Day Six

Up bright and early, today we travel. We are waiting for Raymond (Pinky's Cousin, brother or Robert) to pick us up from Minglanilla. I decided to have a look around the garden when I saw a large yellow butterfly, I thought I might try to get some photos of it, very pretty. Well I didn't get any, the stupid thing just wouldn't sit down anyway, just kept flittering around. While I was chasing this bug around the garden I heard a different bird call then the one I have become used to of the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, same size and just as fast, took me a while to be able to see one but when I did, I had found a Visayan or Cebu Flowerpecker. This is one of the Philippines rarest birds.
Other birds to note are the Pied Fantail, there is just one that visits the garden from time to time but unlike the Grey Fantail we get back home, this guy is not very friendly, in fact quite skittish so no photos yet, but I will.

Rice fields with coconut trees

Raymond arrives and we begin our trip to the Island of Negros. It takes around 2-3 hours to travel down to the southern most tip of Cebu and I thought it was going to be quite a boring trip, pass through several towns, traffic, pollution and so on. Boy was I wrong and so glad I was.

another rice field

As we left the congested streets of Minglanilla I started seeing more and more green, coconut palms and banana palms start becoming all that you can see and soon enough it is just lush green forests and hillsides and fields. The longer the trip goes the more beautiful the country becomes, the hills just seem to shoot out of the ground, what seems like impossible steep edges and then you see a house up on the slop with stairs carved into the ground itself rising up to what appears to be a really nice house. We pass through fishing villages, right on the coast and the water is amazing, straight out of some magazine, crystal blue/turquoise waters with coconut palms all along its coastline. I was unable to get any good photos of these amazing green jungles because at the speed we were travelling and the fact that the light becomes less all my photos were blurred, don't do not stress my little followers, I plan to get many more.

Plenty of rice fields around and corn fields and fishing villages and fish farms, and in between all of this are small towns, we were passing through these towns around lunch time and so all the school kids were going home for lunch, yes we were flying through these small towns at 80-100 kph with pedi-bikes, cars, trucks and buses and dozens of children all over the road.

The trip got better and better, giant, steep hills just shooting up from the edge of the road, covered in thick green, what looks like impenetrable forest, and as you turn a corner there is a split in the mighty rock and a small river passes through. Everything is so green and fresh and the complete opposite of what I have been seeing so far. Makes me smile.

Each town likes to celebrate Fiesta in its own way, some just have mini flags hanging over the road while some have huge flag type banners along the side of the road from beginning to the end of there town. Some have created these, um, weird stick like things, but very colourful, all along the side of the road. It was nice to see that each town is proud of who they are and celebrate every year. Imagine if each suburb or Perth celebrated once a year who they were with colourful decorations in the streets. Might be nice to be proud of where we live.
One thing that I saw that just made me thing differently was a nice house on the side of this crazy steep hill and from the house it self down to near the road was a corn field, now you might say that's normal but remember this corn is growing in ground that is on a 60 degree slope, no perfectly plowed field, no neat little raised garden be, just what ever was there, and it works. Just makes me thing how caught up we get with things having to be perfect or look a certain way, if you want to grow veggies or herbs or what ever, just plant them somewhere and they will grow... so simple.

We head down to our destination of the town of Balto, this is where the ferry is. We stop at a rest area to take in the views and get a couple of happy snaps of us :)

the ferry

Raymond drives the car onto the ferry and we set off for the Island of Negros. The sea was great, so blue and just enough of a breeze to take away the horrible sticky heat that is everywhere. I did notice that the water had some rubbish floating in it, quite sad really.

We arrive on the other side and head off for Dumaguete. The roads here are concrete and quite wide, reminds me of America apart from the lush tropical surroundings. We pass through a small town of Carcar, which is famous for Chicharon, pork crackle, people actually travel to this town just to buy it. This town is crazy busy with pedi-bikes (a motorbike/sidecar type of taxi)

So here we are on Negros heading to Dumaguete, it looks like an amazing tropical island.

We pull off at a place called Jo's, nice little place with a Giligans Island kinda theme, great food, although they kept running out of things, first it was the chicken wing then it was the ice...

Next we go to our accomodation, Raymond has organised for us to stay at a place called Sea Forest, he said it was good for me because it has lots of birds around, how thoughtfull.

So we have a look and the accomodation it self is again a Gilligans Island style tree house made out of bamboo, the beds have mosquito nets and no aircon, that was about it, no bathroom in fact no nothing. hahahaha. All the birds they spoke of? were in cages all around the place, and most of them were Australian birds and labeled wrong, weird place...

We head up to another place Florentina Homes, great little place, now we are happy, :)

We head off to see the Alo Family. They are a really nice family with dogs I am allowed to touch and even play with. We stay for dinner and they put on a nice spread, we fill up and rest. Mr Alo (Roberts dad) made a massive effort to actually have a conversation with me, we talk about politics and the differences between Philippines and Australia, weather, animals, made me feel really at home. Dont get me wrong, everyone has been real hospitable and nice, feeding us and giving us a place to stay, I just had a connection with him.

Me and Bruce, hi Burt....

We head back to the appartment and again, crash out.