue that is closed or sold out.
minimize transit time by grouping your events together.
maximize your bucket list by prioritizing only one or two things a day.
have enough time to do everything and a way to stop and rest as needed.
alleviate the stress of where to go and how to get there while you’re jet-lagged and culture-shocked.
explore organically by leaving a little extra time every day that could be filled or changed as needed.

I hope your next adventure is everything you dream.

Happy Travels!

Hello Bohol: Waterfalls

February 27, 2018February 9, 2018 / Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

On my last full day of vacation, everything on my Bohol checklist was done, but I was fighting for peace of mind after days of discord in what would turn out to be my shattered friendship. I will not air that laundry here, but it remains one of the hardest losses I’ve sustained in years. Seeking resilience and restoration that day, I turned toward the siren sounds of waterfalls. I adore waterfalls. Not only are they beautiful and fun if you can swim in them, but they also create negative ions. Any kind of massive moving water can do this, like pounding ocean surf or heavy rainstorms, even your shower. Studies started back in the early 2000s on the effects of negative ions on mood showed some promising results that walking on the beach when the waves are going, or visiting a waterfall can give you a major mood boost. Plus, they’re flippin’ gorgeous!

Mas Ago

Mas Ago Falls is possibly the “most famous” of the Bohol waterfalls. I don’t mean to imply that it is famous, simply that of the dozens or more that dot the island, this one is better known and more often visited by tourists than any other. The drive time was a bit more than an hour, and there was a small fee to park my motorcycle and another small fee to enter the “park”. The parking attendant didn’t have any change so simply let me drive by and asked me to pay him as I left since the admittance fee collector would likely have change for me. She did, and also offered to hold my helmet in her office while I went down.

I started down a long series of steep stairs. The falls and the river are at the bottom of a gorge. I could hear the falls long before I could see them. The stairs were wide, sturdy and well maintained, so I felt quite safe. My favorite waterfall near Seattle, Murhut Falls, was the other way around, and many others I’ve visited have been as well: a climb to reach, and an easier descent back to the parking lot. I knew as I descended that I would pay for the privilege of waterfall hunting with the uphill return later.

When I arrived at the bottom, it was clear that there had been some changes in the path. One branch led to a viewing platform where visitors could get a nice photo. Broken stairs led from the viewing area to the water, most likely destroyed in the earthquake. The stairs that now lead to the water were “blocked off” by a small stick, which I ducked under and proceeded onward. I felt emboldened to do this because there were already people at the river. There had been a heavy storm the night before, and there were what I presume to be park employees sweeping debris from the rocks to pretty up the area. There was also a father and son who had come down to the river for an early morning wash. It was quickly evident that none of them had been expecting a tourist so early in the morning.

The other effect of the previous night’s storm was that the falls were engorged. Photos I saw online showed two thinner streams of water coming down the 8m drop into a turquoise pool below. The day I arrived, it was one very large waterfall moving massive amounts of water dangerously fast. The pool was far more peridot than turquoise, but the water was churning roughly and there were branches of fallen trees visible as well. I know better than to risk a river moving that fast, and as I stared at the water coming to terms with the fact that I would not be able to swim, one of the men sweeping asked me just that, “do you want to go swimming?”

Of course I did, but the water looked too dangerous, I replied. He showed me a spot further down the river, behind some large rocks where there were pools that were sheltered from the worst of the current and indicated they would be safe. In addition to the rocks, I noticed that part of a concrete staircase had fallen into the river here as well. I found some older pictures of the area online where the pool and river are clear, so I can only guess that the boulders and stairs now cluttering up the river were a result of the quake that affected so much of the region. Given the remote location of the falls and the size of the rocks, I doubt they’ll be cleared away, however they provided a nice shelter from the strong current, and in calmer times would be a great way to get out into the middle of the river for photo-ops.

I doffed my pants but kept the shoulder and back covering I’d worn over my swimsuit. It wasn’t modesty, but a desire to keep the sun away. I settled into a little pool between some rocks and enjoyed the blissfully cool water. The rocks are quite slippery, yet the native Filipinos had no trouble at all bouncing around from rock to rock as though they had the best traction available. I was only somewhat mollified when some of the passing tourists later also had trouble with the slippery rocks (no one was hurt, only dignity).

Before long, the sweepers finished and left, then the father and son departed as well, leaving me alone with the waterfall. I was having a little difficulty because I couldn’t get to a spot where I could sit in the water and see the falls at the same time, and so took to moving back and forth between sitting atop a large river rock and watching, and sitting beside that same rock and cooling my sunburn in the water. A few tourists came down the steps, but most just took a few pictures and headed back up. One couple did come down to the part of the river I was at, just to wet their toes, and these were the ones who slipped, as I had, on the rocks. I was less worried about keeping my clothes clean, however, and just resorted to scooting.

The most interesting visit of the morning was when a group of university students from the local college of tourism came down to ask me if they could do a video interview of me for a class project. As a teacher, I am morally obligated to help out with student projects whenever I can, plus they seemed nice, so I agreed and they came carefully down to the slippery rocks so they could film me there in the water, and I answered some questions about where I was from and how I was enjoying Bohol.

Despite a few tourists and students, most of my time at Mas Ago was spent in solitude. It was quiet and refreshing. After a couple hours, the negative ions and natural beauty started working on my mood and I began to feel that addictive surge of wonder and gratitude that I’ve come to associate with exploring the world.

When I left, I discovered everyone had gone for lunch. The main fee collection booth was empty and locked, although she had left my helmet on my bike, and when I tried to stop at the parking attendant’s booth to pay the fee I’d missed on the way in, he was gone too, and the barrier blocking traffic was propped up. It seems that while the tourist industry does want to collect their fees when possible, they aren’t too bent out of shape about people wandering in on breaks.

Google Inspired Adventures

My waterfall itch wasn’t quite satisfied, as I’d been unable to do much swimming, and had to keep my distance from the raging falls for safety. I pulled up my trusty Google oracle and searched the area simply for “falls” to see what would come up. Sure enough, the map showed two such designations within 30 minutes of my current location.

People gripe about millennials being attached to phones, and although I’m not actually millennial, I am attached to my phone. I bring it everywhere, I make sure to get a data plan and have a back up battery at all times. And yes, I like posting cool photos on Instagram or sharing updates on Facebook, but the real reason my phone is a critical accessory in world travel is that it is the ultimate guide book. I can look for attractions, find directions, translate labels or signs, and sometimes find hidden gems that I would never have even known to ask about. So, please, don’t judge people who are tethered to the device until you know what they’re using it for, because the next adventure would not have happened at all without my phone and my Google.

Malingin Falls

After checking the routes, it seemed that even though it was farther as the crow flies, that it was closer as the motorcycle drives and so I headed over to this less well known waterfall site. After driving for a bit on well maintained roads, Google Maps directed me to turn down a dirt side road. I wasn’t especially bothered by this, since several places I’d visited during the last week were down this kind of side road. There was a sign at the intersection for the waterfalls. Although it was a very temporary kind of sign made of hanging vinyl, at least it told me I was headed the right way. As I continued down the road, the gravel and dirt gave way to mud and grass. I passed some bewildered locals and asked querulously if I was heading the right way to the falls. They indicated I was, so I kept on going.

Maybe I should have parked and walked a good bit earlier, but it was hot, and I was reasonably confident in my ability to keep driving as the road became more narrow. Once or twice I hit a mud puddle and slid around a bit, but I was going slow and making progress … until I wasn’t. I managed to drive right into a deep and long patch of mud that claimed the bikes tires and stopped me flat. Putting my feet down, I sank in the mud past my ankles, and I worked hard to get the bike unstuck, only running into the bushes once in the process. In retrospect, it might have been less work to walk the longer distance than to fight with the mud, but it wouldn’t have been as cool a story, and one of my favorite lifestyle adages is to live your life for the stories it creates.

I was finally forced to abandon the bike by the side of the path. I can’t call it a road anymore. I suspect that in drier times it would be easy to drive all the way to the stairs, but the previous night’s rainstorms made the road simply too slippery to drive past a point. I was a little worried about leaving my rental out in what felt like the middle of nowhere, but it seemed like the rural folk were a good deal more honest and trustworthy than city folk are rumored to be, and I had a reasonable expectation it would remain unmolested while I was away. I only walked a short distance before I began to hear the rushing of water that told me I was getting close, and in just a few more minutes, I crested a ridge that opened onto a little green river valley and a beautiful waterfall and swimming hole, complete with local swimmers.

There was another staircase down the ridge, but as it was also covered in slippery mud, I took off my mud covered sandals and proceeded down slowly, clinging to the railing, and where the railing was gone, sitting down and scooting once more. I can only imagine the ridiculous image I presented to the locals (who have no trouble at all navigating these slippery steps in flip flops) covered in mud from my struggles on the path, carrying my backpack and helmet and treating the steps like a dangerous mountainside. I made it to the field and began the trek through yet more mud, slipping and falling at least once when I took an incautiously large step. I began to wonder if all those pumice stone scrubbings I do to keep my feet soft were actually a bad idea because it seemed that every place I put my feet they tried to slide out from under me, but I did eventually make it all the way to the water’s edge where I was greeted with some amusement and much courtesy by the families already there.

I didn’t bother to change. Swimming clothed is common in most parts of Asia and the Philippines is no exception. Besides, my clothes were so muddy I’d be getting cleaner by swimming in them.

This was easily my favorite waterfall experience of the day. Although it was also the most challenging, I think in some ways that made it more valuable. The river and fields were just amazing. Talk about your basic Garden of Eden unspoiled natural environment! Although there were man-made additions, I thought they added to the experience. There was a kind of concrete mini-dam that formed a pool at the top of the falls and also a safety barrier to keep anyone from getting pulled over by the current (and a footbridge across). There were also some little huts to put belongings and enjoy picnics at while hiding from the sun. The main swimming area was well shaded under an enormous tree.

I was a bit worried about having awkward social encounters, but the people there were lovely. One woman admitted she was quite surprised to see me (although reassuring me I was very welcome) and asked how I had managed to find the place at all. Two teenagers who I think were siblings introduced themselves and chatted with me. The girl was excited when she found out I lived in Korea because she loves K-pop. The families enjoyed themselves taking photos of each other (and some selfies with me), jumping from the top of the falls to the pool below, running up and down the slopes and generally splashing it up.

My favorite thing to do was to rest against the barrier at the falls and let the water rush past me as I looked downriver at the beautiful jungle scenery.

Eventually, the families started packing up, and although at first I thought I might stay longer, a group of young men showed up with a bunch of beer. It may have been no threat at all, but I’m afraid my life experiences simply don’t allow me to feel safe as the only woman in a group of men with alcohol in the middle of the woods… yeah, there’s no way not to make that sound like the beginning of a horror movie. I think if anyone else was staying I wouldn’t have been driven off by the young men, but I’d had such a pleasant experience so far, I didn’t want to risk it becoming uncomfortable, or dangerous, so I decided to leave as well.

Solo Female Traveling Safety

I do want to point out that I did not feel unsafe anywhere in Bohol. The worst thing that happened was a guy who came over to talk to us in the ocean the one time we were out after dark, and he was totally friendly. It’s so hard to judge men’s intentions when I’m traveling as a female alone (or with only another female companion). Many folks around the world ask about things like age and marriage by way of friendly conversation and I’ve had lots of women ask me these questions, no problem. Unfortunately, when men ask, I can’t be sure if they just want to chat or if they are scoping me out for anything from easy sex to potential wife. And I’ve encountered the whole range. Some men I’ve met have been lovely to talk with and I’m happy to keep in touch after we part ways. Others made me wonder if it was worth calling the police over. But the vast majority are in a gray middle ground of making me feel vaguely uncomfortable without doing anything overtly “wrong”.

With the “me too” campaign underway, it’s hard not to think about my negative experiences at the hands of men in the US and around the world: taxi drivers who’ve tried to cop a feel or propose marriage in the Middle East. A well meaning festival goer in Japan who insisted my life was unfulfilled without a husband, who insisted on taking my hand in the crowd, and who is still sending me messages 2 years later even after being told “thanks but no thanks” as politely as I can. And I don’t even want to get into anything worse, but yeah, it’s there. I’m sad and angry that I have to live my life assuming that a man is a predator until proven otherwise, but if you as a man are upset that women are treating you like a threat, don’t get mad at us, get mad at all the men who creep, harass, and assault, leaving us with no choice but to live on the defense.

Filipino men may all be perfect gentlemen, I don’t know, but I do know it’s not worth taking the chance. So, I wrung out my clothes and gathered my things and followed the teenagers up the steps.

Stuck in the Mud

I had almost as much trouble going up as coming down, and one older gentleman paused to give me a hand. In this case, my nervousness at taking his hand was that he was not braced on anything and I was sure that adding my weight to his would cause us both to slip down the concrete sairs and split our skulls open, but he stood firmly and confidently and helped me up the steepest parts until I could reach the railing and manage on my own. I am sure they’re hiding super feet, either suckers or tiny hooks… I honestly have no idea how everyone was so sure footed on the mud and algae covered rocks and stairs. Island magic.

I got back to my bike, which was right where I left it, and bid the kids farewell as I began to ride back up the trail. When I encountered the mud patches on the way back, I got off the bike and walked it around, my shoes dangling from the handlebars to keep them mud free. This worked fairly well for the first two or three puddles, but soon I came upon a huge low place in the road. Somehow I’d ridden through it on my way in, but looking at it on the way out it seemed like an impassable lake. To drive home the metaphor, I spotted a water buffalo up to it’s shoulders just next to the road. I tried two times to progress and was forced backward each time after only a step or two.

While I stood at the edge of the watery road debating the best path through the mud and marsh, the teenagers who were on foot caught up with me (more evidence I should have just left the bike back at the first mud puddle on the way in). They quickly realized my conundrum and politely refrained from telling me how silly I’d been to drive in this far with the roads in this condition (literally everyone else I’d seen that afternoon was on foot, although I had seen a few more bikes parked on the path). The young man graciously began to poke around the mud for the shallowest path through, guiding me and my bike wide around the road up into the grass, through the trees, and eventually back down on the other side of the huge morass. I suppose I would have gotten through eventually, but who knows how long it would have taken or how many more times I would have been stuck.

I was humbled by the absolute unselfish behavior of these teens. They were kind and patient, and generally the type of teenagers no one thinks exist anywhere in the world (love Facebook, K-pop, and their phones, but are kind and helpful to each other and strangers?). I hope that their lives are as good as they are.

I bid them farewell when they reached their homes, and I made it back to the main road without further incident. I was covered in mud to the knees again. I didn’t want to put on my shoes and I didn’t want to drive far barefoot, so I drove just far enough until I saw a little roadside convenience stand.

I couldn’t find anyone, but it seemed that the cashier window was open (or at least not boarded up), so I called out to see if someone was around. The building itself was attached to more domestic looking structures and hanging laundry was also visible. Eventually, some small children noticed me and one girl came over to sell me a packet of cookies and a large bottle of water. They were a bit flustered at having to make change (I was always running out of small coins), but managed it in the end and I sat down on the bench out front to clean up and have my snack. The mud hadn’t had time to dry yet, so rinsing my feet was easy enough, and once they were mud-free I was able to put my shoes back on and do some more serious driving.

