Cebu
We arrived in the Philippines nearly 24 hours after setting off from the UK and were then faced with the worst way to start any country on a budget, leaving the airport. We had no local currency so the first task was to try to find an ATM, however the only 2 ATM’s available only accepted local cards which left us a little stuck. We asked a taxi driver whether he would accept US dollars as this was the only cash we had with us, luckily he said yes but he wanted $10, the going rate into town from the airport should have been 200 pesos which works out at around $5. Well at least it got us to the hostel we wanted to stay in, but then the problems continued – we arrived at the hostel only to be told there were no rooms available – great! There was a place just round the corner that had some rooms available but they were more than twice what we were expecting to pay so we headed over to the nearest place in our book. What we assumed would only take 5 minutes turned into 20 – as it usually does when going off the scale on Lonely Planet maps! We collapsed onto the bed in our room and just crashed out for the next 14 hours and woke up the next morning hoping that things would improve when we headed off to Bohol.

Bohol
We were looking forward to something a little more traditional and a bit of peace and relaxation after Cebu, this seemed to be the case as we were taken up the river on a pump boat to “Nuts Huts”. Alongside a milky blue river were about 10 traditional Nipa Huts with jungle directly behind them, but when we were shown to our room the appeal fizzled away. The room was dark, dirty and a bit of a disappointment considering the rave reviews we’d heard. To make matters worse you had to climb around 150 steps to get to the restaurant/reception which is your only place to eat and drink for the next 5 days, and to get out to the main road you had to climb another 150+ steps and then trek for about 1.5km along a dirt track with no shade – certainly not the place to be if you hate exercise!

We made our peace with the room and climbing the steps and tried to enjoy things as best we could and looked forward to the attractions we had come to see in Bohol, “The Chocolate Hills” and a tiny primate called a “Tarsier”. The following day we took a trip to a butterfly sanctuary which was pretty dull (should have really seen that coming) and then headed to one of the nearby towns Loboc and had a look around the church. We had the whole place to ourselves which made it great for taking photos, we also went up into the loft area which housed a fair number of bats who seemed very friendly!

The next day we headed off towards “The Chocolate Hills” which are one of the biggest attractions on Bohol, a series of very rounded hills that turn a brownish colour during a few months of the year, they kind of look like the hills you see in the Mario games. Well that’s about all you can really say about them, just a few hills that didn’t look particularly “chocolaty” at all, not something we’d highly recommend going to see if any of you are heading out that way.

We were supposed to be spending 2 more days at Nuts Huts but due to our lack of good sleep and food we decided to leave early and head to the town of Tagbilaran via the Tarsier Centre. We arrived nice and early and after waiting a few minutes for a small rain shower to pass we headed off into the enclosure. Within seconds we saw our very first Tarsier, the cutest, weirdest little creatures you’ve ever seen. Apparently their eyes are 20 times larger than a humans compared to body size which makes them constantly look surprised. We continued on through the enclosure and saw another three all up close and personal which is more than we were expecting and the trip turned out to be really good. We then spent the next day eating McDonald’s (oops!) and booking a couple of flights to get to Boracay and Manila before heading back to Cebu.

Camiguin
We had booked tickets to fly to Camiguin when we first arrived at the airport in Cebu and were really looking forward to having a nice relaxing week on a beach. We flew over on one the smallest planes we’d ever been on and had great views of the ocean and islands during the 40 minute flight down from Cebu to Camiguin. We arrived at a tiny “airport” and got a pretty good deal on a motor-tricycle to take us to our resort, Jasmin By The Sea. What followed was about an hour of looking around different rooms and resorts trying to get the best room for our money and at the end of it all we ended up back where we started, typical!

The beach didn’t really turn out to be quite as we had hoped, instead of sand we had grit and there was razor sharp coral just a few feet out to sea along with some broken glass. However, it was good to be back by the ocean again so we tried to remain positive about the whole thing. We spent our first full day doing a little sunbathing on the grit, not the nicest of settings but we both really needed to get some colour to our skins, nothing worse than looking like a pastey-white new traveller. It turns out that sunburn doesn’t set in until you’ve been out of the sun for about 4 hours over here so we now knew to be a little more careful over the next few days!

