Two months traveling around Asia

We arrived in the morning in Banaue. As it was raining and foggy, we hired a jeepney - which is like a van with benches on both sides - to go to the rice terraces of Hapao which apparently were the only one not in the fog. Indeed, the North of Luzon - which is the island where Manila is - is famous for its rice terraces that are supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world. Let’s check it! Rice terraces were carved out of the hillside by Ifugao people 2,000 years ago to provide flat fields where natives could plant rice. The road was very muddy with landslides all the way long (which was a bit scary) and indeed it was not too foggy so we could have nice views over the rice terraces. The highlight was the viewpoint over rice terraces that were flooded, and this site belongs to the UNESCO heritage. We waited a bit for the rain to stop and the clouds to go away to have a clear view on this stunning landscape. While waiting, our driver took out some “betel” which is the same as in Sri Lanka: seeds of the betel nut that they put in a leaf with a kind of paste and they chew it to get high (and have the teeth red). But our driver didn’t have the tobacco leaf that is the one that gets you high, because he didn’t like it. It was actually safer for us because he had to drive to go back to the guesthouse, and there were more and more fog. As it was raining back in Banaue, we went for some “shopping” in the few shops that were in the village, with many wooden crafts and textiles. A woman in the guesthouse, called Lollita, was insisting to be our guide for tomorrow to go to other rice terraces in Batad. We were doubting about her guiding capacities as she was quite fat, and as it was foggy we didn’t know if it would be useful to take a guide. We tried to decline politely even though she was coming back all the time.

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The weather was still foggy when we woke up, but locals told us that it would be ok in Batad as it is lower than Banaue. We declined again Lollita’s offer to be our guide or to hire us a jeepney (we then learnt from our driver that she was taking huge commissions on this), we bought cakes in a local bakery for 2 pesos each (which is about 0.03 euros!) and took the same driver as yesterday. On the way to Batad we couldn’t see that much the landscapes of the road because of the fog, and when we arrived in Batad we were completely in the clouds. We decided to go down to the village, which was the right choice because the fog dissapeared little by little so we could see the flooded rice terraces with the village in the middle of them. As it was a bit raining we didn’t hire a guide to hike, we took pictures and went back to the jeepney to have lunch in front of other rice terraces, avoiding another rain shower. Then we went back to Banaue and bought betel to try, as we had nothing to do. But the tobacco leaf was smelling so bad that we didn’t put it in the mixture, so we didn’t get high. Otherwise, this betel had the same taste as the one in Sri Lanka :)

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We woke up early to catch a jeepney for Sagada, a city in the mountains. Today the sun was shining so we could see huge rice terraces on the way, unfortunately we couldn’t stop to enjoy the view. After a 5 hours journey in two jeepneys to cover 60 km, we finally reached Sagada, left our bags in a small guesthouse and went for three different hikes. The sun was shining and the mountains landscapes were like the ones that we can find in the Alps, with trees and rivers, so for a moment we forgot that we were in the Philippines and felt like it was summer in France! Sagada is indeed a peaceful city in the mountains, and people here seem to be richer than in Banaue, wearing clean clothes and having houses with hard walls and not only wood and metal sheets. Moreover, Sagada is famous for its “hanging coffins” which are coffins that they hung in the middle of the mountains, quite weird. We finished our days with a stunning view over flooded rice terraces, then ate “sizzling sisig” in a local restaurant, which is shredded pork with onions cooked on a sizzling plate, where they add an egg at the end that cooks slowly on the meat. Delicious!

Sizzling sisig

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We woke up early to catch a bus to Baguio at 6am, but the bus finally left at 7am, as usual! After a 6 hours journey, we reached Baguio which is a modern city North of Manila, but less polluted and cleaner. We went to an apparently nice natural park but it was very common so we took a public minibus to go back to the city centre and “visit” the malls to finish the day.

