Dan's trip to the Philippines

[DHC6twinotter]

Hey all,

Some of you have expressed interest in reading about a recent trip to the Philippines I made, so I thought I'd post up a trip report about it.

A few weeks ago, I arrived back from a 3 week trip to the Philippines. My sister, her husband, and their 3 kids (7, 5, and 2) were moving to Cebu City, Philippines. I went along to help with the kids, and to help them get settled into their new house. We (my parents came along as well) also had a chance to see all our Filipino friends that I haven't seen since my last trip there in '97. Also got to meet some new people, which was really great.

The eight of us arrived in Cebu City on October 24th after flying 16 hours in a 777-300ER from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, and then another 2.5 hours on a 777-200 from Hong Kong to Cebu City. The kids were really great on the flights, but non of us had more than an hour of sleep and we were pretty tired.

Some friends met us at the airport, and we loaded our bags in the church's L300 van. The rest of us piled in a rented van. After pulling out from the loading area in our van, we noticed the L300 carrying all our stuff had broke down in the middle of the road. I mentioned it, but I think we were all too tired to care, and we continued on our way. Just before we pulled into our hotel, the L300 with all our stuff pulled in front of us. Turns out the shifter cable had snapped and the L300 was stuck in 2nd gear for the entire 45 minute drive from the airport. They still managed to beat us there...I love Filipino driving!

We stayed at a hotel in Cebu City for most of the time we were in the Philippines. My parents stay at this particular hotel whenever they visit the Philippines (twice a year for 3 weeks each time). The place is pretty cheap, the beds are clean, rooms are relatively bug free, and the staff is great! If you can put up with the mediocre cleanliness or the cracks in the cement walls (I tried not to think what my survival chances in an earthquake would be), this is a really great place to stay!

View from my hotel room:

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_7824.jpg

The first few days we spent just getting over jet-lag. We took turns watching the kids, and I bought the kids some LEGO sets to keep them occupied. There was a McDonalds and Jolibee up the road that delivered, so we took advantage of that a few times. The McDonalds in the Philippines has a spaghetti and chicken combo that we all liked:

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And the delivery guy. The box thing he is wearing on his back holds the food:

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After a few days, my brother-in-law and I found a Filipino fast food place right up the street, so we ate there a few times. In the Philippines, McDonalds isn't cheap food. A Big Mac runs about $4.50 for a combo. That sounds cheap to us, but many Filipinos can't afford paying that much on a regular bases. The little eatery my brother-in-law and I found had great food, and we could for less than $2.

The Hotel we were at had a restaurant off of the lobby, and I ate breakfast there almost every day. I always ordered the Filipino Breakfast, which had rice, eggs, beef tapa, and "orange juice". It was fantastic! It wasn't uncommon for us to eat rice 3 times a day.

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After a few days, we started to venture out a bit. My sister and her husband didn't have any place to rent figured out, and they were busy trying to find a place to live and trying to get their visas sorted out (a huge fiasco there).

Below is a picture of Fuentes (sp?) Circle. The traffic around the large round-a-bout is always nuts, and we always called it Suicide Circle. Back when we lived here, we got used to the traffic and would always take our American guests out to experience Suicide Circle. The looks of terror on their faces were priceless!

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_7941.jpg

The picture above doesn't do it justice. There are times that vehicles traveled inches from each other. Several years ago, a missionary had her arm broken while she was resting it on the window sill of a jeepney. Her elbow was sticking out a bit too far and got hit by a passing car. Despite the close, and sometimes lawless driving, there were very few accidents. The people here are amazing drivers and know exactly where their bumpers are.

Also, in the picture above, note how many of the vehicles are Toyotas. Probably 95% of the taxis are either a Corolla or Vios. There were also a lot of Toyota Fortuner SUV's. I know we had a discussion about this recently, so I'll spare all the details, but I really wish Toyota offered these in the states:

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The Fortuner seemed to be the vehicle of choice for people with money. Think of the Fortuner as being equivalent to an Escalade here in the States. The Hilux was also pretty popular as well, and I spotted this Ironman Hilux parked in front of our hotel one day:

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There are a few Land Cruisers as well, but not many. I spotted a 2 door 70 series, a few 80 series, a few 60 series, Prados, a couple 100 series a few 200 series, and a few 40 series. This armored J-40 stopped by our hotel several times to deliver money:

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We spent some time driving around to check out various homes for rent for my sister and her family to live in. One of the houses was in a new housing development built atop some land that had been part of a massive land reclamation project. Cebu City is surrounded on three sides by mountains, and by the ocean on the remaining side. Because of this, real estate is at a prime in Cebu City. Several years ago, some mountains were literately bulldozed into the ocean to create more land for housing. Anyways, this new housing development was built on the reclaimed land, and the houses were pretty nice, but really small. They had this neat community area that had a pool right on the beach. I got this picture showing workers using sheers to trim the hedges. Lawn mowers are rare, and sheers are also used to cut the grass:

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While in Cebu City, we also checked out the house that we lived in before moving back to the states. It's a pretty basic house...no AC (at the time) and no hot water, at least in the bathroom that my brother and I use. Most of the main living area is up on the 2nd floor. In 1990, a massive typhoon came through Cebu. The floor on the 2nd floor was covered by leaves and water that was blown between the cracks in the lattice windows. That storm caused massive amounts of damage, and we were without power for 3 weeks. Over 100 ships were sunk in the harbor as well. Anyways, a picture of the house:

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_7830.jpg

Turns out the house my sister and brother-in-law found to rent is only about 5 minutes away.

While in Cebu City, we also attended several meetings at one of the churches that my dad started. It is the same church that my sister and brother-in-law will be working out of while they are there.

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After spending a week and a half or so in Cebu City, my dad, my brother-in-law, and myself made a trip up to the north end of Cebu Island to visit another church...

[DHC6twinotter]

So, after spending a week and a half or so in Cebu City, my dad, my brother-in-law, and myself made a trip up to the north end of Cebu Island to visit another church.

We hired a friend of ours to take us on the 3 hour drive up to the north end of Cebu Island. The scenery was fantastic!

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Along the way, we drove past this construction zone. They often have these "sorry for the inconvenience" signs posted at construction zones. For some reason, that always cracked me up.

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There is a fair bit of corruption in the Philippines, and these road repairs are often results of a local politician purposely destroying the roads. Whenever money is given for a local construction project, and certain percentage of that money goes to the local politicians. The politicians figured that if they destroy the roads, they would get money from the funds allocated to fix it. :laugh:

Sorry about the poor pictures shot through the windshield, but I figured I'd post a few more pictures of our journey up Cebu Island:

Seaweed stacked atop a truck:
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A lightly loaded Jeepney:
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A loaded down motorcycle and side-car. There were probably at least 15 people in this:
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After a 3 hour drive or so, we arrived at our destination. There was a small church that had just started in this small fishing village, and we took the trip up to check it out.
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Small kitchen behind the church:
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Road in front of the church:
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Seaweed drying on the road. I don't know exactly what it's used for, but I've been told it's used for sushi, to make plastic bags, and for pig feed. :headscratch:
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_7880.jpg

The pastor's son is pretty good at climbing coconut trees. He climbed up to cut some coconuts down for us.
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Notice the broken street lamp in the above picture. One of the coconuts fell from the tree and knocked the glass off the lamp post. I felt bad for taking part in such destructive activities, but then the next coconut fell and shattered the bulb that was still sticking out of the top of the lamp. Bummer. At least the glass from the lamp was still in one piece laying on the ground. I was going to put it back up on the lamp when the coconuts ceased to fall, but yet another coconut fell and crushed the glass to pieces. dang! I felt really bad, but nobody seemed to care and they were all laughing about it. But as it turns out, the lamp didn't work because somebody had stolen all the electrical wire out of the ground. I was so relieved!

Next door to the church was a small resort that the three of us stayed at. The place was run by an Austrian guy and his Filipino wife. Nobody was there but us, and the owner was super cool. He would chill out with us for several hours in the evening and next morning. Neat place with great views:

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_7868.jpg

I also managed to grab some sunset pictures from right next to the church, which sat about 50 feet from the ocean.

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Some of the marketing used in the Philippines is downright hilarious. We snapped a picture of this hair gel we found in the bathroom at the resort:

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/DSCN0371.jpg

We were in this town for a couple days before heading back down to Cebu City. We hired a guy to drive us down, but come to find out the AC in his Hilux wasn't working. My dad has a heat stroke years ago in the Philippines, and he is pretty sensitive to the heat. So, we had to scramble around and figure out an alternate way to get back to Cebu City. My dad ended up riding with some friends that had an air conditioned car, and my brother-in-law, myself, and a Filipino friend decided to take a bus down.

Because we were at a tail end of a holiday, most of the buses were moving north and taking people away from Cebu City. We needed to go south, to Cebu City. We were a bit concerned about being able to catch a bus, but after waiting for an hour or so, a bus showed up. It was super packed though, and people were riding on the roof and hanging out the doors. We decided to wait a bit for the next bus. After another 15 minute wait, another bus rolled up. It looked like there was some room, so we hopped on. There wasn't enough seats for all of us, so me and our Filipino friend ended up standing for the trip.