Kawasan Falls

The third waterfall was another 20 or so minutes away according to Google, and I wasn’t sure I was up for another slog through the mud, no matter how wonderful the prize at the end. I debated for a while and decided to head over anyway, promising myself that if the road was too muddy, I would turn back. (the lies we tell ourselves)

I followed the directions along the main roads, finally finding the side road in question. There was another sign indicating that this was the way to Kawasan Falls. The side road was under construction, perhaps someone in the tourism industry realized that muddy dirt roads are a solid deterrent to the average tourist. I was somewhat encouraged at the easier drive, although the road workers laughed a bit as I passed by, they assured me that I was on the right road to the falls. I guess that solo motorbiking foreign women are not a common sight on Bohol.

Eventually, the construction ran out, and the road returned to it’s former dirt and gravel state, however places that would have otherwise been mud pits had been filled in with more gravel, making the overall drive much less sticky. It was still a bumpy, uneven, rocky road, but the mud puddles were avoidable and I was able to press on without having to turn back from obstacles. There was a bit of a lawn at the end of the road that was being used as a parking lot and a park attendant sitting next to the path through the trees. Once I was parked, he led me through a little trail to a haphazard entrance pavillion where a young lady collected the small entry fee. The man continued to lead me down the path, although it was the only one and there was no way I could have gotten lost.

We passed some small feeder falls, and a series of elevated huts which I assume could be rented out for a day to have your family gathering and picnic at with a great view of the falls and the downstream river. It was obvious that this site was gunning to become a bigger attraction. There were plenty of locals already there enjoying the day. Once we were in sight of the falls, the guide released me on my own recognizance. It was easily the most crowded place I’d visited that day. I’m not sure if it was the time of day or if because this location had easier access it was just more popular.

I waved hello to a bench full of locals who were tickled pink to see me there. I found a tree to dump my bag, shoes and helmet at and set about trying to figure out how to get out to the swimming area. Again, I observed that all the Filipinos have magical feet. As I was moving out toward where some kids were swimming one of the little girls stopped me with a warning about how slippery the rocks were, and I headed off disaster or at least embarrassment. While trying to get out another way, I got approached for some more ‘selfies with the tourist’. Sometimes I wonder if I look like someone famous. I don’t think my appearance is especially remarkable, and yet it seems to give people joy to take pictures with me. I don’t get it, but it’s harmless as far as I know, and doesn’t cost me anything to make someone else happy, so I do it. I hesitate to imagine how many random group photos I’m in from around the world.

Of the three falls I saw that day, although Malingin was my favorite overall experience, there is no contest that Kawasan was the most stunning visually. (Not to be confused with Kawasan over in Cebu which is super famous and crowded with tourists from what I hear). It was much taller than the other two, and of course because of the previous night’s rains it was pouring a magnificent amount of water. Despite the torrent, a group of young men had climbed up the rock-face (no stairs, no handholds, just magic feet) and were sitting behind the falls. Lots of kids and moms with little ones were in the shallower pools, and a few more emboldened swimmers were out in the deep pool directly beneath the falls.

I am a confident swimmer, so I was happy to get right up close. I ended up perching against some large rocks in the pool to rest and just take in the scenery. It was the pinnacle of what I had hoped for when I set out to swim under a fall that day, since I was submerged in the cool water only a few meters from the downpour, the strength of the wind created by the falling water blowing the wonderful clean smell (and negative ions) over me while I gazed upward to the sun-sparkled peak where the water leapt over the edge like liquid diamonds.

After a little while of pure “oh my god, this is my life” feelings, I noticed that the young men up on the sheer rockface were standing up and preparing to jump. I have nothing against jumping into water. I like diving. I may be overly paranoid about jumping into water I’m unfamiliar with, but I think it’s safe to assume these young men were regulars at this particular swimming hole. Nonetheless, it was a nailbiting scene, and it was clear that even the jumpers were more than a little nervous, one even performing a sign of the cross before leaping into the air. Everyone below watched and cheered so it became a group spectator sport and when they returned to the shore, the young men were welcomed by their waiting wives and girlfriends.

One of them asked me if I wanted to try, and while I might have been ok with the jumping part, when I asked them how they even got up there in the first place, they pointed to a section of wall that looked incredibly vertical and slippery, so I declined. I did try my luck at getting closer to the falls, although I only made it about halfway across the deep pool before the current and force of the wind drove me back, but it was exhilarating to be able to get so close to so much natural beauty and power.

After I retreated back to the resting rock, I was approached by yet another set of tourism students from the university, out collecting interviews for what was very likely the same class project. Of course I agreed to appear on camera, but I can’t help imagining what that class will be like when they show their projects and two separate groups with interviews at two separate waterfalls show up with the same tourist in their report!

I would have happily stayed until it was too dark to see or I got kicked out. Especially because around this time the crowds started thinning out and I got to take some totally human free photos of the magnificent scenery. However, I had made dinner plans for my last night in town and didn’t want to cancel. Thus, I clambered cautiously back through the shallow pools filled with pointy rocks, gathered my belongings, and climbed back out of the river valley as the golden light of the afternoon sun cast it’s glow on the quiet jungle around me.

And so ends the Chuseok Philippine Holiday. Like all the very best vacation posts, it takes me months to process all the stories and photos. My goal is always to get one vacation fully published before the next one, and while I didn’t have a winter vacation this year, I am doing a major upheaval in March as I move to a new city in Korea, rent my first Korean apartment on my own, and start a new job, so that seemed like a good deadline. I don’t know how much time I’ll have in March to write, but I hope that as the weather warms up and the flowers come out in April, I’ll have a cavalcade of new stories about this next leg of my journey. As always, you can see the full photo album on Facebook. Thanks for reading!

Hello Bohol: Historical Sites & History

February 19, 2018February 6, 2018 / Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

When I was in high school I thought history was the most boring subject ever. Now I know it was just that history had the most boring teachers… and textbooks. Seriously, I don’t know how hard they have to work to make something so interesting seem so boring. However, since I know the secret these days, I love using my travels as an excuse to learn about the history of each place I visit. Bohol is far richer in history than I can fully explore here, but I enjoyed learning more about it, and I hope you will too.

Mostly Catholic Churches

I visited many of the large cathedrals left over from Spanish occupation that had distinctive stone architecture and European influenced art, but driving around I saw a great many smaller centers of worship. Most of the small churches around the island are a single “room”, wall-less or lattice walled affairs where the neighborhood can gather to worship. I took that picture on the right from the street. It’s not under construction, it just doesn’t have a wall there.

They are very devout Catholics over there. One evening on the way to dinner from the hotel, I drove past a procession of some kind, a mixture of genders and ages, but 4 men were carrying a liter with a statue of (probably) the Virgin Mary and a mountain of colorful flowers. They walked down our small street singing Ave Maria as they trailed after the statue. I didn’t take any pictures in part because I was driving, but also I felt it would have been a bit rude. These people weren’t worshiping in a place that was heavy with tourists and I felt as though I’d been allowed to witness something very personal.

The large historical cathedrals are well marked tourist spots however, so I have plenty of photos of those.

Panglao Watchtower & St. Augustine Parish

Before visiting, I didn’t know much about the history of the island other than a little bit about the Spanish colonization. However, the watchtowers are listed on a great many “to do” collections, so when I noticed one nearby on Google Maps, I decided to stop and check it out. As I pulled in, several young men asked if I was there for an island hopping tour. This was one major tourist attraction I decided against before arriving simply because the descriptions I read online made it sound like a horrible hassle for little reward. I politely declined and found a shady tree to park under near the church of San Augustine. Some nearby cows who wandered over to see if I had anything interesting, but soon realized there were no treats.

The Panglao Watchtower is located on the south end of the island. It is 5 stories high, making it the tallest structure on the island. It was built in 1851 by the Spanish, and is in serious disrepair. I know almost nothing else about it, because it’s not a popular enough historical site to have much published about it online. I did find that around that time the Spanish and Filipinos were having a bit of a tiff over things like government control and secularization, so I suppose the watchtower built next to the church may have been out of a concern that the church could be attacked by secularists?

I wandered around taking photos of the tower and the mangroves nearby before moving to the church. There were people inside, it was a Sunday after all, but it seemed to be a small meeting and not a full congregation and they were confined to one section of the church, so I quietly stepped in to an empty area to look around and take a few more pictures inside. As I stood looking at the art and architecture, I was struck by the very Spanish style before remembering that colonization of the Philippines was Spanish and not British.

Finally, I walked out along the end of the pier all those island hoppers were using to see the ocean view. I didn’t know it at the time, I only found out days later when a restaurant owner told me, but apparently a local church runs a free ferry to the nearby Virgin Island (a stop on the island hopping tour), and if you want to know more, you’ll have to go to Nikita’s Coffee Shop and ask the old British guy who runs the joint, as I never had the chance to find that particular boat.

Dauis Watchtower, Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, & The Miracle Well

My next goal was to find the Miracle Well, which is located at the Our Lady of the Assumption church on the north end of the island. There is a little matching cathedral and watchtower at both north and south, although the northern watchtower was so much shorter that I almost didn’t see it at all.

The church is just next to the bridge that leads over to Bohol. It’s easy to find parking, and the grounds are lovely. I wandered slowly around taking photos of the exterior of the church, some of the statues and grottoes around, the sea nearby, and a little brood of baby chicks because they were insanely cute. The watchtower is so low that I have no idea what one would be watching from it’s second story window, but it seemed to be a part of the set. Unfortunately, by the time I finished exploring the exterior, they were just closing up for lunch and I didn’t get inside (don’t worry, I came back another day).

Our Lady of Assumption is so close to the bridge to Bohol that I was able to pause there again on my way elsewhere for another shot at getting inside the church and finding the Miracle Well, but it wasn’t until my third stop at the church that I finally succeeded. At long last, the church was both open and unoccupied, so I was able to get inside without interrupting services.

It is an open and intricately decorated church. Either it had been untouched by the earthquake or had been lucky enough to earn a full restoration because the inside was in excellent repair. The large sanctuary had stone walls, but also large windows to let in light and air. It was an interesting combination of the European style and island style. I wandered around taking pictures and looking for the well, which is supposed to be near the altar.

According to myth, the town was under attack by pirates (a thing which did happen regularly), and all the townsfolk locked themselves in the church (big stone building, makes sense). However, the pirates were determined and began a siege, trapping the townsfolk inside with no water! Then, miraculously, a fresh water well sprang forth at the foot of the altar and saved the people inside, allowing them to wait out the pirates who I suppose either got bored or were driven off by the Spanish navy. The well remains a source of fresh water to this day, despite the fact that it is a stone’s throw from the sea. The church offers bottles of this miraculous water for a donation of your choice.

I searched everywhere. I saw no well. I looked online for images that might give me a clue where the well was, but the interior seemed to have undergone a remodel, and the few photos of the well I found were such close ups that I could not tell where in the church they were. Was I even in the right church? There were no signs, no informative plaques to tell visitors about this amazing miracle. Had I really come to the wrong church three times looking for a well that either didn’t exist or had been destroyed in the earthquake?

Finally, on my way out, I saw a small office with some people who looked at least a little bit like they were affiliated with the church and asked. A very kind lady not only assured me that this was the correct church, but led me over to the well, which was hiding unobtrusively amid a low wooden railing that separated the parishioner’s pews from the priest’s area.

I had seen the railing and the signs on it that said “no entry”, and had looked no further, but in one little section, the railing goes from being a single line, to being a square and there is enclosed the well, covered with Plexiglas to keep anything or anyone from falling in. She took up a nearby lamp and shone it into the depths so that I could see the water below.

Once I’d taken a few photos, she walked me back over to the office and fetched a bottle of the “miracle water” for me to try. Of course I left a donation, don’t be silly. And since tourists are advised against drinking the tap water here, you’ll be happy to hear that I suffered no ill health from the miracle well water. Maybe that’s the miracle?

More photos of the St. Augustine & Lady of Assumption Churches.

St. Peter the Apostle Parish Ruins

After the river cruise, I headed across the street to see the Loboc Church, aka Saint Peter the Apostle Parish Church. The full history of the Spanish colonization here is for a later time. For now, suffice it to note that this church was the second built on Bohol by the Jesuits. The Parish was done in 1602, but the coral-stone building that (mostly) stands today was finished in 1734. Then in 1768 the Jesuits were tossed out and another Catholic group called the Order of the Augustinian Recollects took over. I’m not going to try to explain Catholic orders here, feel free to wiki that if you have a burning desire to know. It’s also been declared a National Treasure by the Philippine government, and is under consideration for UNESCO heritage sites. It was absofrickinloutly beautiful (judging from photos) before the 2013 earthquake and now it is a stunning ruin.

I had spotted the ruins when driving to and from the Chocolate Hills earlier in the week, but at the time I was hurrying to get there or exhausted and ready for bed, so I was pleased to have carved out some time just to go and ogle the ruins. I know it’s tragic that the earthquake destroyed so much, and I’m sure I would have enjoyed seeing the church in it’s glory, because photos really do look lovely, but there is something about ruins being reclaimed by nature that just draws me right in. Even though it’s only been 4 years since the earthquake, the locals have just not been able to raise enough money to complete repairs and other than some scaffolding and a few gates to keep people out, the structure has been left to the onrush of jungle foliage.

Trees have sprouted in the walls. Ferns and mosses creep across the stone carvings. I peeked in barred windows to see the remains of a baptismal font, and peered through gated doorways to see the interior filled only with more layers of scaffolding. It’s clear that they do not wish to simply leave the church to decay, but very little has been done in the 4 years following the destruction. To me it was the perfect combination of man-made beauty and natural power.

At one point, I moved up close to get a good photo of some carving and I noticed the odd texture of some of the stones in the wall. They seemed to be organic. I know there are some crystalline structures that can appear organic, but these struck me as being especially sea-like and I wondered at the time if the stones may have come from a once-upon-a-time sea floor limestone quarry. I saw more of the same stones in other ruins once I knew what I was looking for, and vowed to find out when I got back. It turns out the answer is fairly simple, and I wasn’t far wrong. It’s not so much an ancient sea bed quarry, as a coral quarry. I had no idea coral could be quarried for building materials, but this happens in several islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific. Sometimes the coral is sliced into roof tiles, sometimes it’s mixed in with other ingredients to make a kind of concrete, and sometimes it’s big enough to hew whole building stones from, leaving some of the churches of Bohol with fascinating fossil structures in their walls.

I spent close to an hour circling around the crumbling church. The detail in the stones, the tiny plants and the hidden carvings and grottoes were entrancing, but eventually the heat and sunshine drove me back to my bike and back on the road where a welcome travel breeze cooled me off once more.

Baclayon Church

I will admit that my itineraries were largely informed by picking a single destination based on interest or reviews, and then examining the map to see what else was labeled on the roads I would be driving. I mean, if you’re in control of your own transportation, there’s no reason not to pull off to at least have a look when passing by landmarks, right? I don’t think I would have gone on a church tour in the Philippines for it’s own sake (although I did go to several in Europe because architecture!), but I’m glad I had the chance to see the buildings.

I had a suspicion by this time that I’d actually seen the Baclayon Church before, but not stopped at it. Looking at the map that day, I was sure it was the church that was visible from the market I’d stopped at for snacks on that first drive up to Bohol while going to the Chocolate Hills. And lo, I was correct. It was a little tricky to find the entrance, but fortunately Bohol is not a heavy traffic place, so if you get lost its easy enough to pull over or turn around.

