AnneMarie and Andrew

Annemarie and Andrew – Trekking Asia

Diving adventure 2


Posted on Feb 24, 2014

After having a fluffy ear after the last dive I was a bit anxious that I’d done some damage  to my inner ear. Luckily, as the day went on my hearing went back to normal and I embarked on equalisation exercises with the aim to make my ears pop on dry land. I had signed up for a dive the next day at 9am and didn’t want to hold anyone up. We geared up and went out at 9am. There was JoJo, the dive master. I found out he had been diving since 2000 and had about 6000 dives under his belt. Another guy joined us who was a dive instructor and wanted to find work in the Philippines. The final couple were French and had about 93 dives under their belt including the Maldives and Madagascar. I was the least experienced, having only 6 dives completed over 10 years. These people knew what they doing. When we got to the dive point we geared up and rolled into the water. Luckily, JoJo helped me descend and held me so I could equalise. I am not sure whether I could have descended at the rate the others did plus I am not that confident at descending as yet. We arrived at the bottom and it was even more incredible than the day before. We were surrounded by coral and there were so many species of fish all over. The range of starfish you can see is also impressive including blue ones, purple ones and black ones. We saw a puffer fish, some miniscule crabs and lots of brightly coloured sea creatures. The coral was extraordinary! Nice and bright in a range of sizes including fan coral. The French lady had a camera and was taking lots of photos- maybe I’ll rent the camera tomorrow. We spent 44minutes diving and it was fantastic. If only I had some photos to show you all but if you Google coral reefs in the Philippines I’m sure you can get a good idea of what I’ve seen. After 30minutes freezing on the boat, even in 25’c. We geared up again. This time I knew we were going straight in the water and down to about 12m and had a greater insight into what I was doing. I rolled in the water fine. Again I was helped with the descent. The water was murkier and there was a little less to see but we eventually arrived at the field of Giant Clams. They were approximately 4-5ft in length and had a blue membrane inside. We spent another 44minutes diving. At the end of each...

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Diving in Puerto Galera.

Diving in Puerto Galera.


Posted on Feb 24, 2014

We came to the island of Mindoro because we had heard the diving was good. Stories about crystal clear water and turtles swimming near the shore persuaded us to come to the less touristy island of Mindoro. Palwan is another beauty spot in the Philippines and is one of ‘the’ destinations to go to, but it would require a flight and another day travelling to go North on the island to get to El Nido. El Nido is the main resort and starting point for diving. Mindoro, just like the rest of the Philippines,  has great potential but it is once again not fulfilled. The government does not advertise the island to the same extent as Palawan because of the ‘girly bars’, which are brothels. Imagine a family visiting Sabang – the main resort, to then be surrounded by prostitutes selling their wares. This means the place does not benefit from the hoards of tourists. You may think that less tourists would improve the area, you’d be wrong. It just means that there is nothing to do here if you do not dive. The streets are a bit grimy and you get pestered continuously by tricycle riders. Upon arrival we were pretty downbeat as we went to our room. It was very expensive compared to the rest of Asia and yet the room is average at best. No WiFi in the room to force you to sit in the bar buying drinks, a shoddy air con unit that doesn’t have a complete seal around it, meaning insects get in ( I’ve been bitten more in three days here than the whole of the trip!) and finally the cost of food is extortionate. Andrew doesn’t dive at all so had hoped to be in a nice resort with good WiFi so that he could plan the next part of the expedition. This was not the case! Nor could he just wander around because there is nowhere to go and stepping away from the hotel results in you being hounded by tricycle riders. All in all we made a mistake coming here as once you have gone diving then you are stuck! However, the diving does offset the mistake somewhat. The actual diving. For my 18th birthday, my parents bought me the Padi Open Water Diving Course. After completion you can dive anywhere in the world up to a depth of 18m. The qualification does not expire. This means I could just join a dive tour and go straight back in, but I didn’t. Instead I signed up for a refresher course to go over the basics ( this still missed...

