After about 5 minutes I managed to get my ears to properly clear, not by forcing it, but by just waiting for it to "happen". It was great. We went on 3 separate dives, one down to 55ft and saw some great coral, lionfish!! and some crazy fast swimming sea star. So now we will have to get Miranda certified in Malaysia in a week or so, so we can dive together in future. woo hoo! Thanks Sandra!!
-Joe
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After the whale shark adventure we decided to make our way to Legaspi (also spelled Legazpi) in a jeepney (a common way to get around here, though our butts hurt a lot after the hour plus ride) and stay there the night before heading farther north. The place we stayed was relatively cheap, but for a reason... Joe killed a cockroach running across the floor and there were ants everywhere... Oh well.
The next day we figured out how to get to Batanges, a place Sandra researched and found out there was some good diving there. We caught a 6:45pm bus. We had to get off in one town at around 4am, then catch a different bus. By this time, I was feeling terrible. My stomach was cramping and I had a headache. We caught the next bus and were only on it for about 45 minutes before people mentioned in was Batanges City, so we got off. Unfortunately, there was really nothing around. There was really nothing around, so we hopped into a jeepney and got down the road a bit farther. We jumped out again then tried to find our way to Anilao, which is more technically where the places we wanted to stay were. We found another jeepney that took us to another small town where we hopped out. By this time it was raining (which it had been on and off for the last couple days) but we found an open internet cafe (it was 8am by this point). Eventually we decided to splurge and stay at a dive resort. A bit pricier than normal for us, but after the cockroaches and mice of the last few places, plus the overnight buses, we decided we deserved it.
So, we took a tricycle (motorcycle with a sidecar) to the resort where we had to walk down an incredibly steep and relatively long driveway. Our room is very nice. The food is buffet style, so we do have a few options, fortunately. Before dinner Joe and Sandra had gone out snorkeling and said it was awesome. I didn't go though because by this time I was feeling pretty awful. I couldn't eat much, my stomach felt awful and my head hurt. I napped most of the day. It poured all evening and all night. The wind started to kick up in the evening also. For dinner they had sheets up to block the rain from coming in and right after we left, one of the sections blew off. The people there mentioned that a typhoon was coming in. We ended up just going back to the room and sleeping.
This morning I felt much better. So, it appears the lack of sleep and the super bumpy bus were the culprits and not some bug. Yay! Joe's got a bit of a sniffly nose now though. :p Hopefully that passes soon. He was hoping to try diving again with Sandra. She was willing to help him with clearing his ears, etc. They could do a dive right off the shore. While snorkeling he's been working on trying to clear his ears and was having some success. Unfortunately, now that he's stuffy, he's really having problems with it.
The snorkeling today was fun. We went out twice and saw lots of neat fish and the coral here is very different. All the photos posted below were taken by Sandra. We also compiled video clips that both of us took. We're planning on staying here another two nights.
-Miranda
Snorkeling in the Philippines (click for video)
The jeepney from Donsol to almost Legaspi.
Our room at the resort.
Neat coral or something.
Christmas trees. They disappear when you swish water over them (see video).
More fun feathery stuff.
Possibly a Crown of Thorns. I believe it's a type of sea star.
Star fish!
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The fireflies ended up being a lot of fun. We took a small boat up the river and right around when it was getting pretty dark, fireflies started appearing in the trees. They apparently live in the mangroves and synchronize their blinking with each other. It was very neat.
The next morning we got to the whale shark encounter place and headed right at 7:30. We were the first group out. Within 5 minutes, he told us to get ready! We were like, wha?? We all got our flippers and masks on then hopped in when our guide told us to. We swam along for a very short bit, then he told us to look down. All of a sudden the Whale Shark was came out of the murky water. So neat!! We ended up with about 5 encounters. It was either all with the same shark, or a couple different ones. The videos weren't great since it is huge and you can't see what your taping, but we still got some on video. This is from getting ready to go, jumping in, then seeing the shark.
Whale Shark (click to view)
-Miranda
Photos by Sandra (I'm getting lazy and not using my broken camera anymore. haha)
Rice patties.
Water Buffalo!
Moon over the river.
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We took an afternoon flight to Clark, which is about 85km north of Manila. We arrived and were going to hop on a bus to Manila. Joe went to the ATM to get cash and the card wouldn't work... Sandra tried her card and ended up with the same issue. She had Australian cash left over still, so we exchanged that and paid for the bus.
Once in Manila, we tried again and failed. Joe and Sandra ended up walking about 5 minutes to a money exchanger and changed some US cash for pesos. Manila is crazy though! People everywhere and drivers are nuts. No one works together, they're always fighting to get ahead of everyone else and they use their horn constantly. It's apparently used to tell someone you're passing them here. This ended up being even more annoying on the 10 hour bus ride down to Legaspi which was an overnight bus. Speaking of that, they keep the AC full blast, so you end up freezing. For the next bus ride we'll have to remember to grab our jacket and anything that can be used as a blanket. A nice girl from Missouri that's here with the Peace Corps was sitting in front of us and did lend us a blanket type thing to help us stay warm.
We arrived in Legaspi at around 6:30am where Joe bumped into a British couple that were basically in the same stage of planning as we were. They wanted to see the whale sharks but didn't have a place to stay for sure yet. The 5 of us hopped into a taxi for the hour or so ride to Donsol.
There are apparently a lot fireflies here at night, so we're doing a boat ride for that tonight. Hopefully that will be fun. We're going with the other couple tomorrow morning to hopefully see Whale Sharks. Two sharks were seen yesterday (don't know about today yet) so hopefully we're lucky even though it's the end of the season.
-Miranda
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We've been hanging out in Kota Kinabalu (also known as KK) for a number of days now. Most of it was just relaxing and walking around town. Two of the days we took a boat to Sapi, a small island not far off shore. The snorkeling there was great. Especially once you got away from the main swimming area. A lot of people here simply don't understand that they are not supposed to touch or stand on the coral, so a lot of the coral is busted and dead. Once you got out of the main swimming area though, it was very cool. Lots of fish.
All the photos were taken by Sandra. She has a case for her camera so she can take photos and videos.
-Miranda
Monitor Lizard (click for video)
There were huge Monitor Lizards hanging out on the island since some tour groups fed their 'people'. They seemed to be hoping to get scraps.
Snorkeling (click for video)
Snorkeling video. The last few videos were taken by Sandra.
Clown fish.
Crazy bright orange coral.
More clown fish.
Moorish Idol.
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