Boracay, Philippines

Today is the last day of July and it's also one of those quiet reflective days for the both of us. It's our last full day in the Philippines - tomorrow is a travel day for us and by the evening we will be somewhere in the heart of Bangkok, haggling over the price of a taxi and a room for the night. The Philippines was one of the last places we planned on our route but I'm very glad we made the effort. The island of Boracay, about 40 minutes flight from Manila, is one of our favourite places for a number of reasons - cheap accommodation, English breakfasts, great diving and the rugby live on TV. Sara has also been working diligently on her tan and so far has managed to make some progress towards a light tan color on the back of her neck, right arm from the sleeve down and two halos on each thigh. The sunburn on the top of my head, courtesy of getting lost in the rice terraces two weeks ago, has all peeled away and I'm now the owner of a brand new scalp.

Relaxing on Boracay

The ten days we spent on the island was a time for us to recharge our batteries after seven weeks of intensive travel. Sara dived on the first day but decided against pursuing it any further. I dived on each of the following five days (sometimes twice a day) and also the last day. After gaining my Advanced Open Water Diver certificate I went out with my English instructor, Jerry, to dive a little deeper in search of reef sharks. Twice we tried the same area off the northern tip of the island but twice failed to see any sharks - although we did see Spanish Mackerel and Tuna, each over a metre long, which are less common than sharks in that area. The diving was wonderful and I can't wait to put in some more dives either in Thailand or Malaysia but I hope I can find an instructor as good as Jerry. Many times he had me in fits of laughter under the water while he imitated the Filipino Sex Bomb dancers from one of the tacky local game shows.

Jerry & I about to go on a dive - the one where I lost my wedding ring

There were two days where neither of us dived - we just sat on our hammock overlooking the ocean reading or doing laundry. Our bungalow was on the top floor of a small three-story building with commanding views over the south end of the beach and of the oncoming weather. It rained for at least 10 minutes every day. Some days it rained for an hour or more but that didn't matter. It was hot and the rain bought with it some relief from the heat, albeit brief. Most days we ate well. The rest of the time we ate too well - pineapple pancakes, mocha shakes, garlic rice and the breakfasts at Nigi Nigi Nu Noos let you order as many eggs as you wanted. A day can hardly start finer when you slowly lower five fried eggs into your stomach before strapping on a tank and heading underwater for an hour.

At Nigi Nigi Nu Noos

The beach at Boracay

And so today was a little flat for the both of us. We rose at 5am to shower and pack and retraced our steps, first to the boat dock at the south of the island, then to Caticlan on the bigger island of Panay, to Kalibo 90 minutes further south by bus and then back to Manila. We arrived back to clear skies and a cool sea breeze. An hour later it rained.

Manila to Boracay, Philippines

On Saturday our flight to the small town of Kalibo was cancelled due to bad weather so we were forced to spend another day in Manila, where the weather was also bad - typically tropical with heavy warm rain all day. Our flight yesterday was almost cancelled as well. We checked in, waited at the gate, boarded the plane, taxied out to the runway, waited forever and then the pilot said they had just closed the airport at our destination (Kalibo) so we taxied back to the gate but no-one got off. A few minutes later the pilot said we were waiting for the weather to improve, which it did, and then we finally took off about 90 minutes late. Once in Kalibo we got on a bus to the small town of Caticlan, then boarded a tiny boat to ferry us across to the Island of Boracay. It was great getting off about 10m from shore and wading in the rest of the way.

Boarding our flight to Kaliba from Manila

The Jeepney that took us to Caticlan

Now we're here, at last. Sara has already signed up for her dive class which started this morning and will probably go for at least 3 days, maybe 4. She's already read the first 2 chapters of the book (which is more than I read during my whole course) so now I have a few days to do some things on my own - maybe some sailing or canoeing. On the last day of Sara's course I will be joining her for one dive which will be my official refresher dive because it's been five years since I strapped on a tank. There is no-one else on the course with Sara, just her and the instructor - a guy called Jerry from Bristol in England. Sara is a bit nervous about it all but at least she won't have the pressure of trying to keep up with a large group of divers. After Sara has got her PADI Beginners Course, we'll take a few days to celebrate and then both do the advanced course together. In the advanced course we do 5 dives including - a navigational dive, a wreck dive, a night dive and a deep dive down past 40m.

The beach at Boracay

This morning we had a lovely breakfast in the sunshine, and now, one hour later, it's absolutely pouring outside and very windy. We were told that at this time of year we will probably get 5 bad days and 5 good days of weather so we just have to ride it out. I just hope when we come to leave that our flight will be okay otherwise we may be stuck in a nothing town like Kalibo where there is very little to do.

