Story of my trip to Cebu, Philippines
Introduction
It is already quite along time ago, but it was a fantastic experiencing. We (Oliver Stolz and I) visited a good friend in the Philippines, and spent a wonderful time drinking coconut milk, traveling on the dangerous jeepneys and visiting the whitest beaches. This article in only available in English
'Looking for old and new friends' seemed to be the motto for this journey. All of our old friends have been living in Singapore for quite some time now and it had been already several years ago when Oliver and me left Singapore for Europe. As we also decided to meet some new friends in the Philippines, we wanted to visit them too. So on the 5th of May (semi public holiday) we drank our first cappucino at Amsterdam Airport, killing the two hours before SQ327 of Singapore Airlines was heading for Changi Airport, Singapore. The flight was long and smelly because I forgot to close the bottle of Nightflight-perfume properly.
Visiting friends in Singapore
We already reserved the rooms in the Furama Hotel, in the middle of Chinatown. As hotels are relatively expensive in Singapore, this one was available from the Singapore Airlines Stopover Package and turned out to be a fairly good hotel, except for the fact that you have to walk for 10 minutes to the nearest subway station (Outram Park). In Singapore's climate this will mean that you will be totally soaked with sweat. Nevertheless and especially on the first day, we didn't care about that. After making the necessary arrangement for these 5 days in Singapore, we met some friends on Boat Quay, a vibrant row of pubs along the river contrasting with the skyscrapers of its business centre.
Most of the days we were in Singapore, we spent visiting people and places all over the country. We even couldn't resist to lie down on the beach at Sentosa, Singapore's Leisure Island. Also the shopping Mall called Jurong Point hasn't been unvisited. Compared to Singapore '98, the area around Jurong West is the part that has changed the most. Together with the construction of the North-East MRT line. The rest has been absolutely continued in the same old fashion as we used to know it. Therefore we were happy to leave the country, as five days is absolutely more than enough, once you know where to go.
Discovering the Philippines
The Philippines is completely different from the clean and regulated Singapore. This is both an advantage as well as a disadvantage. Just after we got out of the airport, some friends picked us up, and we drove to the hotel by taxi. On the way to the hotel I noticed that my international driver's license would be completely useless in the coming weeks. It took the taxi approximately 'fourty-five' minutes to arrive at our hotel. If I would have been driving it would probably take me twice as long, and as I was sitting on the front seat of the car, I could feel my heart beating from my fingers to my toes.
One interesting aspect of the Philippines is it variety of foods. There is no other place on earth where you can eat the most juicy mango's. You can either have it plain, as a shake, or a split serving as dessert. Another delicious dessert is called 'Halo Halo'. However you have to like vegetables as a desert, as it consists of potato-icecream, corn and black beans. But it is the combination that makes it a really nice dessert, and as it is characteristic for the Philippines, you have to have at least once, even if you don't like veggies in you ice-cream.....
Transportation can take primitive forms in the Philippines, ranging from a simple motorised tricycle to a highly sophisticated airconditioned and stereo taxi-mobile. Somewhere in between you can find the 'Jeepney', a maxi-van, representing both a method of transportation as a means of expressing the driver's artistic skills. That the driver has no other skills besides airbrushing his Jeepney will become clear very soon once you see one driving on the road. Courtesy when driving is flushed right down the toilet and I pity those people who are left to the destiny called Jeepney.
You can either behave like a real tourist or try to find a local friend who wil guide you to various (not so touristy) places. Both ways you will find nice beaches there, however one is artificial and the other one is not. If you don't care about this, and you have money to burn, go to the Shangrila Resort on Mactan, near the airport of Cebu City. The resort absolutely belongs to the upper class and you get all the service you have ever dreamed of. Just pay a little bit more and they will even bring you back in one of S600 Mercedes hotel cars. Additonally, and for free, you can enjoy the beatiful white beaches and clear water.
Our hotel wasn't that fancy that it had the topmodel Mercedes car, so we were bound to take the cheaper version called tricycle. I think we made it to the Guinness Book of Records as we managed to fit three people in it. The driver must have thanked God on his knees that his motor didn't give up during that ride. Especially when we were going uphill it felt like time stood still. But at least we could enjoy the dirty Cebuan breeze going through our hairs.
The real life starts at Bohol
When you want to escape the overcrowded city of Cebu, I recommend going to Bohol. Just take the taxi to the port, get tickets for the supercat 3 fastferry, try to find out if Captain Eddy is on duty and get on the move. At least, that was what we did! Once we arrived in Bohol, we went to the Boholtropics resort, which is not that bad at all. Just a pity that you had to pay 20 pesos to get a towel for one of the pools. The last day we spent on Bohol we took a tour across the Island. Interesting and scary at the same time is this bridge. We never found out what was on the other side, as we still had some days of holiday left, and didn't want to endanger that.
If you feel thirsty after an exhausting day of travelling, ask any local guy with a big knife to get a coconut for you. If you are lucky, and we were, he will cut it so you can drink the tasty juice. Afterwards he will use his skllls to make a spoon out of the coconut so you can scoop the delicious meat out of the nut. When you get a fresh green one, this really tasts like heaven. Tip: don't bargain about the price of a coconut because you will never know what else he can do with this really big knife...
Coconut-drinking in the 'Do it yourself' fashion (without straws or cups) is not something you have to learn, but it more or less depends on the way the coconut is chopped. And when you're drinking the fluids, just make sure that no-one is around with a digital camera. I was unlucky this time, but at least I was enjoying myself. Next time, I will be a little bit more careful when I decide to bring one to my mouth!
Our last stop on Bohol were the chocolate hills. These giant hills were formed some millions years by composition of coral and erosion by rain. It really is impressive to see, but you should be fit enough to walk the 213 steps to the top of one. Some years ago, they were declared as a national monument. A minor disadvantage is that these hills were on the other side of the island and that we had to drive back to our resort for two more hours in this terribly small and bumpy minivan. Maybe this was the right time to get acquainted with the comfort of a Jeepney....
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