Welcome to the second and final installment of our one month spent in the Philippines.
The end of Part One left us leaving Bohol, bound for the first stop of Part Two: the mystical island of Siquijor.
Siquijor
Siquijor (pronounced See-Kee-Hor) is a small island near Cebu that has a reputation in the Philippines. Among the wild mountains of this small island live mangkukulam, which means healers. These healers are believed to use magic and witchcraft to treat modern-day ailments. Many Filipinos have a genuine fear of the craft and steer clear of tiny Siquijor. But not us Rempalas!
I unknowingly book a Chinese guesthouse in Siqujior, which means all of the food offered in the open-air cafe is Chinese food and all the signs are in Chinese, but boy was this place stunning.
This house is my dream. I won’t make you work for the vision:
Adventure Day
We rent a motorbike for the extent of our stay in Siquijor and we take full advantage of having transportation. This island is small and the south and western areas that we’re driving through are rural. This is our second long-term rental of a motorbike in the Philippines, and we’re hoping for better luck than our last one.
I map out a road trip for us that starts with a visit to Old Enchanted Balate Tree and ends at Salagdoong Beach, which has a cliff jump that we’re both excited to try.
Stop 1: Old Enchanted Balate Tree
The Old Enchanted Balate Tree is 400 years old. It’s the third oldest tree in the Philippines. The legend is that this tree has magical powers and is used for sacred rituals by the shaman and healers that live on the island. A mysterious natural spring rises from beneath its roots and into a manmade pool full of fish.
Old Enchanted Balete Tree
Stop 2: Salagdoong Beach
After our ~spa~ moment, we continue our journey along the curving coastal road toward the cliff jump. We find the turnoff and park our bike.
This place is kind of like a water park, but the water is the ocean. It’s bizarre and also stunning. We have a small lunch and then scout out the jumps.
There are two platforms you can jump from. The small one is 27 feet. THE SMALL ONE. The other is a jump of 36 feet. There’s a group of people congregated at the top, forming a nervous line and taking turns making the leap.
I watch a few people jump from the high platform and wait for someone to take their turn on the lower one. But no one does. They’re all jumping from the highest one. What’re nine extra feet, right?
We spend about an hour taking turns jumping and scaring the crap out of ourselves. During one of Stephen’s jumps, he set his sunglasses down and they got swiped. Our first theft of the trip (maybe a curse of bad luck for making fun of the foot spa?).
Side note: Zeal Optics is an awesome company. Stephen posted on Instagram about how bummed he was about someone stealing his sunglasses in the Philippines and Zeal messaged him with a discount code to replace them. Thanks Zeal!
Stop 3: More Magic
I read about this obscure cafe in Siquijor where you can take a picture like you’re flying on a broomstick. It’s definitely not on a map anywhere, but we manage to find it by luck (or magic?) and have some fun learning how to play Quidditch.
This was the last stop of our Adventure Day and we enjoy a gorgeous sunset drive back to our guesthouse – no flat tires involved, so we must have paid our dues on that one back in Bohol.
Apo Island Snorkel Trip
We book an all-day snorkeling tour to nearby Apo Island. The tour is through one of the large resorts, so we board a large charter boat with a group of 60 or 70 people and head to the shores of Apo Island.
Apo Island is home to a turtle sanctuary. The guides split us into groups and assign us to a local guide. We pair with a Dutch couple named Sepideh and Ringo (actually we saw them when we did cliff jumping the day before) and we hit it off right away.
Once we’re geared up and ready, Sepideh tells our guy to show us the good stuff, and he takes us out past the crowds of inexperienced swimmers and children to where the real action is.
This was the most stunning underwater life I’ve ever seen. We see more than a dozen turtles, stunning colorful coral, and fish of all types.
I’m a slow swimmer, okay?
We also encountered (twice! Bad luck? Curse?) the most deadly sea creature in the Indo-Pacific and the Philippines–a venomous sea snake call the Yellow-lipped Sea Krait. Our guide points it out to us, takes my Go-pro dives down to take a video. I’m like, WTH do you want to die. But he tells me that underwater, they’re “shy” and are only aggressive when they’re on the surface, which they only visit every so often for air.
I keep my distance, but a little while later we see a second one. We watch him swimming in and out of the rocks and coral below us, and our guide motions for us to continue. I’m at the back of our small group (I’m a slow swimmer okay) and I linger for a minute to take one last video of the snake. As I’m filming, the snake starts to ASCEND. HE STARTS SWIMMING TO THE SURFACE, and I am a sitting duck almost directly above him. I lift my face out of the water and yell at our guide.