The Baclayon Church (also The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary Parish Church) is the oldest Christian settlement in Bohol, established by the same Jesuit group that had set up the Loboc Church. It was first colonized in 1596, and the finished coral stone building that stands now was completed in 1727. It was also taken over by the Augustinians. It was also declared a national treasure. And it was also a short-lister for UNESCO world heritage sites before the earthquake hit. However, unlike the Loboc church which is nearly untouched, the Baclayon Church is well under way with repairs. I ran into a construction crew on the far side actively working.There is very little sign of damage on the exterior. This is not because the damage was minimal, but because the effort has been great. There was a before and after photo out front as well, showing what the damage looked like just after the quake and it’s much closer to what Loboc Church still looks like. I wandered around the exterior taking more photos and found several more blocks with that organic sea-life look that I now know to be coral stone. It seemed that the sanctuary proper was still under construction, but it is scheduled to re-open this year.

The museum, reliquary and gift shop are all open to the public. I have never seen so many rosary based trinkets in one place as that gift shop, I think some may have been several meters in length while others appeared to be made of glow in the dark materials. The reliquary is at this point in time simply a loose collection of the relics and art that adorned the church and (mostly) survived the damage: statues, a few rather terrifying mannequins and a version of the Pieta with some loose wigs. Still, it’s clear that these were all valuable historical displays and they were gathered together with care. I’m afraid I declined to enter the museum proper that day.

More photos of the Loboc and Baclayon Churches.

The Blood Compact Memorial

One of my favorite travel techniques is to look at a map or a tour to-do list, see a thing with an interesting name, visit it, realize I have no idea what it is about, take a ton of pictures, and look it up when I get home. The Blood Compact is a perfect example of this formula.

When I programmed my map app to take me there, the destination was a place I had driven past at least 3 times during the last week, yet unlike the Baclayon Church which I was confident of having seen while driving past, I could not recall anything at all where the map was pointing me. Confused, I pulled up the street view, hoping to get a better idea of what that stretch of road looked like, and Google insisted on pointing me to a patch of grass on the side of the road with nothing around it. This is not the first time that happened on this trip since some things are set back off the road, either down a slope or behind trees where the cameras missed it. Since I had to drive that way to get back to the hotel anyway, I decided to give it a whirl.

I only realized I’d driven past when my app dinged in my earbuds. When I pulled over to look around, I spotted a tiny little monument set back from the road back the way I’d come. I turned around to get a better vantage point and took my “I was here photos”, but there didn’t seem to be anything other than this small wall, explanatory plaque, and a trio of wayward goats.

“About the middle of March, 1565, Captain General Miguel Lopez de Legaspi’s fleet anchored along this shore. Shortly thereafter, Legaspi, manifesting trust and confidence in the islanders, entered into a blood compact with Datu Sikatuna, for the purpose of insuring friendly relations between the Spaniards and the natives. A few drops of blood drawn from a small incision in the arm of each of the two chiefs were placed in separate cups containing wine, and in the presence of the followers of both, each chief drank the potion containing the blood of the other. Thus, during this period of colonization, a bond was sealed in accordance with native practice, the first treaty of friendship and alliance between Spaniards and Filipinos. –1941”

Later, while doing my “now what did I just see” research, I found all these cool pictures of a bronze statue of the ceremony! Where even was that? There are two places on that road labeled “Blood Compact” on Google, and I’m willing to bet that a lot of the people posting photos of the statue were part of a tour group with a guide who knew where to go. Looking at Google Street View in retrospect, I found both the plaque and the bronze statue in different places. The plaque is next to a convenience store and somewhat down a slope from the roadside. The statue is next to “Ocean Suites”, on a raised dais, behind a white metal fence. I may have driven past it and thought it was part of the hotel. *sigh.

How About That History?

I am not going to write a comprehensive history of the Philippines, or even come close. This is a highlights reel to put the current socio-political and economical issues the Philippines is facing into context for those of you who, like me, found your history books mysteriously silent on the fate of small island nations.

Colonialism

A whole bunch of countries were scrambling to get to the East and get the precious SPICES! The Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, British, Ottoman, and even the Chinese and Japanese were all out to expaaaaaaand. That’s how I got a country, and how lots and lots of indigenous people lost theirs. The Portuguese and the Ottomans were being a bit rude in the Philippine Islands, so when the Spaniards showed up on Bohol and were like, “oh no we are not like those silly Portuguese!” The natives were happy to make this treaty with them, and the Boholano people are still quite proud that their ancestors made the first friendship treaty with their eventual oppressors… Yeah, I don’t like colonialism.

Image – Front National SA

Which makes this next part extra sad.

A few hundred years of all those empires competing over SE Asia and South Pacific islands of military strategic value meant that even though the Spanish held the Philippines officially until 1898, there were plenty of battles, skirmishes and invasions where someone else took control of Manila or other islands. Basically all the rich kids fighting over the land and the native people getting boned. Sometimes the natives did rebel, I think the longest single rebellion lasted almost a hundred years in one part of the country, but none succeeded at driving their European overlords out. The part that came as a complete and total shock to me is that Spanish rule of the Philippines did NOT end with independence in 1898, but rather with the sale of the island nation to …(dun, dun, dun) THE USA! …at the end of the Spanish American war.

The Philippine American War

Mere days after the transfer of ownership, the Filipinos tried to declare their independence once more. While we (Americans) were busy fighting the Spanish American War, the native Filipinos were simultaneously fighting Spain for their independence. Was the democracy loving US *helping* little Philippines? No, because we were still pretty darn isolationist in 1898 and hadn’t gotten into the habit of having the giant standing army we like to send around on “peacekeeping missions”. We were actually fighting Spain for control of their islands like Cuba. By the end of the war, they signed over Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands, although apparently the US paid 20$ million for the last one to cover infrastructure costs.

By the way, we still own Guam and Puerto Rico, but won’t let them be states (have representation) or apparently get decent federal aid after a devastating hurricane.

Having been engaged with the Spanish for their freedom, the Filipinos were not actually on board with the sale, and declared themselves independent and published a lovely constitution. The US, on the other hand felt it had paid some hard earned money for the territory and so began the Philippine American War, which I had actually never heard of until now. The Filipinos lost, and America continued to OWN the country until after WWII when we were generally making everyone (mostly Britain) give back all their colonies and decided to use the Philippines as our “set a good example” colony.

Military Dictatorship

Shortly after WWII, we get to Ferdinand Marcos who started his career in the House in 1949 (just a few years after officially free Philippines happened) and eventually became the President who implemented strict martial law from 1972-1981. It was a military dictatorship, and a seriously brutal time, and why am I telling you about it here? Because although the was finally ousted by a revolution in 1986, his rule was a major threat to democracy there and rife with cronyism, favoritism, extortion, and flat out ignoring the constitution. And the guy in power now is making a lot of people draw comparisons.

10 interesting facts about president ferdinand marcos | tenminutes.ph on Ferdinand Marcos Background

image tenminutes.ph

Like many countries, the Philippines was not proud of that time in it’s history and as a new generation grew up in the light of the revolution and the restoration of democracy, they weren’t always well educated on the dark side of Marcos’ reign. Too soon, people began to think that stricter measures and even martial law could be good tools to help the country.

Democracy and Death Squads

Enter Duterte. Another lifelong politician, he has risen to popularity and power with the aid of DEATH SQUADS. I’m not kidding. In order to “clean up” the country, he has repeatedly and publicly declared that it’s ok to kill criminals without trial. This includes drug dealers, drug users, petty criminals, and “street children”. If you aren’t gagging in horror, you may need to get checked for your humanity.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte inspects firearms together with Eduardo Ano, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, during his visit at the military camp in Marawi city

image Reuters

He’s also said unbelievably horrible things about wanting to rape women, wanting to kill people who cause problems with extreme violence, and pardoning everyone under his command who committed human rights abuses while carrying out his orders… if this sounds like any other world leader you may have seen on tv in the last year, you are not alone in thinking this.

Responsible Tourism

This left me in a tricky position vis a vis being a tourist. I did not feel in danger in Duterte’s bloody cleanup because they are in no way targeting foreign nationals in this death squad round up. But economically, it was a tough choice. I know that my tiny vacation budget is not going to have an impact on the national economy of the Philippines, but it just might have an impact on the lives of the small business owners, guides, and environmental preservation programs that I do want to support and that I desperately hope survive until the next era of democratic sanity is restored. So, yes, I went and I feel ok about that.

Hello Bohol: Loboc River

February 3, 2018January 29, 2018 / Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

There are a couple large famous rivers on the island of Bohol, and we were slightly closer to the Loboc than the Abatan. In the end, reviews and photos make it seem like these rivers and their cruise options are so similar that ease of location seemed to be the best tie breaker. Thus it was that I found myself on the Loboc twice this trip: once by night for a firefly tour, and once by day for a lunch cruise. Both experiences were enjoyable in uniquely different ways.

Fireflies by Night

The only actual tour I signed up for in the whole 9 day holiday was the firefly tour. After my experience in Surat Thani, I wanted to see more, and I wanted my travel buddy to have a chance to experience the wonders of fireflies in the mangroves. We decided to go with a group because the price including pick up was only 700p, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about driving ourselves in the dark. I can’t tell you what company we used because our hostess Becca made the arrangements for us. The van was a little late, but again, it seemed everything in Bohol is slow, so I didn’t let it worry me, and soon enough we were on our way. I ended up sitting next to some Koreans and we chatted a bit on the drive up to the river. They were of course also on the same Chuseok holiday I was, but had already been to a couple other places in the Philippines and had done all the major sites in Bohol in just 2 days, including a dive! They were leaving for Manila the next morning and couldn’t imagine how I was spending my whole holiday on just this one tiny island.

When we arrived, it was at a small riverside dock where several other drivers also unloaded vans full of tourists and we were herded onto a large boat in the Loboc river. Once all aboard, we drove up into the mangroves. The night was amazingly beautiful. It happened to be a full moon and the river was wide enough to make a space around us and let the moonlight illuminate the trees and mountains in pale blue. The night air was warm, but the wind of the boat’s passage kept us cool and bug free. I was a little put off by the huge crowd, but it was a beautiful night and I was enjoying the scenery nonetheless. People had pointed to one or two lone flashes, wondering if that was the bugs we were coming to see, but of course it was not.

At one point the guide flashed his light high up into some palm trees and the light reflected off of dozens of shining things. I knew it couldn’t be the fireflies, which are bio-luminescent and not reflective, and which also don’t live in palms, only the mangrove apple. But I had no idea what could cause the reflective twinkling. In post vacation research mode, I found one lone reference to migrating birds sleeping in the nina palms along the river, so I’m guessing that it was their sleeping bodies the guide was illuminating for us?

Finally we came around a bend and were greeted with the christmas tree blinking of a firefly colony. I think if you want the best description, it’s better to go read my Surat Thani experience. This was really beautiful, but my experience of the beauty here was detracted from somewhat by a few things. One, the boat drivers actually ran the boat into the tree on purpose to get us as close to the blinking insects as possible (and I fear to agitate them into a better display, which is backward because they flash less when threatened). Two, every single person on the boat instantly stood up and raised phones and go-pros on sticks to try to get the best photos and videos of the tree. I know that low-light tech has improved a lot, but I also know that none of them have any images that will come close to the real thing. It made me a little sad that it was more about pictures than memories.

I stood too, because there was no other way to see. With the boat in their space, most of the fireflies retreated to the top of the tree, and blinked, as the others had, in near unison, but with one major difference from the ones in Thailand: they streaked. Perhaps because so many had been disturbed and taken to the air, or perhaps they just have a different blink time, but these bugs stayed lit long enough that a small portion of their flight path was illuminated creating the illusion of a thousand tiny shooting stars. My video, alas, only serves to highlight the terrible night capture my phone has. Maybe I should start a GoFundMe for a better camera…

Once everyone had their photos, there was a chorus from the passengers to get going, and I rather expected us to move on forward to another glowing tree. After all, in ST, we were on the river for close to an hour and saw dozens of glowing trees. However, as we disentangled from the tree, we headed instead back toward the dock. The whole journey, more than an hour of driving, and the moonlight cruise up the river (which, yes, was nice for it’s own sake) were all for this single tree and brief 10 minute photo op. I thought about all the other times I’d seen the Chinese and Koreans on holiday do something similar: travel a long way to take a photo or two and then move on. I love my photos too, I like taking them, and I like looking at them later or sharing them on social media, but I still try every time I travel to take some time at every stop to put the camera down and just *live* in that moment. Otherwise all that photo will remind me of is taking the photo.

I tried not to be ungrateful as we returned that night. It was hard for me not to compare my experience in ST to this one and feel very let down. I tried instead to focus on the good parts. The comet effect of the insects was stunning. The full moon on the river and the jungle was an absolute treat. It turns out that nearly every firefly tour in Bohol is like this, big crowded boat, one tree for photos, done. The best thing I could have done if I wanted a quiet peaceful personal experience with lots of trees full of lights would have been to go on one of the kayaking private tours, but there was no way that I was going to wield a kayak paddle until my back became less crispy, so this really was the best I could hope for. The good news is, now that they know tourists will pay to see fireflies, the locals have stopped cutting down the trees they live in and are working on restoring the mangrove’s environmental balance to bring more back, so spending money on this is contributing to the preservation of mangrove habitat.

Tourism is a tough balancing act because if they don’t have enough money, they can’t make it nice. If it get’s too popular, they can’t keep it ecologically healthy. If they make more money destroying the environment than they do showing it off, they’ll follow the money. People gotta live. It’s our role as privileged travelers to spend our money on things that encourage responsible growth and preservation while helping the local economy, and I think if nothing else, the firefly tours on Bohol do that.

This tour was also a good example of expectations vs reality defining an experience. I had no particular expectation of what I’d see in ST, and it blew my mind. But I had to at least slightly compare my first experience to the one in Bohol, and I ended up being perhaps less than stunned because it didn’t match my mental image. I don’t want to let this stop me from doing things twice or in different places, but I hope it reminds me to hold back my expectations and come to each experience as fresh as possible.

Lunch Boat by Day

Another must do on the tourist itinerary of Bohol is a daytime river cruise. I chose the Loboc River Floating Restaurant Cruise. By this time, I knew what a meal should cost, and 450p for a good lunch plus a cruise and a show is well worth it. Reviews told us that the food was decent, and they did not lie. It was not the best meal I had on the trip, but everything was good and it’s a buffet so you can eat as much as you like, as long as you don’t leave food on your plate (they charge 50p for leftovers to discourage food waste). You can read more about it on the food post for this trip.

Unless you join a tour group, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get tickets in advance, so I aimed early and arrived at the tourism center at 11am. On my way into the parking lot I was issued a “priority number”. I gather this is so that people can then buy tickets in the order they arrive without having to stand in a long line.

I pocketed the numbers and wandered around the little shopping area, taking in the repetitive souvenirs and trying in vain to find an iced coffee (no such luck). I never ended up buying any stuff, because I’m already loaded down with more things than I know what to do with, but I was tickled by the mash-up of the famous Starbucks logo with Bohol’s famous Tarsier, and I think if I’d been in the market for a new t-shirt, this would have been it.