Boracay from the plane

Philippines - Manila & the North

We turned up in the Philippines on Election Day so it was a public holiday - many shops were closed but we managed to find a cheap pension to stay in which also had a hotpot restaurant below, where we had dinner. Within 6 hours of landing we had walked around the former Chinese settlement of Intramuros, the Manila Cathedral and the ruins of Fort Santiago, all in the heart of the city. Much of it has been destroyed, either by invaders or earthquakes during the last few hundred years, and rebuilt. As far as sights in Manila, that was all we wanted to see. There are loads of taxi-like vehicles called "Jeepneys" everywhere. They are much cheaper than taxis but I've yet to figure out exactly where they go. They are painted bright colours, with all sorts of horns, aerials, badges, air fresheners and every other tacky accessory you can think of. They seat 12 but you can get about 25 locals in quite comfortably.

Images from Intramuros the Manila Cathedral and the ruins of Fort Santiago

The morning after we arrived we booked our plane tickets to Boracay Island (for Saturday) and caught a bus to Baguio in Northern Luzon (7 hours away). Baguio is the gateway to the rice terraces in the north and our stay there was brief - only one night - first thing the following morning we were back on another bus, this time for 9 hours, heading further north to the town on Banaue, the heart of the terrace scenery. We found a ridiculously cheap lodge for less than $2 a night for the both of us, with superb views of the valley. Sitting on a bus for the best part of two days can be very tiring so that night the both of us slept for 12 hours.

The view from our lodge in Banaue

At the lodge we had been offered a tour of the surrounding terraces at a cost of 500 pesos for the both of us, including a guide. "You must take a guide sir, the path is very narrow and hard to find in places." we were told. "Nonsense" I said, "We'll do it on our own". I was very pleased with myself when I managed to arrange a tricycle ride to the lookout point and the start of the highly touted tour for only 70 pesos. I was even more pleased when we came across some of the traditional Ifugoa people and had my photo taken with them. And even 30 minutes into our walk I was still pleased with how thing were progressing but rice terraces can be very dangerous. At times we had to carefully negotiate narrow paths with delicate rice paddies on one side and 30 foot drops on the other. After about an hour we both began to regret not getting a guide because we were no longer sure if we were still on the correct path. We had both fallen on several occasions - Sara into a couple of rice paddies and I twice had the earth fall from beneath my feet while trying to steel my way around the edge of one of the embankments. In short, the path lasted about 500m and then quickly vanished. I'm not sure what the locals must have said to themselves when they saw two foreigners traipsing around their fields, in the hot sun, with no hats and not much water, trying to find a set of stairs leading either up or down. The 90 minute walk took us over 3 hours but we can honestly say that we have explored every avenue of the rice terraces at Banaue. The locals call them the eighth wonder of the world and I'm not inclined to argue.

A couple of Ifugoa people. So short, I had to squat down

The view from the top - choose your route carefully

Sara making her way down

Rest stop

One of the small huts dotted along the hillside

The view from the bottom

After a brief recovery period we boarded the worlds worst timed overnight bus - leaving Banaue at 5pm and pulling into some previously undisclosed location in Manila at 2am. Luckily the bus was virtually empty so we were able to stretch out and sleep. Once back in Manila we caught a taxi back to our old pension, but because they were full we ended up staying at the one next door. We have one night left here in Manila and at 9am tomorrow we fly south to the island of Boracay to spend 11 days on the beach.

The aftermath of a day in the sun with fair skin and no sun block

Hong Kong

On Friday night we caught an overnight bus from Yangshou to Shenzhen (very near the Hong Kong border). Unfortunately a combination of dodgy sweet and sour chicken and rough roads meant that I was one of the dozen people on the bus that threw up at some stage during the night. Luckily I was sick in the bathroom at one of the stops - other people weren't so lucky and had to use the cheap sick bags on the bus. We walked across the border into Hong Kong and found a cheap place to stay on Nathan Road in Kowloon near the Tsimshatsui MTR station.

Yesterday we took the Star ferry across to Hong Kong Island and rode the Peak Tram up to the lookout. Today we were scheduled to go to Macau but I misjudged the price somewhat. It was going to cost close to US$100 for both of us to go so we've decided to stay in Hong Kong and just walk around the city and plan our route to the airport for our early morning flight to Manila tomorrow.

On the Star Ferry

Hong Kong

China has beaten our expectations so leaving has got us in two minds. We are both looking forward to the Philippines and relaxing on the beach for a week or so.
 

The view from the top of the Peak Tram

Ping' An and Yangshou

A few days ago we caught a series of buses to the small village of Ping' An and spent the night in among the beautiful rice terraces. The scenery was breathtaking and it was so quiet. We only stayed one night but could easily have stayed much longer.

