Philippines Part 2 (Sagada, Bontoc, Banaue and Batad)

Our bus stopped 4km from Sagada.  What was the problem?  A landslide.  A fucking enormous landslide.  A giant boulder the size of a house (literally) had wiped out an entire house and another rock half the size was not blocking off the road.  Shit.  It was raining as well.  What to do?  Wait out the rain and then walk past the boulder and 4km to Sagada.  They had jeepneys, but I didn't want to pay any more.  The walk to town was really nice as well.  We checked into George's guesthouse for 3 nights.  What a great place.  600 pesos for a private bathroom, hot water and cable tv.  Bargain.  One of the best places we had stayed in and we even got the pink room, which made Cannelle super happy.  I left Cannelle in the bedroom, while I went out to book the restaurant for friday and check out all the other places to eat.  Stacked full of options.  Sagada seemed like a super nice town and there weren't too many tourists.  I don't think there are loads of tourists in this country and they all seem to be in Palawan.  I came back and we watched the end of Rampart before heading to Masferres restaurant for a nice meal.  We just chilled out for the evening.

We grabbed breakfast in the hotel (a nice pancake) and headed off towards Sumaging cave.  We decided to take a route through the back of the village, rapidly got lost and decided to abandon the idea.  Oh well.  We decided not to employ guides again as it seemed super easy to get around.  We saw some hanging coffins off to the left and the little limestone outcrops throughout the village were really pretty and atmospheric.  The coffin cave is really easy to find if you have LP's map and there is even a signpost for the left turn.  As for the path down, its the one next to the woman selling stuff.  Dead give away that.  Its a cool place and I enjoyed walking down to the entrance and seeing the coffins stacked there.  Impressive.  We then walked down to Sumaging cave just to have a look at the entrance as the guides seemed miffed that we would go in, though they seemed ok with us just having a look at the entrance.  Its guide central up in the Cordilleras and totally pointless.  I think the problem lies in the way Filipinos travel.  They get together giant groups to reduce the guide costs, making it preferable than an entrance fee.  Foreigners however would prefer an entrance fee as we are in small groups and the guides are too expensive and completely pointless.  The rice terraces on the way down to the cave are also really pretty.  We grabbed some of the fabled lemon pie and mountain tea on the way back and it was really nice.  Then we walked to Mt Kiltepan viewpoint, which is also incredibly easy to find and saw a Filipino film company filming on the hill.  The view is stunning up here and we decided to rest around for a while just taking it in.  We grabbed lunch at Yoghurt House (exceptional triple decker sandwiches) and there was an old French couple complaining.  Cannelle wanted to pretend she wasn't French so she wouldn't have to talk to them.  After lunch we headed to Echo Valley where you can see more hanging coffins and follow a really pretty trail up to the viewpoint through the cemetery.  It started to rain heavily so we headed back and watched Bright Lights, Big City and Game Change (which for me was a very interesting insight into the 2008 campaign decision to choose Palin).  We went back to Yoghurt House for dinner and had pasta (Cannelle loved it, I thought it was average) before watching a Tom Hanks film (Larry Crowne).  Spurs lost 4-1 to Inter Milan after our 3-2 defeat to Liverpool in the league.  We were on a slide but somehow scraped through to the quarter finals on the away goals for the second time and got Basel in the quarters.  We should win that one.

Cannelle's birthday was the following day.  We started off by going to Banas for breakfast (they do a good omelette and they have the cutest puppy you will ever see.  They also have some kittens and a crazy baby who grabbed the mummy cat by the tail and pulled it round, much to the surprise of the cat.  We went online and Cannelle got her present of the Ubud Hanging Gardens hotel in Bali and was super happy.  We then decided to walk to Aguid, past the big waterfall.  We met a Dutch girl on the way and joined her for the walk.  The waterfall was shut because it was a holiday, but we still had to sign in anyway.  They seemed worried that we would attempt to go and debious that we were just heading to Aguid.  You will have to pay 500 pesos if you want to see this waterfall.  I always respect it if they say a guide is mandatory.  We got to Aguid, which is a super cute village in a beautiful setting and only 6km from Sagada.  There we got some noodle soups and watched some kids perform a musical dance number, while a puppy tried to eat the rest of the soup.  We went back and Cannelle rested while I went to buy her a cake for the candles.  They only had a shitty local cake, but everyone was helpful and I ended up burning my fingers with the tiny lighter while lighting one of the candles and the candle broke.  Oh well.  Cannelle enjoyed it.  We went to the Log Cabin for dinner and had a great buffet meal.  People complain about the service but they were nice to us if a little rushed.  The whole thing ended in less than an hour.  The food was great, but there were no famous pastires or home cooked bread that night as it was a special request buffet from a group from France.  Of course they moaned a lot.  Cannelle said they said 'est folklore' about the buffet which French people would find funny.  It translates into English, but not with the same meaning I think.  The waiter was nice to us as it was Cannelle's birthday and we stole some extra muffins.  In the morning we would grab the first jeepney to Bontoc and leave Sagada, which is a great mountain town with some amazing restaurants for such a small place.