We arrived in Manila at 1pm (after the stewards played a game in the plane, asking us to show objects to win prizes, funny) and we went to the bus station in town to buy a night bus ticket to go to the rice fields in the North. We thus had a few hours in Manila, so we decided to go to Intramuros, which is the old Spanish area with colonial buildings. Unfortunately most of the old buildings were not well preserved, so we visited a typical colonial house that is a Museum now: beautiful wooden furnitures and big rooms that showed the European style. Then we went to Rizal park where there was a spectacle of lights and music in the foutain in the middle of the park, very nice and surprising for a busy and polluted city like Manila. As we still had time to kill, we took a cab to the malls, and we discovered a very different city with lights everywhere, clean streets and huge modern malls with luxurious shops like Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci, and so on… That is where all the rich Filipinos and expats live and go out, far from the dirty and crowded streets. We ate pizzas and pastas (but a “chicken adobo pizza” ;)) and went back to the bus station to catch our night bus. Finally 6 hours were enough to see the nice areas of Manila, as everybody told us not to stay there as it is not safe and there are not so many things to do and see.

After having spent 2 days travelling in local buses and boats (with kids vomitting next to us, as usual) we finally reached Boracay island on 31st of December afternoon, yay! In the ferry terminal there were a group playing local music, so kitch, so touristic. We had booked a room in a “resort” - here they call everything resort even though it was more a nice hostel. The owners were a lovely old Filipino couple who used to live in the States and came back here to retire. They had bought a roasted pig and prepared a buffet for tonight, for free! We enjoyed the last sunny hours on white beach, which is the most touristic and crowded beach of Boracay. We can easily see that this beach used to be wonderful, but now it is so overcrowded with transats, tourists and restaurants right on the beach that it’s hard to enjoy it. We found a square of sand to lie down and wait for the last sunset of the year, between tourists from everywhere: many Asian tourists (overall Korean), but also Russian, European… But this is also the reason why we went to Boracay for New Year’s Eve: many bars and night clubs to celebrate the end of 2011! After the sunset, we took a shower, dressed up and bought beers to wait on the beach until the dinner at our hotel, listening to the sound of the waves.
We were the last one to come at the hotel for dinner, and the atsmophere was not very festive: tourists were eating without talking, no music. The owner seemed happy to see us, he offered us drinks, talked with us, and after we ate we put the music louder to dance with them and the whole family :) At around 11pm we went on the beach near the night clubs to enjoy the music and watch the fireworks which lasted for more than one hour! We thus celebrated the new year on the beach with loud music, fireworks and many Asian tourists (or locals, cannot tell).

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We woke up late on the next day, ate a delicious chicken adobo, which is a popular meal here: chicken cooked in soy sauce with garlic and vegetables, yummy! We waited one hour for our food, it seems to be usual here: every time that we went to a restaurant, the dishes didn’t come at the same time so when one finishes to eat, the other starts, and they can serve people before you even though they ordered after you. You just have to be patient, trying not to get angry because you’re hungry… After lunch, we took a tricycle to Puka beach, on the north of the island: this was a wonderful and large beach, with only a few tourists, no transats nor restaurants or buildings, and of course white sand and blue water. Perfect to rest on 1st of January :) We spent the afternoon there and went back for the sunset on White Beach. We had dinner in a local restaurant where we waited again a lot even though there were only a few tables, and we went for shopping around as here the shops are open until late, which is very rare.

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The owners of the hotel offered us the breakfast that we shared with them, then we took a tricycle to Ilig-Iligan beach, on the east coast of the island. And this was the most beautiful we’ve seen so far: no tourists, no buildings, coconut trees, white sand and clear water with big rocks in the sea for a wonderful background! We stayed there until lunch time, swimming in the sea when it was too hot on the sand. Unfortunately it was already our last day of beach and we had sunburns as in the morning here the sun is shining a lot. We went back near our hotel for the yummy chicken adobo and we said goodbye to the lovely owners who took pictures with us and kissed us. It was very nice to meet them and spend New Year’s Eve at their lovely place, sharing our travelling experiences. On the way to the boat terminal, we saw many poor houses made of wood or not even finished, where many locals live: very different from all the hotels, bars and restaurants here. We then took a boat and two buses to reach Roxas, where we have a flight on the next day.

