Cebu, Manila and Hong Kong - Coronavirus, Altar Bread and Toothaches

Our flight to Hong Kong with Cebu Pacific was cancelled beacuase of the coronavirus, which meant we had to book a new flight with Cathay Pacific. This ended up being a painful process as Cebu Pacific wouldn’t give us a refund and Cathay changed our flight from, direct to Hong Kong, to Cebu - Manila - Manila to Hong Kong (more info on these problems soon)

Mum had to have an operation on her teeth, so we had 2 nights in Cebu. This wasn’t our original plan but, as Cebu had cancelled our flight, we saw this as an opportunity to get her teeth fixed (also the pain was getting unbearable). We stayed at the Quest Serviced Apartments, which when Mum first said the name of, I thought she said Quest Service Departments, easy mistake.

The room at the hotel had a kitchen with a stove but nothing to cook with. Sadly, that meant that Dad didn’t get to cook for us. The hotel was across the road from a big mall. In the mall was a big supermarket, in the supermarket were big isles, in the big isles there was (da da da daaaaaa) unleavened altar bread🤣, right next to the altar bread was the red wine 🤣🤣🤣.

Funny!

Like I said before, Mum had to have a root canal. We had to go to the ‘Perpetual Heart Hospital’ for her treatment. Em and I waited out side playing on our devices, listening to the sound of a drill! Mum had to keep her mouth wide open for TWO HOURS. The good thing was, Mum felt much better afterwards.

Our last day in Cebu was very busy. We started by getting up at 8 in the morning and walking to the Cathay Pacific office (which fortunately, was not far from where we were staying) to sort out our flight to Hong Kong, that had been changed to stopping for four hours in Manila and getting into Hong Kong at 11 o’clock at night. We arrived 30 minutes before opening because we thought there would be a long queue (there wasn’t). When the office finally opened, we went in and were served first. After what felt like hours, Mum and Dad said

“We’re done” and we left the office.

The new plan was, instead of having one more night in Cebu and flying to Manila and Hong Kong tomorrow, we would fly to Manila that day, have a night in Manila, and then fly to Hong Kong the next day. Before doing that, there was another pesky airline we had to pay a visit.

The reason that Cebu Pacific wouldn’t give us a refund, is that Mum and Dad had closed the credit card account that they paid with. We hassled them for two hours. In the end they said they were giving us a “wired transfer” (I didn’t think the refund was going to happen)

When we arrived at the airport, we went to the Cebu Pacific office there. They told us that they were just going to transfer the money to the closed account and we were just going to have to contact the credit card company and somehow get the money. (Almost certainly not getting the refund)

The flight was uneventful (as most flights are), but the hotel in Manila was very nice. We stayed at the Savoy. It had a very nice shower but the beds were amazing (Dad got really excited about staying in a posh hotel and he took photos of the towels🙃). We were right next to the Airport, and as the stop was really only a transit, nothing much happened. The next day we were off to Hong Kong. 

The airport in Hong Kong was extremely busy (not). We were the only people in the foreign passport lane, we were also the only people not wearing surgical mask (which technically means that we were safe, because no one can spread germs if they’re wearing a mask). We were the only people on the shuttle to the Novotel, the whole city looked like a ghost town.

There was nice view from the hotel in Hong Kong as we were on a high floor. Once again we only had one night. The next day we were off to London.

Blue Orchid Resort – Part 2 – Spotting, Snorkelling and Chameleons

The Blue Orchid Resort was actually a dive resort, and since Em was old enough to do Bubblemaker (a try diving thing for kids), she did. The dive master searched their equipment for the smallest sizes of everything to put on Em. Even after all that searching the gear was still too big. It was done in the pool and from what Emily tells me, she enjoyed it. Like I said, the mouth piece was too large for her little mouth and so she didn’t stay down for long.

