Spooky Siquijor Island

Hmm...so it's been a while since I had a chance to write in this.

On the 4th, the last time I wrote here, Lucas had to go from Loboc to Tagbiliran to work on an application b/c he needed a fax machine, so Sari and I walked/swam up the river from nuts huts to a waterfall that afternoon, where I was lucky to see what some people call a Jesus lizard; the kind of lizard that can run on water. That night sari and spent the evening reading in hammocks from the nuts huts balcony listening to the jungle until lucas got back when we feasted on some homemade yoghurt.

The next day we went to the Tarsier reserve in bohol. Tarsiers are these cute, tiny primates that have huge eyes and heads the resemble yoda's and fingers that resemble ET's. They had been known as the smallest primates on earth until a mouse lemur was discovered in madagascar a few years ago. Luckily the tarsiers are territorial and tend to sleep in the same tree during the day, so with a guide we were able to find 5 of the cute little guys and actually get quite close. I loved looking into their big, soft eyes.

After visiting the tarsiers we went to Tagbiliran to due some necessary travel searching/booking/planning. We went to the mall to do it and of course feasted on the cheap icecreams and shakes there. That night we caught a trike over the bridge to Alona Beach on Panglao Island where after a bit of a search we were able to score a great deal on lodging at the high priced diving resort.

The next day Lucas and I dove two dives with a local philippines company. The funny thing is alona beach caters specifically to europeans (mainly germans). There are tons of dive shops and all the diveboats we saw out were packed full of divers b/c they all book online from home or on package tours. Then there was lucas and I, just the two of us on our own private tour, paying half the price of everyone else with the local guys. The two dives were excellent! They were dives off of Baclaran Island. On the 1st one we saw a turtle, some lion fish, a huge school of giant barracuda, some very cool anenome dwelling crabs, a species of angel fish I'd never seen before, and a moray eel. The 2nd dive was the best wall dive I had ever done. Huge fan corals, little caves to explore, the wall dropping indefinitely down to the depths of the ocean. At the end of the dive we ran into a large group of japanese divers. We had quite a lot of fun watching our dive guide laugh at and imitate the japanese divers. Had a fun ride back to Panglao sitting on the bow and bouncing up and down in the large surf as the boat raced back towards Alona.

That afternoon we chartered a banca pumpboat to siquijor island after I had climbed a coconut tree to get us 3 coconuts for a snack. Siquijor is known for its magic, mystery, abundant fire flies (the spaniards called it isla de fuego b/c of the glow given off by the fireflies), medicine men, and mysticism. In fact all the no siquijoran filipinos we talked to told us to definitely not go th siquijor b/c it is a haunted bad place full of spirits...all the more reason to go! Siquijor was a great place though. Very quiet, hardly any touristm, nice beaches, jungle interior, and some of the nicest people in the philippines thus far. The banca we hired landed on some random beach. We had planned to walk to this one budget resort, but a man on the beach said he had a cousin who had a house for us to rent cheaply. Thus we were introduced to Tata and Edwin (edwin is a proud retired policeman, aged 48, who loves basketball, singing, and cockfighting). The were able to hook us up with a nice two-storey house for only 10 bucks for the 3 of us. That night we joined with Tata, Edwin and their various cousins and neighbors for some karaoke and drinking. You could buy a liter of coconut wine for 16cents. Siquijor had some of the cheapest prices. Besides that we got a liter of beer for 80cents, a kilo of bananas for 15 cents, and fish tempura for 6cents.

The next day we rented motorbikes in Larena to circumnavigate the island (72kms around, plus roads to the interior). We originally were going to bicycle around it, but figured it would take too long considering we still had other places we wanted to see in the PI. Our moto tour was quite cool though. We just packed light and headed off. The first day we got to a beautiful white sand beach where we hung out, listened to some music, and snorkeled. We then drove inland up the mountain into the forest to San Antonio where the infamous healers (medicine men) are. We met with one and had a little bit of his 200+ herb potion that is made during holy week. On siquijor they kind of mix Catholicism with animism. It was beginning to get dark so we rode down to where our map said there were some beaches near San Jose as we had planned on sleeping on the beach. The beaches weren't exactly public, but one of the hotels said we could sleep on their beach if need be. We decided to check out a bit more. We stopped for some tempura at this one house and they said they knew a person who would give us a good deal at a house. We went to check out the house and it was amazing. Really nice and overlooking the ocean. Lucas and Sari took a room for 8 dollars and I slept on a very comfortable hammock on the deck with the ocean breeze for a buck. Turns out the house is a vacation home of some australian room and the caretaker of the place was just making some money renting it out to us, which is why we could get it so cheap (nearby resorts were charging from between 30 dollars and 50 dollars for bungalows). That night the family who had helped us find the place cooked us the food we bought at a little store and then we had some beers down on the beach. In the morning we shared breakfast with the caretaker and a couple of his friends and enjoyed the ocean view