We woke up early to catch a bus (actually two buses) to go to Sipalay, which is on the way to Boracay where we have to be for New Year’s Eve. The first bus was comfortable and with air-con. But the second bus was pretty bad, with no air-con and small seats so we were all squeezed, plus there were a lot of dust on the road and it was really warm. I was sitting next to teenagers who were playing clubbing music with their phone, they couldn’t speak that much English but they wanted to talk with me, that was funny and helped me not to get too bored during the 4 hours bus journey. In Sipalay we took a private boat to reach Sugar Beach, which was wonderful: white sand, long beach, clear water and almost nobody on the beach! We had a bungalow in a nice garden right on the beach, this place was perfect. We ran on the beach to get fresh air and relax, it was already 3pm and the sun goes down at 5.45pm here so we wanted to enjoy the rest of the sunny hours. Unfortunately we had to leave on the next day because we had a two days bus journey (with overnight stops) to reach Boracay…

After our friend Guigui joined us yesterday in Dumaguete, we went to Apo island for the day, to do snorkelling. Indeed Apo island is supposed to be a nice spot for snorkelling and diving. But when we arrived on the small island (20 minutes are enough to go around by foot), they told us that the marine sanctuary was closed because it had been damaged by the recent typhoon. We thus stayed on the other side of the island, put our mask, snorkel and fins on for snorkelling. We saw beautiful corals, purple sea stars, many coloured fishes and two big turtles, more than 1 meter long, yay! As the beach was nice, we spent the rest of the day lying on it and going into the sea when it was too warm. Today was our first day of sun, hopefully it’s gonna stay like this.

As the sea was quite calm, we decided to go to Siquijor island for the day, as we had to meet our friend Guigui in Dumaguete tonight. We hired a tricycle for the day to discover Siquijor and part of its 300km of coast. Here the tricycles are a motorbike with a kind of side-car for the passengers, not like in many other South East Asian countries where the driver is in front and the passengers sit behind. We first went to beautiful waterfalls, stopped in a local place to eat where a waitress told us “oooh you are beautiful !” showing up here nose. Actually many Filipinos have big nose, so they love our “small” noses :) Then we went to Paliton beach, a wonderful and hidden beach with white sand and clear water, and preserved from tourists. There were some Filipinos kids playing in the sea, and when Aurore took off her clothes to stay in swimming suit and go into the sea, one kid yelled and then he had a big smile on his face and couldn’t stop looking at her. Then a Filipino teenager came to take a picture with her, then others came. That was quite funny and showed that although there are tourists on the island, local people are still not used to see women in swimming suits. It’s true that we didn’t see so many Filipino women in swimming suits, they keep their clothes on when they go into the sea.

We took a night flight to Cebu (Philippines) where we met my friend Aurore at the airport. We didn’t stay in Cebu and went straight to the pier to catch a ferry to Tagbilaran on Bohol island, as there were no ferry to Siquijor island where we had planned to go. We slept the whole journey even though the ferry was moving. We bargained a room on white beach which is the touristic beach of Panglao island, and ran to the beach to get frsesh air (it was at least 25 degrees). As there were some rain showers, we lied on transats under a sun umbrella and spent the whole afternoon sleeping in front of the sea: Merry Christmas!

White beach is actually a nice beach with white sand and clear water, we didn’t understand why the guidebook said it was not worth it. There were tourists but not too much. Unfortunately every fifteen minutes there were kids coming and singing Christmas songs to ask for money. I was pissed off when I saw a tourist giving them 50 pesos, which is less than one euro but enough to have lunch in a local restaurant here. It’s not helping them to give them money for free, you think you do a good action but instead you encourage them to do nothing and earn easy money… We had a delicious chicken and vegetables barbecue for dinner on the beach and in front of the sea.

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On the next day as the weather was still not very good we stayed under a sun umbrella drinking fresh fruit juices. In the afternoon, we took a ferry to Siquijor island but when we arrived in Dumaguete at 8pm the sea was very agitated (many people were sick on the boat) so we couldn’t continue to Siquijor and had to stop in Dumaguete for the night.

