Leaving Manado, North Sulawesi, our plan was to fly back to Jakarta for one night and stay in an airport-type hotel to avoid the expensive return trip into the capital (not to mention the pollution, touts, and other annoyances), before catching an early morning flight to Singapore and our connecting flight to the Philippines the following day. The journey from Manado to Jakarta was as easy as jumping on a plane; our problems began when we exited the airport in Jakarta.
The domestic terminal turned out to be rather useless in terms of enquiring about available airport hotels; there were no airport representatives and the only hotel booking agent insisted on showing us the 'foreign' prices in US dollars which were at least double the 'local' prices and without any added extras. It soon became apparent that we would have better luck at the international terminal. Upon sensing our plans to change location, the freelance taxi drivers - who had been snapping at our heels, touting for business as soon as we set foot outside customs - crowded in even closer, shouting and pleading for the 'rights' to our journey. Why on earth they would think we would take a rip-off taxi when there was a free domestic-international shuttle bus was quite beyond us. Despite announcing our intention to take the shuttle, the taxi drivers remained in denial about its existance and continued attempting to block our path all the way to the bus stop. We managed to catch the shuttle bus, which, despite being an airport shuttle bus, was of course completely ill-suited for transporting anyone with a bag larger than a child's backpack.
Arriving at the international terminal we soon realised we had simply swapped one set of annoying, aggressive, taxi touts for another, and worse, this being the international terminal, their prices and expectations had gone up. Our search for a hotel didn't fare much better either. Jakarta, the bustling business, economic, and political capital of Indonesia - one of the world's most populous countries - it seems, has only one airport hotel, and its cheapest room was a whopping 4 times our usual accommodation budget. Again, there were no hotel representatives (apart from the Sheraton, whose 6-times-our-budget cheapest rooms were growing more appealing with every taxi driver who appeared). By this time we were beginning to feel overwhelmed, the taxi drivers were continually standing inbetween us and joining in our conversations with tourist information and hotel agency staff.
We snapped.
Suddenly the idea of spending 16 hours in transit in Singapore airport sounded like heaven compared to spending one more minute in Indonesia. We headed straight to the Singapore Airlines desk to enquire about changing our flight to the next available plane and nearly kissed the official in charge when she managed to get us 2 seats on a flight leaving in an hour. All of a sudden we had checked in our bags (all the way to the Philippines) and were running through customs and immigration to reach our gate in time.
Perhaps we are being a little hard on Indonesia, certainly its touts were not as annoying as in India; we did find it an amazing and fascinating country, and we both agree we would love to return to explore the islands further. Surprisingly, by this stage in out trip, we have become less, rather than more, tollerant of the scams, touts, lies, rip-offs and tricks that so often plague western backpackers in developing countries. Unfortunately, whilst we have met incredibly interesting and generous people in every country we have been to, seen beautiful countryside and admired truly inspiring sights, there always seems to be a 'but' in the form of aggressive drivers and touts.
And so we ended up in our beloved Singapore Airport, an airconditioned pocket of escape in between countries. We were tempted to spend our entire time in transit making use the the free internet, cinema, and other amenities, but sensibly decided some sleep would be wise. We exited the airport for the night and took a comfortable room in a nearby hotel, which amazingly, cost roughly the same as some of the cheapest 'foreign price' hotels we were offered in Jakarta. The following day we finally made it to our next country: the Philippines.
We landed in Manila and soon settled into a comfortable 'pensionne' (guesthouse) in the city centre. Upon arrival in the Philippines we were immediately hit by the Spanish influence left over from colonial days. The filipino language is littered with Spanish words, the food has a very Spanish/Mexican taste, and even the music and architecture hinted of a Spanish past. For a few days we kept experiencing moments of confusion when we would wonder whether we had landed in Mexico instead.
A Filipino 'jeepney' - the main form of transport throughout the islands.
Our time in Manila was spent recuperating from our journey and catching up on admin tasks. Despite the close proximity of some pretty impressive shopping malls and restaurants, the beach was calling. We re-packed our bags and headed to the tourist capital of the Philippines - Cebu.
We checked into our flight at 4am, along with many other bleary-eyed passengers and 4 or 5 rather chirpy cockrels (presumably being transported for a cock-fighting match, the number one sport in the Philippines). Eric swore he could hear the birds crowing as we landed in Cebu City at 6am. A taxi ride, 4 hour bus ride, and boat ride finally brought us to the small island of Malapascua , off the northern coast of Cebu.