We grabbed the jeepney to Bontoc and got collared by a guy wanting to take us to Banaue in his van.  We told him we wanted to see the museum and he insulted me, which is amusing as I don't think he realised that a lot of Tagalog insults are the same in Spanish.  Fucking idiot.  Anyway we grabbed an omelette from the recommended place in town and seriously if you are in Bontoc you must go there.  Amazing omelette with the best fresh baked bread as well.  Afterwards we headed over to the museum and there was one other Japanese tourist.  Of course there was.  Its UNESCO after all.  The museum itself is nice and worth stopping by if you are passing, but probably not worth specifically seeking out.  We were then accosted for a van ride to Banaue.  They told me they wanted 150 pesos and told me that all transport was the same price.  I walked down and saw that the bus was 120 pesos, but as it had already left we had no choice.  There is a fair bit of cartel action around these parts and its quite annoying.  You can navigate your way through it with some persistence, but here we were stuffed.  We got stuck halfway because of yet another landslide but they cleared this one up quite quickly with one of their diggers.  When we arrived in Banaue we were 'helped' by some local guy to find a hotel.  Never mind that we didn't need his help and knew what we were doing already.  Everyone also pounced upon us for a tour to Batad.  Jesus.  Let a man breathe.  They wanted a nice cheap 500 pesos each to go to Batad.  Of course they did.  We went to the wonderfully 'helpful' tourist information centre.  There we were surrounded by about 50 guides who were all disappointed that we were only interested in information regarding buses.  There were no public buses to Mayoyao until 1pm.  Shitty.  That's off the table.  There are no public buses to Batad until 3pm.  Convenient.  I sensed a trend here.  If you would possibly want to go anywhere for a day trip, then they have you covered.  And by covered I mean they don't go there until the afternoon.  I am not sure which end is benefiting or running this cartel.  Is it the Banaue end so people have to take a tour or is it the Batad end so people have to stay one night.  Or is it between them to divvy up the market.  Not sure.  Its damn inconvenient though.  Oh yeah there is only one public jeepney back at 9am from the saddle, but if you walk down to the road you should have no problem getting a public bus back in the afternoon.  Good luck getting there though.  We then got bombarded by tricycle drivers wanting to drive us up to the viewpoint.  Waste of their time.  Its 4.5km to the very top viewpoint (which does have the best view), but there are many great places to view the rice terraces on the way and its well worth the walk.  The only downside are all the old people dressed in traditional dress hanging around the viewpoints to get money for photos.  Its a sad sight.  I am not sure if their families make them dress up like that and send them out in whatever crappy weather to earn 20 pesos a photo or whether they do it themselves.  Oh the dignity.  I am not sure who would want to take a photo of people like that, but then again the Dutch girl had.  Its a bit embarrassing as you never see anyone wearing traditional dress anywhere in the highlands except at the viewpoints.  I still don't understand this obsession with 'cultural' tourism.  Especially when its not even practised anymore.  Going in search of ethnic cultures to photograph seems like neocolonialism.  After seeing all the rice terraces and considering the stick that Banaue gets I would say they are the prettiest terraces, especially the ones that are on the walk to Batad and probably get ignored because everyone jumps on a form of transport.  On the way back it started raining, but luckily there was a good internet cafe on the road up to the viewpoint that's only 20 pesos and hour compared with the 50 in town.  We had a shit dinner at the People's guesthouse.  Ok to stay in, but shitty food apart from the sandwiches.  They also charge you to charge any electrical items (they have no sockets in the bedrooms) and its 50 pesos per person if you want a hot water shower.  Ah.  They fuck you every way in this town.