When I at last headed to the ticket counter, I was at first rebuffed, but when they saw the priority number (issued some 30 minutes earlier and probably already called in the waiting area), I was quickly herded to the cashier and directed toward the lunch boat. Lunch was served as we boarded, giving everyone the chance to fill their plates and do some serious eating while still at the dock. At first I though it a bit strange, but I realized once we started moving that it was a good plan after all, since it got most people seated before the boat was in motion, and it meant that we weren’t dividing our attention between the food and the view.

Somehow, I lucked out unreasonably, and got a table at the very front edge of the boat. I don’t think there are actual bad tables, since each one seemed to be on the front or one of the sides. The middle was occupied with the buffet, and the rear of the boat held the bar and a small stage where we were serenaded with acoustic renditions of English, Chinese, and Japanese popular songs. The musician was pretty good and I felt his songs added to the overall experience that day, so left a generous tip in his basket when it came around.

I took lots of photos, most of which are nearly identical in retrospect, and a few videos which I’ve managed to string together to give a general impression of the experience (see below). My seat provided an unrivaled view of both sides and a constant breeze that kept me cool and comfortable. Boat staff offered to take pictures (with my own camera, not as a souvenir gimmick), and when I was ready to go get my seconds of maja blanca, I offered my spot at the railing to a young lady with a very serious camera who I thought would appreciate the vantage point while I wasn’t using it.

We pottered down the river, admiring the plants and scoping out some other floating platforms where we theorized the dance performances would be held. At one point, I began to notice lamp posts along the riverside, seemingly alone in the jungle. I suppose that there may have once been a path there, perhaps wiped out by the 2013 earthquake or just by the changing course of the river, but it was more than a little Narnian to see a perfectly normal lamppost in the woods.

Our outward tour ended at a small waterfall where we paused long enough to make sure everyone on board got a good look and a photo op, then we turned around and headed back the way we came.

If you’ve ever been up and down a river, you’ll appreciate that the view on the way back is not actually the same as the view on the way out, so I didn’t mind at all. Plus, on the way back we pulled up to one of the floating platforms and got treated to some local traditional dancing. The sign indicated the dance is called Kuradang, which seems to be a kind of dance used at many celebrations in Bohol. It likely started before the Spanish colonization but has just as likely been influenced over the centuries. It’s still special here, though, because it’s considered to be a uniquely Boholano dance.

My lunch partner got up from our table to see if she could get a closer view for photos and was quickly stolen onto the dance floor. I couldn’t just leave her there alone (plus, I had to get pictures of her being silly), so I followed and was soon dancing with the performers myself. We joined in the Kuradang in the portion where male and female partners sort of circle around one another. I did my best to follow my ersatz dance partner, who knew the steps much better than I. I’ve watched a few competition videos since and I can say that while I do feel that we were doing the same dance, that we were also doing only the most simple beginners steps. The gentlemen we danced with were very polite and hands off and we all had a breathlessly good time. After the music stopped, we were invited to sit there on the platform to watch the next dance: the tinikling.

Tinikling is much easier to find information about online since it’s practiced all over the Philippines, not just in Bohol. It’s also dated to the Spanish colonial era, but I don’t believe it came from Spain, merely that it developed across the Philippines during their occupation. (Kind of like how Riverdancing style developed in Ireland in response to British occupation?) I got a much better video of this dance, since I was now seated right next to the stage. It’s a dance involving two long bamboo sticks being slapped on the ground to make both the drum beat and a jumping challenge for the dancers. It was a bit like the complicated jump rope routines I could never master as a child, and also reminded me of some of the stick jumping dances I’d seen the Maori do in New Zealand.

Once the main performance concluded, the dancers once again urged us forward. This time, I went first and tried my best to imitate the foot movements of my teacher. She was patient but of course it was a performance as well, so after only two practice toe taps, they started the bamboo moving (slowly) and I tried to follow the pattern. Oops for me, we’d only practiced the right foot, and suddenly I realized I had no idea what to do with my left! Fortunately the bamboo wielders were paying close attention and did not snap the poles on my leg. We reset our position and started again, and I managed to get the rhythm for about seven seconds before losing it again and begging my way off the stage. I won’t say this is an easy dance to master, but I was also going sans bra to spare my sunburnt back and I was more than a little worried that the energetic bouncing would cause a wardrobe malfunction.

Finally, we were released back to our seats on board, breathless and excited. I felt completely ridiculous but I also realized that we’d probably had the best time of anyone on board because we were willing to throw dignity to the wind and act like children. We bid the dancers farewell and thanked them for the joy (with words and a generous tip) and then the boat moved on, bringing us back to the pier where we began.

I don’t know what I had expected from a lunchtime river cruise, and I suppose at least a little bit of every experience has a reflection of what you put into it, but it turned out to not only be a lovely meal (where I learned about a new food) and a beautiful view (getting to see the same river by moonlight and midday), but also a personal dance lesson in traditional Bohol and Philippino folk dancing. Definitely worth the cover charge.

Hello Bohol: A Day Around Panglao

January 22, 2018January 17, 2018 / Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

One full day itinerary for my Philippine holiday included a driving tour of the smaller island of Panglao. I’d had the chance to drive up to Bohol, I’d had a lazy beach day, and Thursday was my day to find as many points of interested on Panglao as I could. As always, I’m drawn to water, so I found a couple of lakes, one of them underground. I made it back to visit the bees and learn more about the local plants. I saw one of the most expensive and tiniest seashells in the world, and I witnessed my very first “fire rainbow”. What’s a fire rainbow? I guess you just have to read to the end, now.

Hinagdanan Cave

I’ve read that there are a multitude of caves around Panglao, but it seems that most of them are not set up for the safety and convenience of visitors. Several of the ones that are visitor friendly were too far to drive this trip. A few others are exclusive to certain resorts who restrict their private cave spa to their guests, and yet more that are only accessible to divers. Hinagdanan is easily the most famous of all of these, and the advice I’d read online was get there early if you want to swim (before it gets crowded). The reviews on the swimming were mixed, and by the time I finished researching it, I had no idea what to expect. We found the cave entrance easily enough and pulled into shady parking spots amid a hoard of souvenir stalls and snack stands and then bought our tickets. The entrance fee is quite low, but there is an additional fee for swimming. The whole thing is only a couple dollars US. Everything that is maintained (cleaned) has a small entrance fee, but none of them are onerous, and they do seem to be well cared for.

We signed the guest book and the guides at the top of the entrance offered to keep an eye on our helmets while we went down. The stairwell looks like a black hole into nothingness, and the cave entrance is more like a sinkhole than a cave mouth. The stairs are steep, but sturdy and have a handrail, and it’s a short trip down. Once inside, there’s plenty of room to stand up straight and look around. It’s a small cavern with some lovely, though not stunning formations. The main attractions are the natural skylight that fills the cavern with the warm light of the sun like a spotlight, and the beautiful crystal clear pool. Looking at the water, I couldn’t understand why anyone had complained about it in the reviews. I suppose it’s possible that weather or too many swimmers might have clouded it up during their visit, but for us, just past opening time, the water was still, blue, and so clear that every rock on the bottom was visible even in the dim cavern.

We decided at once that swimming had been a great choice, and found a little outcrop to put our things before entering the water. There’s obviously been some man-made construction: stairs, a railing and a little platform to make getting in and out easier. The water was cool and soothing on my sunburnt skin. The bats were mostly sleeping, but occasionally we could hear a squeak or a wing-beat from our neighbors in the ceiling. The water is technically brackish, and I did hear a guide tell someone else that, but all that means is that it is a mix of fresh and sea water, not that it is somehow dirty. You wouldn’t want to drink it, and only mangrove plants are adapted to use it to live on, but it’s absolutely fine for swimming.

We tootled around in the underground pool for well over an hour. Often we had the cavern to ourselves, but a couple times, the guides brought groups of tourists in who just wanted to have a look and get some photos. The famous photo op there is to stand under the skylight and do a trick shot that makes you look like a saint. A few people waded through the shallow water around the steps, but no one else came in to swim. I took a million photos, and at the time my display screen showed the beautiful clear and turqouise pool, but when I looked back again later they were all black. It reminded me of a story from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld where people can be fooled by illusions, but the photoboxes can only see what’s truly there. I enjoyed the slightly chilling idea that I’d spent the morning in inky black water that was enchanted by some creature to make it seem blue and welcoming, but it turns out my companion’s pictures worked out a little better, and we do have a small amount of photographic evidence after all.

Songculan Lake

Although I felt like I could spend the whole day in that cool and quiet swimming cave, the time came to move on if I wanted to see the rest of the itinerary before dark, and we got back on the road feeling peaceful and refreshed. My next stop was a large lake that I’d only seen on the map and not found any mention of in other tourism websites. It’s called Songculan Lake, and it’s so close to the cave that it seemed like a shame to not at least go and look at while we were up there. The road that runs along the lake doesn’t afford much of a view since the lake is mostly blocked off by mangrove jungle.

We drove around in hopes of getting a glimpse of the water or perhaps some boating opportunity, but mostly what we found was a kind of upscale neighborhood where the people seemed rather surprised to see us. It seemed not unlike other lakefront neighborhoods, and we still had no view of the water which I presumed was visible from the back windows of these beautiful houses. At last we came up to the bridge that crosses the narrow point where the river meets the lake and we got our viewing spot.

I’m sure everyone thought we were nuts for pulling over and walking out on the bridge to take pictures, but it was very pretty, and we’d driven over there more or less just to find out if there was anything to see at all. At the far end of the bridge I found a staircase that led down to a shaded swimming area in the lake, but it was occupied by a local family and I wasn’t entirely sure of the etiquette so I waved politely and moved on.

Bohol Bee Farm Tour

We went back to the Bee Farm for lunch and the “tour”. Arnold, our guide, started us out with a little cooking lesson in the herb garden where we played “name that herb”. I recognized nearly all of them, but the oregano completely stumped me. What? Oregano? How hard is that to spot? Yeah, but this crazy Filipino oregano was completely different with HUGE leaves. The guide asked the names of each plant in English, Tagalog, and Boholano, and when we got to the oregano and everyone saw how surprised we were, we had to explain the differences in the plant’s appearance in Europe and America versus the one growing in the Philippines. Arnold said he’d heard about that but never seen the European varieties. Behind him ranged a huge display of potted herbs with their names displayed, and I recognized most, but had to ask about Pandan.

Pandan is an aromatic, used to add fragrance to things like rice, and it can be used to repel cockroaches, which I thought was interesting. Later I saw it in the ice cream flavors, and now that I’ve read this article, I’m kind of sad I didn’t eat it when I had the chance.

Once we were finished in the herb garden, we moved over to the manufacturing areas. Arnold explained that while they do use as many of their own ingredients as possible, the farm has grown too large for them to do tours of the farmland itself anymore. We saw the bakery where they made the wonderful squash bread. We saw the creamery where they were busy making ice cream, sadly it smelled like Durian was the flavor of the moment. And we saw the prepping areas where they made and packaged the teas, honeys, and other goodies used in the restaurant and sold in the gift shop.

In addition to foods, we got to see some of the other manufacturing they do including the hand woven raffia, mostly mats and wall hangings they grow from a tree locally called “buri” which is more widely known as the coryphe, a type of palm tree native to the Philippines, the leaves of which can be stripped and dried to make the fibers used in weaving. We got to watch one of the ladies doing traditional weaving, a method that can only produce a few feet of material in a workday, but is preserved as part of the local cultural heritage. We also met the seamstresses who turn the woven fabric into bags and other goods to be sold, as well as some furniture restoration where young men worked to give new life to old chairs using the woven raffia and palm leaves.

At last, it was time to meet the bees. Although the majority of the hives had been moved away from the restaurant and hotel, they kept two on hand for the local gardens and for the tourists. These aren’t Philippine bees, but European honey bees, the most docile honey producers available. Arnold had us stand a decent way back from the hives and gave us a serious talk about safety, warning us especially not to swat at any bees who happened to fly around or land on us because it could trigger defensive behavior and result in some major stinging. He also reassured us there was a clinic there on hand just in case. Finally, he went to pull some bees out for us to have a closer look, and boy were we in luck. Not only were these the most chilled out bees ever (not even one took off and tried to investigate us), we got to see the queen in the very first tray that came out!

As you most likely know, there is only one queen per hive and she never emerges except to swarm, so seeing the queen is pretty special. Although she is visually different from the other bees, that bright turquoise spot is added on by her human caretakers to make it easier to spot her when they’re harvesting honey or doing hive maintenance. Once we all oooohed and aaahed over the royalty, everyone in the group was offered a chance to hold the tray full of bees and pose for photos. Arnold was very careful to hand off the tray gently and with safe gripping spots. At first I was hesitant, but when even the little Boholano grannies did it, and not a single bee was perturbed, I decided it was ok to have a go. It was silly fun and I’m glad I did it.

On our way back into the gift shop, I passed a curious looking fruit and snapped a photo to ask about it inside. I was told it was called a “mickey mouse” fruit, but that it wasn’t really a fruit like for eating. Once I got back to the internet and had a bit of a rummage around, it turns out that it is the solanum mammosum, also called “utong” which is Tagalog for “nipple” and took me to some strange search results before I finally figured it out.

Back inside the gift shop, we went and had a few more samples of our favorites from the last evening visit, as well as sampling a few new things. My top new discovery here was a thing called “hard honey”. It wasn’t crystallized honey, which sometimes happens when I forget about a jar in the back of my cabinet, but instead a liquid with a dark color and a texture like soft taffy or thick molasses. Indeed, it tasted a little bit like molasses would if it was made from honey, and my deep need to know things was immediately satisfied by the knowledgeable staff and helpful signs.

Hard honey is a thing that happens when honey stays in a hive for a while and ages. Hive aged honey. I assume the texture is a result of evaporation? And it would seem that the unique flavor is a combination of the honey taking in the flavors around it and a slight fermentation. Either way, it was a magnificent new taste experience which I recommend.

Nova Shell Museum

After lunch I went in search of the Nova Shell Museum, because I like seashells and museums. The whole area of Bohol is filled with tiny little roadside tourist attractions that are so cheesy and cost 20-60p to go see. I realize looking back on this experience that there is a high probability I enjoyed these because they reminded me of the random roadside attractions that we would sometimes visit on road trips when I was a kid. The US has (had? I’m not sure how many are still there) a huge number of tiny local sights setup for families to stop and look at while stretching their legs or getting a snack. None are sights that are destinations in and of themselves but they are fun to see if you’re passing by. This is how I felt about the Shell Museum. Would I have driven out of my way for it? Probably not, but it was right there next to one of my go to restaurants (La Familia) and only a few minutes drive from our hotel, so why not?

This is not a museum the way that I usually think of them. It is, in fact, the private collection of a Mr. Quirino Hora who has been obsessively collecting shells for more than 50 years and likes to show them off at this tiny building in Panglao. It is said that he collected many of them himself around the various islands of the Philippines, but he has also purchased several. My guide, because you cannot go anywhere without one of those, was clearly instructed to make sure that visitors understood the price and rarity of the shells on display. It was this emphasis on price tags that made me ask about the collection’s owner in the first place, finding it less and less likely that this was some kind of government run museum. I have nothing against private collectors, and I think it’s nice that he’s decided to share this stunning collection, but “museum” might be a bit misleading.