The following day we hired our motor-tricycle driver from the first day to take us on a full day tour of the island, showing us all the sights and interesting local culture. This didn’t go too well as half way through the trip we were heading up quite a steep hill going from gravel to tarmac when the whole thing leapt up into the air and came crashing back down with a nasty jolt and stopped moving. After a few attempts at getting it into gear we had to resort to leaving the guy to try and fix whatever he’d managed to break by attempting to get up that hill. He finally managed to get it running again but said we had to go and get proper repairs so we headed back about 1km to a local village where about 6 of the local men decided to make some “adjustments” as they called it. 10 minutes later we headed back to the hill to make another attempt, lo and behold the same thing happens, we go up in the air and the bike comes crashing down. The locals found this all very amusing as we headed back for further “adjustments” and we had a good time chatting to them and the hordes of small children as our transport was being fixed. We decided to say thanks by buying the kids a bag of chocolate cereal each, which went down very well with everyone. By this point we had decided it was best to give up on the hill and just head back to the main road to continue on our “tour”. We then headed to one of the many natural springs that can be found on Camiguin only to be confronted with a man-made monstrosity of concrete and videoke blaring out. Not really the beautiful, natural springs that we were expecting. Let’s just say the tour wasn’t quite what we were hoping for!

The big attraction of Camiguin is a small island just off its coast called “White Island”, beautiful, unspoilt white sands. However it’s not really unspoilt any more as the locals have set up camp on one side of the island with tents, stalls and tables full of souvenirs. At first this was quite off-putting as we were expecting unspoilt white sand but after a few drinks we discovered the island’s charm. Everyone was really friendly and as we were the only westerners on the island we became everyone’s new best friend. We must have been asked to be in about 50 or so family photographs and found it quite bizarre especially when posing next to some people almost half the size of you! Before we knew it we were back on the plane heading back to Cebu – again!

Malapascua
After returning to Cebu city from Camiguin we had decided to head up to the small island of Malapascua just off the northern tip of Cebu Island. After a bumpy (and alarmingly fast-paced) 4 hour bus journey to the small town of Maya we sat and waited patiently for a boat. After about 10 minutes a guy pulled up in a taxi and asked how long it would be before the boat set off, he didn’t seem very happy about having to wait for more passengers so decided to charter the whole boat himself. We offered to pay our full fare of 50 pesos each to him but he insisted that we all just give the boat man 5 pesos each, which we did happily and set off to the island. Once we arrived we were shocked by the state of the island, it looked like a demolition area. Pretty much all the way along the south beach where you get off the boat there has been a lot of demolition due to them building a road. The island itself is beautiful, as would be the beaches if they just spend a little time cleaning them. After the first few hours on the island we had almost given up hope as all the rooms and restaurants we had seen were way beyond our budget, but luckily the following day our luck changed and we found a good cheap room and cheap restaurant too!

Once we had settled into our new room we decided to explore the whole island as it is only about 3km in length. We walked through all the local villages and talked to a few of the locals along the way and ended up right at the northern tip of the island within an hour or so. We watched some of the local fisherman clearing their nets of thousands of small anchovy-looking fish and also smelt them drying out in the sun! After a brief rest in the shade we set off back down the island to a quiet little cove we had seen on the way up and spent the next few hours napping, sun-bathing, swimming and relaxing. We then narrowly avoided a short downpour in a new resort just next to where we had been sun-bathing and were told that it was owned by a Filipina actress called Miss Pilar and were shown around the place and given free coffee. If we were here on a shorter trip with a slightly higher budget it would have been the perfect place to stay.

The following day was my (Jon’s) birthday and we had planned on having a nice relaxing day on the beach but for some reason the weather didn’t want to play along and it proceeded to rain constantly for almost 24 hours… never mind eh?

Bantayan
After leaving Malapascua we headed to a nearby island called Bantayan, apparently the same kind of thing (well sand and sea) just on a bigger island. Sensibly (we thought) we’d booked a room at the cheapest place in the Lonely Planet that sounded really nice, Budyong Beach Resort. However, once we got there we found out that our 500 pesos got us a crappy little portacabin as far away from the beach as was possible and right next to a construction site, nice! We were unimpressed to say the least so decided to have a look at one of the beach front cottages, costing 800 pesos (too much for our small budget), but to be honest it really didn’t seem worth spending almost double just to have the convenience of walking 100 metres less. To cut a long story short we found a much nicer place that was 100 pesos cheaper 2 days later and moved there and had a much nicer time of it.

Besides sunbathing and swimming the only other thing to note from Bantayan was the food. Being as cheap as we are now we were not going to pay stupid tourist prices in the restaurants along the main strip, and by stupid I mean around 200 pesos each (roughly £2.50) – instead we went to the local, and very popular chicken BBQ stand on the main crossroads of the town. For about 60 pesos you could have a chicken breast, 4 hot dogs, 2 blood-on-a-stick (sounds grim but tastes pretty good, think liver consistency and cube shaped) and a couple of rice parcels. If you then combined that with the awesome bakery next door which had the softest doughnut-type things for only 5 pesos and a couple of boiled eggs, you could have a very filling meal for 2 for less than 100 pesos. This is solely what we survived on for the entire 4 days and we are now feeling the effects of the severe lack of vitamins in our crappy diet! So after getting a little browner and eating a lot of barbecued meats we had to head back to Cebu city, yet again, before heading off to Boracay!

