Philippines: Easter in Manila and Puerto Princesa

Easter in Manila and Puerto Princesa

Day 1
We arrived from Hong Kong after a very early start (4:45am) at 12pm. The flight with Cathay Pacific was ok despite a bit of a headache at arrival at the airport, since the guy wasn’t finding us as we are allegedly booked through Dragon Air. The round the world tickets are so complicated! Anyway in the end we were glad that everything was ok.
Once arrived in Manila, the airport contrast compared to super efficient Hong Kong airport was hilarious. No specification of baggage arrival, and as we asked for information on where to get out we got sent around back and forth a few times before we finally found the exit.
We heard a few horror stories about Manila being dangerous, and cab drivers ripping tourists off through their highly metred white taxis, so we decided to opt for Uber. Which didn’t work particularly well, but after about half an hour of trying to locate our driver we finally found him. Very helpful that his car didn’t have a number plate on the front nor on the back of the car!
We arrived at our Airbnb after a bit of arguing, since our host suggested us to take one route which was the fastest, but our driver brought us another way, saying that our host told us wrong which of course was bullshit since I saw the signs saying that the skyway was going where we needed to which is an area called Makati – the safest in Manila, and the one with all the skyscrapers. We found out that Manila is actually composed of 18 cities, of which Makati is one.
When we arrived at our airbnb we couldn’t believe our eyes, the building was very modern, with security 24hrs, pool, and amazing views from our flat located on the 15th floor. The taste of the décor was also amazing, and our host Andrea has been super helpful leaving us tips for all the nearby must sees and amenities as well as restaurant and handy information.

We spent the afternoon doing chores, and tried out quickly the pool on the 7th floor which was very cold. After sunset we went out for dinner at the mall nearby called Greenbelt. There is a huge culture of malls here, and Greenbelt is huge, formed of 6 separate buildings, with restaurant and shops over two floors, and gardens and fountains in between the different buildings.
Since it is almost Easter, most shops and restaurants were closed, and we were too hungry to be fussed so we stopped at one called Tonkatzu, a Japanese restaurant that served fried pork with different sauces and cabbage, we weren’t expecting much but it was actually pretty tasty!
We got back to the flat and watched a film from our airbnb tv which felt such a treat!!! We watched the cabin in the woods, a horror film – nothing special but well made overall.

Day 2
After a nice lie in and a breakfast with toast and jam at home, we made our way with Uber to the old town to see the Cathedral, the fort and the St Augustin church, some of the main attractions of Old Manila. It was interesting to drive pass different areas, and some of the poorer areas looked really shocking even after a few weeks in South East Asia.
The cathedral, church and fort were interesting to see, but overall left us unimpressed. I guess I am spoilt with beautiful Italian churches and London cathedrals, that it’s hard to beat any of them really. The Manila Cathedral also has been rebuilt about 15 times, after getting destroyed by earthquakes, tsunamis and wars so fair play to her for making through 2016!

The fort is over the river, and there are some nice views of the markets across the river and the skyline of some modern and some old buildings. The smell of the river is not particularly pleasant though!
The gardens in the fort are also very nice, with lots of frangipane and palms. There was a very strong melodramatic music coming out of one of the carriages with horses (that are quite popular here) which wouldn’t leave us during all the walk, towards the end we needed to get away from it as it felt like living in our heads!

We got back to Greenbelt for lunch, and had lunch at the Ayala Museum cafe hoping to visit the museum just after lunch. We had some great mushroom noodles and a burger with a tuna steak which was SO tasty! The owner of the place was a drunken fat American who was walking around chatting away to people in the different tables. There was a guy in the table next to ours sitting alone, and the owner went to him saying that he did remind him of someone that tried to kill him years before. So he said he would pay for anything he wanted to eat or drink. Too bad he didn’t think that we were the ones that tried to kill him in a past life, as we could definitely do with extra cash 😉
After lunch we were ready to spend the afternoon in the museum, learning more about the Philipino culture and history, but we sadly found out that it was closed for Easter! Unfortunately Easter messed up a few of our plans, since we wanted to do the Slum Tour that looked very interesting but was fully booked because of Easter! With Smokey tour there was only a cock fighting tour available… we learnt that here it’s a huge sport, and there is a 24hr channel for cock fights! It looked very violent from the description so we decided to opt out.

One other thing that was recommended is a walking tour with a Philipino legend called Cedar but he was on holiday during our stay. All things that you should do if you are here not over Easter!

After walking around the mall we ended up going back before heading out to have dinner at People’s Place, a very well rated Thai place near us.
Bruce was a bit grumpy since he ordered the wrong dish, a very dry rice with seafood (not enough for his liking) and pineapple, while I was happy with my Pad Thai. The best bits though were the starter (a crab salad) and the dessert fried banana and coconut gelato. Again filled up, we went back as tomorrow we have an early start climbing Taal volcano!

