Jade and I in the Twin Lagoon, Coron, Philippines |
I
started my new travels in the Philippines and have been at it for a little over
a week and this is my story. It’s a
simple story of the confusion of arrival in a new country, excursions on
tropical islands and beaches, and that one time we slept outside in the bottle
storage area on the porch of a ticket office (yea that happened).
Leaving
Texas at 7 am on a Monday morning, our journey took us on a three-leg flight
before reaching the Philippines two days later at 6 am Wednesday. The flights weren’t bad, but our seven-hour
layover in Shanghai was. The airport in
Shanghai was freezing so we curled up on a bench with our blankets and pillows
taken from the previous flight and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to get some
much needed sleep.
Me riding a horse up to the top of Taal Volcano |
Arriving
in the Philippines we charged all of our things the arrival terminal and then
went out to start our adventure. We knew
the town we wanted to get to and kinda how to get there, but had no clue how to
fit the pieces together. So, we hopped
in a taxi and headed for the bus station, which turned out not to be exactly
where we were dropped off. So, after
asking around we finally made it to a bus to Tagaytay where our first stop was
to be. Arriving in Tagayay we found a
toktok driver to take us down to the lake to see the volcano there. He helped set up our excursion which included
a boat over and back, as well as horses up and down the volcano. Turns out we payed more than we probably should
and the horses were a waist since the hike up would have been a fairly easy
one.
It was
just after mid-day when we finished so we felt like we should move on instead of
staying in Tagaytay as we had planned.
Starting the trip, we had 25 things to see and a total of 5 days of
travel time that we knew of so we were feeling very pressed for time and didn’t
want to waist a minute. Our toktok
driver convinced us we should ride with him instead of the bus (again this cost
us way more than the bus would have) since he knew a short cut and could get us
to the port in time for the last ferry.
Though it may have been a short cut it was to the wrong port, but still
filling rushed we bought tickets for the ferry knowing that it would at least
get us to the island we had planned for.
Upon
arriving on the other side at 6 pm we hopped in a van to take us to the port we
needed to be in 7.5 hours away. This is
where the story went a little weird.
Arriving so late in the night and knowing that we had to be at the port
by 5 am to buy tickets we decided to forgo a hotel and tricycle (a motorcycle
with a side car) to the port. This
turned out not to be where you buy tickets, so our tri took us to the ticket
office instead, which was closed, and left us there. So, seeing a section of the porch walled off
for storing soda bottles, we stacked our bags and ourselves in the area left
and waited for the morning. It was a
long night of Jade being sound asleep and me keeping vigil as I watched out for
stray dogs and people. The dogs looked
to be more confused to why we were there than anything else and the owner of
the building, when he arrived, seemed unmoved by the fact that we had slept on
his porch the night before.
Turns
out we had found shelter at the wrong ticket office and the early morning boat
wasn’t running anyways. But we got
tickets for a boat and made our way to Coron, our next stop. The ferry was nice and each passenger got a bed
in a dorm type setting as we crossed over.
The ride was nice and the beds seemed much nicer than they were, but
afforded us some much needed rest.
After
sleeping in the following morning, we made a hike out to Bali Beach, which we
thought wouldn’t be that hard. Turns out
it was a bit harder and hotter than we expected. The road was far hillier than we thought it
would be and there was no shade from the mid-day sun. Still, we arrived at Bali beach, which turned
out to be nice but not as nice as we expected.
We took a stroll in the shallow water for a bit, but after only about
two minutes in the water Jade got stung by a jellyfish, so we were back out and
spent the rest of the time lounging under the trees. We followed the beach with a visit to the hot springs which were only a ten minute walk from us. This turned out to be a fantastic
getaway. The water was warm, the scenery
was great, and there were very few people for most of time we were there.
The
following day, upon hearing that our ferry had been canceled to leave to El
Nido, we decided to create our own tour of Coron island. We had planned to go over to the island
before the trip but had forgotten about it so the ferry cancellation turned out
to be a blessing in disguise. So, we
headed to the port, hired a boat, and crossed over to Twin Lagoons and Banul Beach. These were our first real taste
of what the Philippines has to offer.
Crystal clear water and white sandy beaches is what everyone thinks of
when dreaming of a tropical getaway.
This excursion also gave me some
much needed practice with my drone. My first
flight was a little precarious. The drone didn’t have a good signal till I got it high above the rocks and then to return
it I had to land it on the bow of the boat which was scary for me to say the
least. The flights at Banul beach were a
breeze and I was able to gain some practice in an open area and get some really
good footage.
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