We had made up our mind to walk to Batad from Banaue.  We could not find any information on walking it online, so we decided we would pioneer it.  Hopefully if this comes up on your search it will be useful.  We left at 6am and started off for Batad.  By 7.50am we had reached the Batad Junction.  They claim it to be 12km, the road marker said it was 10km, but I suspect it was more like 9km as we took time to take photos and weren't walking at full speed.  Its fairly flattish with a few ups and downs.  The scenery along the road is stunning and the first 4km or so are especially beautiful, with the oft overlooked rice terraces near Banaue.  We asked one guy if we were heading in the right direction for Batad and he said that he didn't know.  I took that as a yes and then we saw a kilometre marker for Mayoyao and I knew we were heading in the right direction.  We got to see a lot of local village life on the way.  Much more genuine than when you take a tour to see genuine village life.  I wouldn't want to walk this walk with my full rucksack by the way so its best as a day trip or leave your rucksack behind.  As a general disclaimer we are quite fit walkers but not supreme athletes.  An average walker who is in ok shape should add up to 50% to these times.  If you find yourself routinely quicker than the times LP says then this walk is comfortably easy enough for you.  To give an idea, we usually average 50-60% of the time LP says it will take to do anything.  We walked up the mighty saddle in 30 minutes.  LP's writer must be unfit and we even stopped to help a Japanese tourist find Bangaan.  Its not a tough climb.  Maybe 200m to 300m or so in climb.  There was another landslide that was preventing the morning jeepneys climbing up.  From the saddle it took us 30 minutes more to walk down to the hotels overlooking Batad.  One sign at Batad junction says its 5km to the village and the other one says its 9km.  That's total bollocks.  Its about 1.5km or so to the saddle and 2km down to the hotels.  4km maximum.  That makes the total distance from Banaue to Batad around 13-14km and we did it all in less than 3 hours.  We stopped to get a pizza and asked a little girl at the viewpoint where the waterfall is.  She told us it was opposite the white scar you can see on the mountains behind the village, so aim for there if you go without a guide.  Helpful little girl lol.  Batad is very pretty, though not as amazing as LP says.  Maybe its because I associate an ampitheatre to be surrounding on at least 180 degrees of your view or just that I prefer the undulating hills of Banaue.  Bit more disorganised.  We paid our 50 pesos each entrance fee and were then offered about 20 people to find the waterfall.  As we already knew where it was we politely declined.  Just find the school and when you get there you will see a little path on the right.  Go down, down, down, down and you will eventually get to the same level as the village.  You can see the path just about even across the rice terraces as the ones with mud or stones can be walked along so just keep to them.  Its easy enough once you get the hang of it.  Head for the village and then aim across the rice terraces to the stairs you can see ahead of you.  Climb them and when the path heads right by the buildings, that goes up to a shack and then down to the waterfall.  Its a steep hill down and up to the waterfall and it knackered me because I left my water behind and we were already a little tired.  Its a very nice waterfall, but not spectacular.  Cannelle stayed at the top as she didn't fancy another climb.  It takes a good hour and a half to get to the waterfall and back as you may be a little tired at this point.  We chatted to a lot of guides and they thought we were really fast in getting there and couldn't believe we walked.  Almost everyone took a guide to the waterfall, but as its about 800 pesos we didn't want to pay it.  We met a French guy who had been hiking over the mountains on his own and he did the Balsig to Batad hike and said that it was easy to find with no guide as well.  Most of the paths here are.  On the way back we were pretty knackered.  We figured we would exit via the Bangaan walk that LP mentions and normally the guides are about 1200 pesos for that, but fuck these cartel bastards.  We would do it ourselves.  We followed the instructions for heading down the path behind the guesthouse.  Once you cross the fence, take the right path though as we went straight down and ended up way to the left of the bridge.  If you make the same mistake don't worry just get down to the rice terraces and head right.  You can see the small river down below you.  The bridge is almost at the end of the terraces on the right.  Keep going and you will see it eventually.  Ask someone if anyone is around.  Once you cross the metal bridge, take the small stone bridge just to your left.  Then walk across the terraces in front of you and you will see a path.  Follow this through the trees for about 10 minutes and you will come to a hut.  Turn 90 degrees right here and walk down.  You will see some forks in the path.  Always take the one on the right and eventually you will go uphill and cross a style.  Yes it is the right way.  We doubted it and went back again, but eventually came this way.  Then its just straight and always take the main route.  Easy to follow.  Took us about 1.5 hours to get to the road, passing one village and stunning scenery all the way.  The valley is beautiful and Cannelle loved it.  You can see the valley and the river down below and its a great walk.  Much, much prettier than coming in over the saddle.  In fact the saddle walk is bollocks, unneeded and unnecessary.  You must, must, must go in or out on this other route as its so much more.  It was about 2pm when we hit the road.  From there it says its 15km back to Banaue.  Its not.  Its 3km to the Batad Junction and 9/10km from there.  Turn right and walk back.  After 2km you will hit the Bangaan terraces.  Pretty but not spectacular enough to warrant a separate trip on their own.  The cafe is nice here though.  They all wanted 60 pesos for a one litre bottle of water in Batad by the way.  Food is ok, but drink is extortionate.  Bring all the water you will need.  We decided to exit and walk without much water due to this ridiculous pricing.  Its cheaper to eat something and get service water if you get stuck.  From Bangaan its 1km back to the Junction and then its a straight walk back.  With a few breaks for food and scenery we walked from Banaue to Batad to the waterfall to Bangaan and back to Banaue (a total of 40km or so) and we were back just after 5pm.  A good solid and very scenic day out with not much repetition.  I would recommend it if you don't want to be shafted by the cartels.  We saved ourselves 3000 pesos with that walk.  Not bad.  Its super scenic as well.  If you take transport to Batad you will miss the valley walk and all the beautiful scenery along the road to the junction.  Serves them right for not having public transport.  If you are feeling tired when you get to Batad, skip the waterfall, but still take the valley out as you can probably grab a public bus back to Banaue as we saw a few come past.  We saw 3 snakes on the valley walk so I assume not too many people take it.  Well worth it though.  We got some sandwiches and a banana pancake for dinner and then turned in as we were quite tired now.

The next day we set off for Baguio to get round to Vigan in a day.  I will put the details in the next post, but needless to say don't trust the lying fucks in Banaue.  The hotel told us it was 350 pesos for the 7am bus.  A jeepney driver told us it was 330 (I suspect that's the real price).  The stupid, lying bitch at the office wanted 450 pesos because it was a small bus.  What bollocks.  Do what we did.  Take the 6am jeepney to Solano for 100 pesos (all jeepneys have the regular fare printed inside on a laminated sheet) and then pick up the same bus when it comes through an hour later for only 230 pesos, thereby saving yourself 120 pesos for no work and proving that the bitch was lying.  Fuck Banaue.  Great place, shitty people.  Same for Batad.  At least the Solano jeepney driver is the only honest man in town, so give him your business and save yourself some money.

Philippines Part 1 (Manila, Baguio and Kabayan)

We arrived in Manila (another plane thankfully finished with) and walked out of the airport.  I didn't want to take a taxi and figured that we should be able to take some public transport out of here, so we walked out of terminal three and headed left.  From there its only around a 500m walk and you reach a roundabout where there are jeepneys towards the LRT and MRT stations.  We got on one of these for 8 pesos and sped off across Manila and got totally lost.  We had to ask a lot of locals where we were and how to get to the MRT stations.  They were really friendly and everyone helped us out.  We noticed straight away that the people were significantly more helpful than they had been in Malaysia.  Eventually some students told us that the LRT and MRT finished at 10pm and that we were too late anyway.  Shit.  We got down and hailed a taxi.  He agreed to the meter and we went hurtling in what I assumed was the wrong direction.  He was just going straight, straight and straight.  Shit.  We were going to be taken to the cleaners.  I was frantically trying to find some reference point on the map to see if we were going in the right direction.  Eventually I found one, just before he pulled up and told us we had reached the SM megamall.  Hmm.  He had driven directly and quickly to the destination.  A rarity.  He could have taken us to the cleaners and decided not to.  I have to add Philippines to the list of honest taxi drivers, which includes only Russia so far.  We got down and the Mall was closed.  Shit.  So we walked to Johanna's house and managed to get a sim card from a 24 hour shop.  We texted her and entered her super nice apartment building.  We chatted for a while before heading off to bed.  They are a nice couple, but we didn't have the greatest chemistry, which is always a shame when you couchsurf.

