North Luzon, Philippines

The final post from the Philippines.  We spent our last few days on the island of North Luzon (same island as Manila).  Our plans were not well laid out, thanks to me, so there were some hiccups, but we managed.

Jeepneys are everywhere in the Philippines.  It all began with leftover Jeep parts after the war.  Interesting to see all the different sizes and colors and names.

Our first stop was a beach town on the north coast called Pagudpud.  The place we stayed was on more of a dirt, fishermen beach, but we spent the afternoon at one of the whiter sand beaches nearby.

This was a Saturday afternoon, so the beach was full of Filipinos.  As far as I could tell, we were the only white people on the whole beach, so the girls were never alone.

We also took a hike to Kabigan Falls.

You know you've been in Asia too long, when you walk right past the water buffalo without hardly noticing he's there!

On the way back, we grabbed some Filipino empanadas--bright orange dough and filled with green papaya, pork, and an egg.

Our final stop in the Philippines was the rice terraces near Banaue.  I was ready to give up on this because transportation did not easily flow from place to place.  But I'm so glad we found a way to make it happen--the beauty was so worth it.

The view of Banaue and some rice terraces from our lodge.

These terraces were carved out over 2000 years ago.  The terraces are passed down to the children--largest one to firstborn.  If someone wants to sell their terrace, they must first go back to family members and a family member will always snatch it up first.  The rice is a very ancient, good rice and the people have been asked to sell it, but they still only grow it for their personal use.

These terraces are in the middle of the Cordillera mountain range, where all the roads look like this.

At Batad, another village nearby, we hiked down into the rice terraces.  This little girl was helping us down the steps.

This hike was petrifying for me and tiring for us all.  Hard to tell in the pictures, but we walked right along the rock wall on the edge of the terrace with a drop off down the side.  I call it my fear of heights; the girls call it my fear of falling!

We hiked over an hour through the terraces and then down over a hundred (two hundred? a thousand?!!) steep stone steps to a waterfall, and then of course had to hike the whole thing back out.  It was beautiful but so relieved to finally sit down in this restaurant.

Amazing views of the terraces all around us

This was a really interesting end to our time in the Philippines.  Then it was an overnight bus ride to Manila to catch our flight to Seoul.

Bicol, Philippines

Way overloading with pictures again, but I guess that's better than overloading with words!  We've "used up" our three weeks in the Philippines and feel like we've hardly scratched the surface.  But now it's time to move on to Korea, so we're sitting in the Manila airport (for the fifth time) waiting for our flight.  Manila airport is one of the few we've found with free wi-fi so we're thankful that we can use these waits to catch up.

We spent about a week in Bicol (an island? a province? an area? Not sure how it all works here), half of it visiting a coconut oil factory and half of it relaxing.

This is the factory building.  Dignity is set up as a for profit coconut oil producer, but in a rural community to provide jobs and community development.  Mike went to observe and offer his engineering support.

Looking snazzy as we prepare to tour the facility (oh the power of the blog poster--I can choose which pictures I appear in!).  At right is the plant manager, Shirley.  She worked very hard to make our visit a good one.

We stayed in Dignity's very cute guesthouse right across the street.

Exercising to Spanish instructions--PE and Foreign Language done in one shot!

We flew into Legazpi and made a quick stop to view Mt. Mayon, a very active volcano, before beginning our drive to Dignity.  This is what remains of a cathedral that was buried during an 1814 eruption.

While at Dignity, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight took place.  Manny is the Filipino hero so it was fun to watch part of it at the store/house next door.

On Sunday afternoon, our friends asked a local fisherman to take us out to a couple of islands.

Mark, one of the guys who went with us, was amazing at spotting all kinds of creatures, including this sea slug.

And this "thing"--some kind of snail, I think

Back at the house, the women were working together to prepare a sticky rice treat for one of the women to sell the following day.  She cooks rice in coconut milk, wraps it in a woven leaf, and then steams it.  They sell for 5 pesos (about 8 cents) each.