After driving for 20 minutes or so, we passed the first bus that decided not to get on. It was loaded down even more, and was pretty slow at going up this section of steep mountain roads. We were so glad we waited to catch the bus we were on.

On the way down to Cebu City, we started to pick up more and more people. The bus was getting really cramped. People were riding on the roof, hanging out the doors, and clogging up the isle. The bus only had 45 seats, but I bet there was close to 70 people on it. Each bus has a driver and a conductor. The conductor amazed me. He was in charge of taking payment from all the passengers. The bus was constantly stopping to let people on and off, and somehow the conductor always knew who paid and who didn't. If he owed people change but didn't have it at the time, he always knew how much he owed and who to give it to. The conductor would also climb up to the roof, sometimes while the bus was moving, to collect money from the roof-top riders. If the isle was really clogged, he would climb along the outside of the bus and reach through the windows to collect fares from the riders. Amazing!

Anyways, after driving about 2 hours, I heard this whine coming from under the bus. After a few minutes, the whine turned into a constant thump, thump noise. I think we just blew up the diff. It seemed the constant heavy loads have finally paid their toll.

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_3844.jpg

The driver and conductor were under the bus trying to fix the problem. They had a banana leaf under the diff to catch some fluid, then they used another banana leaf to refill the diff.
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While we were sitting on the side of the road, the other heavily laden bus passed us. We should have taken that one after all!

I felt really bad for the driver though. The fair cost us 100 pesos ($2.5), and the driver was offering a 10 peso refund. This didn't settle well, and people were starting to get pretty mad. Things were starting to get crazy, so we caught a jeepney the rest of the way to Cebu City. We didn't worry about our 10 peso refund.

We hung out in Cebu City for another few days before heading out to catch a ferry to another island...

[DHC6twinotter]

After our trip up to the north end of Cebu Island, we hung out in Cebu City for a few days before our trip to another fishing village on Negros Island. During these few days, my sister and her husband found a place to stay. It's a perfect place for the family, especially with the 3 young, active kids.

My dad and I, along with a Filipino pastor friend of ours, hired a friend to drive us across to the Toledo City, which lies on the west side of Cebu Island. From there, we caught a ferry to San Carlos.

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The ferries used on this route are ok and sorta modernized, but they didn't used to be. When my parents moved here in the late 70s, the ferries used on this route were made of wood. My dad was telling me about having to wade through water just to use the bathroom. Wooden ferries are still used in some places in the Philippines, but the equipment has improved dramatically on this route. That being said though, these newer ferries still sink on occasion (mostly from being overloaded), and last I checked, the US state department has warnings out against using the ferries in the Philippines. We've never had an issue, but there was a ferry that sunk on this particular route a few years back.

There is also a "fast craft" ferry on this route, but it breaks down frequently and is prone to leaving people stranded in the middle of the water. This happened to some friends of ours a few months back.

The "fast craft":
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Looking back towards Toledo City.
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Economy class give you beds to sleep in, but my dad usually ops for first class ($10 one-way) which gave us seats in the air conditioned cabin.

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_7951.jpg

After about a 2.5 hour ride (IIRC), we docked in San Carlos, on Negros Island.
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Fisherman like using these banca boats, which come in various sizes.
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From San Carlos, we took one of those motorcycles/sidecars to the bus terminal, where we caught a bus to the fishing village we were staying at.

We hung out at one of the churches my dad started there for a few days.
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_8033.jpg

Behind the church is a small building that my parents had built. It's a dual-purpose building which has some rooms that can be used for classrooms, or as guest rooms whenever we are in the area. Lots of ants, but it's comfortable.

Also behind this church is an outdoor kitchen and eating area. The people here are great, and we had some good times cooking and eating. My dad got kinda upset at me when I accidentally ate his chicken though. :laugh:
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Philippines%202012/IMG_8002.jpg

Not far from the church are some sari-sari stores. These are little road-side stores that sell a bunch of random stuff. You can go in a buy 1 stick of gum, or in my case, I bought a small pack of shampoo.
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There was also a small hardware store on the corner:
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One of the days i was there, I decided to walk up to the main road and take some pictures of the various overloaded trucks that went buy. There is a lot of agriculture in the area (mostly sugarcane), and old trucks (some of them ex-military) they use are pretty awesome:
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The truck drivers thought it was awesome that I was taking pictures of their trucks, and they waved frantically as they drove by. :D

I also managed to get a picture of another jeepney:
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The jeepneys are pretty cool. The original ones were just converted Army surplus jeeps, hence the name. Now, the jeepneys are built from the ground up, but many of them still have the jeep influence. Back when we lived here, this was about the only kind of jeepney I remember seeing, but now, many of the jeepneys are based on the Isuzu cab and chassis or extremely small Daihatsu jeepneys (which I made the mistake of getting on once--I barely fit).