During our time at the Blue Orchid we went on a boat trip. As with most activities, it required a bright and early start. The first stop wasn’t a stop exactly, you need to rearrange the letters to ‘spot’. WE SAW DOLPHINS! The boatman took us quite far out, and we saw at least 100 dolphins! They went in and out of the water so fast it was hard to get good photos.

After the amazement of dolphins, we thought nothing could impress us, but at the next stop we saw 10 turtles (it was very funny, one of us would say “Look, a turtle!” and then someone else would say “Yep, there’s three over here” 😂), razor fish, barracudas and a sea snake! At our last stop we were dropped off near our accom, and the current slowly drifted us back to the resort.

After our snorkelling trip, we continued our wildlife encounters with chameleons! The owner of the resort was nice, and we were talking to him about our snorkelling trip and all the animals we saw, then, he says  

“Hey {Insert Filipino name that I forgot here}, show these kids my chameleons”, and I’m just thinking, did he say CHAMELEONS!

So, the guy that was told to take us up to see the chameleons took us up to see the chameleons, and they were very colourful, wonderful and interestingful. We took them out of their enclosures and they clambered all over our bodies. We even got to feed them crickets! If I could, I would have stayed there all day with those chameleons!

On the last day of our 7-night stay, we woke up at 3.45 to go and see, drumroll please! … WHALE SHARKS! 🐋 (I know this is not a whale shark emoji, but there is none and this is the closest I could get). Fortunately for us, our mode of transport was quite spacious and we were not cramped, even though mum had to sit in the back.

There was a long line to see the whale sharks, the first line we got in was to get our temperature taken and the second was to just get out. To get out to see them, we got on a rowing boat with an outrigger. It was very crowded and we weren’t allowed to go far from the boat or close to the whale sharks. Still, seeing them was very cool. On our way back into shore, I glanced into the water from the boat and saw, a turtle! #philipinesrocks

Blue Orchid Resort - Part 1 - Canyoneering at Kawasan Falls

From La Natura in Coron, we flew to Cebu. Where we left our Grandma 🙁, and started... TAXI WARS!(dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuun). All we wanted was a taxi to our accommodation. As we stepped out of the airport and into the taxi rank we were bombarded from all sides by locals keen to get us in their taxis. After we finally decided who to go with, we just had a three and a half hour drive ahead of us.

The Blue Orchid Resort was a little bit out of main Moalboal, it was near the beach. It was very chill and had a nice pool. Unfortunately, the food was not included and wasn't cheap but, it was good. We were in the family room, with two single beds and one queen. The staff were super friendly and helpful. All good vibes.

On our second day there, we went canyoneering at Kawasan Falls! We woke up at 6 in the morning and got a jeepney ride to where we would get kitted out. We all got life-jackets and helmets. To get to our starting point, we rode motorbikes! I held on for my life!😧

After being scared out of my mind by the motorbike ride, we had a 45-minute hike on slippery muddy terrain. I fell over at least once, so did Em. The first jump was only 3 metres but it was the hardest one.

I was the only one who did all the slides and jumps (apart from the 12 metre one, because Mum said I couldn't) Near the end there was a rope swing, where you swung out and let go, falling to your death... Joking, the rope swing was really fun. After two hours of pure fun we had lunch with the falls behind us. This was by far my favourite activity at Moalboal. (More on the others in Part 2).

Rock Island and La Natura – Busuanga Island

From the houseboat, we got a quick boat to the port and a minivan to the other side of the island. After a 30-minute boat to a remote island, we arrived at our destination; Rock Island Eres Bella. We were the only guests on the Island and we were looked after by a lovely team including an awesome cook (but more on in a sec).

The beach at Rock Island was pristine and sandy. Off the shore there was great snorkelling, we saw a lobster, batfish, trumpetfish, triggerfish, pufferfish and this mysterious creature (which by the way, stumped the locals as well as us😕, if you have any ideas, feel free to comment).