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Two Day Trek via Pula

Two Day Trek via Pula


Posted on Feb 23, 2014

Despite a bad night’s sleep we were up at 6:45am the next morning ready for an early breakfast and departure. By 7:30am we were packed and ready to go. Our ‘guide’ turned up on time and was waiting for us. We had a 3L of water each in our hydration sacks and I was carrying 2x1L bottles of water as well. We set off across the top of the rice terraces looking down the hillside at the water covered hill as if it was a perfectly natural thing. An amazing sight. The walk to Campulo was quite nice. Plenty of rice terraces to walk through and good scenery. Only the heat was making this walk difficult. It only took 1hr 45minutes to reach Campulo, we were there for 9:30am, but we had already drunk both of the water bottles due to the heat. We were told that we would probably reach Pula around 2pm but everyone would be out in the fields working until at least 4pm, so we should eat plenty before setting off. We sat down to eat our second meal of the day; a huge pancake each and jam that was more like treacle, washed down with a can of Coke. It wasn’t even 10am! After our second breakfast we stocked up with another 2x1L bottles of water and headed out of the village and into the heat. After Campulo there was a short amount of flat ground over the rice terraces surrounding the village, then we started climbing. We spent the next two hours heading in an uphill direction. Some sections had a short number of steps, other sections involved what felt like never ending steps. The most surprising thing about this section of the walk was that although we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere and totally isolated it was the exact opposite. There were people everywhere, working in the fields, walking between villages, some were just sitting around by the path and others looked like they might be going hunting. After an extremely long set of steps our guide announced that from here on it would be flat. We were very relieved to hear that. On the flat the walking was pretty easy going. The heat made it very sweaty work but the views were rewarding. Also, been almost a mile above sea level reduced the air temperature by something like 5-8’c, making it bearable. At a lower altitude this would have been horrible. Our guide was in front leading the way, with Annemarie close behind. He spent large lengths of time complaining that other guides made more money than...

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The Rice Terraces


Posted on Feb 22, 2014

We travelled in a clockwise direction around northern Luzon, from Manila to Baguio, to Sagada, to Banaue. Our recommendation after doing this is to do it the other way. Banaue is a dive compared to Sagada with low quality food, nasty looking buildings and the weather is not usually as pleasant. Banaue and the surrounding area is good for hiking whereas Sagada only has a few strenuous activities and is better for relaxing. Hence our suggestion of going this way round: Book the night bus to Banaue before you arrive in Manila. The only company running that route at the moment is Ohayami. They have online booking. Once you arrive in Manila you can head up the same day, flight dependent. Alternatively, stay one night in Manila. We and everyone we’ve spoken to has hated Manila. Plan a rest day after the overnight bus. We didn’t sleep on the bus (too many corners) and felt awful the next day, others we met went to bed on arrival in Banaue. Walk to the view point and then take a guide through Banaue rice terraces. You see them from above and then see them up close. If you go to Batad don’t bother with a guide unless you want to talk a bit about the rice terraces or want someone to steady you on a narrow section of wall. The waterfall is on a single path with no junctions and the rice terraces are like a giant amphitheatre and you can’t get lost. If you like trekking then I suggest a multi-day trek. A good trek is Batad-Cambulo-Pula-Banaue, two days with a one night stopover. This walk takes you through rice terraces and a forest. Leave your main bag in Banaue and take a tricycle to Batad (in the morning) and explore Batad that day. Then the next day walk through the rice terraces via Cambulo to Pula. The route is reasonably straight-forward. If you are not sure then get a guide. If you get a guide in Batad try to negotiate the price to around P600-800. Stay over in Pula; The guesthouse is the blue house you see upon arrival (located at the top of the village). It’s basic with no hot water, no shower, no meat to eat. The next day you trek through forest and reach the main road about 4km up from the top viewpoint. You can then walk or get a tricycle back to Banaue. The trek is mainly uphill and over two days you will climb 3000ft (1000m). If you don’t feel so fit or energetic you can do this trek in reverse. The start...

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Sagada: Day 1


Posted on Feb 15, 2014

The Philippines is like the rest of Asia when it comes to hiking, you need a guide for almost everything. Well, actually you don’t need a guide, you just need to know where the path is. And because most information isn’t published then we don’t know where the paths are. Which then leads back to needing a guide simply because we can’t find the paths. Very annoying. On our first day in Sagada we were given a map in the tourist information office. It showed a path going up Mt. Apacao, the Lonely Planet also said this was a good walk and easy to do alone. That was enough to convince us that hiking up this hill would be a good idea. We had breakfast at the Yoghurt House, which serves really nice, thick yogurt (among many other nice options). We also ordered sandwiches which looked really tasty and a bag of fresh cookies. We walked down main road out of Sagada into the next village. Luckily, Annemarie had found a very brief blog that someone had written and we were able to use that for basic directions because we got stuck at the first point. A small concrete track leads off to the right by the school in Ambasing up the hill and sharply to the right. The map had no details and the Lonely Planet gave no directions. We followed this track almost the whole way to the ridge near the summit. It becomes a dirt track but still easy to follow. Most of the walk was in the shade which was very good for us, the air temperature was around 22’c but in the sun it was around 30’c. We still struggled a bit walking up there, showing that we really aren’t as fit as we’d like to be. We reached a flat plateau about two thirds of the way to the summit. From here the track went around the side of the slope, not up it. Our map was totally pointless for actual navigation and our very basic guide mentioned nothing. We looked around and followed the track hoping to see a path up. But nothing! We kept on walking. Still nothing! At this point we have to give up on walking to the summit. But, it’s not all bad news, the map shows a red line (a path) linking Mt. Apacao with a lake to the north, which is a popular location and has a road leading back into Sagada. We see no other paths so we might as well continue following this track. The track steadily gets narrower until it passed a wooden...

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