I remember going into the stone and gem rooms in the Smithsonian as a kid and seeing case after case, and drawers and drawers of cases of samples of different rocks all carefully labeled. It was like that, but with shells. Shells were put in groups and there were tiny tags for labels that were mostly taxonomic with the scientific name, the “author” (I’m not sure what that means in context of a shell), and a location and depth at which the shell was found. Sadly, I just don’t know enough about shells for the tags to tell me much, but I did enjoy looking at the huge array of shapes and colors including some naturally party colored scallop shells, some stunningly large nautilus, a kind of critter that liked to decorate it’s shells with the smaller shells of other animals, and three enormous shells of giant clams which I have seen in the wild, but only at about a 10^th the size of these monsters.

The pride of the collection is an extremely tiny shell found in Panglao and named after the Emperor of Japan, and the two shells that Mr. Hora discovered himself and are so named after him. They range in value from a few dollars to millions. There are rooms and rooms stacked with shells in cases, behind glass, on shelves, in drawers and eventually just in boxes. Like any worthy tour, it let out in the gift shop where the more common shells were sold whole or made into art and jewelry for sale. Outside the gift-shop, there was a small tree house I was invited to climb around and explore and they talked with me about the museum’s plans for expansion.

Fire Rainbow

That night we went back to the Pearl at Linaw for a sunset diner on the beach. I spent more or less the entire vacation being in absolute awe of the cloud formations that piled up in fluffy mountains around our island, and this night was no exception. I got up from the table several times to walk the few meters to the water’s edge and get the most unobstructed sunset views possible. However, we got treated to something a little more than your average (stunning) tropical sunset. As the sun worked it’s way downward, I noticed an odd smudge of color at the top of the tower of clouds. I thought that it was that beautiful golden lining effect that so often happens when the sun back-lights dark clouds. I took more photos, admiring the glow and the strong beam-like shadow that was being cast into the sky.

As I watched, more colors than gold began to appear. Soon I could see a tinge of green and purple. And then an entire rainbow spectrum appeared in the crown of light atop this cloud. It did not look like a rainbow, for it lacked the shape and stripes. It looked if anything as though a rift in the space time continuum had opened up. I had no idea what could be causing this unique and stunning visual effect, but I stayed standing on the beach, food forgotten, alternating between taking photos and simply staring in awe until the colored halo receded. Only then did I return to my table to eat, venturing forth once more when the sunset clouds became a brilliant pink.

Back in Korea, I was finally able to research this atmospheric oddity, and I have discovered that I apparently witnessed something rare and special, well, I knew it was special, but I had no idea how rare. It’s called an “iridescent cloud” or sometimes a “fire rainbow”, and it, like other rainbows is caused by sunlight refracting through water, but this variety generally only happens on hot, humid days with lots of cumulus clouds. Only the tall piles of clouds like I had been admiring on my trip get high enough to cool the warm air and condense into droplets forming the cap, or “pileus”, creating the disc of color that I saw. According to National Geographic, not only is it rare to see such a phenomenon, photos are even rarer. I feel amazingly lucky to have had the opportunity for both!

Even though it’s a small island with no cities, I found Panglao enchanting and found that 9 days wasn’t even enough to see everything. I’ve been thinking a lot about my island adventures this January, not only because it’s so very cold in Busan, but because I’ve sacrificed my winter holiday this year in favor of running around Korea doing job interviews. Sometime in March when that hair-pulling adventure is wrapped up, I’ll share all the crazy details, but until then I’ll share my memories of Bohol to keep us all warm.

Hello Bohol: Fancy Restaurants

January 14, 2018January 3, 2018 / Gallivantrix / 2 Comments

Fancy might be a misnomer, since it’s perfectly acceptable to turn up in beachwear, but the quality of the food and range of the menus places these restaurants several stars over the average lunch stop. Panglao is full of amazing restaurants where most meals come to under 10$ US, but have the quality of a 40-50$ meal. I managed to visit the Pearl at Linaw, the Bohol Bee Farm, The Personal Che’f, and The Bougainvillea. At least two of them are places I’d happily go to again and again.

Pearl @ Linaw

I ended up here twice. The first time on my very first night in Panglao because it was the closest thing to the hotel. The second time to get a spectacular view of the beach at sunset, because this is one of the best places on the island to do it from.

If you’re looking for the Pearl restaurant, be sure to search for the Linaw Resort because the restaurant doesn’t have it’s own Google pin. We got lost, asked directions, parked in the wrong place and were generally silly tourists until we finally got settled down at a table near the water. I wanted to start my vacation off with some Filipino specialties, and ordered a kind of tomato and eggplant salad, a pork belly adobo, and finally halo halo for dessert, all while watching a stunning lightning show over the black ocean beyond our little pool of light.

The second time I went, the very ocean most tables were all reserved for the top paying guests at the Linaw Resort, but we got a fairly good table on the west edge where we had a nearly unobstructed view of the impending sunset. We ordered early on, knowing it would take a while for the food to arrive. I tried again to order the kinilaw which had been unavailable the last time we came (and while I am eternally grateful they decided to tell me the fish was off rather than try to serve it, I was disappointed). The waiter asked me if I was ok with spicy, and because of my excessive spice exposure in Korea I promptly replied that I love spicy. I won’t say this was a terrible mistake, but it was the first tourist place I’ve been to where anyone took me seriously and didn’t give me “white girl spicy”.

Kinilaw is a raw fish “salad” (just a mixture, not really any lettuce involved). It’s more like ceviche than poké, since the fish is soaked in vinegar to help tenderize the fish flesh. Even though it was an appetizer, it was all I could eat. The portion was so generous and the flavor so intense, I had no room for a main dish, and only took in a few bites of rice when the spice build up got too strong. The waiter came out to check on us (perhaps thinking that it would be too spicy), and I told the story of missing out on the kinalaw before and how happy I was to get to try it. They told me they were glad too, since it is one of their signature dishes. Even if you don’t like it as spicy as I do, I highly recommend this to any seafood lover.

When all the beautiful colors of sunset were gone, we finally gave up on the sand, chased away by ants at our feet. It’s the only disappointment in this particular restaurant, choosing between a view and ant free feet. But once we were inside (and the staff were gracious about relocating us), we had a pleasant ant-free dessert of mango crepe supreme and blended ice coffee. And if you’re worried about being too full from dinner to order dessert, that could be the only time the long wait for food is a boon, since you’ll have plenty of time to digest your meal while you wait. In fact, after several such experiences, I’ve decided that should I return to Panglao another time, I’ll be sure to order *all* my food choices at the beginning of a meal, and simply ask for the desserts to come last.

Bohol Bee Farm

Bee farm? For dinner? Yeah, I know, I thought it was weird too, but I read so many reviews of this place and blogs that included it as a must do at least for the ice cream, if not for the restaurant and tour, so I figured it was at least worth checking into. The restaurant features dishes that are made with organic ingredients, and as many of them from the farm itself as possible. A variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers are grown on the farm and used in the restaurant, plus of course the honey from their bees which is the only sweetener they use.

There was no listing for tour times on their website, but knowing the sun set around 6, we hoped to get there in time to do the 30 minute tour before settling in for dinner. Sadly, we didn’t make it. The tours end at 4:30, but we did get a nice table overlooking the sea. The fresh juice menu is not to be missed. I got a ginger watermelon juice with no extra sugar (you have to ask or they’ll add it). The reviews I read indicated the top things to try here (other than the ice cream) are the floral salad and the pizza. I know, so very American, go to another country and order pizza, but 1) good pizza is an art no matter what country you’re in and 2) I don’t actually get pizza that often in Korea. Although the recommendations had been in favor of the plain cheese, I decided to brave the spicy honey pizza, made with honey from the local bees.

While waiting for the food, a bread plate with some fresh house made squash bread and cassava chips was brought out. The spreads were honey mango, basil pesto, and some kind of pico/chuntey thing. They were all divine, but my favorite was the honey mango on the squash bread. They sell it in the gift shop, and only my tiny backpack luggage kept me from bringing jars of that stuff back here.

When the salad arrived it was clear that this was one of the most instagramable foods imaginable, a salad like a floral bouquet! But don’t be fooled, this was not simply lettuce and petals, there were plenty of generous chunks of cucumber, pineapple and other goodies buried beneath the presentation. And the dressing? Honey mustard, of course.

The pizza was a much simpler presentation, but every bit as much of a taste explosion. The crust was thin and made from some mix of whole grains that gave it a rich flavor and appealing texture. The sauce and cheese were well made and generously spread without being overwhelming. The “spice” was reminicient of spicy italian sausage without actually being sausage. I think that the more Asian chili spice combined with the pizza herbs like basil and oregano created this gustatory illusion. And the honey was a little drizzle, a mere hint that served to counterpoint the spice and compliment the grains of the crust. I have never had anything like it before and I can honestly say that while I would never have thought to put honey on a pizza, it’s now one of my favorite flavor experiences.

Finally, for dessert I knew we had to have some of the ice cream that appears on every Google search for “things to do in Bohol” and find out what all the fuss was about. The Bee Farm keeps a wide array of flavors on hand, some are annual standbys and others are seasonal or even du jour.

The Bee Farm makes all their ice cream using coconut milk so it’s dairy free, and they serve it in casava cones which are gluten free. Organic, vegan, and GF trends aren’t yet a big thing in most of SE Asia, but the Farm’s success is very promising. In addition, coconut milk is a local product, coconut palms were everywhere, but dairy cows are still scarce. The Dairy Box project is a small dent in the issue, but most milk there is the processed and recombined variety we got at the store. The ice cream flavors are all based on the fruits, vegetables and herbs that they grow at the farm (except the chocolate), and it’s all only sweetened with the honey they harvest from their own bees.

The most famous flavor is the mulangguy, but I wasn’t up for a total mystery and decided to put that off for another day and instead ordered the salted honey, imagining (correctly) that it would be similar to a salted caramel. My dinner partner decided to try the flavor of the day: tomato.

The salted honey flavor was rich, creamy, and intensely flavored. I found it to be a good balance of salt and sweet, and also that my single scoop was quite satisfying. I had a small taste of the tomato ice cream out of pure curiosity. I have to say that I think it would have been an amazing soup, the coconut cream and tomato flavors were good together, but somehow the chilled temperature and ice cream texture were just too much dissonance for me to enjoy it as a dessert.

Since we missed a chance at the tour the first time (and because any excuse to eat there again), I headed back to the Bohol Bee Farm on anther occasion. I switched up to a lemon ginger juice (I might have a ginger addiction) which was strong and delicious, then got the spicy honey pizza again (yes, it is that good). We tried the honey glazed chicken as well, which was also excellent, and came with a mini floral salad and a grain I always knew as “kasha” as a child. Kasha is buckwheat grains cooked kind of like rice, and it’s dominant in Eastern European or Russian culture, but not known well in SE Asia, so I was surprised to see it there.

I also went on the tour, and I finally tried the mulungway ice cream. Mulungway, or malunggay, is a medicinal herb that is very popular in the Philippines, especially made into sweets. I found the flavor to be a fresh green experience and enjoyed the ice cream, but some people think it tastes too much like vegetables. Either way, it’s a quintessential Philippine flavor that’s worth the taste.

Personal Che’f

No, that’s not a typo version of “Chéf”, that’s how it’s written, I looked several places. The Personal Che’f is run by a Russian couple and serves unbelievably good super fancy food. I had a little trouble finding it because there’s only a small sign on the side of the road in front of what looks like a patch of woods. I finally found the entrance to a path through the trees that led us on a lovely walk back to the restaurant.

Like almost every restaurant here, it had no walls except for the kitchen. It was empty when we arrived but nearly every table had a “reserved” sign. Lucky for us, there was one unclaimed and we were able to be seated. I say lucky, because quite a few people showed up after us only to be turned away. My feelings on this restaurant are both strong and mixed.

I liked the set up, it was simple and elegant, and the contrast of the stunning food, artistic plating and upscale prices with the rustic bamboo thatch and the occasional lizard on the furniture was fun. The huge volume of mosquitos brought on by the fact that we were embedded in the jungle was not. They seemed to be aware of the issue because our waitress brought us mosquito spray to use, but it would have been nice to have more effort. Maybe citronella would conflict with the flavors of the food, but there has to be something, bug repelling tiki torches, candles, electric zappers? Almost anything would have been better than being dined on while dining.

The chef was an amazing, kind and extremely talented person. He came out to talk to us, checked on my travel buddy’s allergies, told us a story about how he’d made something off menu just the other day for a woman with serious dietary restrictions. The chef was great. The rest of the staff was… less so? There was only one waitress and she became quickly overwhelmed, especially when a huge group showed up without a reservation and insisted on talking to her for 15 minutes about it. There were only maybe 7 tables seated, but it was more than this poor server could manage. Her only real help was the barback/busser, a guy who repeatedly took food to the wrong table, or made other mistakes she had to correct when she asked him for help, and otherwise just stood behind the bar looking lost. Any time we asked about anything (like, hey does this dish have any xyz in it) she had to go get the chef, who was gracious about it and wanted to help, but he was clearly doing too much trying to both cook and do things in the front.

The food is the only part I have no mixed feelings on. It was hands down amazing. We ordered a gazpacho soup with strawberry for a starter and the chef kindly put it in two bowls, even though that meant extra time in plating. We received wide white dishes with beautiful curls of cucumber and a little spattering of diced herbs and vegetables. The gazpacho was pureed and served in a carafe that we would then pour over the display. I have to say I would never have thought of adding strawberries to a tomato based soup, but it was truly a flavor revelation. I historically prefer my gazpacho a little on the chunky side, but I don’t think that would have worked with the berries. The puree mixed the flavors so thoroughly they became something new. It also did make me wonder about making a strawberry salsa someday.

For the main dish, I gravitated to the mushroom risotto and was not disappointed. The flavors of the cheese, the shrimp, the broth and the mushrooms were each distinct and outstanding and yet blended so well. It made me think of the instruments in a string quartet, it is easy to hear each one as they play, but together they are a concert. And it made me feel a little like Ratatouille (the cartoon rat, yes) which was also fun. Sadly, the main dish was not a success for my companion, who had an allergic reaction despite the chef’s precautions and decided head back to the hotel to take some medicine.

I had thought to stay behind and have a dessert, but the waitress brought out our check at once. It took me ages to get her attention, and in the meantime, I managed to get the bar back to come deal with the fly that was swimming in the wine… one more reason to get those bug zappers. He took the glass away but didn’t bring a replacement or it seems tell anyone. So when I finally got the waitress to stop at my table again, I told her that I wanted to order dessert and about the wine issue. Over the course of the next hour, I kid you not, I managed to get a dessert menu and to find out that they would take the wine off the bill. When I did order a dessert, I was told it would be another HOUR to prepare… and no it was not a souffle. I declined.

It was such a difficult experience to evaluate. It was some of the most amazing food I’ve ever eaten, and the chef himself was so kind and gracious about everything. But the service was terrible, the bugs were a major enjoyment killer, and while I value the quality time that goes into creating the kind of amazing food we were enjoying, it seems like if it’s going to take an hour or more to make a simple dessert, you should warn people to order ahead, or accept fewer customers. I really hope they manage to find a solution, because that kind of talent with food deserves success, but I chose not to return a second time.

