Easter in Bohol

This is mum at the pool in our resort. It was Charts and it was run by a German girl called Sonia who was really nice. Our holiday was organised by my friend Paul, a travel broker.


We went to the fancy resort next door called Alona Palm.


Me in the pool



We went on a day trip with some other people from the resort on Easter Saturday. It took us to lots of places including a beautiful fresh water waterfall. It had 197 steps to get down which was fine but it felt like a million on the way back up!











We travelled around nearly all of the island of Bohol. It was much bigger than I expected but really beautiful.









We stopped the van along the road to see a local family harvesting the rice that they had grown. By hand one person scoops up the grains and sprinkles them in front of a fan. The grain of rice fall onto a mat then the little leaves that are lighter blow onto a mat further away. This separation is needed before they can sell the rice. The fan they used to blow the rice was hand operated so the poor fella had to stand all day and wind it by hand!


The woman was wearing a jumper and benny hat...it was so hot that day we were all sweating. She was trying not to brown her skin any more in the sun.






We stopped for lunch in this little hut. I think they are called putok's. The are found in the countryside and they are where the men come and hand out in the evenings or even during the day. They aren't supposed to be in them after 10pm so they don;t wake up anyone living near by.








There were millions of people on this bus! I didn't catch it very well but there were people sitting on top of each other.


A caribou hiding from the sun in the mud!




The roads in Bohol were crazy. We kept having to get off the bus and walk to try and let the bus get over the road. They were damaged by water during rainy season.



The chocolate hills!


The chocolate hills is what Bohol is famous for. They are funny hill formations that used to be under sea. In the Philippine summer they turn brown and "chocolaty"


We went to the Philippine version of a National Heritage house and beside the restrooms they randomly had an old bat filled with turtles!






A trapdoor in the bedroom...what all modern houses are missing.


We visited an old Spanish church that was getting prepared for it's Easter services.






The Easter services are held at 4am in the Philippines. Everyone goes to the service then eats lots of food and they break from whatever they were fasting from during Lent.








This is a tarsier! The Philippine tarsier, (Tarsius syrichta) is very peculiar small animal. In fact it is one of the smallest known primates, no larger than a adult men's hand. Mostly active at night, it lives on a diet of insects. Folk traditions sometimes has it that tarsiers eat charcoal, but actually they retrieve the insects from (sometimes burned) wood. It can be found in the islands of Samar, Leyte, Bohol, and Mindanao in the Philippines. They are endangered but are not being properly protected by the Philippine government.

The Philippine Tarsier is a tiny animal, measuring about 4 to 6 inches (15 cm) in height. The small size makes it difficult to spot. The average mass for males is around 134 grams, and for females, around 117 grams. The average adult is about the size of a human fist and will fit very comfortably in the human hand.Like all tarsiers, the Philippine Tarsier's eyes are fixed in its skull; they cannot turn in their sockets. Instead, a special adaptation in the neck allows its round head to be rotated 180 degrees. The large membranous ears are mobile,^[8] appearing to be almost constantly moving, causing any movement to be heard. It has uniquely large eyes (disproportionate to its head and body), which are listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest eyes on any mammal. These huge eyes provide this nocturnal animal with excellent night vision - Wikipedia

Panglao Island, Bohol

Last Tuesday me and mum headed to Bohol for the Easter holidays. We were staying in a small resort in Panglao Island in Bohol. When we arrived we headed straight to the beach and into the water to cool down.


The beach is so beautiful here. The water was lovely but it was like getting into a bath it was so warm!





It is so hot in the Philippines at the moment. It is summer and super hot!!

The new Miss Philippines!

There has been lots of controversy over this girl - Janina San Miguel winning the Miss Philippines title. She can barely speak English and doesn't answer her question in the finals. Lots of Filipinos, especially young people feel that she isn't a good representative of the Filipino people. Check out the video its really funny.

My mum is here!!

After a very early (6.30am) appointment at the doctors on Saturday morning I got ready to go and pick up my mum from the airport in Manila. She flew in at 9.15 am and I got a taxi to the airport to meet her.

The problem with the airport is that you are not allowed in there to pick someone up! It's very complicated if you are in a taxi. You have to get dropped off either in the departures area and risk your life against the coming traffic to walk down the road you just came up in the taxi (I've done that just once...learned my lesson!) or do what I did on Saturday and hopped out of the taxi near the arrivals area (taxis aren't allowed in....don't know why!) and risk your life crossing the road to get into the arrivals area.

Once inside the mecca that is the arrivals area, you have to pay 30 pesos and a hand stamp to get in to a holding pen where you must sit (if you are lucky enough to find a seat) or stand in alphabetical order according to the arriving passenger's last name. I swear this is true. You can then watch the TV screens to watch the CCTV footage of passengers coming out of the airport to find your loved one. You have to tell your family member to a long list of instructions mine were:

• Walk through the customs area and go straight through the hall to the exit
• Look for the green sign “Arrival hall extension area”
• Once outside the exit, you will be standing on the ‘arrival terminal access road’.
• Look across the road and you will see two ramps (signs point to the ’arrival extension area’) – one going down to your left, one to your right.
• Walk across the road and go down the ramp on your right hand side (because I will be standing at the letter C)
• When you reach the bottom you will be at another access road. Stay on the side of the road that you are when you reach the bottom of the ramp.
• There are barriers in place, behind which you will see lots of people waiting for friends and relatives.
• You will see alphabetically divided barriers (A-C, D-F, etc) I will be at the letter C

After all that I had to get the guard to let me cross the road to meet mum and get into an airport taxis. Phew.