The next morning Johanna made us a traditional Filipino breakfast, which was nice and we also had some buffalo cheese.  Very creamy.  We then set off for the GCIS art gallery.  Manila has probably the worst air quality of any city I have been to.  Just awful.  Yet it has an energy and people are moving around.  Everyone is buzzing and friendly.  Everything about the Philippines reminded me more of Latin America than it did of Asia.  The art gallery is really cool.  They had all the recent winners of their art competition and it was an impressive collection.  The guy working there even took time to show us around a bit.  From there we walked to Intramuros.  The old town is nice.  Its mostly been touched up, but the walls are cool and it was nice to wander round some Spanish colonial buildings again.  We had a lot of hassle from horse carriage owners who wanted us to take a ride with them, when we weren't really that interested.  While visiting the fort I was interviews by some Filipino students as to what I knew about Rizal and why I was visiting the fort if I did not know him.  I told them I knew a bit and that I was a fan or architecture.  It was weird to be grilled on my historical knowledge.  After the old town we wandered over to Chinatown where some random drunk guy hit on Cannelle.  She was a little surprised by how much poverty there was in Manila.  We even saw a young kid sleeping and walking on top of one of the bridge girders.  Everyone was still being super nice to us.  I had the feeling that we were going to really enjoy the Philippines, despite the shithole air quality. At least it didn't look like a cloud of piss, like LA.  In the evening we met Ian and Johanna and they took us out to a local restaurant where we tried food from Palawan.  Most of it was good and the seafood soup was delicious.  I was having trouble working out why people mock their food so much.  For me it was good so far.  They even made us try the specialty duck egg embryo, which was an acquired taste.  We had the tame version, where the embryo is only a few days old.  Then we went onto a gig venue, where they had rock bands playing that night.  Was a cool little place, if a little expensive.  There was a funky rock band, followed by some thrash country mix, which was interesting and lastly there was a thrash metal (the annoying screamy, can't hear the singer type) band fronted by a very good looking lead singer.  She had a nice voice, but it got lost in all the screaming.  Very odd.  Still it was a fun experience and then we met one of Johanna's friends who was working as a documentary maker about shoes that were given to poor kids for free so that they can get to school.  Was an interesting night and we were still loving the atmosphere in the city.

The next morning we went and bought some snorkelling gear.  We will finally get to use it in the next couple of days.  With snorkel rental being expensive and buying a set being 10 euros it was a no brainer really.  So many good places to snorkel, even if we dive some of them as well.  Then we went to lunch with Mike and his couchsurfers (an Israeli and a French guy).  He was a local guy who invited us to lunch and paid for everything.  Seriously.  What a generous guy.  We had an almighty feast of all types of local food, from pork knuckles to a Bicol spicy vegetable dish.  It was all delicious and he followed it up by taking us to have halo-halo, which is a Filipino pudding and not as nice as the mains.  It was like a gluttony meeting.  He has his own restaurant and we will have to go and try it when we are in Manila.  We were continuing to enjoy the Filipino food and in general I'd say it was better than all the other South East Asian countries except maybe Malaysia, but perhaps that's because I don't like rice.  Afterwards we continued out bumming around with locals, by going for coffee with Angelique (who we'd met in Hanoi) and another couchsurfer.  We had a great day of just chilling out and chatting.  The people are super cool here.  The other girl even worked for 118 and could nail the English accent.  Quite scary.  We left the key with the security at Johanna's flat and I walked all the way to Cubao with my bag.  Took quite a while.  Cannelle took the train but I figured it was too packed.  All the buses were full except the more expensive express bus, but in the end we opted for the 1am option.  It arrived in Baguio at 7am and its never a good idea to take a short time night bus as you never get enough sleep to justify it.  Just before we took the bus we went to a 7/11 to buy some bananas and the guy went to open a new box because the ones we were buying were a little bruised.  Fuck me.  The people are too nice here.  Take note Laos.  If you treat people like that then they will recommend your country.  Awesome people.

We arrived half dead in Baguio and a local guy offered to take us to a cheap hotel after we told him 1200 pesos was too expensive.  He walked us all over until he found a place and even haggled the price down.  I waited for him to ask for commission or a tip.  Nope.  Nada.  Ah it felt so nice not to have to fight for everything.  We went to a cafe for breakfast and then ran into a problem with the laundry.  The express service was very expensive.  Shit.  We decided to leave it for two days, go to Kabayan and pick it up afterwards.  They gave us a discount.  What the hell.  You can tell they were an American and Spanish colony.  Super friendly and exceptional customer service.  We went hiking in Camp John Hay.  Its a really nice pine forest area and we hiked up to the viewpoint, though they told us to be wary for stray golf balls. Its a very pretty, pleasant town.  It won't knock your socks off, but its well worth stopping by.  We found a weird joke cemetery which was quite funny, but no viewpoint.  Shitty.  The mini golf is not worth the trek as we didn't even play it and we always play it.  We went to Volante and had a great pizza before I chatted with my mum online.  We went to bed early as we were knackered from the night bus and off to Kabayan the next day.