After spending a few days in this fishing village, we headed back to Cebu City.

We were in Cebu City for one day before heading back to the airport for our flight back to the States.

On the way back to the airport, we drove over the newer bridges that goes from Cebu Island to Mactan Island, where the airport is. The bridge in the background is Mactan Bridge, which, when we lived here, was the only bridge from the airport to Cebu City. During the Typhoon in '90, a ship broke loose from its mooring and hit the bridge. The bridge was severely damaged and took months to fix.
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From Cebu we took an Airbus A340-300 to Hong Kong, then had an hour layover before catching a 777-300ER back to Los Angeles. We stayed overnight at a hotel near the airport before continuing our 767-300 and CRJ-200 flights back home to NC.

What a great trip! I love the Philippines and would seriously consider moving there if I found a job there. The people and the food are fantastic. The people are so gracious and genuine. And, even though we got robbed 50 times, including the spare tire stolen from under our van while we where in it, the people as a whole are really generous. It's a really fantastic place to live and visit.

[Crinale]

Cool trip! That is a very interesting country for sure..

[Robinhood4x4]

That's pretty cool Dan! The wife and I are trying to plan more trips like these to off the beaten path areas of the world. Nice pictures too. Is it cheap there for tourists? How about language?

[DHC6twinotter]

Cool trip! That is a very interesting country for sure..


Thanks!



That's pretty cool Dan! The wife and I are trying to plan more trips like these to off the beaten path areas of the world. Nice pictures too. Is it cheap there for tourists? How about language?


The price really depends on how rustic you want to go, at least in Cebu City. They have some really nice sea-side resorts that may cost a couple hundred dollars a night, or you can stay at a $25-$30/night hotel like us, or find something in between. Public transportation is really cheap. Unless you are riding out of town, jeepney rides run 8 pesos (23 cents or so). Bus and ferry rides are cheap too, with our 3 hour bus fair being 100 pesos ($2.50) and our ferry ride being $10 in the first class cabin. Taxis are cheap too, and start at 40 pesos ($1)and go up from there. If you are traveling a long distance or doing a lot of tourist stuff, you can negotiate with a taxi driver and just pay a flat fee for the day or pay per hour. You can barter with them, and they are usually happy with 500 pesos/hour (~$12). Food prices vary, and I could pay less than 100 pesos at a roadside eatery or 150-200 pesos at our hotel restaurant.

If you're looking for a more rustic, seaside resort, the place we stayed at north of Cebu City was pretty neat. It's in a fishing village, and the resort is surrounded by local homes. The resort is small, and not more than couple hundred feet wide. There are 8 rooms available, and none of them are very big. There is a dining area perched on some rocks that has a great view of the ocean. You will probably also see the local fishermen fishing or little kids playing/taking baths in the ocean. There isn't really a beach area to lay out on, but they do have some banca boats that you can take out. Rooms run 2000 pesos ($50) a night. No internet currently available, although that may change next year.

Anyways, that gives you sort of an idea price wise. My total expenses for the trip was just over $600 for the 3 weeks I was there. That covered food, transportation, hotels, and some spending money.

Airfare wise, we always fly Cathay Pacific Airlines from LA to Cebu City. They have pretty good connection times, and the arrival/departure times in the Philippines are really good as well. My ticket cost about $1300, but airfare can be cheaper other times of the year. Other airlines that fly to Cebu are Korean, Asiana, Philippine Airlines, Silk Air (part of Singapore Airlines), Cebu Pacific, and some other regional airlines.

Language wise, you can get by pretty good with English. Most of the people in Cebu City speak English pretty good, but you may run into a taxi driver or something that doesn't that well. You can still get by with English in the rural areas, but it's a bit more difficult. I'd say 90% of the signs are in English.

I hear the island of Palawan on the western side of the country is really beautiful, and some day I'd like to visit. The island of Luzon (where Manila is) has some pretty neat touristy towns, like Baguio. If you do visit the Philippines, I would avoid the island of Mindanao, which is the large southern island. Parts of it aren't very safe.

Anyways, sorry for being long-winded. It's definitely a great country to visit.