When we stepped off the last bus, we were in the middle of a swarm of dragon flies, large amber colored ones. We had to pay a small fee to enter the Long Ji terrace. Long Ji Titan is the Dragon's backbone rice terrace. We ended up choosing a hostel at the top of the village. After a climb up limestone slab stairs to the very highest hostel/cabin we were only a matter of five minutes from the top of the mountain and a very scenic view point. Our window overlooked the river valley below and, unlike the rest of China, we couldn't hear a sound.

 

The worlds most beautiful rice terraces - the Dragons Backbone in Ping' An

 While chatting with other guests, our hostess informed us that dinner was ready. Much to our pleasure, for 8 Yuan (US$1) we had a beautiful dinner of potato with garlic, sautéed eggplant, sautéed squash with garlic, tofu, scrambled egg with fresh mint and rice. It was served family style with only one uninvited guest, what looked like the worlds largest mosquito. Next day in the cool of the morning we walked to the view point for some photos. Sara returned to the hostel, and Ian hiked on for a while in the mid-morning sun. The walk down to the mini-bus was much quicker than the walk up and three buses later we were back in Yangshuo.

After the character building train ride from Yichang, we spent several days in a little village called Yangshuo. The heart of the town is lined with small two story buildings and is for foot traffic only. Street level are small shops and one cafe after another. Surrounding the city center are massive limestone pinnacles, and some close to town they light up at night. It was nice to have a proper meal and a hot shower, but Ian's dinner of snake was not to my liking.

Getting ready for a snake dinner with Faye & Alan with our tour guide Tina

The limestone pinnacles around Yangshou

We arranged to go for a mountain bike ride to Moon Hill with a guide named Tina. During the height of the afternoon heat she took us to her uncle's house to get out of the sun. While we had tea, she was showing us how to write our names in Chinese characters and when Ian asked her to write his, she giggled and said that the characters would be the same as her Chinese name, Ying. We stopped by a small river to ride a bamboo raft to a 1000 year old banyan tree. The driver asked if Ian wanted to try using the bamboo pole to steer for a while, and it ended up that the driver sat next to me for the whole trip, because Ian enjoyed driving so much.

The bamboo raft trip near Yangshou

The next morning Ian joined Tina and another tour group for a river cruise to see Nine Horse Hill. He said he only saw 5 horses in the hill and when we asked some of the locals most have only saw 2 or 3 of the horses. Apparently it helps to smoke a little to be able to see all nine horses.

The river cruise to Nine Horse Hill

Chinese Train Torture

We arrived at Yichang at 10pm and our train left from the nearby station at 3:21 in the morning. It was to be an 18 hour journey and I had made a grave miscalculation by reserving the hard seat carriage. This is a carriage that seats 110 people but traditionally houses 200 plus some livestock and poultry... and the toilets are no flush-squat style. Oh so pleasant.
Boarding was no big bother, but we did witness two women fight (physically) over a window seat. The little grandmother who sat first and had the ticket, didn't want to give up her seat to the big mean woman, whom pulled and screamed at the tiny grandmother for 10 minutes until she was yanked onto the floor. Heart-breaking but nothing we could do. So the little grandmother, saving face took her seat next to the brooding mean woman, with grace.
We lasted about 7 hours in the hard seats before Sara had had enough. She'd taken all the spitting and smoking she could handle and walked with the phrase book to the conductor to see about upgrading to a hard sleeper (has a limit of passengers and everyone gets a bed). This required Sara to go from carriage 14 (in the back) to carriage 4 to see about paying for the upgrade.

In Sara's words:  I didn't realize how good we had it. Our carriage only had 140 people, and each one I passed through held more and more. Lining the aisle and standing in the bathroom. I stepped on one rooster, and just missed a kitten. It was all elbows and knees, since I was the only white foreign woman in these compartments, and in many cases the only foreign woman many of these people had seen. Women didn't want to move thinking I was after their spot and men didn't want to move for obvious reasons, and when they did it wasn't much.
Once I had arranged the upgrade, my guide/conductor went back and told Ian he could start moving forward, but with the language barrier he didn't tell him how far forward. So on my way back to 14 from 4 I apprised him of the new location, and continued on my way to retrieve my one big pack as Ian was able to carry the rest. He was lucky that we had a stop during this time because he was able to exit the train and run across the platform and re-board and avoid the teaming masses. I on the other hand had to start my third journey across the train, this time with my pack. This is where it started getting funny. I had a couple of I love you's, one offer to help "How can I help you Madam" was what he said. He was so sweet and probably learned it from a movie, but unfortunately he didn't have the magic ability to teleport me forward 8 carriages. And one man did swipe the chance to pat me on the bottom. I knocked a couple over when I turned with surprise and said "Hey now!"
Finally after 90 minutes and three trips, the $12 USD to upgrade both our tickets paid off. We had some rest, a good meal and were in a clean hotel by 10pm that night. It was a character builder, and a valuable lesson. An $8 train ticket isn't worth the trouble if you are traveling for more than a couple of hours. The upside, I am much more swift in a crowd than I was before.
Not to be misunderstood. It wasn't so horrible that I wish we didn't do it. Simply, next time I would do it differently. It was one of those times where we had higher expectations, and it took 4 days to get there. Plus English on the tour would have been a perk.
Once we arrived in our destination of Yangshuo - 10 feet out of the bus station we had a pleasant surprise, and spotted an English couple, Faye and Alan. We had met them in Xi'an and enjoyed their company and after a long couple of days looked forward to our stay in Yangshuo.

