Philippines: The Place Manny Pacquiao Is From/ Thrilla Near Manilla

So while its been almost a month, there's still a lot to talk about.

This one is dedicated to the Philippines, in particular Cebu, the island that I visited. To be fair, however, I also visited the island that Manilla was on, but it sucked-- they charged me to use their terminal- approximately 700 PHP, which is equivalent to about $15.

Anyways, I feel surprisingly good at how much I am taking from this trip. To begin, we took a red eye from Hong Kong, which left at 1:30 and arrived in a tiny airport in Cebu just after four am.

We decided to take a taxi from the airport, because despite being overcharged, it wasn't expensive either way. This is key because we were all really tired and simply wanted to find a place to stay. The initial plan was Moalboal, as referenced in my last blog post. Instead, within five minutes, the driver convinced us to go to Malapascua island, 5 hours in the opposite direction of Moalboal.

Let it be known that my roomate, David Frick (there will be a post on our awesome adventures), had turned 21 four hours ago and that to my knowledge, there was no law in the Philippines about drinking while in a car. Picture a group of 5 college aged people, crammed into a car designed for four passengers, drinking beer, and listening to Bon Jovi, Queen, Bryan Adams, and more 80's style rock (no poison). Also consider that the sun rises very early in the Philippines because it is very far east in the time zone. So we were driving up the coast of Cebu watching the entire island wake up while the sun was rising. It may have been one of the best car rides I'd ever been on. This counts as the second time I've had a beer while the sun was rising this semester.

After paying to take two (yes 2) boats to get to the island, we all crashed until about six. Dinner shortly followed, then more sleep. Malapascua was a very nice island with almost nothing to do, except scuba dive. Naturally nobody had their license on them, so instead, we all went snorkeling. We also went to the beach a ton. The sand was white, the beaches were empty, the sun was hot, and the water was crystal clear. If it wasn't saltwater, it would have easily been the nicest beach I had ever been on (that title still goes to Grand Haven, MI).

These were two of the most relaxing days I ever had, minus the fact that our room wasn't air conditioned and the temperature was very high during the day. However, after two days of enjoying the island, we decided to head back to Cebu city, which has a population of about 2 million (I've been told).

While in Cebu city, we were told that we couldn't walk anywhere (because of safety), went to the "peak" which is their own mountain which looks over a city, and relaxed in a room with A/C and HBO. We also went to see Magellan's Cross, where Magellan was killed, and a taoist temple which was awesome. The last day in the trip was reserved to a spa day, where I was not as pampered as necessary.

There are a few glaring differences between the Philippines and anywhere else.
1) There was a large industry surrounding sex tourism. Seriously, I was solicited multiple times, and the hotel we stayed at had many gentlemen who came to Cebu for one reason- sex with a Philippine woman.
2) Everything was dirt cheap. For example, I was able to have a value meal at McDonalds for about $2, our hotel in Cebu City was about $8 a night per person, and a fifth of 'rhum' cost about $1.25.
3) My more astute readers may have inferred this from the first two differences, but for those who didn't: the city was not safe I felt much more comfortable staying in at night rather than going out to be solicited or robbed.
4) The people are very nice.
5) Airports in the Philippines charge a terminal fee. This is used in the U.S., but it is included in the ticket fare. Instead, I had to drop another $20 (USD) simply to leave the country.
6) English is widely spoken in the Philippines, in fact, it seemed as though Philippine people loved Americans- I also had money though
7) Cock fighting is legal here, and I wanted to go, but apparently all the fights had ended before we wanted to go.

When it is all done, I can say that the Philippines were very nice, but that I'm glad that I visited now, rather than when I have a family. As a dive destination, I haven't seen much better, then again, I've really only been to one country in SE Asia, but the water here is very nice. I don't see myself coming back to the Philippines unless business requires me to come back, but it was fun while it lasted.

More updates about Hong Kong are on their way!

-Nick