I had 2 days off in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, two cities that I know quite well as I used to live in Singapore for 3 months last year, to do my research project at the National University of Singapore. To go from KL to Singapore it’s a 5 hours bus journey, about 15 euros. I basically didn’t do that much in Kuala Lumpur, except shopping in the malls and eating rice and spicy meats. It was quite nice to eat meat as they don’t eat so much meat in Sri Lanka (because it is expensive), to find sweets and to be in a modern city with malls and lights everywhere. Malaysian people are very nice and helpful too, such as in Sri Lanka (yay) so I felt very good in this lovely city.

I met my sister Syl in Singapore on 24th of December, on a warm and rainy day. It was my first Christmas on a warm country, quite weird actually as they still have Christmas decorations and songs (and “Pokemon Christmas” in a mall….). No foie gras nor turkey for us, we had a bibimbap for lunch, which is a Korean meal with rice, vegetables, beef and egg, and an Indian curry for dinner that made me sick!

Finally, those two days in those two modern cities that I already know were my “Christmas break” during my trip, to rest a bit before discovering a new country/culture/food/people/landscapes :)

After a Sri Lankan breakfast, we took the bus to go to the beaches in the South. Let’s go for a 5 hours bus journey! Unfortunately the bus was full so I spent the first 3 hours standing - which in Sri Lanka means trying to hold something to avoid falling. And as we were in the hill country and going southern to the beach, the road was turning a lot to go down. But at least the landscapes were beautiful and the sky was getting more blue. I finally found a seat between two young Sri Lankan men, and after 5 minutes one of them already gave me his phone number. Did I mention that he was really ugly and had a bad breathe? :(
Little by little the landscapes changed from green and luxurious vegetation to white sand and blue sea. We finally reached Mirissa, our first stop, exhausted by the journey and the heat. Indeed in the hill country it wasn’t that warm, but now we had about 30 degrees again. We found a room in a family house, jumped in our swimming suits and ran to the beach: we swam in a clear water, looking at the white sand and coconut trees :) I was already on this beach last year at the same period, and this year there are many more tourists than last year. Fortunately the beach is still nice and not too crowded, but they built many guesthouses on the sea front and some of them put transats on the beach, argh… Unfortunately the sky turned grey and we had small rainfalls, so we went back in our room to take a shower, put long sleeves shirts to protect from mosquitoes before eating fish barbecue on the beach, looking at the sea. At that time I felt more on vacation than travelling, but it’s sweet to rest sometimes.

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On the next day in Mirissa, we moved to another guesthouse where I had stayed last year: it belongs to a lovely family, always smiling, and they have hammocks in their garden. It’s like a hidden haven 3 minutes away from the beach and the touristic guesthouses that serve french fries and play international music to attract people. They were very happy when I told them that I stayed there last year and they offered us a welcome tea :) We went on the beach again - actually in Mirissa there’s nothing else to do, no shopping, no sightseeing, only a wonderful beach. But the weather was not very nice so after a few hours we went back in our guesthouse to relax.
Before dinner we asked Randi and Pushpa, the owners, if we could watch them cooking. So we spent half an hour trying to follow what they were doing, putting many different spices, making home coconut milk (yummy!) and cooking everything with only a few cooking tools. And it was a delicious rice and curry finally! No need to pay for a touristic “cooking class”, here it’s even better :)

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As it was raining and grey when we woke up, we decided to leave and go to Hikkaduwa, a beach further North (thus closer to the airport), which is much more touristic so at least we could do some shopping if the weather was still bad. After an hour and a half bus journey, we saw many tourists and shops: that’s it, we were in Hikkaduwa! We left our bags in a small guesthouse, very different from the fancy hotels that were here, and went shopping. I finally bought a painting, a wooden fisherman statue and three scarves for 20 euros (and thanks Florenc for bringing those presents back to France :)). On the beach at night they play loud international music and tourists drink a lot, very different from the Sri Lankan culture so we rather went to eat in a rotti shop.