Xian to Yichang

A CHINESE RIVER CRUISE
After a really nice time in Xi'an we took a long, 30 hour overnight train journey through Chengdu in the Sichuan Province to Municipality of Chongqing and the capital Chongqing City. On the train we met three Swedish people in the compartment next to us. One of them had spent a year in New Zealand attending secondary school in my old home town, Wainuiomata, so we spent a few hours dropping names and finding out all the common people we knew. At the end of a long journey we were greeted at the station by a member of the travel agent whom we had booked our river cruise with and were quickly taken to their offices and briefed on the logistics of the next few days. They also booked a cheap hotel for us and drove us right to the front door. For a cheap hotel it wasn't at all that bad and if it wasn't for the smog we would have had a grand view of the Yangtze from our room on the 13th floor.
After a good nights sleep we thought we should explore the city since we didn't have to be at the boat terminal until about 6pm. Chongqing is one of those anomalies in China - there are no bicycles. There are no bicycles because the city is full of steps and the city is full of steps because it is squeezed on a narrow hilly junction between the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. The city is also full of porters called Bang Bang Jun - the Stick Stick Army. They haul loads on bamboo poles balanced across their shoulders - anything from baskets of fruit to kitchen appliances. If you want anything moved, just call one of the Bang Bang Jun. I found the city very appealing although the heat was oppressive and the hills didn't make it easy. We spent the majority of the afternoon trying without success to find an internet cafe. We actually found two but the first one had just experienced a server crash and was closed indefinitely, and the second one was just closed, for good.

One of the faithful Bang Bang Jun

Late in the afternoon we battled the crowds and boarded our boat which was to be our home for the next two days. We had decided to travel 3rd class on the knowledge that the main difference between the classes was the size of vermin that invested your room - mosquito's in 1st class, spiders in 2nd, cockroaches in 3rd, rats in 4th and everything mentioned above plus chickens, cats, dogs, geese and possibly snakes in 5th class. Actually 5th class was just a plastic seat in the bowels of the boat which we only had to pass through on our way on and off the boat. After the typical mayhem when boarding any form of public transport we found our space on the boat which was an eight berth room on the starboard side. Our roommates consisted of 5 Chinese men and one angry German who hated everything about the cruise. It wasn't a pretty room and it wasn't a pretty boat but this was a Chinese tour boat and there wasn't much we could do about it. Thankfully I had scored the bed closest to the air conditioner and while my bed was ice cold the rest of the cabin was like an oven - on the second night with the air conditioner on full, it was 90F on the top bunks.

We both experienced a very poor first nights sleep but I had to be up at 5am for an early morning tour of Fengdu - one of the many towns to be flooded shortly by the Three Gorges Dam. Sara and the German decided to skip the tour in the hopes of catching up on some sleep. I met a Taiwanese man on the tour and he very graciously translated much of what the tour guide was saying otherwise I would have been quite bored. In the afternoon we both sat on the top deck of the boat and watched the towns and villages roll by. The Three Gorges Dam is by far the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, its wall roughly six times the length the Hoover Dam's, and the twenty-six turbines will produce 18,100 megawatts of electricity. Along the banks of the Yangtze, especially near major towns or temples, huge signs with red numbers mark the elevation above sea level. When the reservoir is finally at full capacity in 2009 the water level will reach 177m above sea level - towns like Fengdu currently sit at about 40m above sea level. It is mind boggling to see all these towns, the majestic scenery, the ancient tombs and know that within a decade they will all be lost below the reservoir. The upper Yangtze will become Lake Yangtze and the beautiful Three Gorges will never be the same.

The upper Yangtze

The reason for this boat trip was to see the gorges before they become flooded. To say that there are only three is a misleading - there are three massive gorges, the longest of which is 80km long, but there are numerous other gorges including the three little gorges which are not at long but just as dramatic. On the second morning we were woken at 6am after a much better sleep (we had switched bunks) and packed into smaller boats for a trip up the Daning River to see the little gorges. For both of us this was the highlight of the cruise, seeing the dramatic scenery close up and being able to sit at the front of the boat in the hot sun. The scenery was breathtaking. In the afternoon we drifted slowly down the Yangtze passed the new dam, through the lock system and into Yichang. But arriving at 10pm at night and a 3am train journey looming, things were about to take a turn for the worse.