Mum loved my flat and we spent Saturday doing a bit of shopping, getting manicures and pedicures and catching up.

On Sunday, we went to Mall of Asia. It's the biggest mall in the Philippines with millions of shops, restaurants, cinemas, an Imax, science centre and even an Olympic sized ice rink!

Then we went back to Greenbelt in Makati for some dinner. We went on an American chain called Bubba Gump (A Forrest Gump themed restaurant). When I was back in the UK I hated chain restaurants because the food was awful and microwaved and the service was rubbish. Manila has a more American attitude to customer service in that...well they have it!





I still haven't booked us a holiday for Easter yet but my friend Paul runs a company called Philippine Adventures which is a personal online booking agency providing holiday accommodation and adventure activities throughout the Philippines. He is now trying to find us somewhere to go over Easter that won't break the bank and has some vacancies. Easter is the most popular time of year for Filipinos to go on Holiday so I should have booked something months ago!

I miss those skanky chavs...

On Sunday night I met up with Jo B for some Indian food at Queens. It was so nice there, the food was amazing. When I got home I was getting ready for bed when I slipped on water on my bedroom floor launched myself into the air then landed in a heap on the floor. Nice thought eh....

My bedroom windows had leaked water from the rain through a gap that was supposedly sealed from the inside and out months ago. (Ye gotta love love those gaps when you are on the 25th floor!) So here I was lying like an upturned turtle just trying get up but failing over and over again.

So my back and tummy are all sore and bruised and I haven't really slept at all since it happened. But I HAVE to go back to work tomorrow, I'm so bored. There is only so much daytime TV you can watch. They don't have Trisha or Richard and Judy over here that I could watch. I'm even hankering after some Jeremy Kyle action. I miss those skanky chavs....

Island in the Philippines I have visited

Islands in the Philippines I have visited
Luzon (well I do live there)
Cebu
Panay
Boracay
Mindoro

Volcano Island
Only 7101 to go!

Volcano tidbits

The Philippines is one of the countries which lie in the Pacific's "Ring of Fire", thus making the country abound with several active volcanoes. One of these volcanoes is Taal Volcano, the volcano within a lake within a volcano within another lake.

Widely known as the smallest volcano in the world, Taal Volcano is a scenic view that can be seen from the stretching slopes of Tagaytay highways elevated at 2500 ft. above sea level.

Taal Volcano, a National Geological Monument, has twenty-six (26) recorded eruptions since 1572. Named as the "Killer Volcano", its most devastating eruption occured in 1754, when it buried the towns of Lipa, Sala, Tanauan and Taal with lava. On Taal's 1911 eruption, one thousand three hundred and forty four (1,344) lives were claimed, leaving only a puppy as the survivor.

I climbed up a volcano!!!!

OK so I didn't actually climb up the volcano the mule carried me up, BUT I was with people who actually did climb up so I was a climber by association. On Saturday morning myself, Jo B, Jessica, Remie and Ian headed up to Tagaytay to see the volcano. Me and Jo went in her new car or shall I use the proper name "The Stealthmeister" and everyone else went in Ian's car.


Jo is going to have really toned arms by the end of the year! Her massive 9 seater car has no power steering.


When we arrived in Tagaytay after two hours on the road we stopped for lunch in a Chinese restaurant that had amazing views of Lake Taal and the volcano.



After a ride on a Bangka boat we got to the island where the volcano was. We were amazed that loads of people lived on the island! Apparently seismologists have told the local people they should leave the island and go to the main land to live in case of another eruption but they won't go. At the bottom of the volcano we had the choice to walk up or get a mule up. The mules looked so miserable that we all decided to walk. I however was the first to cave in and get on a mule which was great at the time but the saddle was WOODEN!!!!!! Now I have a really sore ass!


At the top this wee man asked us if we would like to rent his gun for target practise!





When we said no, he went back to playing with his Rubik's cube....very random.


Inside the volcano there is a lake that steams with the sulphur.


Me, Jo, Ian, Jessica and Remie.

Jess, Ian and Jo.


The sun started to set on our way back.


And we saw a rainbow!


It was freezing on the way back to land and it took agggeeessss.


Jo and Jess.


Ian and Remie at the back of the bangka


View of the volcano


My lovely hairdo











Check out my bed hair! The wind blew so hard on the way back it felt like the boat wasn't even moving forward. My hair was like a bird's nest by the time we got back to dry land.


On the way back the stealthmeister was too big and heavy to get up the hill the boat men had to but bricks behind the wheel and push us up with Jo revving the engine, but thankfully we made it back up the windy road and back to Manila.