Here we also saw lots of beautiful sunsets and some bats. Around 6 o'clock every night, hundreds of big bats flew by. Sometimes we saw lone bats (I think they get lost a lot).

The food at Rock Island was very good. You know that saying ‘Quality is better than quantity’ at Rock Island we had both. There was always sooooo much food and we could never finish it all, even if we were all hungry. We felt so bad leaving all that good food, but we just couldn’t finish it. We got pancakes for breakfast every day. YUM!

After four nights at Rock Island, we travelled back to Coron to our next adventure. We stayed at La Natura for three nights. There was a nice pool, but it was in an interesting location, only accessible via a bumpy track. We got trikes in and out of town, which took about 15 minutes. This trip involved a life-threatening crossing over a rickety bridge (we all held our breath for this).

On our first night at La Natura, we went into town for dinner. We also sorted out (after a bit of haggling) a snorkelling trip for the next day. This involved a walk down to the wharf where some pirates, I mean boatmen, sorted us out for the next morning.

We got up and prepared for our trip, we (once again) caught a trike to the port and, because we needed to get food for lunch on the boat trip, Dad and I headed for the local market.

We bought all the food we needed and hopped on the boat. This involved an interesting clamber through four other boats. Nan wasn’t too keen on all the jumping between boats.

The ride to our first stop was an hour… it was worth the wait. We got to snorkel the wreck of a Japanese gunboat from WWII!! There was so much coral and so many fish.

Our next stop was a coral garden, it was even prettier than the wreck! We saw aqua coloured coral, clams and three more types of coral that we had never seen before, one looked like a dog toy, another looked like purple cauliflower and the last looked like mushrooms.

We had lunch at Pass Island, where we saw big cuttlefish. (maybe half a metre!) For lunch we had the usual; fish, chicken, rice, salad and fruit.

The food at the accom was nothing special, so we mostly ate dinner in town.

La Natura was our last stop in Palawan, we’re now off to Moalboal; only two stops left in the Philippines!

Paolyn Houseboat - Coron

I woke to the sound of the 4.30 roosters and the bark of geckos (F.Y.I gecko barking is one of the 10 weirdest and most wonderful noises to hear before you die). We quickly made sure we were all packed and ready to go. When our host said we had to be up at 4.30, she gave no warning of a 20-minute hike uphill with the only light coming from our phones. As we stumbled through the jungle, we could hear hungry wolves howling in the distance (they might have just been local dogs, but you never know).

After the hike we waited with our bags at the top of the hill next to a very bumpy looking motorbike track. We waited half an hour for our transport which was the land rover thing I talked about in my previous post. It was late because there was a boulder on the road. Just as we thought, the road was very bumpy and we all held on for our lives. After 20 billion years (an hour) we got onto a proper road and could relax.

Our flight from El Nido to Coron was about 40 minutes and pretty comfortable. When we arrived in Coron there was a minivan waiting to pick us up, it stopped at a couple of other places before arriving at the port where we got in a super-speedy speed boat to the sheltered lagoon in which our accom was situated.

The Paolyn Houseboat was more of a very big pontoon, there was a restaurant downstairs and the accom was upstairs. Attached to it were kayaks and SUPs that we could use whenever we wanted. The meals here were pretty good and, because there was different menu each day, we got to try different things. We even got Nutella and mango crepes for breakfast.

On the day we arrived we went for a paddle to Twin Lagoons where we had a swim and watched the sun set on the limestone cliffs. The water was so calm that it made the paddling easy, which was handy as Nan and I were in one kayak and Dad, Mum and Em in the other.

The next day, we (by we, I mean Emily, Dad and I) paddled to a beautiful snorkelling spot (Mum and Nan were worried that if they got out of the kayak, they wouldn’t be able to get back in, so they got dropped off in a boat). We saw lots of different colours and varieties of fish and coral; the water was crystal clear and we could have stayed there all day.

