Lombok - From Gili T to Kuta L

After a few marvellous days in Ubud, our small group found itself on the road to Gili Trawangan.

Our mini bus to the coast was late (what a surprise...) and the boat ride was smooth. I was a bit concerned since you hear a lot of bad experiences on the boats connecting Indonesian island. All good eventually. There is no pier when you get to Gili T, the boat leaves you on the beach and picks up a new bunch of people for the route back.

Arriving in Gili T.

Our 4 nights stay on the island could be summed up by an quest to catch the sunset. We were not so lucky with the weather unfortunately as it rained most of the time. We were using the time on hand to play a lot of card games. The rain-free time was spent on the beach. This is pretty much all there is to do on the island. Then there're so many water sports activities - this archipelago is a world class diving area. Snorkeling was not too bad either. The crystal clear water, the white sand beaches make it a perfect location for doing nothing :D and we did just that :)

Well not exactly... but the lack of consistent nice weather did not push us to do more. Nice and relax some would say.

On my side I did go for an early morning run around the entire island (6.9km only).

West coast of Gili T with Bali landscape in the back.

In our quest for sun, Max and I decided to head to Lombok a few kilometres on the East of Gilis, hence leave our travel buddies for the past days. What a great time we have had and what an amazing bunch of people.

Happy people. We spent a bit more than a week together.

Instead of booking a fast boat we took the so called "public" boat... for 1 euro (15000 rupiahs). It felt like being on a nutshell and therefore no so safe. It was crowded with 60+ passengers compare to the 41 persons capacity of the boat... Safety first as they say!

We made it to the shore and hopped on a taxi to our hotel for the night north of Senggigi.

Bali from Longok (Senggigi). 

From a sunset point of view, this was almost as good as it got for us... not very lucky but nothing to complain about really. 

Max and I had to make a choice: North to the waterfall, or South to the beaches...

Since the weather forecast was better south, we decided to head there early morning and enjoy the (for once) sunny day burning on the beach.

Tanjung Aan beach in the south of Lombok

Mandalika beach in Kuta Lombok.

It turned out to be such a great idea as we bumped in friends on the beach in Sean and Chelsea. We had met with them on the beach in Canggu 2 weeks before this day and were stoked to catch up.

We made plans for the evening to watch the opening day of the 6 nations. Sean and I were really happy with this, despite the poor results of Ireland and France. 

The countdown until the day we were to leave Indonesia was ticking and showed 6 more days... We decided to come back to Bali the day after and discover the south of the island. This time, the ferry trip was like riding a rollercoaster and a lot of people on the fast boat found themselves sea sick. Throwing up everywhere... I slept like a baby - lucky me.
In what felt like a blink we around on Bali and 2 hours later we were checking in in a hotel close to famous Uluwatu temple.

New location, new friends, new adventures :)

Palawan - Discovering El Nido

I was not really inspired to find yet another title with bragging adjectifs qualifying the infinite beauty of a place. Palawan is - likewise Boracay - another regular member of rankings such as “Top 5 most beautiful islands in the world”.

While I can now say I have been in Palawan and stay on this island, the 4 days I had there and the very limited places I have seen have to be put in perspective. It was yet again the experience of a lifetime and I feel lucky to having wandered the beaches around El Nido.

El Nido is probably the most known corner of this island (in the North-West part) and it is naturally there that we headed from Puerto Princesa, where our flight from Cebu landed. I have been regularly writing about long commutes - that one was nowhere different from the others. Although there are “only” around 250 kilometres from Puerto to El Nido it took more than 5 hours to get there despite the driver of our van slaloming comfortably between the Jeepneys, the motorbikes and the tricycles overpopulating the roads. Thankfully our pension was on the side of the main road 3 kilometres from the village of El Nido and we where dropped of there already late at night.

We couldn’t see much from the hotel room and sleep was most needed when we arrived. We would get our reward from all the commuting when we woke up by discovering the view.

