JAVA
or as it became
THE PHILLIPINES
Due to our change of plan resulting from an overdose of meteorological forecasting apps which kept whanging on about rain, rain, rain in Java and Bali, Sara decided that we should fly towards the sun and so in a complete change of plan we now headed north east on a four hour flight and 1,500 miles off course to Manila, and then another 500 miles south to the island paradise of Palawan. A snip at £300 for the long leg and £430 for the return island hop. But a bloody good call!!! Exactly the right Goldilocks heat, no too hot, not too humid, just right. I now use my umbrella as a sun shade which is definitely a move up in the world. I should stress that the rain jokes are just that. It only actually pissed it down in Singapore, everywhere else has been lovely, damp at times, but still lovely.
Because of the flight times we overnight in Manila, in an Airbnb by the airport for £40, in what appeared to be a 16 story tenement block inside a massive development of literally thousands of studio apartments. Onto the streets in search of grub, pitch black, armed security everywhere, weird people in all the bushes, into the oddest street market being assailed by fat ladies shoving live crabs and lobsters at us and fleas biting Sara's ankles. Quick retreat into a cab and find Seashore View food court, known for its view of the bay. Except the bay has been filled in and reclaimed. Amazing amount of development, crazy.
We will check out Manila town centre on our return. Definitely a different vibe from Malaysia, not a night walking town so we get pissed and flag down a passing tuk-tuk for our return to shotgun toting security into our apartment before getting up to catch a light plane 500 miles south for a week in the sun.
Sara was mega-amused by the sign in the ladies where one cubicle had restrictions. Not sure how it's enforced though.
We fly south to El Nido in northern Palawan. Gorgeous! Lovely hotel called Charlie's just out of the vilage (£85 a night and a really nice modern boutique hotel with great staff and food), lovely sun, sun, sun. So that is us for seven days of sun, sea and sangria, just relaxing, and what's that darling? Oh we are on tours A,B,C and D starting at 0800 tomorrow??? Visiting lagoons, islands, markets, and hiring bikes, NOT chilling??? No problem. With views like this I will just about manage I think.
This brings us to day 24 of our 60 day trip, a whole week here in 'Charlies', our lovely hotel, with mainly London based guests over for a wedding, so really chatty and boozy, and then on to Bali for four weeks. When we get there Sara is doing a week in a Yoga retreat and I am going solo to Java to climb two volcanoes. But as we know - plans can change!!!
If you have read this far then well done you. I apologise if I have bored you. I write this drivel mainly to remind ME what we have done. I enjoy looking back on the pictures and the contemporaneous stories, written as the trip unfolds, rather than just having a photo album. PLUS, and this is a big plus, it means that any of our friends who have read this blog are spared either of us even mentioning our holiday escapades. You will have already suffered enough.
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At this juncture I need to add in two requests from my travel partner. (1) Please be aware some of the jokes and comments come from Sara. I may be required to highlight them or underline them in future. Negotiations as to copyrights are underway. (2) Sara (same one) has asked me not to put prices in this diary. I have refused to comply because I put the costs of hotels, cars etc. in for historical perspective and world comparisons. For example, I look back and am surprised by how expensive hotels in the USA were, as was really basic food, and by comparison, how amazingly reasonable everything is here, even in major towns and top restaurants. Moving on ..........
As you can see Sara did a proper job as Kayak-er extraordinaire, along with Big Dean's wife, who had also heard all of his stories before. So they formed an all girls crew and ventured off into the azure waters you see before you. A great day was had by all. However, having completed TOUR A we felt that maybe, just maybe, tour B/C/D could very much of a theme................
Said theme being - wade to boat scared shitless of dropping a day bag containing towels plus at least £1500 of electronics (and also my ears containing £3500 of Mike Saffery's (RIP) hearing aids) into the briny, sit on boat for one hour, wade onto lovely, stunning, beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous beach in rocky cove with stalagmite like cliffs soaring majestically into the sky with trees clinging precariously, yet alluringly, to their dramatic sides, sit on boat for another hour, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And you wonder why I am not paid to write travel blogs????
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Yes, I know. This IS a travel blog. Simple error on my part, please ignore the previous paragraph as being unnecessarily 'Eeyore-ish'. True though! On the bright side I didn't drop the aforementioned five grands worth of modern accouterments which I for some weird reason deem necessary on a day in a boat to a beach.
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But it is an odd fact that no matter how stunning these beautiful (yet deserted) coves and beaches are, once you've waded onto half a dozen the lure of a bed by the pool with a beer becomes overwhelming
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These tri-cycles are a 125cc Honda motorbike welded onto a frame with a third wheel. Lethal. Dim headlights, crazy drivers. I have always said using local transport is the second most dangerous thing to do on holiday, beaten only by looking the wrong way and stepping in front of a car, well it is true so fingers crossed - as this is the only way to get around - and fun!
So tour A it was (apparently there are four things to do here on an island paradise - Tour A,B,C and D, end of), so up at flipping 6.30 (holiday??) and off we set. Big and pretty boat, moored 30 yards offshore, and we have to wade/swim to the bloody thing with me holding our days luggage over my bloody head!!! I now understand why there were a queue of looky-looky men trying to sell me dry bags, which I poo-poo'd, obviously. Lovely day on the boat with my new mate Dean Martin, a big fat cop from Hawaii, great laugh. Sara not into swopping war stories so she went swimming/kayaking/beaching while Dean and I just swapped yarns to while away the day for a while.