Day 3
Happy Easter!! We got picked up from Makati at 7am to go and visit the Taal volcano with a tour company called YOLO tours. Already a promising name!
The drive takes about 1:30hrs but on the way there we stopped for some extreme fish feeding in a pond overloaded with red fish. As we got closer we also stopped to a fruit market to taste a few different fruits like the Jack Fruit, the Dragon Fruit and a lychee like fruit with a random name that we cannot remember. In the village we also came across a parade since it’s Easter, but luckily just a lot of colours and dancing and no crucifixion! We heard that here is common for people to get crucifixed on Easter since 82% of Philipinos are fervent catholics.
We then got a typical Philipino boat which has two big arms on each side to make it balance since the main body of the boat is very thin and small. They go very fast despite their retro look!

We arrived at the beginning of the walk at about 10:30am, after 20 minutes of ride, luckily the sea wasn’t too rough.
The trek was very hot and dusty, since there are a lot of horses to carry people up and down and the ground is very dry and sandy. The horses look quite mistreated, especially bad was seeing the locals carrying them by pulling their tails! It felt like a double slavery seeing the locals getting overheated by having to walk the tired and overloaded small horses that were carrying lazy (and sometimes very heavy) tourists that couldn’t be bothered to walk 2km!
They recommend to use a face mask for the walk but we didn’t – we probably ended up eating a kilo of dust! The hike is only 2.2km each way, and of course the way up took longer than the way down. We arrived up at about 11:15, satisfied as always after a fatigue that made us earn the view.
The view was amazing, over the crater which is filled with water making a volcanic lake. All over the trek, and at the arrival we saw a lot of hot vents and smoke coming from the ground, since this volcano is active and constantly monitored. There was a very big explosion years ago, and there is a drowned in lava city at the back of the mountain. The island also has another crater which is very beautiful and you can see it from different angles during the entire walk.
Brucey did hit a golf ball in the lake (after missing twice) which looked quite satisfying.
We also paid an extra 1£ to reach a point called the red lava point, from which the views were just breathtaking, definitely worth once you are up there to pay the extra and use some extra energies to climb just a bit higher! We came back down from the way we came, and it took us much less to go down. Also because on the way up we stopped a few times at the huts that sold drinks, of which the cost gets higher and higher as you reach the top. The amount of dust on our legs, hair, and arms was remarkable. We got on the boat to go back to the island, and were less lucky this time with the sea, and the ride was very bumpy as well as very wet. Bruce got totally soaked as he was sitting on the worst side and at the front! The dust combined with the water made us quite muddy!
On arrival we were greeted with a huge lunch philippino style, and we had to eat with our hands as apparently this is their way! We weren’t too happy about that, as you could see on a few of the faces! Especially eating noodles, fish and rice with your hands is quite disturbing and messy. But nonetheless the food was plenty and very nice, well needed after our trek!

After getting stuffed we got back in the van and drove back to Manila, where within half an hour we all passed out, helped by the comfy head cushions that were given to us in the car.
During the trip we met a lovely couple of Aussies from Sydney, Andrew and Kate, and a nice girl from Colorado that now lives in Vancouver called Shannon, and a French lady from Alsace that lives in Singapore and only came for the weekend called Chadia (after a famous Egyptian singer!).
Everyone was great company, and we shared some good travelling stories while walking up, down, and while eating! The guides were also very nice, especially Ryan.
Once arrived we got rid of the huge amount of dust we found in our socks and pretty much everywhere through a very long and satisfying shower.
After that we decided we earned a burger and we went to an amazing place that does Gourmet Burgers, which we were really impressed with… You can make your own, and I mastered the ULTIMATE burger (for me at least!): scamorza, mayo, caramelized onions, and fresh sauteed mushrooms. It was SO tasty.

Overall our impression of Manila wasn’t the greatest. We read a quote by someone on Trip Advisor that said: “why everything in Manila is so difficult, dangerous and disorganised?” Now we understand where he was coming from! The Taal volcano was definitely the highlight, but for the rest of it we found it very difficult to get around, it felt very unsafe mainly as we saw an armed guard at every shop, every mall, almost every corner of the street. Our guide told us that murders are very common (assasins only cost 200 pounds allegedly) , especially of judges or lawyers for corruption reasons. Criminality is in general very high, hence why the armed guards. But there is something that spoils your stay in seeing so many weapons around you. The malls are also quite creepy, how they love this microcosm where you don’t have to get out. I guess there will be much more to the Philippines than its capital city, and I look forward to discovering more.

