Day Nine

Very early start today, our flight back to cebu was about 0730 hrs in the morning, the airline advised us to be there by 6am, quite early if you ask me.
The whole Alo family was there at the domestic airport to drop us off and say our goodbyes. It was really good to see Roberts family, really enjoyed our time there.
My uncle and auntie said that they might come to Australia next year for Roberts graduation, hopefully il see them again.
By the way, that was the shortes flight ive ever taken approximately 30 mins.
Arrived Cebu about 0830 hrs, Dondon (my auntie's driver) was already there to fetch us.
Got to Minglanilla after an hour, quite tired from the trip, we thought might just have a relaxing day catching up with washing of clothes, etc.
Went for a quick visit sometime in the afternoon to my brothers place (Guy) to see what they were up to. They had plans to visit Lolo Dodo at the hospital with Uncle Sandy n Auntie Vicki around about 5pm, so they suggested we should catch up at Ayala for dinner after their visit to the hospital.

Dumaguete Airport

Air shot of the propeller

I invited my cousin Susette and her family to come along. She also came and picked me n fred up around about 1930 hrs, unfortunately arrived late the Moon Cafe in Ayala where everyone was already waiting. To be honest, i was not feeling too well when i arrived at the restaurant, i started having abdominal cramps, feeling a bit clammy. I did not really enjoyed the dinner not because of the food but because of how i felt.
Can you believe it, there was only one toilet in the restaurant and there was a long line, on top of it people lining up were quite rude and just pushed their way, i had to tell this chick off. Can't stand some of the filo's attitude in this country. Coming from philippines, very disappointing.
Spent a few hours at the restaurant, socialising, few conversations with the relatives. My cousin Rajiv was there to join us as well but had to leave early as he had a basketball game to go to. Afterwards,my uncle and his wife left with Guy n Emma, as Aaron was tired.

showing taxi horse on ur way to Minglanilla

Photo of Graffiti on a wall, Fred thought it was interesting

After dinner, instead of going home, suggested to go to Starbucks for coffee and ice cream with the Chua's. The kids certainly enjoyed it, i ordered a cup of tea and my god, it was boiling hot, it took about 20 minutes until i could drink it. What is wrong with this country, can't make decent tea and crap coffee. I must've tried several coffee places and to think this was starbucks, does not cut it. Sorry to be whingeing but they just don't know how to do coffee. I guess that was the end of the night. Just went home after that...


 

Day Eight

So its Friday, we are going back to Cebu a little earlier then planned as there are no flights over the weekend, great.
So we arrive at the domestic airport at 5:45 am, and the sun is already up and bright. We say our farewells to the Alo's wipe away the tears (hahaha) and enter, this is where the fun begins.
First Pinky's carry on bag is held at the scanner and she has to unpack it for them, again. Next we get to the check-in counter which is literally 2 steps to the left of the entrance. First my camera bag is not only too heavy but too big, so they want to check it in, we start to argue... eventually I had to submit and we covered the bag in fragile stickers, not happy. Then after we weight our bags, they want to weigh us! Thats right, we have to step on the scales too, as I step on the girl makes a shocked sound like I am the heaviest thing she has ever seen, Im not feeling so good right now. Pinky gets weighed and then they tell us we have to pay 2,800 pesos in excess weight, wow, but once you convert that its around $50 AU.

We get on this little plane with propellers and head off, we start climbing and we get to see Cebu Island as a whole island, very mountainous. Just as we reach our max height that we climb to, the captain announces that we are begging our descent, yep, up down and we are there, funny.