Cebu
Stupidly I had decided that we didn’t need to book a room at the place we normally stayed in Cebu which of course meant that they were fully booked when we turned up, we did have the following 2 nights reserved so we just had to find a room for the one night. Luckily there was a nice place just around the corner that cost a little more but would be fine for the night. The following day we went back to the other hostel to find out they hadn’t reserved the room that we had asked for but they had another room that we could use instead. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it was the coolest (temperature-wise) and probably most comfortable room we had stayed in.

After a great night’s sleep we set off to go back to a couple of the sights in Cebu that we had already been to when we first arrived, the reason for going back was because we were in a much better mood now! Both places were right next to each other so we got one of the local Jeepney’s to take us down to Magellan’s Cross to take some more photographs. Most of you should know of Magellan but if not “he was the first European to reach the archipelago of what is now known as the Philippines” back in 1521. The cross itself is quite uninspiring but the paintings on the ceiling of the building are pretty cool and make for some good photographs.

After taking a few shots and starring in someone’s home video we set off to the “Carbon Market” which was only around the corner, Kim had been looking forward to wandering around a market as we hadn’t had the chance yet and this place looked perfect. Once we stepped inside the corridors of the market the humidity hit us hard and sweat started to pour down the both of us, however it was one of the most atmospheric and lively markets we’ve ever been to. Everyone we walked past was very friendly and we had a great time chatting to various vendors and a particularly enthusiastic young man who insisted that we were to go back the following day even though I kept telling him we were flying to Boracay!

Boracay
Described as one of the best beaches in the world and probably the most popular destination within the Philippines, Boracay was our next destination and our hopes were high for some prime tanning action on an amazing beach! One thing that’s not widely publicised about Boracay is the massive amount of algae that accumulates all the way along the 4km stretch of “White Beach” turning what should be a beautiful white sand beach into something that more resembles the beach of Morecambe! OK, I may have over-exaggerated a little but in some places along the beach the algae had been swept up and piled in a corner and the smell was pretty disgusting! Apart from the algae the beach was very nice though – probably the finest sands we’ve ever walked on.

We had booked a room in quite an exclusive little resort, Boracay Hills, through Expedia with some vouchers that we’d been given as we expected it to be hard to find a room within our tiny budget on the most popular island in the Philippines. This turned out to be the best thing we could have done as we got to spend our entire 6 nights there for practically nothing – to cut a long story short, I’m doing some websites for them and we didn’t have to pay for the room.

We spent most of our time at the hotel as we had a great little pool (that wasn’t full of algae like the sea!) and a nice air-con room, however we did venture out a couple of times. The main reason for venturing out was to try and find some food that we could actually afford, this turned out to be a mistake! We had set off just before sunset to have a nice walk along the beach and have a couple of beers which was quite successful, but then we tried to find something to eat. We pretty much walked the entire 4-5km length of the beach looking at the prices and quality of the food available and after an hour we gave up and went back to our room hungry and a little miffed! Apart from barely eating we had a nice relaxing week in relative luxury and topped up our tans to a much healthier glow!

Silay
Getting to our next destination was far from luxurious! After setting off from our hotel at 7am we got a boat over to Caticlan, then a bus for 6 hours to Iloilo City, then had to wait for 2 hours before getting a ferry over to Bacolod. Once in Bacolod we had to get to a Jeepney to take us to Silay, so after more than 12 hours we arrived in Silay at about 8pm. Things only got worse when we were shown to our room which sported a rather glorious hole in the wall where an air-con unit had been ripped out! The room boy quickly organised a bit of plywood which he nailed to the wall to roughly cover the hole, however the problems continued into the bathroom. The shower didn’t work, the drain was completely clogged, the water smelled of rust and was a dirty brown colour, and the floor was coated in some strange yellow substance – I dread to think! We were too tired to bother complaining that night so we went to sleep on our broken double bed!

Things got worse when I went to complain the following morning as I was shown the other 2 rooms that we could transfer to, the first just had a hole in the wall where the shower should have been and the second one also had a shower that didn’t work. After going back to reception and explaining that we were in urgent need of a shower and that all the rooms I had been shown were completely unacceptable they had a solution. It turned out that we’d been staying in part of the hotel that wasn’t in use any more – I suppose that’s what you get for wanting to stay in their cheapest rooms! We were then shown to the newly renovated section, which was still actually being renovated but at least it had a working shower.