Manila to Palawan – Day 4
We got our Uber to the airport at 7am, scared of the traffic after our host told us. But we didn’t find much, and got to the airport at 7:15 with our flight at 9:35am. On the boarding pass there wasn’t mentioned any specific terminal, so we just got dropped at the Air Asia departures. As we got in we were told that we were in the wrong terminal and that domestic flights depart from terminal 4 only. The transfer for terminal 4 was going from the ground floor. After asking a few people we got sent up and down different floors (just like on arrival) many times before finding the terminal transfers section. We had to check our luggages through the metal detectors four times in all. And Bruce also got told that he couldn’t carry a lighter, so he had to throw away the 2 that he had. Never heard of.
The bus for terminal 4 came half an hour later, and we almost lost it since Brucey just went to the info desk to ask where the hell it was.
We finally got on our plane after waiting in the super tiny domestic departure lounge with a crackling TV showing a terrible film with the worst actors, worst dialogues, most unwatchable ever. Ok we were already grumpy, but it was too much.
The flight with Air Asia had the smallest leg room I’ve ever seen, and poor Bruce had to lose the circulation of his legs for one hour. Oh and his seat was broken and wouldn’t stay straight, resulting in fight personnel getting very angry at him during take off and landing. One of those days!
We arrived in Palawan in the baking heat at 11am and got a tricycle (so small! I don’t know how our bags fitted in the thing) to our hotel called Hibiscus Garden Inn. Very nice place, clean and large rooms and not too expensive. Also the restaurant is famous for Pizza, which we tried at lunch at it was very delicious (yes also for an Italian!).
After lunch we decided to go to a nearby hotel to check out their pool since our place doesn’t have one and the heat was becoming unbearable. We went to Manolo One and their pool was very good, spent the afternoon there swimming (me), reading (me) and snoring (Brucey).

After that we got a massage booked, and a wax for me before the massage. This is for the female audience only, but it is an important point… how to keep in order after months of travelling! Honestly the wax seemed a great idea, but it wasn’t. They took one hour for a half leg, which takes me normally 15 minutes. It was super painful and I am pretty sure it was the lady’s first time doing it as I had to give her direction to try and diminuish the pain! The most annoying thing was seeing Bruce next to me enjoying his massage (which I didn’t have time to do in the end since my wax took so long) while being tortured!
For dinner we went to the number 1 recommended place in Puerto, called Kalui. It was SO good (and great value) that we decided to book again for tomorrow. We got a set menu of the day for £9 (in two so £4.50 each) which included: starters with an amazing seaweed called LATO, very weird looking but amazingly delicious, a soup, prawns, fish steak (out of a flambe pan that they bring to the table) and fish rolls with coconut sauce, sweet potato and spinach and chilly. The dessert was free (love this place) and it was fresh watermellon, papaya all in coconut with a bit of sugar. Just perfect! They also have an art gallery at the back which was very nice, and their garden is so pretty with fountains, lights and interesting sculptures and flowers. Oh and to make it even more perfect, they make you take your shoes off on arrival. As our crew in Namibia would say, If you are wearing shoes you are overdressed! 

Day 4
We had a well needed lie in, and had breakfast at 10am. Somehow we then got overwhelmed with choices, and I think because of the tiredness of travelling for 2 months, or more likely for the tiredness of making decisions (which none of us is good at) we ended up doing none and just planned more of the trip!
The main option here is to go to the Underground river. We looked into it, and found out that it is 2hrs away, and that the cue to get there can be up to 3 hrs. It’s basically a full day trip, to enjoy 45 minutes of sightseeing. The boat to get there can also be very rough and you get wet. Since we saw so many amazing caves so far (the Cango Caves in South Africa, the Paradise and the Dark Cave in Phong Nha Vietnam, and we had dinner in a cave in Halong Bay – poor us, violin!) we decided to skip it.
The second option was a tour of the city on the tricycle, which can take up to 4hrs. With the heat, and also us not really fitting in the tricycle we decided it might not be the most pleasant thing to do.
Lastly there is a very interesting Firefly watching activity here, in a river where you paddle through amongst hundreds of fireflies. Apparently very romantic. There is either an organised tour which gets you there and back with a van, and takes from 530pm to 9pm with dinner included (and we heard not very good). Or you can go yourself by tricycle but it’s 1hr each way to get there, and the boat lasts only 40 minutes. So again the idea didn’t convince us enough.
We decided to call it an admin day, and also we found out that our main charger which we use for everything (2 iphones, 2 kindles, 1 camera and 1 portable wifi) got burnt out and is no longer workingn so we had to go out and get a new one. It’s the third so far that gets burned or breaks, can you believe it? It must be related to the different power of the different countries. Literally in 2 months and a half we got 3 broken. One from Amazon that started to do funny noises until it stopped working, the second one we bought in Cape Town Airport and lasted for about a month before burning, and the third one we bought in Ko Chang and lasted again just over a month. Let’s hope the Puerto Princesa one will last, we have registered it with a 2 year warranty which the other 2 didn’t have an option for, so hopefully it looks promising!
Again finding the shop was a headache, the tricycle left us in the middle of the road ’cause of the awful traffic, and the heat and the pollution made us both grumpy! In the end we got it, even if it’s the most expensive of all (they seem to gradually get higher in price every time we break one).
We are ready for a beer and for another amazing dinner at Kalui, after what we can call a pretty useless and uninteresting day! Tomorrow we travel 3 hrs to Port Barton, where we’ll stay on a deserted beach!