Bougainvillea

I still can’t get over how much astonishing food is available on Panglao. Of course traditional Filipino food is delicious and worth perusing, but the quality of restaurants on the island makes many nationalities dishes a must dine experience. For my final dinner, the restaurant of choice was a relatively new (and hopefully long lived) tapas restaurant that Bob had enthused about called Bougainvillea, next to but not to be confused with the resort of the same name.

I was negligent in every instance of making reservations, and it’s pure luck that I was ever able to get a table, so if you’re going to any of these places I suggest calling ahead because I regularly saw people get turned away. The fancy restaurants are stunning but very small and intimate with limited seating. The Bougainvillea was no exception. We arrived a little after dark and we’re lucky to find that some diners were just about to leave and that their table had not yet been claimed, so we only had to wait perhaps 10 minutes for a table and a kind young man from the resort kept us company while we waited. I suspect that the garden we waited in was beautiful and even at night I could tell it was filled with the flower that both the resort and restaurant took their name from.

The restaurant was elevated, which at first seemed odd to me, but once we were on the second floor I began to understand the choice. One was the view, which we had also missed out on by showing up after dark, because one wall opened out toward the sea. I say wall, but like most of the places we’d been, it was a roof and open sides (except around the kitchen). The other main reason for the elevation was the avoidance of insects. By lifting the restaurant out of the jungle flora, we were blissfully free of ants, mosquitoes, and flies that had plagued nearly all of our previous dining experiences.

I ordered some of the house made sangria, for which they use their own mix of spices in syrup, red wine, and fresh apples and oranges. It was amazing, refreshing and light while not being too sweet and carrying a wonderful tendril of cinnamon. The bread arrived as well, served with whole garlic cloves and olive oil so rich you wouldn’t miss the butter. We noticed that extra bread portions were 30p and were hardly surprised they felt the need to charge for this delectable dish after the first serving.

While I was perusing the descriptions, I noticed they had a few dishes with manchego. I cannot express my joy. Manchego is a Spanish cheese that holds a special place in my cheese loving heart. I had not had any for several years because I’m pretty sure that the Koreans have never heard of it, and even when I can find it in the US, it’s expensive. I asked our server how in the world they managed to get it on the tiny island of Panglao and he seemed quite pleased that I recognized the difficulty involved and the dedication it represented.

Although I was tempted by the paella, the minimum order was 2 people and my companion was unable to eat seafood, so instead I tried a smaller appetizer of “Calamares a la andaluza” described as flour coated baby squids, deep fried and served with honey mustard sauce. My dining companion ordered the Patatas Bravas (deep fried potato cubes with spicy “bravas” sauce). We were both well pleased with these choices. I had a bite of her potatoes and was pleased as punch to find that they had perfected the crispy outside, squishy inside of a truly excellent home fry. The sauce was creamy and spicy. My squids were stellar, maybe even interstellar. I have never imagined in my life that I would have a tender squid. They’re just always chewy. Maybe it’s the “baby” squid or maybe it’s just the chef, but the squid was actually tender. The flour fried coating was light and not oily, and the honey mustard sauce rivaled that at the Bee Farm. Plus, both appetizers were served with tiny crispy bread sticks that we could use to clear our palettes between dishes or just to scoop up extra sauce with.

Next we had some Mondaditos, described on the menu as an Andelusian style bun. Starting to guess where the chef is from? I ordered the “Catalan” because it was manchego, fresh tomato and olive oil. She got the Don Quijote [sic] which was chorizo, sweet red pepper sauce, and manchego. Of course we traded tastes, and although I preferred the simple fresh flavors in the Catalan (I was out for the manchego), I was blown away by the sweet pepper sauce. The saucier at this place is clearly blessed by some kind of culinary deity, or maybe Dionysus. In addition to their own simple yet elegant awesomeness, the mondaditos were served with “veggie crisps” which turned out to be thin sliced and fried vegetables, rather like potato crisps (or chips), but with an array of other vegetables.

For dessert I settled on the crema Catalana, which looked to me like a Spanish version of a creme brulee (a dessert I have loved since I met it). Looking later, I find it is quite similar, but is traditionally flavored with cinnamon and orange peel. I haven’t had the chance to try this dish more than once, but I would happily try it many more times. While in my experience creme brulee is always a rather thick custard, the crema Catalana at Bougainvillea was much softer, almost as if it were the sweet love child of a creme brulee and a zabaglione. It was a wonderful finish to an excellent meal, and my only regret was that I only found it on the last day and I didn’t get to taste more of the menu!

Unexpected Joy

I planned to enjoy great food on this trip, learn more about Filipino food and do some proper local dining. I did do those things, but it was a surprise and delight to find such a plethora of fine dining options with considerations for organic, dietary restrictions, allergies, and of course quality food. I never thought Panglao would be a foodie haven, but it’s full of local delicacies and so much more. Bon Appetit!

I’m writing this a week or more before the publish date because I finally have some free time between the end of school and the beginning of winter camp, and I don’t want to dump all my polished posts on the internet at once. Who knows what news will come by the time this is online, but for now I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I’m leaving Korea and still wondering if I’m going to find that next job before May. I’m hoping to get the rest of these stories out before my moving day (Feb 25), and I’ll have some new adventures to write then. Whether it’s a new job, a new country, or something wholly unknown, there’s no doubt it will be a good story. Thanks for sticking with me! Happy New Year!

Hello Bohol: Food

January 6, 2018January 8, 2018 / Gallivantrix / 2 Comments

My food post has expanded into two more bite-sized posts. In this one, I take a look at the everyday eats, markets, convenience stores, roadside chicken stands, unique food experiences, and lower cost restaurants. Just because it’s not gourmet doesn’t mean it’s not delicious! Interesting foods discovered include: not-milk but still dairy “fresh”, the lakatan banana, mulungway, water buffalo ice-cream, and maja blanca. Hope you’re hungry!

Don’t Drink the Milk

After discovering our limited food options upon arrival, I asked my trip buddy to stop at a store on the way from the airport. The taxi had to take her to a store on Bohol, because there is not a single “grocery store” on the island of Panglao. There are a plethora of tiny marts and open air markets, however. The next morning at breakfast, I noticed that the milk tasted a little odd. Not off, just strange, and I looked at the carton to find out what was going on. It turned out that the “Fresh Milk” for sale in the store was actually a reconstituted combination of milk products. I know that in some island countries, dairy is hard to come by in liquid form, because shipping it over is expensive, so they ship in powder and reconstitute it in local factories for distribution, but this was the first time I’d actually had any. It wasn’t … bad? It just didn’t really taste like milk.

The yogurt also had a slightly terrifying list of ingredients. I’ve tried to get less picky about my food since leaving Seattle, I know lots of places aren’t going to be up to the Bo-bo standards of organic/local/minimal processing, but yogurt has been one of the foods that has more often than not been wonderful, fresh, and local when I travel. It seems despite the huge number of cows I saw on the island, the dairy industry is still a few decades behind. So, no real coffee, and no real milk products… but the seafood, the pork, and the fresh fruit are outta sight.

Markets

I went to the Alona Market on the first day. It was a permanent structure where things like clothes and gadgets seemed to be on sale, but there were a riot of colored tents and awnings set up outdoors as well where vendors sold everything you could need on the island. Eggs, fish, meat… the smells assured me they were fresh. Fruits and vegetables. An infinity of flip flops and heaps of clothes. Electronics, swimming gear, DVDs, decorations, and although this was clearly a market for locals, there were a few souvenir type things as well. If I were staying long term on the island and needed to cook more than breakfasts or needed to replace a t-shirt or pair of sandals, it would be a great place to know about (especially in the absence of grocery stores), but for time it was mostly a curiosity, a fun thing to see as I explored my holiday surroundings.

On the way over to Chocolate Hills, I took a rest stop at another market in Baclayon, very similar to the Alona market, and got some pastries at a little bake shop. The Bohol pastries aren’t a patch on the Korean ones, but they were fresh and good, and extremely cheap. I never bought only one, but it seemed like one could fill a bag for less than a dollar. And it was nice to have something to munch on when felt hungry. Days later I realized that the market was next to one of the many churches on my to-see list, so I ended up going there more than once.

Sari Sari

This is the basic economic unit of Bohol. They are everywhere. Tiny shacks that sell snacks, drinks, and other things a household might need. It’s almost impossible to tell if they’re open because they have bars and grates on the windows. I had been avoiding them for that reason alone. I didn’t want to stop, get off the bike, walk over, then find out they were closed and try again at the next one. I’d been stopping at larger more obvious shops for snacks and drinks but way out here, I didn’t have the option. I’m also not sure how many of these are simply a shack in someone’s front yard where they sell random stuff to their neighbors.

Post holiday research reveals that these tiny ubiquitous shacks are known as sari sari (Tagalog for “sundry”), that the bars and grating look is normal, that they are generally family owned and operated from the family property, and that they make up 70% of the sale of manufactured consumer food products and account for about 13% of the GDP. They don’t all look like the little roadside shacks, some are larger or in conjunction with other vendors in the market areas. I’m not sure how many sari-sari I shopped at while I was there, but it’s nice to know I was contributing to the local economy when I did.

La Familia

One day of island exploring we found this little gem. It was getting on in the day and the weather in Panglao is hot and humid year round, so we decided it was time to find a place for lunch. After a little bit of being lost looking for a restaurant by sight, we finally consulted Google. It turns out there are a plethora of eateries along the roadside, but it’s hard to tell which ones are convenience stores, or take-aways, or sit down eateries, or even open just by looking while you’re driving by. I love trying local shops and restaurants, but I definitely wanted a sit down place to rest after our morning adventures.

We settled on a place called La Familia on the south end, quite near the church and watchtower. It’s not gourmet, but I ate there more than once because it was good food at a reasonable price, and while not air conditioned, it was comfortable. On my first visit, I got some watermelon juice and had to ask for no sugar. I learned that in the Philippines, all fruit juice will be mixed generously with sugar unless you ask for it not to be. This drink seemed to be fresh watermelon blended with ice into a kind of slushy, and I thought it was wonderful and refreshing without the extra sweetness. I also tried a satay burger, which was a regular hamburger served with satay sauce, and instead of ketchup, the fries came with a kind of sweet chili sauce that I was skeptical of at first, but soon devoured.

The second time I went we were too exhausted and hungry to research restaurant options so we went back to La Familia, knowing it was close to the hotel, good and well priced. I was still in my “try all the Filipino food” phase and after Googling a few new words on the menu, I settled on a chicken Tinola, which is a fairly famous Filipino ginger soup and could readily give pho a run for it’s money as my go to sick soup of preference if it existed where I live. A rich bone broth infused with ginger. My only complaint was that the soup was served so hot I couldn’t just guzzle the broth. I also ordered a club sandwiches for lunch the next day out on the boat.

The third time I popped over to La Familia for a refresher and decided to give the house milkshake a try. I don’t normally go in for banana flavored things. Artificial banana flavor terrifies me and I’m picky enough about real bananas to not risk it if there are options. However, after my run in with the Latakan (explanation further down), I was feeling very optimistic about a banana based drink here in Panglao. Not just a regular banana shake, it was made with graham crumbs and a touch of cinnamon. It was delightful, light, fluffy and a great blend of that creamy banana and other flavors that made me feel like I was drinking a pie.

While I was waiting for my shake, another expat struck up a conversation. I’d almost forgotten how that worked, since this was one of the few occasions on this trip I was on my own. It seems that people in pairs or groups just don’t get approached as much, but I love meeting new people, so I joined him for a chat and learned that he was called Bob, he was from the UK, and that he ran a local bar (the Ging Ging), which I never did get to try out. We talked about how we each came to be living abroad, and then we talked about the best food around. He also shared with me the best places from which to watch the sunset which led me to my second dinner at the Pearl.

Tres Ninas

After getting more accustomed to the bike, I decided to have another stab finding a roadside food stand to take something back to the room. In this endeavor, the night was my friend since only open places were lit up. I pulled into one of the larger lit up areas at what seemed to be a cluster of shops. One was selling meat on a stick, another seemed to be a place to sit and eat with drinks, and a third was selling beautiful rotisserie chickens. In less than two days on the island, I had seen dozens of chickens wandering around. Some totally free, some bound to a tree or hutch by a length of string. Either way, I felt confident the chicken I was looking at was local and free range, with no added hormones or chemicals… it went a long way in making up for the milk.

Tres Ninas is a chain of chicken stands. The one I went to is on the circumferential road on the east side just south of South Palms, but I spotted several others by the same name around the island.

Chocolate Hills

Initially we didn’t think that lunch at a major tourist stop was a good idea. These kinds of restaurants are often over priced and not even very good. Boy howdy I’ve rarely been so happy to be wrong.

Although the service and the food were slow (this is a fact of Bohol that we eventually came to accept, it’s a good idea to get to the restaurant, any restaurant, a good while before you’re too hungry) both turned out to be of excellent quality. Our server happily recommended dishes which turned out to be wonderful. We had bam-i (a kind of noodle dish) and lechon kawali (a crispy fried pork belly), with corn soup, and I had a calamansi iced tea which was strong, sweet and tart. We ate every bite, and it was the perfect amount. The whole lunch was less than 15$ (most of our meals were between 10-15$ for two, a couple splurges were in the 20-25 range. That’s not per person, that’s the whole thing and we ate good food).

The main advantage of the slow lunch service this day was that by the time we were finishing off the last bites, the rain had passed by and the sun had returned. The restaurant has large picture windows, so we watched the progress of the dark clouds the entire time we were eating. It was interesting to see them moving by so quickly.

The Dairy Box

On the way out of the adventure park, where the bumpy dirt road hit the highway, I spotted some signs for ice cream that led us just a few meters down the road to the Dairy Box.

After my experience with the “fresh” milk the other morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect by way of any place called the Dairy Box, but I stopped to look and discovered to my delight a local sustainable livelihood program participant. The little shop was part of a movement by the government to help local businesses flourish, and so they partnered with nearby farmers to use the milk from the water buffalo nearby. There were signs showcasing the local small farmers and inside there was a plethora of dairy based treats. The ice cream was the main focus, but there were biscuits, milk candy, and snacks as well as flavored milk, yogurt and cheeses. Ok, yes, water buffalo milk, but I assure you it was delicious.

Dumaluan Beach Resort & the Lakatan Banana

There is a little grill and cocktail bar at Dumaluan which makes it especially appealing as a lazy hangout beach. I had made jokes with my sister before going that I would be on a beach with coconut drinks, but somehow I hadn’t had a single coconut based concoction up to this point. When I ordered my simple breakfast at the grill, I also got a coconut smoothie. The breakfast was simple: egg, sausage and rice, but cheap and filling. The smoothie was very clearly made from fresh coconut.

As the day wore on and we continued to nibble on snacks, I tried the fresh fruit plate. Normally I wouldn’t dedicate pages to a fruit place, but it was my first exposure to the unique Philippine banana: the lakatan.