We arrive back at the house in Minglanilla at around 8am, unpack, have some breakfast and head off shopping again. As we drive through the streets it starts to hit me again just how over congested this place is, millions of cars, busses, jeepneys, bikes, trucks and people for over an hours drive. I will try and give you and idea.
Imagine you live in a town, no parks or lakes or anything like that, if you had a job you wouldnt get paid much, but most dont have jobs, so you have a family, no job but you have to feed them somehow so you build a small shopfront out of what ever materials you can find, bits of wood, old signs, anything. So now you have a shop, mmm but you dont have anything to sell, I know ill just cook something, you dont have much money so you just cook what ever you can, you can get an array of meats cut into thin strips, put on skewers and bbq'd. You sell it, and with the money you buy some better stuff to cook, now your a business and there is alot of this kind of business around, no one cleans the street in front and the traffic never stops. If your business isnt doing well, they grab your food and step out into traffic and try and intice the people, jump on a bus and say buy my food, whatever it takes.
As for the prices, we went to buy a sweet bread know as ensaymada, in Aus is is around the size of your fist, with butter, sugar and grated cheese on top, one of my favourites, and would cost you a couple of dollars each or something, here, Don Don, the driver, said he will check if they are fresh, came back and said yes there good, so we thought mmm lets get one each for every one here at the house, so we said grab 6, now at 25 pesos each (50c) we thought bargin, when he came back they were the size of dinner plates!
As you can see, not only do they sell anything they can but anywhere they can and everything is really cheap. I dont know how they survive.

So didnt do much today, just shopped, ate, and slept.

Day Seven part 2

I know it has been a while since we blogged, but we have been either travelling or simply resting.

I will take you back to day seven while we are still in Dumaguete. After the trip to the Twin Lakes we went for a ride the the main city, wow talk about busy. Turns out that Dumaguete is ninty percent motobikes and in the city itself there is no traffic lights. Although I can see if there were traffic lights there would be constant traffic jams all day and night, there is just that much traffic here, no one walks they all ride or drive.

Roberts shop front

Roberts shop inside

As we were travelling with, and the main reason we came to dumaguete was to see, the Alo family (Roberts (Pinkys cousin) family). So we went to see the 'Roberts Auto Parts' shops. The main shop, 5 stories high right in the middle of town, Roberts shop as you enter the town from the north and Raymonds shop as you enter the town from the south. We also went to see the sisters shop, a cute little arts and crafts shop, but she wasnt there so we didnt stay long.

Roberts shop work area

Roberts shop seems to be doing very well, huge work area out back, quite busy up front, looks good bert.

Raymonds shop front (at closing haha)

Ray's shop inside

Ramonds shop isnt so busy but it is still very new and as yet doesnt have a work area out back so for now it is just a tyre shop.

Raymond working very hard ahhhahahahahahahahah

Main shop front

the sisters craft shop

looking north or town

looking south of town

The main shop in the middle is busling, very busy, very dirty and 3 floors of stock, they are the main stores for all 3 shops so they have to keep all the stock there. There is access to the roof so we were able to see the whole city from up there, great views as you can see by the photos.

Day Seven

Today I'm writing the blog (Pinky). My husband wanted a break from writing since he has been doing it since day one, fair enough i guess.

Had breakfast at the cafe just within our hotel, it is a very quaint place with a spanish theme. We decided to have pancakes for brekky since we have been having so much rice in the morning since we arrived and it gets a bit too much, we only have porridge for breakfast back home normally.

Today my cousin Raymond is taking us  to a place called 'Balinsasayao Twin Lakes National Park'. My dear hubby was very excited for the fact that we are finally going to see nature at it's best.

It took us nearly an hour to get there due to extremely rocky terrain and washed out areas from recent rains and the fact that as we are going up to the mountainside we have obstacles like motorbikes, stray dogs, goats, cows and pigs on the way as well as running loose all over the road.
Boy it was bumpy,rocky and wild, feels like being in a rollercoaster and the bumpiness kinda triggered my bladder, holding it until we got to the spot.















After an hour of rough ride, we reached the top. Got out of the car, boy it was hot, Fred had to change into his camo gear and got all his camera stuff out the whole works "you know".
This place is also a well known birding spot in Negros.
Going to the lake, we had to go down this steep,slimmy, slippery concrete path and even my Fred slipped a few times eventhough he was wearing proper hiking shoes.

