Life's a (Philippine) Beach

I arrived in The Philippines with a different attitude to other places. I had actually come here to do a job rather than to just see the sights and this new motive was exactly what I needed at this point in my trip. I have had the most incredible time over the 7 months I have been away but I had realised that I missed having something to work towards, some sort of project. This lead me to look online at workaway.info, a site which allows people to advertise voluntary work around the world. Everything from farm work to childcare was on the site and most opportunities provided free accommodation (and sometimes food) in exchange for your time there. I had decided on The Philippines after seeing that it was one of the cheapest places to fly to from Hong Kong, and because it was nearer Indonesia, where I would be meeting my friend in early August. I searched for opportunities in The Philippines and found one project that stood out. It was an advert for a backpacker who would help set up a bar crawl on a beach called Alona Beach on Panglao Island. The people running the project were two backpackers, Christian and Lizzie, who had settled down in Panglao and it sounded right up my street. I applied while still in Hong Kong, spoke with Lizzie and soon I had booked my flights all the way to Tagbiliran, the nearest airport to Alona. 

When I arrived in Tagbiliran on the 11th I found myself a tricycle (a motorbike with a seating area attached to its side) and took the 45 minute journey to the beach, well actually, it was probably less than 45 minutes, my driver had a need for speed. I got to Billabong, a Aussie restaurant where I had planned to meet Christian and Lizzie, and waited nervously for them to arrive. When they did, I realised I had no reason to be nervous, they happily invited me into their house, which was a decent sized, open plan bungalow right next to the restaurant and showed me my room (I had a whole room to myself, with a wardrobe! People who had lived out of a backpack for anything longer than a month with understand why a wardrobe is so exciting.)

 I also had a moped which I could use whenever I wanted. That evening we went the short distance down to the beach, which I couldn't fully appreciate as it was already quite dark, and grabbed some dinner and a couple of beers.

The following day we visited the market on our mopeds and I faced the challenge of choosing what food to buy. This was a surprisingly hard activity after months of only eating at restaurants (in the loosest sense of the word) and I realised how much I had forgotten about using a kitchen. I grabbed a few items and then left the market feeling flustered and confused. The rest of the day we spent on the beach, which this time I could fully appriciate with its hanging palm trees, soft white sand and diving boats bobbing on the impossibly turquoise sea.

Alona Beach, as well as it's beauty, is also famous for great diving and many of the tourists come just for that. The whole beach is full of dive shops and so the next day I took the moped to the beach and walked around the shops to see about prices and quality of the stores. I decided upon on centre called Go Scuba, which was run by and very friendly man from Sussex. I booked for two dives the following day for a total of 2,250 pisos, which is about £30, and it was worth every penny! We met early the next morning and got our gear together. There were 7 other people coming out to dive that day, a group of Spanish tourists, a young British couple and a Danish girl. We got on the diving boat and travelled half and hour to a spot called Balicasag Island, one of the top spots for diving in The Philippines. 

On our first dive we saw lots of wildlife including clown fish, a large school of jack fish, beautiful coral and sea slugs but the second dive was definitely my favourite. 

We oared up near to the coast of the island in a relatively shallow spot and started to see turtles on the surface from our boat. I couldn't wait to get under there and see them up close. This dive site was a drop off area so we moved along the side of a big coral wall, spotting some really strange looking sea slugs, and lots of fish. 

However, the best bit was when we started to move back to the boat and into shallower waters because that was where the turtles were. And it wasn't just one turtle, as I had expected, but multiple turtles all over the place. It was amazing to be able to move alongside a turtle as the gracefully pushed themselves through the water. At the end of the dive we found one huge turtle who was up for a bit of a photoshoot so each of us got a picture with this beauty before it was time to surface.

As well as seeing these beautiful creatures I was also happy about the dive as I had managed my longest dive time, which meant that my air consumption was getting a lot better. I arrived back at the beach at around 2pm and sat with Lizzie on the sand for a while before heading home to shower. That evening we designed the flyers for the pub crawl and discussed ideas until the early morning. 

Lizzie and I were given the job of going to get the flyers printed at a local 'printing shop' which turned out to be just a room with a printer in it and not much else. Armed with our freshly printed flyers we head down to the beach to start recruiting people for the pub crawl which would be held the next day.

On Thursday morning we were slightly panicked because the t-shirts for the pub crawl had not been printed yet and we were cutting it really fine to get them ready in time. Luckily we found somewhere which could do it on the day and gave them our design. We spent the rest of the day recruiting people on the beach and visiting a couple of hostels to advertise there as well. Then it was time for the first ever Alona Pub Crawl. Of course there were hiccups, the tshirts arrived half an hour late, people arrived later than expected, our first bar wasn't actually open when we got there but apart from that we had a really good evening with a nice group of people (and the tshirts looked great!)

We had a relaxed day nursing our hangovers on Friday and had to more Workaways arrive, Sandra and Estoban, a couple who had met travelling and could fire dance! We all went down to the beach again that evening for dinner and drinks and also bumped into the French guys who had come to the pub crawl the night before. 