The perfect beaches of Malapascua.
The tiny island of Malapascua is ringed with beautiful white-sandy beaches dotted with towering palm trees and wooden bungalows. The surrounding clear waters provide endless diving and snorkelling posibilities for enthusiasts. Most divers visit the deep waters of Malapascua to find the very distinguishable thresher sharks - who swim up to a 25-meter plateau to be serviced at a 'cleaning station'.
We secured ourselves a spacious beach front bungalow and soon found ourselves splashing around in the refreshing sea.
Our first afternoon in this paradise setting was perfect. Anticipating a sunny week filled with snorkelling, diving and lounging on the beach, we got an early night's rest. Unfortunately, despite having a powerful modern fan blowing air throughout the room during the sticky airless night and a large mosquito net over our beds keeping the countless mosquitos away, we could not sleep. We were already exhausted from our trip from Manila to Malapascua, so the added sleep deprevation made us feel worse. This seemingly perfect environment was flawed after all. Nevertheless, we decided to give Malapascua another chance and we spent a very enjoyable day on the beach: snorkelling, snoozing in the hammocks and investigating diving options to see the thresher sharks. However, the following morning after another restless night, our decision was made, we were leaving the island to head back to the mainland in search of another beach....and some sleep!!!
Local fishing boats are used to ferry people and supplies to and from the island; we sadly boarded one, departing from Malapascua much earlier than expected.
The bus back to Cebu City was a long, dusty, bumpy ride. The bus was a local non-ac one, meaning it had no glass in the windows and sought to cool its passengers by driving as fast as possible thereby creating a strong through-breeze throughout the bus. We arrived in Cebu City tired, dirty and with stinging dry sore throats from breathing the dusty air for 5 hours. We managed to find what looked like a clean, respectable hotel and gratefully crawled into bed. Unfortunately, the hotel staff had failed to inform us of the 'hotel improvements' currently being carried out (we later saw some small 'discreet' notices). At 7am we were awoken from our much needed slumber by the revirberating sound of a hand drill, occasionally accompanied by a very enthusiastic worker and his sledge hammer. We were beginning to feel like we were trapped in a comedy sketch which portrays a helpless victim and his quest for one decent nights sleep!!
We packed up our bags and headed to the bus station to try our luck in the southern part of Cebu Island. Our destination was the popular tourist spot of Moalboal - which has long been a magnet for divers exploring the reefs of the Philippines. Because it was the beginning of the low season, we easily secured a great deal on a large, air conditioned, bungalow in a resort with a pool (our first since Myanmar). We had a tasty lunch and retired to our room for some blissful, undisturbed, sleep.
The view of the warm, crystal clear waters as seen from our resort restaurant.
Our resort in Moalboal turned out to be the perfect place to relax and enjoy a 'holiday' at the end of a year of heavy travel. Laying poolside under the cooling shade of the trees, we indulged ourselves in the tranquility and privacy of the resort.
However, after a few days, we got bored of relaxing and so signed up for an Advanced Scuba Diving course. The intensive 2-day course involved reading textbooks, answering questions and completing 5 technical dives. The reef life we witnessed was phenonmenal; we bumped into (almost literally) 3-4 turtles on each dive, and saw our first poisonous sea snake! Having completed our Advanced Diving Certification, we managed to fit in one last fun dive before it was time to head back to Cebu City.
A small glimpse of the beatiful reefs in Moalboal.
On our final dive we came across the wreck of a WW2 aeroplane.
Our time in Cebu City was brief. We failed to visit any cultural or historical sites, deciding instead to spend prescious time in shopping malls where we treated ourselves to some new items of clothing (ie jeans!!).
Our stay in Cebu City coincided with the beginning of the Football (soccer)World Cup. To our horror, we realised we were in the one Asian country which does not follow football. Whilst the Filipinos are avid sports fans, their passion lies almost solely in American Basketball. Almost every person we met could talk knowledgably about specific aspects of the LA Lakers recent playoff breakdown, but remained clueless about football (Manchester who??). It turned out there were only 3 places in the entire city where we would be able to watch the opening matches....and that's how we bizarrely came to be sitting in our scruffy, dirty, traveller's clothes, in the middle of the Marriott Hotel lobby bar, sipping gin and tonics at 3am in the morning.
We left Cebu and headed for the bright lights of Hong Kong - our final Asian destination.