We missed the alarm and were late for the bus, but luckily the first one wasn't until 10am so we missed nothing.  LP says the bus fee is 170 pesos.  They said it was 135.  When the hell does that ever happen.  I was beginning to love this country.  Pure honesty.  The guy handling the baggage recommended that we take the seat behind the driver as it had the best views.  What the fuck.  No trying to screw us for extra money, piling past us and sticking the foreigners in the shitty seats.  What kind of country is this.  They obviously have a lot to learn about South East Asian tourism and how to treat a foreigner like shit or an ATM.  I guess that's why they are off the tourism radar.  They'll learn eventually.  For now though we can just enjoy travelling in a super nice country.  A woman offered Cannelle some bananas.  Ah its like Vietnam.  No wonder the Dutch couple had looked nostalgic.  The views on the bus are beautiful.  Sit on the left to see the stunning terraces and lake.  Lots of colours as well.  Rich landscape.  Different to Ha Giang, but also really cool.  I think Cannelle accidentally ordered a guide for us, so he was surprised when we said that we didn't need one.  There is only one hotel in town, so naturally its a beautiful pine wood chalet which charges only 500 pesos when they have a monopoly.  What's wrong with these people.  Do they want people to love their country or something.  The guide fees are a bit ridiculous with 200 pesos to the national museum round the corner and right up to 1500 for Timbac.  We decided to walk on our own to Tinongchol burial rock.  A local pointed us to the start of the trail, which if you head towards the national museum and see the sign to turn left.  Head straight in front of you instead and there is a little trailhead.  It looks like you are walking into someone's garden but its a trail.  It winds round the cliffs so you can see the beautiful rice terraces and continues round for 3km (just keep going straight) until you see a big iron bridge over the river on your left.  Cross that and head up the road (the entrance to the burial rock is on the right about 500m up the hill.  You will need to get they key first, which is held in the village above the bridge on the side you come from.  Just ask around.  Its a 20 peso donation for the key.  They have cock fights out here on sundays and we just missed them.  The burial rock is nice and has a swift colony that circle around it.  The walk there is stunning though.  Its not worth the guide fee, but its more than worth the donation.  Its not difficult to find it yourself, which is a trend we found in the Cordilleras.  We went back to town and had dinner in a Chinese guys place.  Food was shit (maybe this is the fabled Filipino shit food), but the old guy was super nice.  Not many tourists get out to these parts and everyone is smiley.  Probably more so if you took a tour lol.  We got some food from the supermarket for breakfast the next day and we were going looking for Pongasan Cave.  We had decided  not to do Timbac or Mt Pulag as they were a bit expensive and guides are mandatory.

In the morning we had breakfast with a rude and moaning French couple.  Cannelle begins to suspect that her countrymen always complain.  Sort of true apart from the free spirited ones, but they tend to be Anglophiles anyway.  The guide popped up briefly in the morning again (he was liked Where's Wally) and then disappeared.  The French couple hiked nowhere and were paying a fortune to leave via the North route.  They didn't seem to have any fun, but they continued to fuel our should we/shouldn't we decision on Palawan.  I lean towards no for El Nido (sounds like a glorified south of Thailand) and yes for Coron (but transport means it will probably be no).  We set off and walked the steadily up and up route to Bangao for 7km.  There we got the key for Pongasan Cave and they asked if we needed a guide.  We said no and set off straight up.  Its really steep.  Really, really steep.  There are many trails, but when the path splits take the left (with the two logs and bit of tape).  This path winds up and up the hill, constantly crossing and recrossing a super steep path.  You could take that one, but I would hazard that its probably a bit too sleep.  You could slide down it at the end though if you felt like it.  After a steep climb (I even abandoned the water halfway for hand holds) we got to a cave.  Be careful of the palm leaf looking plants.  They slice through you if you grip them.  I tried to open it with a key.  No luck.  Cannelle had thought there was nothing in it.  We went higher still and then I realised I had tried to open it with our room key.  Fucking idiot I am.  So we went back down and sure enough it was the key and the cave.  Its on your left when the path stops winding and merges with the steep one.  The bottom lock opened, but the top one didn't.  Shit. It was rusted or broken or they gave us the wrong keys.  All this way.  All that effort and we wouldn't be able to have a look inside.  Fuck sake.  No mummies again.  We descended despondently and gave the keys back.  Shitty.  Still it was a nice walk.  Not as nice as the day before, but nice.  We grabbed a noodle soup lunch and went to the National Museum.  Its small, but interesting and we finally got to see a mummy.  The process of creating the mummy almost made Cannnelle sick and its an interesting read.  Lastly we decided to head to the Opdas mass burial cave where there was a crazy dog intent upon denying us access.  When we eventually got past him, we visited the pile of skulls and bones.  Then we went to sit on the wall overlooking the village and Where's Wally found us again.  He said his kids had told him that we had passed and that villagers had asked him why he had allowed us to go walking on our own.  Its very easy to find stuff yourself and not worth the money was the obvious answer, but he seemed ok as long as we had not visited Timbac on our own.  If you want to save money, you can hike most of these things yourself.  It will upset the locals a bit.  If you want to make more friends and money is no object, then taking a guide will make you popular.  You can decide for yourself what is more important for you.  We took our dinner from the supermarket as locals had started to give us less friendly looks and there we chatted with some Filipino guys on holiday.  They were off to climb Mt Pulag.  They left us a long list of things to see in Sagada.  Such nice people.

In the morning we got the bus back to Baguio.  It was jammed, but everyone piled off in town and then people moved so that we could sit together.  Considerate of them or they just didn't want to sit next to foreigners.  We got back and went to get our visa extension.  We stayed in Baguio Village Inn this time.  Bargain 700 pesos as it had hot water.  The process is super smooth if expensive.  Manila is the only place where you can get a non express visa and that takes 10 days, so prepare yourself for the 3030 peso fee.  We were now legally allowed to stay until our flight.  Thank God.  We were too lazy to do anything though I'd still like to see the Ben Cab museum.  We got pizza again, before I snuck off to buy some candles for Cannelle's birthday.  The only ones I could get were ultra tacky giant numbers from a bookstore.  Oh well.  Beggars can't be choosers.  In the morning we chatted with a Spanish guy about seeing the whales (they had stonewalled us when we called them about volunteering and we decided to scrap that plan in the end) and took the bus to Sagada.  220 pesos.  Again cheaper than LP.  So far, so excellent.