After breakfast we headed off again on the motos, though it would have been nice to stay as one of the caretaker's friends is a chef and was going to make fresh fish curry. We first stopped by at a century old tree that is apparently haunted. Then we visited an old church and the oldest convent in Asia. After that we drove inland to a really amazing 3 tiered waterfall. The water was a beautiful turquoise color and so incredibly warm that you could just swim in it forever. We had a good time jumping off the waterfall into the glorious water below and feasting on the 2 kilos of bananas I had bought at the market. Definitely one of the best swimming and jumping falls I have been to thus far. After that we drove to an area with some nice beaches nestled in rocky coves. We did some snorkelling and I had some fun jumping of a pretty high cliff jutting into the ocean. After that we got on the motos and headed to find a beach to sleep on. Again, the same thing. No really good place to sleep on the beach, but we ran into a caretaker at a fancy resort that was closed and we got some very nice ocean view bungalows for 3 dollars. He originally wanted 15 dollars, but we had all the bargaining power and we knew it, b/c we knew that since he was just the caretaker, he would make all the money from whatever we paid. We said we'd only stay for 3 dollars each otherwise we'd move on. If he said no, then he missed out on 9 dollars, so of course he eventually said yes. That night we took the motorcycles up to near the top of the island in the interior of siquijor looking for fireflies. Unfortunately we didn't see too many b/c it was a very bright, near full moon. However, it was pretty cool nonetheless b/c the moon made it spooky, we got some nice view from the top in the moonlight and we were able to glide all the way back down to the coast with no headlights and the motos off in stealth mode the whole way. That next morning we went out and explored the beach and tidal pools a bit and just watched the ocean from the veranda.

That afternoon we took a ferry from Siquijor town to Dumaguette on Negros Island. Dumaguette is a really cool college town that has a nice oceanfront blvd and path with huge trees and good views as well as a nice central square. Unfortunately I wasted the whole afternoon dealing with airline tickets and travel stuff. I have a liveaboard divetrip scheduled for the 14th leaving from Batangas near manila so I need to be up there by then. It's a kind of expensive trip so I don't want to risk missing it. I found out there's really no direct busses to manila and the ferry is only once weekely so travel time with busses and ferries would take at least 2 days if I made all the connections. I went around everywhere asking people and travel agents before I foudn out there were no direct busses or ferries. So I ended up having to book a flight, which isn't the end of the world b/c it only costs 40 bucks and lets me spend more time with Lucas and Sari on Negros. The more upsetting thing was I needed to change the date of my cebu pacific flight from manila to bangkok, b/c I had had to wait until I got to a big enough city with a cebu office. If you remember I had been forced to buy a roundtrip ticket when I was at the bangkok airport as per new rules on PI immigration so I had only guessed when I'd come back. They had told me it would cost 40 bucks to change the ticket at a later time, but when I went to do this I was going to have to pay 160 bucks b/c of fair increases and such!! So I ended up canceling my flight, which means I'll get refunded 35 dollars of the 80 dollars I paid, and I was going to go just completely book a new flight b/c it would be cheaper. Well I was on cebu's website and I booked my dumaguette to manila flight just fine, but it wouldn't accept my credit card for the next flight I was booking from MNL to BKK (I found it for $150). I stayed up very late trying to fix this with no luck, so I was very discouraged about money and booking when I went to bed that night b/c I figured the tickets would go up again even the next day as they tend to get more expensive each day. So today I went to the booking office in dumaguette since my credit card wouldn't go through, and it's amazing how ones karma can change so quickly...when I asked them to book it for me, expecting to pay at least 150, they said, oh, there is a promotion for today, you can book for only 40 dollars!!! That was a huge relief (and money saver!) So thank God for that.

Today we caught a jeepney up to Valencia and then rode a motorbike and then walked to a waterfall. It was quite impressive. Hidden away in dense jungle and over 100 feet high with powerful surging water coming down. The water was very cold, but we still swam and even found some cliffs in the pool to jump off of. We relaxed at the falls for a bit and I munched on mangos (I had bought 4 for 80 cents at the market this morning). We made it back to dumaguette fairly early so we went around to get some shakes and icecream and then to a supermarket to get some cheap food. I bought a liter of milk and downed the whole thing right then as I hadn't had milk in such a long time and was craving it. I searched around in about 5 shoe shops and several department stores in the mall and even a nike and adidas store in the mall but couldn't find any sandals that fit me. Nor could I find any at the local market...so I'm unfortunately still sandaless!

Tonight we all got hour massages for 4 bucks including aromatic oils and hot showers. It was by far the best massage I have had yet in Asia, and when we got out, we were all so relaxed we could hardly move.