Silay (a city on Negros Occidental) used to be considered “the Paris of Negros” back in the early 20th century and was considered “the” place to be for artists and influential people. The area was, and still is, a major player in the country’s sugar production and export which in turn led to the influx of wealthy people and their large, beautiful houses. This is now the major attraction of Silay, there are 31 officially named ancestral homes in a very small area but only a few are open to the public.

There are 2 houses that have been converted into museums which house a large selection of old furniture and period pieces however our highlight was visiting the home of Ramon Hofilena. Unlike the other 2 houses this one is still in full use by Ramon and his family who were visiting when we went round to arrange our visit. We were given a full tour of the house which includes many rare pieces of art and some very old artefacts that you would only expect to see in museums including a small cup over 3000 years old! His art collection is very impressive, even to us lowly folk who know very little about “traditional art” and especially Filipino artists. After we were shown around his beautiful house we sat down to talk in the living room and had some fascinating conversations about his life and his achievements. We felt quite privileged to be sat in this man’s house listening to stories about his earlier years and his family. Ramon has done a lot for the city of Silay as a lot of the ancestral homes would have been demolished if it weren’t for his intervention and petitions he had organised. After spending most of the afternoon with Ramon we had to leave as we had organised a tour of one of the local sugar plantations.

Well, what can we say about our “tour”, we had rather romantically envisioned being shown around the plantation and watching the cane being harvested and transported back to the factory for processing – err, no! Upon arriving at the factory the lady explained that she would just be showing us a steam locomotive and that was all, we asked if she could show us the cane being harvested but apparently she didn’t know where they were doing that! We were given our visitor passes and spiffy white hard hats and then led over to the old steam trains. Not much else to report about the old tour other than that, pretty much a complete waste of time – never mind.

Whilst looking round the ancestral homes we saw a postcard showing a really cool chandelier in a church chapel in the area, so after making a note of the name we attempted to find it. We knew the name “Santa Clara Chapel” but were a little unsure of the location as it just said it was in Bacolod City, which covers a pretty big area. We got into a jeepney heading to Bacolod and told the guy where we wanted to go and he nodded his head and said “yeah” so we sat down and waited to be told to get off… Everyone else had gotten off and we were all alone in the jeepney when the guy asks us where we’re going, as you can probably imagine we were a little annoyed, so as calmly as possible we told him where we wanted to go. After a couple of minutes of him trying to decide whether he knew where it was or not we set off again, back to Silay. After another 5-10 minutes we were starting to wonder whether he was just taking us back to Silay but then we pull over and he says “Santa Clara” so we jump out, before we had chance to really check if we were in the right place the jeepney had disappeared. We were stood at the end of the road that lead into a housing estate so we headed over to a security guard’s post and asked them if they knew where Santa Clara Chapel was, and as we suspected they didn’t have a clue. Just as we were about to give up we spotted another sign for Santa Clara on the opposite side of the road so we headed over and approached another guard’s post and asked them the same question. To our great surprise they said that it was just down the road in the housing estate, so off we went with high hopes! As it was a Sunday you would expect to have no problems getting into a church, however things seemed to be running a little differently here as we found the place locked up. After searching around the back we found some office opening hours which said that it should have been open but it didn’t say which days it was open so I headed off to ask the security guard. Lo and behold we find out that it’s closed all day Sunday – nice of the guy to let us know before we set off to find it!

After missing the opportunity to view Santa Clara Chapel on the Sunday we headed out again on the Tuesday to see if we’d have more luck. As we approached the guard’s office we made sure to double-check that the Chapel was open and to our relief the guard assured us that it was. However, upon approaching the chapel it looked as closed and padlocked as it had done on the Sunday, that was until we got round to the back where we found the office door wide open. We were greeted by a very friendly woman by the name of Barbara who was interested in how we had found the Church and she proceeded to tell us all about the amazing artwork inside. The chandelier that we had seen on the postcard was constructed out of pairs of sea shells all strung out, as you can see in the photo it is pretty impressive. The chapel was also full of small Christian statues that were decorated very intricately with shell, and there was also an impressively large mosaic shell mural on the wall. Unfortunately we had missed 2 weddings over the past few days which would have been really great to see but we still had a good time viewing the chapel and chatting with Barbara. Our time in Silay had unfortunately come to an end so we left for the airport heading to the capital city of Manila.