White Beach and Boracay

After a few hot and sticky days in Manila with no electricity or running water, we were getting frustrated and couldn't wait to head to the beaches. Just had to wait one more day to pick up Pouya, Mahta's brother, from the airport and get the hell out. So, we left Manila for what we thought would be a beautiful and happening place called White Beach in Puerto Gallera. Wow, were we ever in for a surprise! We arrived at a dead place with 20 Korean tourists, 3 non-Koreans, about 50 lady boys who were infatuated with Pouya and Haakon, a very non-white beach with huge un-surf-able waves, and an approaching typhoon. YAY, lucky us! We spent countless hours on buses, ferries, tricycles and jeepneys for this?

We were already looking forward to our next destination when we suddenly noticed just how cheap alcohol was and we were able to drink our sorrows away with Erlend, the Norwegian we had met earlier in Manila, and Tanduay, the Philipino rum that is ever so sweet and cheap (2L bottle of coke = $1.20; 1L bottle of Tanduay = $0.70)!!

Check out what we found in our frozen water bottle we bought from the store, hahaha we promise we had nothing to do with it!!

Two days later we were on the road again hoping to find better waters and maybe even a nice atmosphere..!?! And we were succesful! After a Jeepney, boat and tricycle ride and some walking we arrived at a beautiful island called Boracay. Boracay is thee tourist destination in the Philippines and we were happy to be tourists for a little while.

Our time in Boracay was made even more enjoyable because of two really nice Pinoys named Marlon and Caps...

they were so nice and hospitable towards us that our time there would not have been the same without them! We had a great night drinking till the wee hours of the morning and they even invited us for a home-made meal the following day! This is where our love for the Philippines and its people began to flourish.

After a few lazy days at Boracay we left for what ended up being a 36 hour journey to the island of Panglao. It was a journey like no other. So first we took a tricycle from the beach to the pier,

then we took a boat to "mainland" which was just another island - but a little bigger, then we took a jeepney for 3 hours to a bigger city, then we took a freezing cold A/C bus for another 4 hours to an even BIGGER city! Here it got a little complicated, we didn't have a map of the city and we weren't quite sure which pier we had to catch our ferry from. After some asking around, we figured we had to take two jeepneys. Lovely!! You have to understand how uncomfortable these things become when the novelty has worn off: there is little or basically no space to move while you're cuddling your backpack, there are stinky armpits everywhere - actually to be honest we were the stinkiest people around, and sore asses made for a few very uncomfortable rides. So, we got off the first jeepney, grab a bite to eat, catch our next jeepney and get dropped off at the wrong pier! OH NO!
Jeepney:

Our boat was leaving in half an hour and there was only one boat that day! Gotta make it! Luckily though our ferry left from a pier not too far away, so on we went to another jeepney (3 in a row! Must be some sort of a record!) which got us to the right place.... Oooooh, hope there are tickets left! And yes there were seats, actually so many seat that we could even choose what class of ticket we wanted...of course we opted for good old, trustworthy "economy class." This was to be our home for the next 14 hours. Mahta, the world champion sleeping machine, had no trouble getting in some 12 hours of sleep. Haakon and Pouya on the other hand were a bit restless and began wandering the ship for some fun and adventure. They were quite content when they ended up at the rooftop bar with a dozen of army guys singing Philipino karaoke songs and drinking lots of Red Horse which is the Philippines strongest beer!! Nobody really knows what happened on this rooftop bar, bu we think it involved singing Tagalog (name of the national language) while 20 army guys where clapping.

After this eventful ferry ride, we still had more traveling to do! Another 3 hour boat ride, some waiting around followed by a 3 hour super-cramped bus ride and we had FINALLY arrived at the island of Panglao! At first, we were quite angry with ourselves for spending all that time and money to get to there amd it just didn't seem like a nice place at all!! Our hotel search was disasterous, prices were high and quality was ultra low. What did we get ourselves into? We finally settled at a nice place called Underwater Divers with a super friendly staff, always a bonus!