Malaysia Part 6 (Sukau, Sungai Kinabatangan and Kota Kinabalu)

We went to the bus station to grab an early bus to the Sukau junction.  We were taking a gamble and hoping to make the trip in one day.  We got the Budget Express bus at 7.30am for 30 ringgits.  It was by far the cheapest offer we got and the bus was nice.  It took us just under 4 hours to make the junction and we got down wondering if we would make a connection.  Luckily there was a local van who would take us to Sukau for 20 ringgit and we were there by lunchtime.  We stayed in Sukau B&B for 50 ringgit a night (you can get 40 if you haggle and stay a few days).  It was a fairly painless trip and its worth doing it yourself as we worked out it cost us around 500 ringgit for 2 doing it ourselves.  It would have been 800 with a tour group and you control your own itinerary and timings when you do it yourself.  You can skip the pointless night boat trips and walks.  Though a Dutch couple did see orangutans on a walk.  The place is super peaceful and we got instant noodles for lunch in the only restaurant in Sukau.  That cost 4 ringgit each for a couple of packets.  The internet cafe had two prices (one for locals and double for tourists).  That was a bit shitty but seemingly par for the course in Malaysia.  We joined Greenview Lodge for an afternoon boat trip, which cost 40 ringgit each.  We saw lots and lots of proboscis monkeys and long tailed macaques.  Not as close as at Bako, but still loads.  We also saw our first wild orangutan with a baby.  That was an awesome experience, even if my old man eyes make it difficult to see at distance.  We saw 4 types of hornbill, including the rhinoceros hornbill.  We saw pig tailed macaques, which are quite big and a python.  Impressive.  That was just in two hours.  You are guaranteed to see a lot of wildlife here, but we were mainly here for the elephants and we had no luck on the first trip.  Still we had seen a lot of wildlife and both the place and the river were beautiful in and of themselves.  When we got back we saw a red leaf monkey and baby in the trees right by Greenview.  We walked back and had dinner surrounded by bats and loads of flying insects.  Nice place.

We decided to take a trip with Sukau B&B in the morning and it was slightly more expensive at 90 ringgit for the boat.  We had it to ourselves though and only had to stop and look at things that interested us.  Its nice to mix it up.  They took us upriver and into one of the river's tributaries.  Here we saw a darting bird, kingfishers and lots of different types of bird life.  We saw another snake, pig tailed macaques and proboscis monkeys.  We saw some water monitor lizards and even a flying lemur that had missed its jump and was crawling out of the water, clearly a little traumatised.  We got lucky as I get the impression you don't often see them.  We chilled in the afternoon and got ourselves some instant noodles again for lunch.  Don't forget to book your dinner in advance or you will end up with some crappy food.  In the afternoon we took yet another boat trip with Greenview and saw all the usual monkeys and loads and loads of baby long tailed mcaques and proboscis monkeys.  We also got lucky enough to see an alpha male orangutan who seemed to have dribbled shit all over himself.  Still no elephants though.  It was stick or twist and we opted to stick and leave the next day.  We spoke to some people later on and they didn't see any elephants so I don't think we missed anything.  Its an amazing place to see wildlife though, especially birdlife and primates.  You can't really leave disappointed.  We met two Dutch couple at dinner time and chatted with them as they had just come from the Philippines.  One couple had the same wistful way of speaking about the Philippines that we do when talking about Vietnam, so it left me super excited to go there.  Can't wait to get there when we leave tomorrow.

In the morning we got a bus with Greenview to 'mile 32' for 25 ringgits.  We had even been given a lift to Greenview from our place when they had almost made us late finding change.  We got dropped off and there was an immediate bus to Kota Kinabalu.  They wanted 55 ringgit.  Mental.  Its 52 all the way from Lahad Datu.  We eventually paid 35 ringgit and that seemed reasonable.  If they don't budge on the fee just wait for the next bus as one bus will eventually take you for the right price or just hitch hike.  We checked into our old hostel in the middle of nowhere and grabbed a burger king after almost starving to death in Kinabatangan.  There's not much food there.  4 fucking days in KK.  Far too much time for a boring city.

There was still no rafflesia so that was one avenue to kill time taken away from us.  We killed time online and I wrote to the whale people regarding seeing the humpbacks in the north of the Philippines.  Still no reply.  We went to see Jack the Giant Slayer which is better than I thought it was going to be, but the lead actors are wooden.  We went to a bar to watch the North London derby and they kept it open until 2am so I could watch Spurs beat Arsenal 2-1 and hopefully open up a big enough gap to qualify for the champions league.  We shall see.  It shows how little I trusted them that I refused to pay until the game had finished.  Malaysians are probably my second least favourite people after the Laotians.

We did nothing the next day.  Chatted with an Aussie girl in the hostel about Papua New Guinea as she had spent 3 months there and loved it.  Should be good for the next trip.  We also talked about Australia and she said that if you don't drink or smoke then we should be able to save a lot of money.  We watched How to lose friends and alienate people.  Was not that funny but watchable.

Our penultimate day of boredom. I went into town and kicked my heels for a while before we went to the big outdoor public swimming pool.  We had been told by the tourist information people that there was a waterpark for 20 ringgit or the Hilton pool for 70 ringgit and they were the only places to swim.  Conveniently they forgot the 5 ringgit monster olympic public sized pool.  Fuckers.  Its a really nice place to swim.  I even asked some locals where it was when I was close to it as I walked there and they said they didn't know of a pool, then laughing and chatting in Malay they pointed in the direction of the pool.  They had understood me.  Fuckers.  They don't want you to go out of the tourists designated areas in Malaysia.  I found it though.  I will be happy to leave here.  We met Rich from the diving in Semporna for dinner with 3 Swedish girls and had a really nice time.  Just went for a drink afterwards and chilled.

