Author archive
21 February 2013
I walked to McDonald’s for breakfast as it seemed healthier than doughnuts and other fried stuff. I got talking to two Canadians from Quebecistan (Quebec amidst talk of seccession from Canada); it all started with his Komodo t-shirt. They were headed to Banaue as well and were wanting to know where the jeepneys left from. As […]
20 February 2013
Above: Filipino buses are equipped with some of the best safety features. I guess this one is the dash-mounted collision avoidance system. After breakfast of muesli topped with mangoes, I took a tricycle to the airport for my flight to Manila. The Cebu Pacific flight left early and got us into Manila early too. It […]
19 February 2013
I booked the trip to the Underground River several days ago with the hostel; they managed to secure me a permit despite the high demand. And it only cost a little more than doing it independently. I was picked up at 0715 and after a couple more pickups we left the city for the 90 […]
18 February 2013
Karsten and I had breakfast on the common-area deck again today with a selection of items from the bakery. Some items were priced at PHP20 while others were only PHP2, which we found strange as there didn’t appear to be much different in ingredients or cost. I took a tricycle to the Lexus van station […]
17 February 2013
Above: Big spacious diving bangka. I did two dives in El Nido, with the Submariner Diving Centre. They were pleasure to deal from the very beginning, when we walked into the dive shop he evening before we wanted to go diving. They had done all their planning for boat and staff allocation. As we had a party […]
17 February 2013
Two of the girls came down with food poisoning at 0400 and weren’t able to make the dive trip. They had shared two meals. Fortunately the rest of us ate something different. For breakfast, Karsten and I grabbed some bread and cakes from the local bakery to accompany the free coffee from the hotel. He […]
16 February 2013
Karsten and I grabbed an excellent breakfast at a place he had found. For PHP200, we had a full buffet breakfast for the same price as a simple omelette and toast at most other places. Despite the pricey rooms, it seemed to be the preferred accommodation of the few mainland Chinese in town. All the […]
15 February 2013
We had booked a shared minivan to take us to El Nido, a seaside town. I don’t know why it is called “the nest” in Spanish but it feels like it is named after a Nestle infant milk powder. The ETD was 0930 but we had to ready at 0830 in case we were collected […]
14 February 2013
Leaving Manila and impressions thereof With the much-deserved lie-in (to compensate for previous night flight), an 1100 checkout from the hotel and a 1600 flight, I couldn’t do very much. After checking out, I taxied to Victory Liner’s Pasay terminal to buy a bus ticket for my journey to Banaue in northern Luzon. From there […]
13 February 2013
Arriving in Manila Coincidentally (as with my flight a few hours ago) my flight on Cebu Pacific to Manila left 20 minutes early too! On board, I lay down on three seats but couldn’t sleep. The 3h30 flight wasn’t long enough to warrant a sleeping pill. Upon arrival, the queues for immigration were very long […]