THE PHILIPPINES

November 25, 2013 – February 25, 2014

We flew from Sydney, Australia to Manila and then on to Cebu where we were met by a Driver to take to the town of Alcoy – 3 hrs by car to the south of Cebu City. Luckily he knew the way to the resort where we were going to stay as there are no street signs to show the way (there are lots of other signs). Since we arrived late at night the owners greeted us with refreshments. We checked out our location the next day. 

Our Bungalow

View from our patio

The narrow walkway between the rough coral (don't fall)

 Our bungalow looks out towards the ocean and gardens. The grounds are unusual in that it is all very rough old coral with deep crevices. You do not want to slip off the sidewalk into the coral. At our ocean view bungalow (about 10 meters from the cliff) we only see snippets of the ocean as the over enthusiastic gardeners (the owners) have planted lots of shrubs and plants between the ocean and the bungalows that block the view. To see the ocean one must walk an extremely narrow path between the raw coral and go to the edge of the cliff. The Meili Beach Resort website is http://www.meilibeachresort.ch/Englischer%20Teil/ehome.html. We spent 3 months here and for ¾ of the time we were the only guests. 

Our pool

The Beach

Our accommodation is quite nice but more expensive (almost double and triple the price) than we have paid in any other country and is not nearly as well equipped as others have been. 

Not a well equipped kitchen

Our kitchen is very basic with 2 spoons, 2 forks, 1 kettle, 1 pan and so on - no microwave oven, small beverage fridge and no toaster. We have made do with what we have although the owners were accommodating and gave some additional items and later took the cheap extra spoons back. We do have maid service every day and lovely fresh bedding every 3 days. We only ate at their restaurant once as they were charging Swiss prices and did not inform us that the coffee (instant) was included in the breakfast. We were asked if we wanted filtered coffee or instant and we chose filtered coffee, as we thought we had a choice between the two, and we were not told about the cost. It cost us $2.50 for a small cup. Additional toast was $1.25 for 3 small slices. This maybe acceptable if you are here for only a few days. It ended up that a breakfast cost us $25 (980 pesos) and the workers are getting $6.50/day (250 pesos) for 9 hours of work.

The Europeans have done the tourist development and charge European prices to their guests but pay the local staff very little. This makes a real disparity and seems to cause some problems with the locals as they are not too happy about the foreign owners who are usually married to Philippina women.

The local town of Alcoy has a central market and other small stores along the main highway. You can buy all your basic needs (mostly in small amounts) and fresh fruit and vegetables from the mountain people who live above the village. The quality is not the best as the best products are sent to the city markets. Meat is limited to chicken, pork and fresh fish. Every Thursday is market day and the travelling market is held undercover in a large recreation building.

Market Day in Alcoy

We walked into town almost everyday. If we were not buying supplies to backpack home we went for the exercise. It was only a 15 min walk but included a very steep hill which if not done slowly you were forced to stop a few times to get your breath. Motorcycle taxis would not go down the hill as they were afraid of loosing their brakes and would have power problems going back up. There are absolutely no car taxis in Alcoy.

Huble hubles or tricycles

Ancient church in Dalaguete

Some damage from earthquake

Some of the neighbors and scenes while walking into town.

Bath time

Green mangos at Rositas

Happy delightful children greeted us everyday and today they get a treat

Local house by the road to town

Flo is delivering papayas to us

Street workers for the Resort pulling weeds from the gravel road

No washing machines  or lawn mowers for this resort

Some little visitors:

Zebra Dove

The Annual Sinulog Festival is held in every town on the island of Cebu.  Since there is only one road along the coast the parade travelled down the main highway along with the traffic.

Transportation by bus is excellent as most are very poor and do not have vehicles, but travel by non air conditioned busses or for longer trips you can take an air conditioned bus. The prices are very reasonable. 

Cebu City traffic

Transportation locally is done by a motorcycle with an attached sidecar (called huble huble) and there are also pedal bikes with sidecar. The towns are spread out along the highway for some distance as the mountains rise close to the ocean and the main highway follows the ocean around the island.

Bus terminal in Cebu City

We did some overnight excursions. The first was to the area of Moalboal. It was a 3hour bus ride to the other side of the island. This is the diving haven for most tourists and the beaches are sandier. We stayed at Topolo Resort and had a terrific ocean view. The food was excellent and not outrages prices. 

Main street in Moalboal, Cebu

A view from our hotel in Moalboal

Our next trip was off the island to the island of Negros and the city of Dumaguete. This island is more progressive and much cleaner than Cebu. This again took us 3 hours with ferry and bus. We decided to stay overnight at a newer hotel, Manhattan Suites next to the Robinson Shopping Centre, but the next day when we were going to catch the bus to the ferry we were told that the Port Authority had stopped all ferries as there was a typhoon approaching. We went back to the hotel for an additional night and were able to leave at noon the next day on the first bus to Cebu. We were glad we made the trip and it ended to be more of an experience than we had planned.

Ferry to Dumaguete, Negros Island

Selfie in Dumaguete in tricycle

Ancient Bell Tower used to watch for pirates crossing the sea

A stack of water meters - this is typical

View from our Hotel in Cebu

Would we go back to the Philippines? The answer is NOT LIKELY. Besides the cost of accommodation there are the government visa fees to pay. We received a two month visa while in Canada and then had to extend it for another 2 months and the total cost was over $525 Canadian for the both of us. (We only needed 2 days of the 4^th month). To extend our visa we had to travel 3 hours by bus to Cebu City, take a taxi to the Immigration and then another 3 hours back to our place. 

Landing in Vancouver

Getting de-iced in Vancouver

Winnipeg at 1am

We have enjoyed and learnt from the experience but there are far less expensive places to stay and there still is a whole world out there.