What I did not know about bananas… and to be honest, I probably still barely know anything. I’m used to the standard grocery store banana: the Cavendish. This type makes up something like 95% of the world’s bananas. I have always preferred to eat bananas when they’re a bright yellow with hints of green at the edges, and no brown at all. Everyone has a preference, but in my house, when the bananas got brown spots it’s time to make banana bread. I have a decades long aversion to golden yellow and brown bananas. I do not enjoy the mushy texture or the sickly sweet flavor at that stage in a Cavendish’s life. But, I do like banana bread, so there’s that. Based on my lifetime of banana monoculture, when I saw this little yellow and brown buddy on the fruit plate I was not at all interested… until it was peeled.

My expectation of a banana, even a very ripe one, is kind of off white inside, not unlike vanilla ice cream. This banana was a much deeper shade of cream, like “french vanilla” ice cream, or even custard. The only other time I’d seen that shade in a banana-like shape was in plantains, but it was clear from the easy peel and the total lack of cooking that this was no plantain. In addition to it’s beautiful color, the flesh of the fruit was bruise free. A Cavendish banana in that stage of ripening could be expected to have a light bruise or two and be very soft, but this banana was in perfect shape and still pleasantly firm. I decided to try a taste and was rewarded with the most and best in all that is banana. It was sweet, but not too sweet, and had little hints of tartness that I crave in my slightly green Cavendishes, but with a bonus creamy texture that I feel unable to describe without referencing dairy products. Why are these amazing fruits not the market standard? Probably something about shipping or they aren’t pretty enough. *sigh. If you’re ever in the Philippines, eat them.

River Cruise Lunch & Maja Blanca

It was not the best meal I had on the trip, but everything was good and it’s a buffet so you can eat as much as you like, as long as you don’t leave food on your plate (they charge 50p for leftovers to discourage food waste).

I had more delicious pork adobo and an assortment of veggies and side dishes, but the star of the whole show was a little square of heaven called maja blanca. I had never seen or heard of this before, but I put one on my plate anyway, guessing it was a dessert, and so saving it for the end of my meal. It was easily the most amazing coconut cream anything I’ve ever had. So plain and unassuming, it was a white square that jiggled a little, which almost made me leave it behind as I’m not a huge gelatin fan. Instead I got three more squares! It’s just a coconut pudding, it’s thickened with cornstarch instead of gelatin, and maybe that made all the difference? It may also be made with condensed milk in addition to the coconut cream, and has a little sprinkling of toasted coconut on top. 10/10 would eat again.

Nikita’s Coffee Shop and Cafe

It is listed as being Western (esp British) breakfast food, well priced, and close to Alona without being on the main drag. Perfect for an early morning breakfast on my last day.

There’s not really “breakfast food” in Korea. The Koreans eat things like kimbap, or soup and rice, and that’s fine, but sometimes you just miss the heck outta bacon and eggs. I am very nearly ashamed to admit that I get breakfast at McDonald’s here, but it’s that or bus an hour to the expat bars on the beach. Anywho, there I was, enjoying my bacon and eggs and toast and coffee. It was already the fastest restaurant service I’d experienced in Bohol, and I was well satisfied with the price and portions of the morning’s special, when a middle aged British gentleman came out to apologize to me for how long the order had taken. This was David, the owner, and I hurried to reassure him that the wait had hardly been anything at all (especially in comparison to every other restaurant in Bohol). He was only slightly mollified and it was obvious that he felt his short-staffed cafe wasn’t living up to his own personal standards.

We chatted a bit more and he asked me if I’d made it out to the “virgin island” (the name of one of the island tour stops). I hadn’t, nor had I any real plans to because my research on the island hopping tours had turned me off of that option. He then told me that a nearby church runs free shuttle boats out to the island, since it’s a religious monument, and that it was a very lovely half day trip. I was both excited to hear the news, but also a bit sad, since my day plans were already spoken for, and it was my last day. Of course I could have changed, but … well, waterfalls. Plus, I hadn’t really gotten dressed or sun screened for another boat ride that might finish cooking me. The choices we make. Nonetheless, since I also wish I’d found Nikita’s Cafe earlier in my meal options, I can heartily recommend anyone to stop by for a meal and get the details on the free church boat trip.

Be Patient, Be Kind

Every time I said please or thank you with a smile, the people serving me seemed both surprised and happy. It made me think about the way that tourists I’d seen were treating the locals in the service industry. I know in many places I’ve lived that Filipinos are 3rd class workers, given the worst jobs and little to no protections. I thought of the woman I met in the Madina airport, of the nurses in Saudi hospitals who were getting yelled at for doing their jobs. Of the men who do back breaking labor and live in curfew controlled dorms and the women who clean rich people’s homes while trying not to get raped by their teenage sons (or grown fathers). Even expat restaurant owners were being treated with a level of ingratitude by the tourists here, and the locals had it worse, but no one could complain or stop serving because their livelihood depends on visitors.

I try my best to be gracious and polite wherever I can, but it struck me that here in the Philippines, my pleases and thank yous were really truly appreciated by people who were so often being at best tersely given orders and at worst being yelled at or demeaned. I did not find anyone here to be lazy, rude, or anything less than gracious and helpful. There’s no excuse for the way they are treated. Follow the golden rule, be patient, be kind, and enjoy some of the warmest people and best food you can find.

Panglao has an amazing array of food, including gourmet quality restaurants with very low price tags. In part two of Bohol: Food, I’ve compiled all the fancier restaurants I visited, but don’t worry, the dress code is still beach casual.

Hello Bohol: Beaches

December 27, 2017 / Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

There are a seemingly endless number of tiny beaches on the island of Panglao, and each one has pros and cons. I wanted to look at several to get a good idea of the best beaches for my tastes. While only the paid beaches (resort run) are “clean” in the sense of pristine sand and crystaline waters, the other beaches aren’t what I would think of as dirty. They do have natural debris, tree branches, leaves, seaweed, driftwood, etc, but I didn’t feel like any of them were trashed by human junk, a few pieces of litter sometimes. If you’re looking for a postcard beach, it’s better to pay the entrance fee for a resort. If you don’t care so much, just get a decent pair of water shoes and have fun!

Momo Beach

Momo was my first beach visit mostly because it was between two other stops we were making on Sunday, and it had decent reviews online. Momo was almost eerily quiet. Despite the fact that it was Golden Week in East Asia and it felt like half of China had come to the Philippines, Momo’s only tourists besides ourselves were a diving class practicing in the shallows. There isn’t any deep swimming off the beaches of Panglao; it’s all shallow for a long way out, making it great for kids or weak swimmers, and it’s full of life which is fun for everyone.

The water at Momo was dark with the sea grass growing just beneath the surface, but it was so clear I could see all the creatures who lived there… including lots of spiky sea urchins. I waded out carefully, working to avoid stepping on anyone sharp, and tested out my underwater camera apparatus. In preparation of snorkeling, I’d purchased a phone bag that was water-safe, and a floater in case the phone strap broke. Although a cursory test of waterproofness had been done before, this was my first chance to try to take pictures underwater. It was harder than it sounds.

The touch screen worked great through the plastic above water, but went nuts as soon as the sea surrounded it. It took a while to get all the settings under control so I could launch the camera and take photos with buttons instead of touchscreen. In the end, I never did figure out how to get it to focus on what I wanted, so my underwater shots are a little hit or miss, but it was nice being able to take any at all. Along with the fields of sea grass and myriad urchins, I found a beautiful brown starfish, colored like a pointed Siamese, and managed to get a single focused photo without having to lift the creature out of the water, yay!

Alona Beach

Also on Sunday, we headed over to the famous Alona Beach. I had read that it was once a paradisaical white sands tropical beach which has become overrun with tourism and is no longer so pleasant, but I wanted to look anyway. Alona certainly is beautiful, but there is none of the quaint island charm that I found at Momo. The beach was better tended and the water cleared of sea grass and urchins, but other than a tiny marked off swimming area no larger than a pool, the ocean was covered in boats. Just above the high tide line, the beach is lined with restaurants, souvenir shops and diving shops.

Since we were on bikes, we had to park in a lot just off the main circumferential road and walk the rest of the way to the beach. (parking was only 5p, btw). I don’t think this is as bad as the blogs I read made it sound as long as you know what you’re getting into. We passed every kind of food, drink, cultural market, and tour group set up you can imagine. I didn’t want to join any tour groups myself, but if you need a tour experience, you’ll find it on Alona beach. Ok, that’s not totally true, I did want to join one group at least to get myself out to the island with all the turtles for some snorkeling, and I found that there too.

Once I hit the beach, I walked all the way to the right, scoping out the options for dive groups. It’s not a huge place, so within a few minutes I’d reached the end. Vendors were constantly calling out, selling tours, drinks, food, pearls… so many random guys selling pearls out of a box on the beach. They may be fakes or they may be cultured pearls, but I’d say if you like them, just don’t pay more than you would for costume jewelry. I have my grandmother’s pearls, so I’m set. I did cave in and buy from one street vendor: an older lady selling fresh mangoes. It was 20p, probably more than it cost at the market, but she peeled and sliced it for us on the spot and it was ripe and delicious.

I headed back the other direction, trying to figure out which of the diving shops I wanted to patronize. I wasn’t planning on diving (I’m not licensed and also it’s super expensive), but after some internet research and asking people who’ve lived/traveled there, I found the best bet for good snorkeling without being ripped off is to join a dive group and just snorkel from the boat while they dive.

At one point, I thought about doing a tour over to swim with the whale sharks (because how cool would that be?), but as I read more about it, I came to realize that the tours at Oslob are damaging to the environment, and to the animals. Although the sharks are rarely harmed directly (though sometimes by thoughtless tourists or bad guides), the fact is that the Filipinos feed the sharks to keep them there year round as a tourist attraction which interferes with their migration, breeding, and feeding habits. It also teaches the sharks that humans are safe, which is not true outside of Oslob, and it puts them at greater risk elsewhere in the ocean. Whale sharks are gentle giants who eat only krill and plankton and have no teeth to hurt humans. As much as I would love the opportunity to swim among them, I cannot do it in a way that endangers their future as a species.

However, while I was learning about this tourism tragedy, I found a dive shop in Alona that felt the same way and offered all kinds of conservation based dive classes for advanced learners. Even more hilariously, it turned out to be the same dive shop that an old high school buddy who moved to Manila an age ago had recommended, although he’d given me the name of an instructor rather than the shop at first, so I didn’t realize until later. With all that coincidence it felt like fate. This ecologically sound dive shop is called Sierra Madre Divers (on Alona).

Inside I found a very frazzled young man running the front. I explained the desire to join a dive as snorkelers, but it turned out that every spot on every boat was filled for the entire duration of my stay in the Phillipines… by Chinese tourists. One day I’m going to get back on a holiday schedule that is not the same as a billion other people. However, he was kind enough to recommend another company. I figure all these dive shops have to know each other at least a little on such a small island, and I was more than willing to take his suggestion rather than try to filter through internet reviews searching for another by myself. He called over another young man who introduced himself as Rafi (short for Rafael) and told us he’d be happy to take us out the day after tomorrow, just show up at 8:30am.

We paused on the way back up the beach for milkshakes and as I sat on the bench overlooking the water, the most adorable tiny little girl came up to me with a ukulele and began to sing “I Wanna Be a Millionaire”. I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of money scams in my travels. I still remember the little girl in Petra who gave me postcards “as a gift” but wanted money in return. I like supporting the locals who are trying to make a living from the tourism trade by doing things like making and selling goods or food (the totally grown up women in Petra I made sure to buy handmade jewelry from, or even the mango seller earlier that day). I also like busking as a way to earn money, though I’m hesitant to give money to bad performers. Not only was this girl so adorable she could be on a cereal box, she was a very talented musician. Her uke work wasn’t complex, but it was solid and her voice was very nice. I am big sucker and I only wish I’d thought to pull out my camera, but she was so close, she was nearly in my lap, and I was genuinely enjoying the song so I didn’t think about filming until it was too late. Of course I gave her money, don’t be silly.

White Beach

The last beach of Sunday was another locals only kind of place. Despite being just up the coast from Alona, it was far less developed and by late afternoon it was occupied by Filipino families doing evening barbecues on the beach. The sand beneath the water was much less infested with urchins than Momo,and we waded out into a clear sandy patch where we could play around in the warm water that came only up to our hips. Some of the locals came by to make conversation, and I felt obligated in the growing darkness to lie once more about my marital status.

I haven’t done that since the Middle East, and I have to wonder if I would have done it in the daylight, but the sun was behind the trees and it was getting quite dark. I felt exposed in the sea, even with another American woman beside me, as a man I didn’t know asked about my age and my husband. I want to believe he was just being friendly. I’ve learned that in many places the standard questions are “Where are you from?, What do you do?, How old are you?, and Are you married?” I want to be a proud single traveler. I want to scream from the mountain tops that I don’t need a man to do this. And yet, from time to time I feel less than safe admitting to my spinsterhood, as though by admitting I’m single it will become an invitation for attention I do not want, or worse be taken as an admission of promiscuity. So until the day women are safe and independent all over the world, I may sometimes have an imaginary husband in the US military to scare away unwanted male attention. Sigh.

We splashed around in the shallow water, trying to take selfies in the dark and watching the lightening pop in the distance until it got so dark we couldn’t see our bags on the beach. Looking back on it, I need not have been worried about the bags on a local beach, but at the time I didn’t know yet how things were, and although there wasn’t too much in the bags (phones and keys were with in the waterproof bags with us, money in the wallet was minimal, important ID was in the hotel,etc) it would have been a bad first day to end with them stolen. Plus we were getting more looks from the men as women and children became scarcer in the water. I still don’t think anyone would have hurt us there, but there’s never a need to take chances, and I wasn’t sure how long that lightening would stay in the distance before the thunderstorms hit. I did NOT want to be on a motorbike in the dark and the rain.

Dumaluan Beach

After getting a monumental sunburn while snorkeling on Tuesday, I figured a rest day would be in order and decided that Wednesday would be a great time to check out the “semi-private” beach at Dumaluan that had been recommended by both the hotel hostess and the taxi driver. Panglao has three types of beaches: public, private, and semi-private. Most of the very public ones are not what anyone would put on a post card, the sand has debris from the jungle and the sea, and the water has things growing in it that show it’s clean and healthy, but do not promote a turquoise tropical beach vibe. I personally find these places worth visiting, but there is also something deeply luxurious about the postcard beach experience.

There are a couple of hoity toity resorts with private beaches, and some of them will let non-guests use the beach for a day fee. Unfortunately, I found zero information on what that fee is, or which resorts do and don’t allow, or if there’s a limit, or anything really because all their websites are geared toward getting people to stay in the resort, not just stop by for the amenities. The Bohol Beach Club is supposed to be right up on the top of that list, and I had been thinking about checking it out, but when the locals told me about Dumaluan instead, I decided that was a better option.

Dumaluan is semi-private, meaning that it’s tended to and cleaned up, and there’s a small fee for use, but anyone can go. It’s attached to the Dumaluan Resort, but not exclusive to guests. The fee to enter the beach area is only 25p (about 0.50 US) and the parking fee for motor bikes is the same. Plus, there are little cabin/picnic areas you can rent out for the day. Ours was a “B” and cost 350p for the day. I only saw the B and C cabins; the B were granted an unobstructed view of the water, while the C were set farther back. I presume the A were possibly somewhere nicer and the D somewhere less desirable? I looked but never found them. The cabin area included bathrooms, showers, some entertainment options like volleyball and a karaoke room, as well as a little grill serving light meals, fruit shakes, and cocktails.