“You guys, that snake, he’s coming up!”
Our guide takes a quick look down and lifts his head up. He yells across the water at another guide and they urgently motion for everyone to swim away. And well, WE DO.
The guides eye the snake as he swims up from the coral. He reaches the surface, pokes his head up, takes a gulp of air … and swims right back down to his rocks. Luckily (magic?).
We eliminate the GBR
Ringo and Sepideh do a lot of traveling and they gave us some information that greatly impacted the rest of our trip.
I’d been planning to include the Great Barrier Reef as part of the Australian leg of our trip, but Sepideh insisted we skip it. She and Ringo had visited the reef the previous summer and told us that sadly, due to coral bleaching and the effects of the climate crisis, after what we’d seen today, the GBR would be a shocking disappointment.
We heed her advice and take it off our itinerary, saving us several days of travel and hundreds of dollars. Whether she was right or not, we won’t know, but maybe someday we’ll get to see it…if it’s still there.
No doubt, I’m cursed
On the trip back from Apo Island, we agree to meet Sepideh and Ringo for dinner that evening. Because the boat is large and the southern shore of Siquijor is shallow, we have to leave the boat in groups and take small dinghies back to the shore.
As I gather my things and start down the steps of the boat to board the dinghy, I slip on the wet middle stair and my legs fly completely out from under me. My hands are full and I don’t have a chance to break my fall. I take a direct hit to the right butt cheek. Of course it hurt and knocked the wind out of me, but surprisingly I was able to sit on the dinghy just fine and make it back to shore. I don’t realize later it was because my entire ass is completely numb.
We take our motorbike back to our guesthouse to get ready for dinner with Ringo and Sepihdeh, and I ask our host for some ice. Over the next few days, a black bruise the size of a sea cucumber blooms across my butt. I’ll have this bruise for over a month, and as of writing, I’ve seen a doctor back home and I’ve permanently sheared my gluteus maximus and will most likely have a dent in the shape of a stair on my butt for the rest of my life.
I’ll spare you the photos.
CYOF (Choose Your Own Fish)
Our dinner with Sepidah and Ringo turns out to be one of the best we have in the Philippines. The restaurant is a little food stall (Aloha Cafe?) where you pick your meat and pay by weight. The four of us chose fish, including barracuda, tuna, squid, several sides, and the most delicious fruit shake of the trip (Sepideh, I can’t remember what the fruit was. Tell me if you know).
It was an amazing meal and along with rice and a few classic Filipino sides, we paid about $6/person.
Chiefs vs. Patriots
Our time in Siquijor winds down about the same time the Chiefs are in the NFL playoffs. We determine that they will play the Patriots at 7:30 am on our travel day to Moalboal. The trip from Siquijor to Moalboal isn’t going to be an easy one. We have to take a trike to the port, grab a ferry to Dumaguete. Once we get to Dumaguete, we have to take another ferry to Cebu, where we’ll board a bus for two or so hours to Moalboal.
If you’re wondering how I figured out this transportation, I’m thinking the same thing as I’m writing this. While planning, I learned a handy trick to figure out how to get somewhere is by sending a message to your accommodation and ask the best way to get there from the place you’ll be staying before. This worked wonderfully, as they’re always very eager to help you arrive.
Gie-Gie’s Sports Bar – You da real MVP
Through some miraculous Googling, Stephen finds a Facebook post from a bar in Dumaguete announcing that they’ll be streaming the NFL playoff games and will be open at 7 am for the Chiefs game.
Lucky for us, we have to pass through Dumagate to get to Moalboal. Even luckier, the first ferry leaves at 6 am, getting us at Dumaguete at 7 am. Just in time to grab a trike to take us to the bar for kickoff.
So what else can we do? We get some help from our guesthouse to have a trike pick us up at 5 am so we can support the Chiefs!
After a tragic loss, we pour our sad (and let’s be honest, slightly drunk) selves into a trike to catch the ferry to Cebu. After a bus and another trike, we arrive in Moalboal.
Moalboal
There are two things we want to do while we’re in Moalboal: watch the sardine run and do canyoneering.
What is a sardine run? A sardine run is when thousands of sardines swim together as a protection mechanism from predators. They swim in the group and move as a single unit, right along the reef shelf.