Christian had a good idea for the pub crawl and suggested that we should partner up with businesses along the beach. They could offer anyone in our pub crawl t-shirt a discount in return for us sending our customers thier way. Me and Christian went to speak with different shops and got a few of them to agree to it before I started to get a migrane and had to come home. That evening we all watched some Game Of Thrones (oh, how I had missed that show) and went to bed. On the 19th Lizzie and I went to meet with the owner of one of the main dive centres on the beach, Philippine Fun Divers. He was a friendly man who agreed to partnering with us and offering our customers a discounted price, which was great news! We then took the mopeds into Tagbiliran to buy matresses for the Workaways. We also stopped at the cinema and watched Antman (which was better than I expected) and went to the supermarket, which was pretty daunting as I hadn't been in a supermarket since Australia!

The next day I went to the beach alone and managed to get a few more companies on board with the discounts, including a jet ski hire shop and another resturant. We started using the discounts that we had to advertise to the people on the beach again for the next couple of days.

Thursday came around again and we felt more prepared this time, everything ran pretty smoothly. Even though, due to it being low season here at the moment, the numbers were small we had a fun time meeting new people, playing drinking games and dancing with some Koreans at the 'nightclub' on the beach. When we got back to the house Lizzie, Christian and I stayed up having one of our friendly debates that seem to happen in the early hours of the morning and I didn't actually get to sleep until 6am.

The whole of the next day was used to either sleep, eat delicious nachos from the restaurant next door or watch Game Of Thrones. We finished the most recent series (I know, I am so behind the times) and what a series it was!! 

Today is my last day in Panglao and the sun is shining as it has been for my entire time here. Apparently that is extremely lucky as it is supposed to be rainy season here, lets hope my luck continues as I move onto the next destination in this wonderful country, Malapascua Island, where I will hopefully be diving with sharks!! I am planning on squeezing in Malapascua and Palawan Island before catching my flight from Manila to Indonesia, but after being settled and enjoying myself so much in one place for two whole weeks the idea of moving around so quickly is a bit alien. A massive thank you to Lizzie and Christian who have made me feel at home and been great hosts, hopefully see you again soon!

 

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

Hong Kong, city life (with beaches)

Hong Kong was my next destination after my month in Vietnam and I was excited to get there. Not only was it a change of scene but I also knew a surprising amount of people in the city and was looking forward to seeing some familiar faces. It turns out that it wasn't just the faces that seemed familiar, as soon as I arrived in the city (after a very warm welcome at the airport from my friend from university, Jasmin, who was working and living in Hong Kong and putting me up for the week) I instantly felt like I had been there before. The whole city, despite the humidity and number of Asian people, had a very London feel about it. Everything from the double decker buses to the shops, to the buildings reminded me of London, and I found it quite comforting. My first full day in Hong Kong gave me everything I needed. I got to have a lie-in and then Jasmin took me for a walk around the local area. We got some really cheap Indian food for lunch and I finally tried bubbletea, an Asian creation (google it). I also got to ride the incredibly cheap tram, why London doesn't have them, I don't know! That evening we met up with Jasmins friend Terri, who was a musician working in Hong Kong. she had chosen a restaurant for us to eat at in the SoHo area of the city and it turned out to be a blooming delicious Italian restaurant where we lavishly ordered and had a giggle flirting with the waiters. After we'd finished our dessert of (complimentary) cake and polished of the last of our wine we went to Terris apartment, which was really nice, and I got the chance to try on some if her amazing clothes. It felt so good to do, not only because they were super glamorous clothes, but mainly because they weren't the same clothes I had been wearing and lugging around with me in a backpack for the last 7 months! 

The next day Jasmin had to work all day so I went to Central the main shopping and business area of town. 

I had a nosey around some of the shops because they were brands that I knew from home but I couldn't believe the prices of the clothes. Even the sale items were extortionate. Feeling the backpacker in me awaken at the sight of these price tags, Jasmin and I had left overs for dinner before we head out to a party that Jasmins friends were throwing in a music studio nearby. We got there and I got the chance to meet some of Jasmins Hong Kong friends, who were all really welcoming and a lot of fun. We danced A LOT and didn't get home until 5:30am which meant that we were more than entitled to another lie in the next day.

However, we had planned to go to a beach on Lamma Island the following day, so although being in bed felt so good, we tore ourselves out of the flat and ventured down to the harbour. There we met up with some more of Jasmins friends who were all also working as English teachers. We had some fish and chips at the ferry port before catching the ferry to Lamma. It was a beautiful day for the beach and we walked through the main centre of the island which had lots of seafood restaurants, gift shops and nice apartments. Jasmin told me that a lot of people move to the island for the cheaper rents and the relaxed atmosphere but the communte to the city centre was enough to put most people off living there. We walked to the beach and hired sun umbrella, which Jasmin and I had a beach snooze under.