Of course it is impossible to compare one location to another, one island in Thailand in the Caribbean or in Polynesia to its filipino cousin’s without loosing any kind of objectivity. It is definitely a matter of taste and often depends of one’s experience in a given corner of the planet. My experience in El Nido together with the great time I had there made it very special… And man that view!

And the greatest part is that it is at least as beautiful under the over than on (is)land.

I won't say much more about El Nido besides that it was the first time since The Challenge in Ko Pha Ngan (22nd of December) that I was going in the water (more than the time of a shower obviously). Jeroen and Andres enjoyed the wonderful big blue world for  a few dives and I join them on the boat to snorkel in the same areas. 

I spend to much time in the water that I got burnt real bad on the back... This is the risk you are less expose to when diving... or wearing sun proof clothes or sun protection.

Here are some pictures I took with the GoPro. No filters or adjustments made only cropping and rotating the pictures :D Amazing time that was.

I got to swim 10 minutes with this buddy.

Coral and fishes. Zoom in to see the little blue ones in the Coral.

The Table Coral, one of my favorite underwater picture.

Angry Nemo coming at me, protecting his little one.

Sunset in Las Cabanas Beach.

From one paradise to another - Trying out each and every transportation system in the Philippines

TL;DR
Took us 12 hours to go from Boracay to Alona Beach using every possible mean of transportation the country has to offer. In order we rode: Taxi, boat, bus, plane, taxi, ferry, uber. Funny and tiring experience.

Now, for the longer version of the trip.

Leaving Boracay meant couple of things to us: 
- firstly we would leave the craziness of the island heading to a much quieter place.
- secondly we were in for another long day in the amazing networks of transports of the Philippines (there are just so many options to go from one place to another). 

On the 3rd day of the year and after our light (free) breakfast at the hostel (Instant coffee, ice tea, 1 egg served scrambled, 2 toasts and a tiny bit of jam and butter that are not enough to cover one of the toast) we took a minivan to the pier, a small ferry to Catitlan and a bus to the airport.
3 hours later we discovered the madness of this local airport. The queue outside Kalibo airport was a solid 200m. We have  heard by now stories from countless travellers that had their flights rescheduled, cancelled rerouted at the last minute (it turned out that our coming flight from Cebu to Palawan was reschedule by one day…). Thankfully my crutches are acting like a magic pass and we easily skipped the queue (the advantages of being a Passenger With Disabilities).

Leaving Boracay on a tiny boat.

Our plan was foggy when we boarded... Not very reassuring. 

Arriving in Cebu international airport. we had to find out how to get to Alona beach, located around 60km Southwest on Panglao island. Jeroen got the information right before exciting the airport at one of the tourist information desk. We would need to get to Cebu passenger pier, hope on a ferry and take a taxi to the Resort.
The taxi we got at the airport took us to the pier through Cebu, the oldest city of the Philippines. We will be getting there the 7th or the 8th of January, where I will or will not run the city’s half marathon - that should be decided last minute.

And we were in for yet another ferry. The terminal is MUCH bigger than in Boracay where it only takes 10 minutes for a boat to make the small ride across the sea. The experience of taking a larger ferry in the Philippines is quite procedural and structured as you need to:
- buy a ticket (at the local office or at the counter located outside the passenger terminal, most probably on the internet as well)
- pay terminal fee to get access to the boarding gate
- check in for your ferry
- wait at your gate
- board the ferry
The experience is exactly like in an airport, no more no less.

The ferry ride was 2 hours and it was already night time outside when we got to Tagbilaran city on an island called Bohol. Outside the small harbour it is chaos. Exiting the passenger terminal we had a dozen of tricycle, taxi or minivan drivers offering their services to get us to our final destination for the day.

Jeroen give me the lead to choose from the many possibilities.
We quickly found ourselves in a large SUV (uber!?) with 2 Norwegian travellers going in the same direction. After dropping them off, we finally arrived at our resort: the Bohol Subside Resort.
I think we were both very happy to have a private twin room for us and could rest after diner at the resort bar.

Bohol Sunside Resort. Great choice Jeroen :)