Today we got up late.  Last day in Malaysia.  Fuck I hate flying.  Lets hope its quick.  After watching the film Flight this will be our first flight.  Should never have watched the film.  We found out yesterday why there were so many soldiers on the roads.  Some people from the Sulu Archipelago had invaded Malaysia and there was now a mini conflict.  It goes to show how you read about these conflicts in the press and it scares you off a place.  Well I can tell you that this conflict was going on for over 2 weeks before we even knew it was happening and we went right through the town twice by bus without even realising.  Just goes to show.  Good job we did not take the ferry to Zamboanga though.  Would have been very dangerous.  I enjoyed the wildlife in Borneo, but I wouldn't come back.  Didn't like the people enough.  Finally its time for the Philippines.  Couchsurfing tonight in Manila.  Looking forward to it.

Malaysia Part 5 (Kota Kinabalu, Mt Kinabalu, Semporna and Sipadan)

We had to kill some time in Labuan before grabbing a ferry to Metambok.  It works out slightly cheaper to do that and then tale a bus to Kota Kinabalu than it does to take a direct boat to KK.  Borneo is so expensive that every little bit we save helps out.  We arrived in town, grabbed a McDonalds and checked into our hostel.  Its way out in the middle of nowhere, but if you want to stay long term they will give you a dorm bed for 12 ringgit, which is ridiculously cheap in Borneo.  Borneo Global Backpackers is the name.  Its nothing special, but 12 ringgits with free internet and breakfast is not to be passed up.

In the morning we went to check for the rafflesia flower.  There was just one on its sixth day so we ndecided to skip it as we would hopefully get a better opportunity.  That was a bit of a mistake as we never did.  We then went to book the climb up Kinabalu.  We had been leaning towards not climbing it for a while due to the exorbitant cost, but I'd seen a website that listed the highest accommodation as cheaper.  So we went to check.  They insisted that the package would be 735 ringgit or 470 ringgit for just the accommodation.  We had seen it for 310 somewhere, but I couldn't find the website.  Shit.  They were rationing water at the top now as well and conveniently there was to be no water at any time you would need it to climb.  Fuckers.  They should not be allowed to turn over the running of a national park to a private firm.  This firm is just looking to squeeze whatever they can out of tourists.  We got a bad feeling and decided not to climb it.  How can it be worth it?  The Australians we had met said it was a challenge.  A challenge?  Its 4000m.  I have climbed nearly 6000m which needed ice axes and crampons etc.  90% of people climb it (from the unfit bunch of tourists and locals who try).  Where is the challenge in something 90% of people succeed in.  For Cotopaxi (my keyboard switched to Polish there) only 2 out of 9 groups made the summit.  We were all fit and the two of us that made it almost had to give up.  That's a challenge.  Toughest thing I ever did.  I paid $130.  So was I going to pay 200 euros to climb Kinabalu.  They have steps and ropes for fuck sake.  Fansipan is ranked harder and that was $97 and we summited in one day.  Fuck the people in charge of Kinabalu.  They will kill the goose that lays their golden egg.  We met so many people who would have climbed it, but decided not to because its too expensive.  No one who climbs mountains is going to pay for Kinabalu.  I am not sure if they are still filling up the numbers.  If they are, then clearly they don't give a fuck about us backpackers and fair play, but if they are not then they are shooting themselves in the foot.  Again we don't regret it and that's usually a good gut check as to whether you were right or not.  We went to watch Lincoln, which was really good and then booked Sipadan with our Advanced Open Water.  It was even more expensive than Kinabalu but at least its world class and we got a qualification.  There were a lot of people who dived Sipadan while saying Kinabalu was too expensive.  Know your product and how to price it.  Afterwards we watched Cloud Atlas, which was much better than I was expecting, apart from some weird prosthetic work.  Not sure why they used a sci-fi poster.  May explain why it bombed as what it suggested was not what it was, so the people who went expecting sci-fi would be pissed off and the people who would have enjoyed it would be put off by the poster.

I got up late and saw that Spurs had got a last minute equaliser to beat Lyon.  Roll on Inter Milan.  Should be a classic.  We went to see Flight in the afternoon and its also a good film, though probably not the best for people afraid of flying, who would have to fly to the Philippines 2 weeks later.  We had left our phone in the cinema the night before and luckily we got it back.  We really are lucky at losing things and getting them back.  3 for 3, with the camera in Laos and Slovenia.  We had to deal with retards at the cinema and internet place, who were determined to make our life a pain in the arse.  I don't like Malaysians that much.  They don't lie as much as Laotians, but they are my second least favourites as they are a bit aggressive and treat you like shit.  The Cameron Highlands is the exception to that.

This keyboard keeps changing to Polish.  Its evil.  We figured that we would have 21 weeks left for the Philippines and Indonesia. With a 7:14 week split, we would leave Papua and the East for the next trip with Papua New Guinea so we would not have to double back on ourselves.  We grabbed a bus to the bus station and were confronted with the standard aggressive Malaysian cartel of bus people hounding you to their window.  We ignored them like normal and eventually got a bus to Semporna for 60 ringgits.  Can't remember the company, but it seemed a better deal.  Its a really long bus journey.  Around 12 hours, but luckily we arrived right past our hotel (Marina Inn which is nice, but doesn't really have cable.  Just one channel).  We ate, as we did every night, at the set menu place with the internet cafe.  They do venison.  Semporna seemed like a bit of a shithole on first impression and it never changed our minds.  Cannelle thinks it is the shittest place we have stayed in for 6 months of travelling.  Probably.  Though it has a few nice places to eat and if you are diving you won't see it in the daylight anyway.