Got down to the bottom and there was Twin Lakes, well the first lake anyway. Apparently, these lakes are made out of  volcano craters. On the way down, we heard some strange noises, very loud, sounded like a huge cricket but louder, almost screaming sound and thousands of them at the same time, we couldnt see what they were nor could we figure it out.
Upon reaching the bottom of the slimmy path, we met a woman who organises boat rides, we asked her about these strange screaming bugs and she informed us that they were 'Bees!', but not just any bees, she indicated with her hands that it was a very large bee, around 2inches long, we did not want to find these bees anymore.

We proceeded to discuss with the woman about the area and about the boats we can see at the waters edge. Meanwhile, Fred has found things to photograph, butterflies and birds.

Olive-backed Sunbird

Crimson Sunbird

There seems to be a whole lot of differrent types of butterflies here. The birds were Crismon and Olive-backed Sunbirds (he thinks, not sure), he is very excited as they are his first Sunbirds ever. The woman is all by herself, miles from anywhere and she walks here everyday, but she carries a baby with her as well, she starts around 6am and is there until at least 5pm.

We organise to hire a boat with a person to row the boat across the lake because at the other side there is a tower and from there we can see the other lake, it is called twin lakes.
As we head of in this small catamaran type of boat, looks safe enough, we hope, we start to see the massive expanse of jungle that surrounds us, giant tree ferns cover the mountain side along with giant thin trees and vines and well tons of stuff so thick that you really cant see more then a couple of metres in. Of course Fred wanted to head into the forest along trails but I wouldnt allow this, not on my watch. Anyway, back to the boat, as we head across it is truely amazing, beautiful, breathe taking.

Fred spots another bird (of course), a kingfisher this time but we cant get anywhere near this one, he just keeps flying away, but Fred's happy.

We reach the other side and we are looking at a stairway from hell, I mean this thing goes up a steep incline, covered in slime and made from uneven rocks, this is going to hurt.

First lake

Second lake

We get to the top and yes we are suffering, but we saw some amazing forest on the way. At the top there isa bamboo tower, three stories high so more climbing, urg. At the top we can see both lakes, surrounded by thick jungle, absolutely beautiful. Although Fred is seeing birds, there arent very many around, even up here at the top of the trees, we can hear them just cant see them, a little dissapointing for my very passionate husband, oh well.

We head back down and again is slippery, Fred takes a couple of spills and then slips off the rocks and takes a chunk out of his ankle, hes hurt a little but he just wont show it.
Back in the boat and across we go, this time I find a spare oar and start helping our guide hahaha. We get back to the dock and start heading back up this steep, slimy, climb of death, we go slipping and sliding we get to the top, hot sweaty but alive.

Back in the car and down we go, some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. On the way down we pass a little resturant, I mean we are passing straw houses, huts built of scraps of wood, farmers and animals everywhere and then...

The Azealea Resturant. Ok. Well I wasnt expecting this, it was beautiful, something from a resort, the food was great, service great, and the mango shakes are to die for hahahah, and of course the halo halo, a fruit salad of sorts. We head down and I fall asleep in the car ride home...

Later that evening I go to the Alo's again for dinner while Fred goes with Raymond to a basketball game that he is playing in, Fred says it was a great game but not what he expected, wasnt really an outdoor game but it wasnt really indoor either, a concrete court with stadium seats and a roof with lighting but no walls. Raymond was playing with a team called D.O.H. Department of Health... didnt expect that either. It was a good game, full of action, some blood and they won so all is good. 

Fred goes to eat at his first time at a fast food place called JollyBee, sort of like MacDonalds but with rice dishes, and hotdogs and all sorts of unexpected dishes, but this is one of the Philippines most successful and common food joints. We meet up after at the cafe attached to the apartments we are staying at, have some coffee and everyone calls it a night. Wow this was a long day and we are all very tied.

Here are some photos of the day.

Ham and cheese grilled sandwich hahahah

Grilled pork belly, with Bulalo soup

check out the village at the bottom of the mountain

Halo halo