The balcony of the guesthouse we book overlooks the coral reef where the sardine run takes place. At this point in our trip, we each have a pair of water shoes and a snorkel, so instead of paying for a tour to see the sardine run, we jump over our balcony, swim out about 50 feet to the coral reef shelf and voila. Sardine run.
Doctor’s Visit
Due to a persistent cough Stephen has had for several weeks and knowing we want to be healthy for Japan, we leave the tourist streets and venture into the town to locate a doctor. We ask around and are finally directed to a set of stairs that leads down to a dirt lot. We see a small shack set back from a dirt lot. Blue and black tarps stretch above cement slabs lined with benches and plastic chairs.
There are dozens of people–mostly mothers with children–occupying the seats. We approach a folding table where a woman with a clipboard looks like she’s in charge. She tells us to add our names to the list and we might be able to see a doctor in 10 hours.
Time for plan B
We add our names but decide to try to find another clinic in case they can see us earlier. We ask around some more and finally, find a second clinic.
This clinic is set back from the road in a house, but it looks very closed. A clipboard and pen are sitting on a plastic chair near the door.
As we approach, a Filipino guy has just finished adding his name to the list.
“Do you guys know what to do?” he asks us. He shows us where to sign our name, and says to come back around 4:30 pm. On this list, Stephen is number 10.
We come back at 4:30 pm and sit and wait. The plastic chairs start to fill up, but there’s still no sign of a doctor. After about an hour, we ask someone who speaks English if the doctor is coming. They tell us she drives in from the city (Cebu City) and sometimes gets stuck in traffic.
Sure enough, she arrives and opens up the clinic. A young assistant brings us in the house, which is split into two rooms by a large, white curtain. We’re sent behind the curtain where the doctor sits beside a desk. She asks Stephen about his symptoms and uses a stethoscope to check his breathing.
“Bronchitis,” she says.
She opens a drawer, hands him an antibiotic (azithromycin), and asks for $10.
Canyoneering
We met lots of other travelers in the Philippines and many of them recommended doing canyoneering near Moalboal. The excursion costs about $30/each and includes four hours of hiking, scrambling, and jumping our way through a river canyon.
Our group is small and includes us, our guide, and an Australian backpacker named Liam. Our guide hands us helmets and lifejackets and we start the trek.
For the next three-four hours, we scramble up and down rocks, float with the current through the canyon, swim through deep pools, and launch ourselves off cliffs of varying heights – 12 to 40 feet. It was a thrilling excursion and I’d definitely recommend it if you have the chance.
Malapascua
Our final destination in the Philippines is a few days on a very remote island called Malapascua. Malapascua is a popular dive spot because it’s one of the only places in the world where you can consistently see thresher sharks. They have somehow discovered that there is a particular rock shelf where thresher sharks visit early in the mornings and use it to clean themselves.
A lengthy description of riding a bus in the Philippines
Stephen and I often discuss what it means to choose comfort as a traveler, and how strength, empathy, and growth are fostered by discomfort. Discomfort means challenge, and if we’ve learned anything in nine months of full-time travel, it’s that challenge brings adventure. Plus, we can’t be getting too soft.
Let’s rough it
Before we head to the bus depot on the morning of our departure from Moalboal, I stop by a cafe that we frequented throughout the week called Shaka. I order a smoothie bowl for takeaway and have them put it into our collapsible silicone container. I pack it in my shoulder bag and smugly smile at my genius forethought into having a healthy snack on our long travel day. We arrive at the bus station. Our trike driver points to the bus that’s in the passenger area.
The bus’ windows are open and it’s looking very full. He tells us that this bus is leaving for Cebu City in two minutes, and we can take it, or we can wait another 30 minutes for the aircon bus to arrive.
We know that this travel day has to go as smoothly as possible. Even the smallest delay could cause us to miss the last ferry to Malapascua and leave us stranded without a place to stay for the night. If we can leave as soon as possible we can gain a sliver of a buffer. I pay the driver and board the bus.
The seats are bench-style. We’re lucky and find two spots next to each other. I cram myself into the corner and make sure my window is fully open. Stephen slides in next to me and manages to get 1 1/2 butt cheeks fully on the seat. Have I mentioned that Filipinos are small?
Settled and VERY cozy, we’re off to Cebu City. Cebu City is notorious for traffic, and a 2.5-hour bus ride can easily turn into 4 or 5 hours. The bus is bumpy and hot, but there’s a breeze and lots to see. I mostly just stare out the window, as I’m susceptible to motion sickness.