Then they had some fun with the extra leaves and started decorating Trina.

We were only in Cagmanaba, by Dignity, for about three days and then it was time to move again.  We traveled to the Caramoan Peninsula on the east side of the island.  Some of you Survivor followers (Hello, Crystal?) may be interested to know that a number of international Survivor seasons were filmed there and word on the street is the US version was going to begin filming there this week.

Our hotel rounded up a tricycle driver to take us to some sights, one of which was a cave.  We're still not sure it was the cave he intended, but what an experience.  Some guys on the side of the road walked us back into their village and from there through the rice fields and into the trees.  We knew it would either be a unique experience or we would die at their hands.  I guess by now you know which it was.

Once again, the power of the blog poster.  I chose to leave out the picture where I'm very unattractively crawling on my belly to squeeze myself under about an 18 inch opening.  Definitely more of a workout than I was expecting.

Caramoan town was also celebrating a fiesta while we were there, so we took in some of the events.

First up:  the cockfights.  Yes, very politically incorrect, but we were curious to see what they're all about.  Less gory than I expected, but watching once was enough for all of us.  The only white people, nearly the only females, and definitely the only children.  Bad Parenting 101.

Then it was right on to the Miss/Mrs. Caramoan contest.

Most of our time on the peninsula was spent island hopping.  We did one day to the further away islands and another day to those just offshore.

On one island, you could climb over this steep rock to a lagoon.  I chose to be the photographer on the ground instead.

We found a few of these cool starfish.

One of our stops was at these floating huts where we found lots of sand dollars and had our lunch...

...and bought fresh buko (coconut) juice from the buko man

Saw tons of these jellyfish which

were safe to hold.  Celia and Trina found out the snorkel made a great waterslide for the littlest ones.

 

A blue starfish.  One of my favorite discoveries on this trip has been the huge variety of underwater life God has made!

For dinner we explored some of the street food.  The girls and I played it safe with barbecued chicken and pork skewers but Mike branched out to the chicken intestines and chicken blood cube.

Boracay

So, Boracay, what do I think of thee?  Boracay and I got off to a bumpy start, but in the end I think she redeemed herself!

We heard much about the beautiful beaches of Boracay but we also heard about how built up the island was.  We found both to be true.  This experience was a case of The Kids vs. The Parents.  The girls were really excited to go to a place with a little action and Mike and I tend to seek out the quieter beaches.

Bump #1: Our tricycle driver drove us along the beach road, but then suddenly turned down a narrow road away from the beach to our "beachfront" hostel.

Bump #2:  The girls and us were in separate rooms on different levels with different entrances in an area that appeared somewhat sketchy.

Bump #3:  The beach in this area was the center of action so it was just packed with people and all kinds of things going on.

Bump #4:  During this time of year the water is filled with algae.

All of these things happened in the heat of the day, and we're talking HEAT, which only made it all seem worse to me.

(Celia is reading this and wants you to know that she disagrees.  And I also realize I sound like a picky diva!)

But the next morning Mike made work of finding us a new place to stay, on a quieter stretch of beach (but still within walking distance of the action for the girls!) and we started to really enjoy the island.

It did make me sad to see such a beautiful place slowly being ruined.  The algae is caused by a waste system that can't keep up (didn't want to think about that one too much).  Thankfully there were no high rises but there was just one building right next to another.  The town is so congested and continues to push back from the beachfront so people once living there have either been forced inland or have left the island.

These are the tricycles.  Big enough for all of our luggage...

...and all 6 of us!

The busy streets of Boracay,

And the busy beach of Boracay.  In fairness, this is high season because it's their summer break.

The new place Mike found--much quieter and right on the beach.

A beautiful beach, but you can see the algae that washed up.

We took one day to drive around the island and find some other beaches.  This was the unspoiled Boracay and it was gorgeous!

 

Puka Beach.  All the vendors were selling puka shell necklaces which brought me right back to my middle school days.

And the sunsets were amazing: