Travel to Philippines, Siquijor.

I forgot to mention in the last blog that one of our big regrets was not hanging around longer to coincide with the whale shark snorkelling tour. But don’t worry we'll be sure to get back one day to tick that one off the list.



Today was Suzanne's birthday, and was probably one to forget really as the entire day revolved around travelling from one place to the next, we caught the tricycle to Moalboal and from there a non-air conditioned bus down south to Bato. We then rode the ferry across to Dumaguete. We arrived at our accommodation for the night, and it wasn't at all pleasant. Although the good news was that there was no sign at all of the damage from the typhoon, and it didn't interrupt the tourist trail and infrastructure at all. Although of course we weren't pleased that there was a typhoon at all, as it was reported to destroy many lives and buildings. Our hotel for the night was Plaza Maria Luisa and was right in the middle of town. However the foyer absolutely reeked of raw chicken, and in fact we both had to dry reach a few times. We
little catapillar wrapped in a sleep sheet in Dumaguete
these silk sleep sheets keep you clean and bed bug free, plus roll up into almost nothinghad to change rooms as well as there was no hot water in our first room.



We hit the local Internet cafe... 3 times, in order to find some accommodation in Sipilay. I forgot to mention in my last blog that our original plan was actually to head to Sugar Beach at Sipilay. However we rang around our options on Sipilay, using one of our hotel staffs mobile phones, and had absolutely no luck. Seems as though everything was booked out already. This is when we decided to change plans of attack and actually head to Siquijor instead. Not having a mobile phone really doesn't help matters when stuck trying to book accommodation. Note to self next time take an unlocked mobile phone so we can use local SIM cards.

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Travel to Philippines, Negros.

For our time in the Philippines we had a rough idea of where we want to visit but no real set plan on the order and how to get there. We knew we wanted to head south after Boracay so after we’d waved off Eleanor in Caitaclan we caught a bus down to Iloilo with the plan to head over to Negros and beyond. We’d forgotten we’d actually done the 6 hour ride before in the opposite direction 3 years back and it was painless enough on a nice air-conditioned bus (386PHP) and with some good, bad and truly awful movies to keep us occupied along the way.

We arrived in Iloilo in the dark and had chosen a guesthouse from the LP along the way so we had somewhere to head to. Unfortunately for us the one we’d chosen probably ranks in the top ten worst rooms we’ve stayed in. Even the cockroaches had given up and died but it was late, it was only for one night and was cheap so we made do with the mint green cell we were allocated. To make matters worse the local nightclub was pretty much behind our room so we were
Sunsetlulled to sleep with the sound of Filipino reggae which is always a delight. These are the times you thank God for earplugs!

We had a big travel day ahead of us the next day, Sophie had said she wanted to get started early but hadn’t factored in her alarm managing to run an hour fast so we were up with the cockerels (literally) and in McDonalds by 6.15am enjoying breakfast, sometimes this is just the only place open at this time of the morning!

Our travel day today would consist of the following..

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