Tom, one of Jasmins friends who was at the beach with us, bought a frisbee and we played some intense rallies in the sea (reaching a whopping 22 uninterrupted passes). We stayed on the beach until the early evening then travelled on a very rocky ferry back to the city where I got my first glimpse of the Hong Kong skyscrapers at night. 

We visited Temple Street Market on the 6th. Unfortunately, Jasmin had mistaken this night market for a regular market and when we got there the stalls were only beginning to set up for the evening. However I did find a beautiful little tea set, something that before I had left the UK I vowed I would buy. There was no way I could carry a tea set around with me until December, so instead we found a post office and after getting over the shock of how cheap the postage back to the UK was compared to all the other countries I had been to, wrapped and sent it off. I am hoping that I will forget that I ever got it and it will be a nice christmas present for me when I get back (thats if I don't beat it home, it is travelling there by boat). We went to a coffee shop near SoHo to meet Keren, a girl who had been the year above us at university and has been in Hong Kong pretty much ever since. It was great to have a catch up with her before we head to a bar called Rum Min Tings which was hosting a pub quiz. We met the group we had been to Lamma with there along with some new faces and tried our best in the quiz, surprisingly our best wasn't good enough, with some questions so obscure that we were sure no one would know the answer. Of course there is always one team sitting in the corner who get all the questions right (*cough* google *cough*). 

I got to meet up with someone else that I knew the next day when I went to Stanley, a sea side area in outer Hong Kong. I met Carina, who I had met before because she is one of my cousins friends, at the MTR (Hong Kongs tube system) station and then got a bus all the way to Stanley pasy some really beautiful views and amazing apartments. We had a look around the market there and then caught up over some lunch in one of the many restaurants lining the sea front. There was a small temple nearby that we walked to which was good to see because it reminded me that I was actually in China (touchy subject?). 

Then it was time to leave as I was meeting Jasmin again in the early evening. I said goodbye to Carina back at the MTR and returned to the flat briefly before Jasmin and I got the tram to the bottom of the famous Hong Kong peak, and then, after queueing FORVER, a special tram up to the top. The sun had set and Jasmin walked us away from the huge crowds at the main viewpoint, past extremely expensive houses which must have the most ridiculous views, to a path which offered the most incredible panorama over the skyline of Hong Kong. She told me ot made her feel like spiderman, and I completely understood as I saw it, you could see the whole city twinkling below you. Hong Kong skyscrapers also have really impressive light shows which play out on the sides of the buildings and are really great to watch.

That evening I started to feel a bit ill and grabbed some Lemsip on the long walk home. In the morning, after a restless nights sleep, I felt even worse. It's funny, I think because I was feeling relaxed, had a flat rather than a hostel and was allowed to lie in as much as I liked, all the tiredness and illness I had been holding off finally caught up on me. I gave myself one day to mope about and stay in bed watching Netflix. 

I decided that day that the next day I would be well again and, what do you know, I woke up feeling much better, that's the power of the mind over matter. The task I set myself that day while Jasmin was at work was to do some more research for the countries that I going to visit and buy myself some new trainers (as I had left mine on a bus in Vietnam, sorry Dad). I went to an area called North Point where there were some outlet stores and found some nice trainers for a reasonable price before heading back to flat. Jasmin got home soon after and informed me that there was a typhoon warning starting at 5pm. I had planned to meet Rachel (another one of my cousins friends who was living and working in Hong Kong and who I had known since I was very small) that evening but the chance of a typhoon cancelled those plans. Instead Jasmin and I stayed in and watched two period dramas on Netflix and had a really nice homemade dinner of salmon, green pesto and sweet potatoes.

The 10th was my final day in Hong Kong and I started off by packing all my stuff away, a task I have grown quite good at but also grown to hate. Rachel and I had rescheduled meeting for lunch time and Rachel chose a place for us to eat at called Sevva in Central. I decided that I would go straight to the airport aftr lunch with Rachel so wore my comfy airport outfit and bought my backpack to meet her. Little did I know that the venue was really really nice and I felt a bit out of place in my trainers and no make-up. My awkwardness disappeared when Rachel arrived in the restaurant and we had an amazing meal and a huge catch up before it was time for her to go back to work for her big friday meeting. I met Jasmin one last time at Central and she walked me to the station that I could get to the airport from. We said goodbye, which was pretty sad because if all goes to plan Jasmin will be in Hong Kong for a couple more years with her new job. 

I got on the train and got to the airport to find that my flight to Manila in The Philippines was delayed. I waited and waited and waited and eventually, three hours after we should have left, we took off. It was a very shaky flight with the longest, most anxious descent I have ever experienced, but we got there in the end and I got a taxi to my hostel. I had chosen a hostel near the airport rather than in the city, which I had heard from other travellers was a bit dodgy. I quickly skyped home then got to bed in a deserted dorm room (it is currently low/rainy season). 

I am now on a plane ready to fly from Manila to Tagbilaran, and then onto Panglao island. I can't wait to see a beach again and hopefully do some diving!

Thank you for reading about my time in Hong Kong. I am excited to see what The Philippines has to offer, let's hope it doesn't rain too much!  

Emma