We went to Sipadan Scuba and got all of our equipment ready for the course the next day.  There was nothing to see in the town so I caught up with my writing and we watched the Artist again on tv.  Both of us were nervous for the diving the next day.

We grabbed breakfast, as we did every day, at the Bismillah Indian place.  Nice horlicks and cheese roti.  We got suited up and set off for Sibuan on their little 10m speedboat.  Our instructor was Polish and really nice.  We opened with the Navigation dive, which is probably not the best when you haven't dived for 5 months.  We were pretty shit, but we completed the tasks, even having time to see a sea snake.  The islands here are beautiful.  There were some Greek daytrippers with us and they must have been bored but seemed to enjoy it.  I wouldn't trip there if I wasn't diving, but then I don't like beaches.  It was a paradise.  The second dive was the one Cannelle had been dreading.  The deep dive.  We went down and didn't even realise we had hit 29m until our instructor showed me.  You really can't tell.  We could see some colours weren't visible and we didn't seem to suffer from nitrogen narcosis.  We saw our first turtle, a beautiful cuttlefish, a pufferfish, a ray and a shark sucker barrel rolling through the water.  It was a nice drift dive.  For the third dive we did the drift dive and there was less current than with our deep dive lol.  Still we saw a crocodile fish, a few types of frogfish, a lionfish and a spadefish.  You see a lot here and the aquatic life is impressive.  Much better than Ko Tao.  We had successfully done day one and all the homework.  We weren't going to be able to do a wreck dive so we cheated and took boat dive and underwater naturalist to make it just about three fun dives.  The hard work was over.  We watched the shitty oscar ceremonies but had to give up before the end, only to find out Argo won best film.  How the fuck did that happen.  Should have been Zero, Dark Thirty, but any of Lincoln, Life of Pi and Django Unchained would have been fine with me.

The weather was super shitty and rainy in the morning.  Great.  We were heading to Boheydulang, which was disappointing as it wasn't a highlight island.  When we got there it was only sunny on our island and the place was beautiful.  Cannelle thought it was the most beautiful of our dive sites.  Its a very nice place.  We did the Boat dive and I had to abort after 5 seconds with a problem on my respirator, but afterwards it was ok and we did the dive.  The second dive was underwater naturalist and that was easy enough.  We had our PADI advanced open water certificate.  Cool.  They even gave us a free fun dive for the day so we could relax for the first time with our first fun dive.  We had seen a turtle, a cuttlefish and a huge giant moray eel.  Enormous.  Cannelle loved the second dive.  We saw some bumphead parrotfish, which is a rare spot, a semi circular angel fish, a huge sea snake and a devil scorpionfish.  Pressure was really off on the last dive and its so much more fun.  We even nailed the neutral buoyancy after pussying out of taking the peak performance buoyancy course.  That's not our main problem.  Conserving oxygen is as we would find out at Sipadan.  I had banged my leg on the side of the boat on entry again, but not as bad as Ko Tao.  Spurs won 3-2 against West Ham with another last minute winner.  Keeps us up there.

SIPADAN DAY.  We were excited for this, though Cannelle was worried for the sharks.  We were diving with an English guy, a French couple and a Russian.  All of them have well over 100 dives.  We had 11.  Bit of an experience gap.  Oh well.  It was choppy out on the sea.  The island is very pretty and so small.  Its a tiny spike in the sea, which is why you get such good marine life there.  We started off at South Point and the currents were way stronger than we were used to.  So many fish.  Too many fish.  We saw loads of turtles, sharks and bumphead parrotfish.  No hammerheads, which we had gone deep for.  We ended up surfacing around 15 minutes early as we could not conserve our oxygen anything like the others.  Will come with time maybe, but then I am just a big guy.  We did coral garden next and it was a bit shit by Sipadan standards.  We almost made it to the end on that dive lol.  The English guy must have got sick of me asking what we missed in the last 10 minutes of every dive.  Cannelle had run away from a shark on that dive as it went towards her, I drifted over 3 which was surreal and when I came close to another one, it opened its eye and ran away.  Pussy.  Its not that intimidating diving with white tips, but lets see how I handle the big ones.  At one point a giant Green Turtle cruised down between us and dovetailed the French woman for a while.  Really beautiful.  In the middle we got stuck in a washing machine of current.  That cost us air as Cannelle was having problems staying down with her buoyancy.  On the final dive we would head to the legendary Barracuda Point.  We descended into a huge school of Jacks.  Amazing.  I had never seen so many fish.  We went right through them. The current is mental here.  We saw sharks and turtles with shark suckers hitching a ride, I saw a moray eel swimming.  We had to get down and cling onto rocks to watch the barracudas.  So many of them.  I went 'gracefully' right through them before getting down last of the group.  Almost got blown away.  Really surreal.  While hanging on the rocks to watch the Sea Eels later on a huge turtle cruised in and sad down next to me.  Cannelle was lying 3m from a shark watching the barracuda.  This is an amazing dive site.  Its leagues ahead of anything else we have ever dived and so worth it.  We came up 10 minutes early as always and snorkelled above the group.  These are real advanced dive sites, but you can have a great experience here as an open water.  You will just have an even more amazing experience with your advanced.  We kicked back in the city and then decided to see if we could get to Kinabatangan and Sukau in one day.  We did and it was so easy.  We got there in just over 4 hours.  Will let you know how in the next part.  Sipadan is worth the hype and the money :-)