Not so brilliant after all
After about an hour, I remember my smoothie bowl and excitedly pull it from my bag. I try to balance the container on my lap as I grab a spoon and quickly realize I’ve made a big mistake.
- I put heavy, liquid food into a collapsible container.
- We’re on a very very bumpy bus with unexpected brake checks and windy roads.
- I don’t have any napkins
We’re failing hard at eating this thing. I’m about ready to call it quits and drink this thing from the container when Stephen whips out his metal smoothie straw and the day is saved. We take turns slurping down the bowl to avoid enduring the next three hours with a lap full of smoothie as an additional layer of discomfort.
After hours of traffic and slowdowns, including a reroute due to a bomb squad inspecting a suspicious barrel, and two times where I nearly learn the hard way why no one else had their elbows hanging out the window, we finally arrive at the southern bus terminal in Cebu City. We rush to pee and grab a cab to head for the north terminal which is on the other side of the city.
We luck out with aircon and a movie
At the second bus station, the next bus to Malapasque is aircon, which means larger, more comfortable seats and they play a movie (it was Midnight Sun, not English). We did it! We’re on the second to last leg of our journey to the remote island of Malapascua.
We arrive at the pier and find a couple of groups of locals hanging out. We inquire about a ferry. They shake their heads and say there isn’t going to be another ferry because of weather, but one of them was planning to make a goods delivery to the island and he could give us a ride for 1500 pesos (about $30).
There are two other couples who arrive at the pier and we agree to split the fare between us. They were right about the weather. The waves were so large and choppy that they crashed onto the deck and soaked everything on the boat that wasn’t stowed in the tiny cabin.
We arrive safely just as it’s getting dark. We navigate the narrow, dirt streets and locate our guesthouse. Whew. We made it.
Kristin reflects
We spend the next few days with no plan except to wander and explore. The island is so remote and small that the only other tourists are divers. Since most of the dives are done in the morning to see the sharks, we hardly see any other tourists.
As I walk the beach, I pass dive shops and observe groups of students huddled at tables, studying for their exams. Every night at dinner there are tables of divers, exhausted and famished, excitedly recapping details of the day’s excursion.
To be frank, I’m jealous and envious.
That should be me, I think. I want that to be us.
The plan was to spend three months in SE Asia becoming an experienced scuba diver. I want to change and be challenged, and I want to develop confidence and belong to the tight-knit culture of scuba.
I imagined we’d travel from dive spot to dive spot, chasing wildlife migration patterns, doing liveaboards and making life long friends. Experiencing the ocean. Learning about currents and tides and life. Feeling small and tiny and humbled. Pushing myself physically and changing and growing through extreme discomfort, going beyond limits I didn’t even know existed within me.
This is not how it played out
What life threw at me instead, in the middle of one of my most vulnerable moments, was raw, unbridled nature. Power. Disregard. Ruthlessness. My fear materialized and compounded. The fragility of life and the stark, blunt lesson that I am not in control.
I’d like to say I persevered from the diving accident that happened during our scuba certification. But if I’m honest with myself, my confidence is crippled. While making plans for our snowboard trip in a few weeks, I’m shaky and anxious. I doubt my skills and have terrible premonitions about something happening to myself, Stephen, or our friends.
I’m traumatized. I’m having trouble making decisions and I’ve been floating in and out of depression since this happened in November.
I don’t know what it was that pushed me to acknowledge that I hadn’t been okay. Maybe it was being fully immersed by the dive culture for the first time since the accident, or maybe it was the quiet solitude and slowness of the island. Maybe it was just time. Or maybe I’m in a Hallmark movie. I don’t know.
All I know is Malapascua is where I started to heal.
Back to the City
After a few days of idle relaxation and some serious introspection, it’s time to leave Malapascua. To return to the Cebu, we simply wait on the beach at a designated tree until a local needs to make a trip back.
We pay them cash to get back to the pier, where we again wait for the bus, split the fare for a minibus, pay for a private transfer, or share a taxi.
We end up sharing a taxi with another American named Ken from New Jersey. He’s been to the Philippines and comes to Malapascua frequently to dive.
Yo Ken, friend me on FB
For the next 2 1/2 hours, we share stories and talk about everything from American lifestyles to various diving stories Ken has had from around the world. It is nice to have a common understanding to have discussions from and the drive goes by quickly.
We exchange contact information, but we never end up hearing from him again. Ken, if you’re reading this, hello from KC!