The Philippines is one massive group of islands in all shapes and sizes. Palawan itself is 350 miles long, so it is BIG, and it has thousands of small offshore islands which is what A/B/C/D sail round (and round and round). Very pretty, with stunning beaches and coves, but a tad samey. The 'trendy' town of El Nido is actually quite nice at night, once they close the roads (dirt tracks) to the incessant traffic of their main mode of transport, the motorcycle tri-cycle, of which there are thousands - and almost no cars. Everyone uses scooters, tri-cycles and people carriers on a ratio of probably 50 scooters: 40 Tri-cycles: 9 Vans: 1 car.
Flipping chaos. In El Nido we find a lovely Greek restaurant and enjoy some of the best Souvlaki I have ever had, how weird is that?
We also search the town for a cheap watch as my £800 Series 7 Apple watch has exploded in the heat!!!
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Actually exploded, well OK, not with a bang, more with a whimper. I looked down at it late at night whilst slightly worse for wear and thought 'bugger me, my eyesights gone wonky!'. The watch face looked like it was hanging open like a door, mainly because it was hanging open like a door.
ADVERTS
A word from our sponsors.
MARMITE - As an addict I was assuming that when my pot ran out it would be cold turkey (or cold yeast in my case). Found Chinese Marmite! Astounding luck!.
SARA SELFIE ADDICT
As is the craze in these parts Sara is addicted to selfies. Knows all the poses, even researches them on Tik-Tok. So she is the ONLY person in Asia holding a selfie stick. Remember when they were like bloody everywhere a few years back? Now just this one still exists.
This part of the trip was advertised in the brochure as BEACHES. So after trip A (and a decision not to bother with B,C.D.E,F etc) we simply noted the top beaches within spitting distance, teamed up with 'Rob' our Bond Bug driver, and set off to each one in turn. For anyone who cares they were Lio Beach, Las Cabanas Beach and Nacpan Beach. Each subtlety different and each supplied with the requisite silica sand, surf and excellent beachside restaurants. For affectionardos of beachy shots - fill your boots..........
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - The two photos above are provided courtesy of @SaraHenslow. As is this joke 'How many glasses are in the photo of Sara in the bar?' The answer is 8. Geddit???
ENOUGH WITH THE BEACHES!!
And apologies for the final pic but I could not resist it. I had left Sara reading her book on a deserted part of the beach. When I returned this was the scene. These guys had set up their beach volleyball kit and were well into their second game, with Sara literally 3 feet off their corner post - and she had no idea they were even there. The shot begged to be taken!!
And so our week in Palawan came to a close, much as it had started. With rain! Great day to spend travelling as otherwise it would have been wasted. As it was the 5 hour delay caused by the storm allowed me to finish the amazing memoir 'Waaagh' by 'The Prince of Canada'. What an absorbing read that was. 5 hours of my life I will never get back. Then back to Manila for one overnight stay.
Excellent Hotel Bayleaf in an area called Intermuros, a walled city, central Manila, rated very safe. We are not chickens by any means but we set out in the dark, walked round two blocks and scurried back to the hotel. If that is safe then I'd hate to see dodgy! No matter, it was much nicer the following day when in bright daylight we realised that we had wandered round the worst two blocks of Intermuros and the rest of it was lovely. In fact if we had gone one block more we would have left the equivalent of the back streets of Strood and wandered into the Cathedral Precinct in Rochester (almost, not quite, but you get my point). So much so that we spotted 'Barbara's Heritage Restaurant' on a review site and it was amazing. Lunch with added Mariachi band. Again yards from the really edgy backstreet we had been walking in the pitch dark last night.
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We also tortured another Tricycle driver by taking a year off the life of his legs with a leisurely 1.5 hour tour of the whole of Intermuros. He got his own back by the final charge. We had read 350 pesos (£5) each for the tour, he had his thumb over the 'per half hour' section of the price list, very sneaky. So we handed over our £30 for a flipping hour and a half ride jammed into a sardine can and laughed our way through lunch. He even had the cheek to ask if was an alcoholic! Mike Saffery's hearing aids do play up in this heat and it took Sara to step between us before I thumped him and explain he asked if I was a - Catholic.
The lunch spot above was real Manila, great Filipino food and really funny,
Sadly we did not get to ride in a typical local bus, a 'Jeepney' of which there are thousands, mostly stainless steel and gaudy and packed, with people even riding on the outisde rear bumpers!
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We did, in our £30 tour, get to sit in lovely parks and admire the views, how did we think this place was dangerous??
And so it's time to take flight again, not like last night in our slightly panicked flight to the safety of the hotel (Sara not me, I hasten to add) but aeroplane flight. Another 1,500 miles south, 4 hours, £165pp to get back on track.
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The Philippines has been a great detour and we achieved what we wanted which was a lot of lovely sun and crystal clear seas lapping on golden sandy beaches. Great people, a little rough round the edges (people and landscapes and towns) but memorable. And what more can one ask?
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So its off to Bali we go, finally, three years after Sara was first due to go there in May 2020. It had better be worth it and it had better not be raining!!!