The cabin had one long table between two benches, and was covered by a thatched roof, making sure guests would have plenty of shade. There were also lots of trees around which helped keep the area shaded and cooler. Although the sun on the beach was bright, making the sand and sea pop in white and azure, there was a nice breeze and I felt comfortable in my shady seat. It seemed once again we were the only tourists there. There were people at the restaurant, in the karaoke room, and in a few other cabins, but as far as I could tell they were all Filipinos. The cabin next to ours was having a big family birthday party for one of the kids and they’d arranged to have a whole roast pig delivered in for their picnic! We were generally surrounded by (but not crowded by) happy families and playing children throughout the day.

And dogs. So many dogs. In Thailand, there was a profusion of semi-wild street dogs which (other than on Koh Lipe where an animal shelter works to keep them safe and healthy) they are generally scrawny, sick, diseased, injured, and very shy of humans. It’s sad. When I got to Bohol and saw dogs everywhere I was worried it was going to be a similar situation, but as I got settled in, I found that most of the dogs here were better cared for and while collarless, seemed to have good relationships with the humans. Someone told us that they were really family dogs who just wandered around at will. I guess they’d have to be well trained or the chickens and baby goats that also wander around unattended wouldn’t last long. Either way, however many dogs I saw, I never saw a single leash.

Many times throughout the day, a dog would wander over and hop up on a bench to lay down in the cabin. I don’t want to judge, some people might like that. I don’t hate dogs, but I am allergic, and I also had no idea if these were trained, well behaved, or just thought they owned the park. There are safety concerns with unknown dogs when no owners are nearby. I tried to shoo them off with great difficulty several times until finally one of the Filipino neighbors noticed our predicament and told me what to say. For all the world it sounded like “sit” to me, perhaps with a less aspirated “t”? And when I said it the dog obeyed at once getting down from the bench and moving on, so it was clearly a well understood command and a well trained dog. Later on, I found a list of Tagalog dog commands, but none of them seemed phonetically similar, and the island dialect Boholano is too small to be well documented or have a Google Translate option, so I’m afraid I can’t accurately relay the “go away dog” command for I was taught that day.

The beautiful sun made the water more attractive, but I didn’t want to risk worsening my burn, so I hid under the cabin and partook of the snack bar, which was decent, but not really on par with the amazing food I had elsewhere on the island. Finally the sun retreated behind some clouds or trees, and the beach was no longer quite the burn threat. By this time the tide was in full retreat and it was amazing to see the huge swaths of land revealed. The beaches around Panglao are all very shallow for a long way out, so when the tide goes out, it really goes. I got up to have a walk around the beach and try to take some nice pictures. The clouds there are basically stunning all day, so that helps.

Kids and families played around in the wet sand, hunting down clams and other critters that had dug down during the tidal retreat. There were places where the sand was a little deeper and the water hadn’t gone out with the rest of the sea, creating miniature ponds replete with tiny fish who were trapped until the next tide returned. I waded around the shallows, but had avoided wearing my swimsuit that day to let the burn work on healing. Instead I contented myself looking at the textures in the sand, the piles left behind by digging clams and the ribbons left by the retreating waves. I found a few places where cool water came from under the sand, including one where it emerged with such pressure it almost seemed to be boiling, but it was ice cold.

There were resort workers out raking the piles of debris to keep the sands clean and white. I played a little game of how far out can you walk before the water hits your knees (quite far), and had some fun taking pictures in the glassy reflections of the tiny pools left behind.

Doljo Beach

The last beach I visited was a quick stop I made between two other stops on Thursday just to see if it was a beach I wanted to return to a different day. Doljo is another small, local, free beach that’s far away from the resorts. By the time I made it there, the tide was out, leaving a fleet of boats stranded on the wet sand, but I could tell it was still a pretty place. There wasn’t much around, a couple of huts that were falling apart and some guys selling fresh coconuts to a family of Chinese tourists. It’s small, and a little out of the way. I gather there is at least one resort over there which gets good reviews, but I would have been happy to go there when the water was higher, or even stayed with the low tide to see the sunset. It was amazingly quiet and private. However, sunset wasn’t an option for that day, since I’d already booked an evening activity, and I never did make it back, opting instead to spend my final day of holiday chasing waterfalls.

Conclusion

I think a person could easily visit 3 beaches a day for a week and not see them all. Choosing a beach on Panglao depends a lot on your goals, but regardless of your plans, I would advise:

looking at a tide chart because the water goes far far away at low tide and although it is still fairly shallow at high tide, it is much more beautiful and easier to swim in
getting water shoes because only the pay to play beaches are safe for tender bare feet (although the locals might have Hobbit blood because they don’t seem to mind)
using more sun protection than you think you need because you will burn. Double up, sun screen and covering clothes. The locals swim in street clothes, only tourists go in only swimsuits, so you’ll actually stand out more in a bikini than you will in a covering, skin-saving shirt.

Don’t forget to go over to my Facebook page to see more beautiful sunny beaches! Why? Because WordPress charges more for photo storage than Facebook, and I’m putting off the day I have to beg for money to supplement this blog. Enjoy!

It’s hard to reminisce about beaches in December with below freezing temperatures outside. I’ve been busy job hunting for my next posting, and while I know the responsible thing is to try to get hired for the spring semester, a tiny beach bum part of my brain can’t help but wish for a fall start and the chance to spend 5 months living on a beach in SE Asia while I wait. It seems like I’ll be ok either way, but no out of country trip this January I’ll have to make do with a winter wonderland weekend in the snow instead.

Hello Bohol: Balicasag with the Turtles

December 20, 2017 / Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

Bohol is especially well known for the excellent diving spots, including Balicasag and it’s famous sea turtle conclave. I had hoped to take a diving certification course while there this year, but alas, my root canals ate that budget and I had to settle for some stunning snorkeling instead. Join me on a little sailing jaunt under deep blue skies to a world of magical coral reefs, tiny territory defenders, and lazy giants. Bonus: this time I managed to actually take some of my own photos underwater!

Choose Wisely

When I was planning this trip, an old high school buddy who now lives in Manila told me, “you have to go to Balicasag, it’s like a sea turtle old boys club down there”. I love snorkeling, and the chance to meet amazing and rare sea creatures in their home turf is not to be missed. However, it can be tricky to make sure you’re doing the responsible thing. I had already made the decision not to see the whale sharks at Oslob because of the environmental impact on the animals, but I was excited about Balicasag. As far as I could find, there are no damaging practices that draw the turtles there, they just like it.

While trying to make my plan of attack, I read a few dozen similarly disappointing stories of snorkeling and island hopping around Panglao online, most of which shared three basic themes:

You’re rushed when you don’t want to be and sitting around doing nothing other times
You’re stuck haggling over prices and then dealing with hidden fees and expectations of tips even with lousy service
The standard island hopping tour is not a good way to do snorkeling

The best experiences came from people who were lucky enough to find a private boat owner to drive them for the day where and when they wanted to go (very hit or miss), or from the people who went as tag-a-longs with a diving group.

This advice led me to Sierra Madre divers (the people who published that article on the whale sharks I linked to and teachers of marine preservation diving classes). Sadly, they were booked solid for the whole week with Chinese tourists in for the holiday. The guide was very kind, despite his overfilled schedule, and introduced us to his neighbor Rafi at Valm Dive with whom we made a verbal reservation.

Regardless of who you choose to go with, make sure you ask about any extra fees for Balicasag. Some activities do require paying the national park fee and others don’t. It’s never fun to be caught by surprise once your in the ocean. Valm Dive wasn’t planning to go to any of the pay areas, and so we were only on the hook for our ride and equipment (mask and snorkel only, no fins. I think they would have let us use them if they had extra, but they had to supply the divers first and ran out). Total cost: 500p or about 10$ USD.

A Three Hour Tour?

That morning was one of the few rains that happened during our active times. On any other morning, we could have just waited for it to stop, but Rafi had told us to be at the dive shop at 8:30 and we didn’t want to be late and run the risk of losing our spot on the boat. We waited as long as possible, and it didn’t take long for the downpour to become a drizzle. Driving on the wet roads wasn’t nearly as difficult as I feared, but getting a face full of rain made seeing a little challenging. I thought again about what kind of gear to use to prevent that if I ever had to drive a real distance in the rain, but it seemed like all the locals, in addition to shunning helmets, only wore ponchos while driving in the rain, leaving their faces, and eyes, open to the wet.

Despite the rain, we showed up at the shop at 8:30 as we’d been told, and although Rafi was running around like a nut getting things ready, he spotted us eventually and gave us a friendly good morning and made sure things were set for us too.

Nothing starts on time here, and there’s no point in worrying about it. While we waited, the rain cleared up and the sky began its transition from gray to a deep vault-of-heaven blue filled with towering, crisp edged cumulus clouds. It wasn’t long after that when we all boarded the boat. This involved walking through the shallow water to a ladder on the side. I underestimated the depth and rolling up my pants was not enough to keep them dry.

Our boat mates included a very serious Japanese man who seemed to have a personal assistant with him taking care of his every need, but not diving herself (she was Filipina and had a tourism badge on, so I feel safe calling this as an employer/employee interaction). There was a Chinese couple who had some intense underwater photography rigs. It made me wonder if they were professional photographers on assignment. And finally and Australian couple who seemed just to be out to have fun. None of them were beginners.

A word about the boats

In Thailand we rode on the longtails nearly everywhere, and by now you’ve probably seen a few boats in my beach photos and have noticed that these boats are quite unique. The Filipino outrigger canoe style, called bangka or bangcas, is distinguished by the two slender bamboo poles on either side called katig. They help to balance the boat, and also mean the main boat needs less keel and can be lighter weight while still being ocean stable. Sailing versions are called paraw or parao. The outrigger canoe plan is most used by Filipino, Malay, Micronesian, Melanesian and Polynesian people today.

The Wall

Balicasag is tiny island some 40 minutes to the south of Alona Beach. I never set foot on it, so I can’t tell you how it is. Our dive boat stopped first at a reef called “the wall” because there was a goodly stretch of shallow reef and a sharp drop off that for the divers below was actually a rising wall. We were asked to wait until all the divers were in the water and then given about 45 minutes to do all the snorkeling we liked. They pointed out some Chinese snorkelers a little bit away, and warned us about the current before turning us loose.

The corals were lovely, and I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere in particular. It was my first real chance to play around with my new underwater photo taking capability. Almost as soon as we got in the water, I spotted my first turtle hugging the edge of the drop off. I did my best to keep pace with him, but especially swimming against the current, I had no real hope of catching up to a turtle, no matter how lazily he seemed to be swimming. Finally, I had to give up. I swam using as little energy as possible, but it was hard going because the current was much stronger than I was used to and it was impossible to hold still while taking a picture.

I wove back and forth above the stunning coral shapes, trying to get my camera to focus when I was spotted by a little rainbow wrasse, maybe 5 inches long. It was clearly watching me, swimming back and forth in front of me in quick zipping lines, and once it was sure it had my attention too, it swam straight at my face. I was honestly worried it was going to hit my mask, not for my safety, it was a small harmless fish, but worried that it might hurt itself bashing into the plastic. Fortunately at the last moment it turned aside.

It seemed like a strange behavioral anomaly, but the fish came back and did it several more times. As I got used to the pattern I tried to get a picture. I wish I could have done a video, but I hadn’t quite figured out the trick I needed for that with the waterproof cover.

Eventually I let it chase me away and went on exploring more beautiful coral shapes. I got so focused on getting a working photo that I drifted into a whole shoal of fish without realizing, and at one point when I looked up I was entirely surrounded by tiny flashing fish bodies, not unlike being in a blizzard. I saw larger fish in the hazy waters just past the drop off, fading in and out of the misty darkness. At one point there was a school of silver fish that were more round than narrow and as they passed between me and the dark open ocean beyond, they reminded me of nothing so much as cherry blossoms falling in the wind at night.

Less Coral, More Turtles

All too soon it was time to swim back to the boat, a healthy challenge in the current without fins, but we made it and the boat moved off to the pick up point for the divers. They had to spend an hour on the boat between dives, but the snorkelers have no such restrictions. We were invited to head back into the water while they waited. The pick up point was not as interesting as the drop off had been, but the water was cool and refreshing and it was nice to just float around and watch the few fish that were braving the desert landscape between reefs. I saw a few more turtles there as well. Despite the poor quality of my pictures, the in person experience was captivating. The water was so clear that I could see the patterns on their shells and fins. I watched each one that passed through as they dug in the sand or chewed plant life growing on the bottom. We also saw a couple turtles surface for a breath once we were back on board.

The second dive site for the day was all about the turtles. The divers started getting ready well before their hour was up so they could hop back in the sea as soon as it was safe. Once more, we waited for everyone to get in and head off to the goal. Apparently, there is a sort of sea turtle metropolis down there, and we were parked over in turtle exurbs. I’d already seen more sea turtles in the first two stops than I’ve ever seen in the wild before, so I didn’t mind too much.

At first I was a little disappointed because there were still no corals like we’d seen at the first stop. I didn’t want to head too far from the boat, as my last two trips had resulted in very tiring swims against a strong current to get back and I didn’t want to risk getting too worn out in the ocean. However one of the boat hands came in the water while I was swimming and began helping me spot turtles. The first one was chased avidly by a nearby boat of Chinese tourists. A couple others passed by too far for a good look, but then a giant beauty showed up right beneath us. The guide held my elbow to keep me steady so I could try for a better photo, and then when the turtle began to swim away, he motioned me to follow and we swam under the boat to keep the turtle in sight.

Unlike the turtle the Chinese tourists were chasing which was close to the surface, this one was on the bottom and I was not about to try to free dive to reach it, so I don’t think we were being invasive. We followed it for a few minutes and I managed to get some of the best photos of the day as well as a short video clip. Of course, my phone in a plastic waterproof bag has an upper limit on quality, but I was excited about it.

Finally, I put the camera down and just watched. When the turtle swam on again we didn’t follow but returned to the boat where we motored over to the final pick up point of the day.

With the divers back on board, we made the return journey to Panglao. I happily gazed into the horizon watching the monumental cloud formations and being totally oblivious to the horrendous sunburn I was developing.

If I Could Change One Thing?

Ideally, if I went back it would be with the time, money, and intention of actually getting my PADI certification and going on those dives, but if it turns out that snorkeling is on the table, then just two main changes: wear a shirt! No amount of sunscreen is enough. I think the reason I didn’t burn on the snorkel trip in Thailand is that it was overcast (and yes, UV happens on overcast days) which meant there was no reflection off the water as there is on sunny days which massively magnifies the cooking power. And get fins. Again in Thailand although it was tricky at first, it was not a hindrance to go without fins because the water was calm. But the current around Balicasag was intense, almost like swimming in one of those resistance pools, I had to swim as hard as I could just to make any forward progress at all, even gentle swimming could result in me drifting backwards.

The massive burn did teach me one interesting fact about fashion. I now know the only valid excuse for a tube top. I don’t own any, but I had to fold down a regular tank top to wear in tube top style for the next several days in order to avoid horrible pain. Thanks mom, for always making us wear shirts over our swimsuits at the beach!

Don’t miss out on the photo album over on the book of faces.

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