We arrived in Naga and got ourselves a cheap place. The policeman had said it was a great city and while that may be a stretch I would say it could be the third best city we went to in the Philippines.
We watched the Boston manhunt on the tv today. Was quite a shock, but all the news channels were totally focused on the event. Bicol food is really good. We just spent the day bumming around and I did a lot of writing. We had decided not to go to the watersports park.
In the morning we got the bus and boat combination to the Caramoan Peninsula. It was much smoother than we imagined, but be warned. There is a lot less infrastructure there than I had even anticipated. There is no sense of selling tours or even of really organising them. South of Thailand this is not. We grabbed a jeepny from the jetty to the local hotels. They were all pretty expensive. We had to wake up the owner of the pink hotel (who was sleeping like a pig). Best value place, though the food is best in the expensive looking place just down the road. I wanted to go down to the beach, but I suddenly came down with a violent sickness and too weak to do anything. Hopefully I would recover the following day.
We took a tircyle for 100 pesos (he had wanted 150) down to the port. It was a total rip off for what is at most a 4km walk. Shitty. He also hooked us up with a boat for the short trip around the islands for 1500 pesos. It was steep but we had already come all the way here and there was noone to bargain or negotiate with. They kept pushing us for the longer trip, but I feel the shorter one is more than sufficient. Get a group together if you can to cut the costs like the locals do. Its hard to judge this trip. I would say it was a rip off, but that it was really nice. If you love beaches and especially deserted ones then you may love it, but if like me you don't especially love beaches, then even if you can appreciate the beauty, you will find yourself getting bored a little easily. Even Cannelle was getting tired of perfect beaches in the Philippines. There are just so many of them that they stop feeling special. The beaches here are stunning though. Like you see on google image and you get them to yourself. At least until the Filipine families rock up an hour or so later. The only incident was a little jellyfish swimming around us. Just one though. They say its a day trip. Its more like a half day of 4 hours. Enough for me, but be firm if you want longer. If the trip had been 500 pesos it would have been perfect. They wanted us to take a tricycle back. Fuck them. Even though my sandal had totally broken, I wasn't going to surrender anymore of my money to these vampires. I tied a t-shirt around my foot, to stop the heat and limped 4km all the way back to the hotel. Its an easy walk if you have two shoes. We got some good chicken curry and prepped ourselves for the last leg in the Philippines.
In the morning it was back to Naga on the same boat/bus combo where you pay 10 pesos for the artificial bridge, but at least they are working for it. We walked to the boat harbour so a tircycle eventually offered us for just 40. I love the power walking has to see prices tumble. We got a night bus to Manila for 680 pesos as the train was sadly not running anymore and we kicked our heals in an internet cafe while we waited to leave.
We arrived and got a connection straight to Olongapo. We decided to stay next to the bus station rather than going into Subic Bay and it was a much. much better decision. Then we decided that we wouldn't climb Pinatubo as they wanted too much money and we knew that we were heading to Sumatra afterwards. That evening we walked all the way to the bat kingdom in Subic Bay. Its a fair walk. Around 12km and it took its toll as the bats had moved around and we climbed a hill for no reason. The locals were really cool as always though and directed us towards the bat's new home. We hiked down and heard them a long time before we saw them. Thousands and thousands of the giant fruit bats hanging off loads of tress. What a tremendous noise and impressive sight. We waited until sunset to see them leave and swarm off over the trees. It was almost as if they made the sky go dark all on their own. Super impressive and well worth it. Then we walked back in the dark and it was a b it scary, replete with creaking doors and fantasy horror sounds. Eventually we grabbed a ride with some workmen who had been preparing for a competition in the back of their truck. Yet more nice locals.
Olongapo is a nice town in and of itself and doesn't really smell of shit. It does have a seedy side that you can see without looking too hard. It was our penultimate day and we decided to do nothing except watch Ironman 3 (which was not bad) and then went to Texas Joe's for dinner. What a top class restaurant. Not quite a true Texas barbecue but a really fucking good approximation and definitely somewhere you have to eat if you are in the area.
We lay in the next day and took a bus to Dau for Angeles airport. It was so slow. They wanted 100 pesos for a special jeepney to the airport. Taking the piss for about 8km walk. We grabbed an ordinary jeepney to the SM City in Angeles and apparently from there you can get a public jeepney to the airport. None of them wanted to take us though and were asking for charters, so we walked and luckily a policeman took pity on Cannelle and stopped a truck to take us to the airport turnoff. From there it was a 2km walk to the terminal. Saved us some money for food though and we still weren't sure what the departure tax was for Angeles airport. I can't remember now but its the lower one of the prices you will read online. The plane was delayed and seemed to take ages with a little bit of turbulence. Eventually we arrived back in Malaysia. I had read Voltaire's Candide on the flight and was exited do be back in Malaysia, to go to Nandos, get a roti, horlicks and biryani and sort out the Indonesia visa. The Philippines had been a great country for us, but we were happy to go now. Too many perfect beaches gets tiring lol. We were ready for jungle.
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