At the end of the day we got a boat to a small beach to see turtles and the sunset. I saw 4 turtles and 1 sunset. The turtles were a brownish-green colour and the sunset was a pinky-orange colour.

This was a pretty special place to stay. Next stop… Rock Island.

Moonbeach Villas - Northern Palawan

After our adventures in El Nido we were heading to the northernmost tip of the island. Well, that’s where thought we were heading as we got in to the van that was stopping at the airport before taking us north. We were going to El Nido airport to pick up our grandma and the bus driver knew that we wanted to go to the airport, just not the El Nido one. We realised about an hour into the trip that we were going the wrong way. So, we got a ride on another van back to El Nido. At one of the places the van stopped, Dad looked out the window and pointed to a land rover/van thing with the words ‘Fisherman’s Cottage’ on the side and said, “I thought we’d be riding in something more like that” ... Then Mum said, “Moonbeach Villas (our accom) is run by the same people that run Fisherman’s cottage” just as she said that (by the way I would just like to say sorry for this extremely long paragraph) a lady stepped out of the land rover and walked over to our van (since Mum had told her where we were).

After getting sorted with the right transfer, we completed some shopping with our new hosts. The market was an interesting adventure. I followed Dad and Rachelle (our host) through the meat and then through the produce section, “Six pineapples!” Rachelle stared at us bewildered. (I’ve already told you how good the pineapples here are, plus we had to cater for 5 people for 6 nights). After getting over this, we finished our shopping, picked up Nan from the El Nido airport and headed to our accommodation.

The villa was a fully equipped house, Rachelle cooked all our meals here. The beds were nice and comfy and outside the accom there was a nice beach. Just down the beach was a village where Emily and I made friends with all the local kids. We also went for a few paddles on the kayaks, thankfully none 4 kilometres long.

Our first snorkelling trip here was all day and we felt pretty tired after. The first stop was a beautiful coral garden with so many fish. At one of the stops there was a very strong current and one of the boatmen got the kayak so me and Em could hold onto the back and snorkel. At our second stop we saw a lionfish, sadly we didn’t get any photos. ☹

The second boat trip was only six hours. The first stop was… a shipwreck, it was quite shallow but there was still lots of coral and fish. At our stop it was quite choppy but the highlight of this stop was when some tiny, baby fish decided Mum was their home and just kept swimming around her. On our way to the lunch stop it was very choppy and we were all worried the boat might flip over, luckily the boat had an outrigger to keep it balanced. The ladder on this boat was just a plank of wood with little pieces of wood nailed on, not very user-friendly.

We had more adventures leaving Moonbeach but I’ll tell you about them in the next post.

El Nido - Northern Palawan

The trip from Sunset Colors to El Nido wasn’t fun, it was long and squishy. At least the van didn’t break down. We had a few unnecessary stops along the way but, we got there.

From the bus terminal in El Nido we caught a trike to Joaquinn’s B and B, our accom. A trike is basically a motorbike that’s been converted into an iffy mode of public transportation. All four of us and our bags just fitted. Fortunately, our ride was only five minutes, not sure how much more of that we could take

Our accom was unusual but perfectly comfortable.

Moving on😉…

El Nido was busy in the mornings but by about 10 am, all the tourists had left and it was a ghost town. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.

We had to be careful of what we ate, as the local water is not safe to drink, even after boiling. We looked at reviews for every place we ate prior to eating there.

We went on two boat trips whilst in El Nido.

Our first boat trip had mainly beach stops. The highlight of this trip was where we stopped to have lunch, the food was fine but the snorkelling was amazing, probably the best place I’ve ever snorkelled. We saw cuttlefish, turtles, tube fish, sea stars and the visibility was perfect.

The second boat trip we went on was a looong one but we did visit some cool places. My favourite stop on this trip was the big lagoon, where we paddled on a kayak into the calm waters of the beautiful lagoon. In some miracle, there were thriving green flora growing out of insignificant crags in the towering limestone cliffs (There, I wrote something poetic).