Once in Cebu City, we do some housekeeping shopping and sort through our backpacks to prepare for our early flight to Tokyo. That night, we go to sleep with visions of snowy mountains in our heads. Our life of beach leisure has come to close.
We’ve closed out our time in the Philippines. It’s time to get chilly in Japan.
The Philippines Bonus Content (as if this post wasn’t already long enough)
Ma’am, this is not wine
One night in Bohol, I get my computer out to work on the blog before we get dinner. I go to the bar area of our guesthouse. The selection of the bar is small, but there is a chalkboard sign that says “Beer, Red Wine, Whiskey.”
There are two Filipino girls standing behind the counter and I ask if I can have a glass of red wine. The first one apologetically tells me that they don’t have any. The other girl hits her arm and says, yes we do! And they argue back and forth with each other in Filipino for a minute.
The first girl turns to me and says, ah yes we do, it’s in storage, she has to go get it. One girl leaves to fetch the wine. I sit down with my back to the bar.
A few minutes later, I hear her return and the two girls talking. They giggle and all of a sudden I hear a “pop.” Wait a minute…red wine doesn’t pop when you open it. I glance up as the girl sets a wine glass on my table. It’s very purple looking, and I take a sip.
Definitely not wine.
Definitely not even sparkling red wine. I think it’s grape soda.
I send a text to Stephen and he comes to check out the situation. He goes up to the girls and asks what they have to drink. As they leave to get him a beer, he takes a picture of the “wine” bottle that’s sitting on the bar.
Sure enough, it’s grape soda. I shyly tell them about their mistake and they are extremely embarrassed. I just ask for a beer instead.
Stephen loses his wedding ring
On our canyoneering adventure, after our last big jump (40 feet), Stephen holds up his hand and realizes he’s lost his wedding ring. He tells our guide who promptly straps on goggles and a snorkel and dives the bottom of the lake to search for it. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t find it.
We’re both sad to see it go, but at least it’s a pretty badass story.
I’m in WiFi hell: my favorite WiFi moments
The WiFi in the Philippines is some of the slowest we’ve experienced on our entire trip. There was never reliable wifi, and when it was available it was incredibly slow. As in, less than 1 mb/second download speed.
For reference, the average internet connection in the United States is around 20 megabits per second. If you have “fast” internet at home, you probably have speeds more like 100 mbps.
Winter is not coming for a long, long, long time
Since September, Stephen and I have been watching (rewatching for me) Games of Thrones. When we have decent wifi, we try to download a few episodes to have in our back pocket.
A week or two into the Philippines, our queue is depleted. The WiFi is so slow that it takes three separate all-night download sessions to get one episode. The worst part? Sometimes when I’d check on it the next morning, the download has completely failed, and I’ll have to start over.
WiFi poaching and other stories
In Boracay, we discover a restaurant called Nonies. The food is incredible and modern, but it is trendy and on the pricey side for the Philippines ($6-$8 meals, plus sides, coffee, juice…it added up).
The first time we eat there, we connect to the WiFi and find a gem of a connection – 3 mbps download. We greedily soak up the connect to respond to emails, download maps, and post to social media. We come back repeatedly for our meals and stretch our meal out, sometimes ordering a muffin and coffee, then a juice course, followed by apps or a meal, and then well yes, I only have 30 more minutes to finish downloading this episode of game of thrones, let’s go ahead and have dessert.
Just a few more minutes
If you follow Stephen on Snapchat, you know he’s a loyal Chiefs fan. On our trip, he sported his Chiefs shirt every game day, and then let you all know about it. When he found out the Chiefs were going to the playoffs, he compiled all of his Snapchats and created a montage of him wearing his shirt around the world.
His plan is to post his video on Twitter, tag a couple of Chiefs accounts and maybe get some traffic to our social media accounts. His videos turned out great, but he simply cannot find a WiFi speed fast enough to get them posted to Twitter.
We had spent the evening at Nonies where Stephen is patiently waiting for the video to upload but it was moving a snail’s pace. Nonies is trying to close, and I’m ready to get back to our room. Stephen says he’s going to hang around for just a few more minutes to try to get his videos posted.
More than two hours go by and I’m starting to get worried. Finally, he walks in the door to our room.
“Did they upload?” I ask.
“No.”
“What? You were gone for hours! What have you been doing?”
“Well this whole time I’ve been sitting on the sidewalk outside of Nonies to poach their wifi and yeah, they never uploaded.”
We pretty much just stopped trying after that.