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Unfortunately today was already the last day in Sri Lanka, so we took a bus to Colombo then another one to Negombo, a city close to the airport. Almost 6 hours to cover 150 km. We bargained a room in a guesthouse next to the beach, then went to the beach… But this one was dirty (toothbrush, plastic stuff, etc. on the beach) the sand was somewhere black (but not a volcanic one) so we didn’t lie on it. Actually Negombo beach is more like a stop before taking a flight that a place you really want to stay in. After a walk in the town, we spent our last change buying cookies and eating our last and yummy rotti khottu!

We spent the day hanging around Kandy, the second biggest city in Sri Lanka. We first “visited” a modern supermarket: I like to see the supermarkets abroad - when there are some - because it shows people’s way of life. Here the supermarkets seem to be for middle-class people, quite modern and clean. Even the casher women were wearing Christmas hats! (interesting in a country with 75% of buddhist). Then we had a Sri Lankan breakfast: noodles with spicy gravy and chicken or dhal, in a modern and clean bakery, but not expensive. Kandy indeed is a modern city, with clean supermarkets and modern shops, quite different from the other cities that we’ve visited so far. After this “brunch”, we visited a “devale” which is a half-hindu half-buddhist temple. A monk blessed us but then he urged us for money! We thus decided not to visit the 3 other devales in town, pissed of by this attitude. We headed instead to the national museum, exposing old clothes, weapons, etc. which was not very interesting but free with our cultural triangle ticket. After this cultural break, we went to the market to buy souvenirs (spices, silk scarves…) - actually Florenc did, I just helped her to bargain :) As I was playing with key rings and magnets while Florenc was talking to a seller, he thought that I wanted to buy some but I told him that I already have a key ring that a Sri Lankan offered me, so he offered us the magnets! We ended up eating cakes and drinking tea in the same bakery as this morning, enjoying the wi-fi to give some news and read information about the next places we want to visit during this trip.

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We woke up early to catch a train to Hatton, in the tea plantations area. At the train station, all tourists were queuing in the 1st and 2nd class ticket line, and when I went to the 3rd ticket line Sri Lankan people were surprised. But I knew what I was doing, as I took the same train last year: there are only one car for the 1st and one for the 2nd class in the train whereas there are plenty of 3rd class. Usually the train comes quite full (because it starts in Colombo) so you don’t find seats in the upper classes. Plus, tourists don’t really go in the 3rd class and I prefer to be amongst Sri Lankan who smile all the time and scream when we go into tunnels. We even saw tourists groups waiting for the train, because the landscapes are wonderful so it’s now included in their tour… Finally the 3rd class was a perfect choice, we found seats quite easily and we were seating with a lovely family. The seats are not too bad and it’s clean (not like in China!).
I was really looking forward to that train journey, because it goes through tea plantations and the landscapes are breathe-taking. The train don’t really go faster than 20 km/h (really!) so we had time to take photos and enjoy the journey. Apparently it’s one of the 10th most wonderful train journeys in the world, I can easily believe it!
We then took two buses to reach Dalhousie, a small village which is at the starting point of the Adam’s peak climb. We bought bananas and biscuits for the ascent tomorrow, ate rice and curry and went to bed around 8pm cuz we have to get up at 2am for the Adam’s peak climb to be on time at the top for the sunrise.

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We woke up at 2am after a short sleep. We met an handsome Swiss guy (yay, but he had a girlfriend) at the guesthouse who will climb with us. Let’s go for a 5,200 steps ascent of the Adam’s peak! The road is illuminated by electric lights all the way, which is very practical and makes the mountain looks very nice. Some tourists were climbing too, and many Sri Lankan pilgrims also, but they usually go before and sleep at the top. The pilgrimage season indeed started a few days ago, on poya (full moon) day and runs until May. Some pilgrims go up and down barefoot, and many old people do it too, singing on the way down. After a 2.5 hours ascent, we finally reached the top, where it was very windy and cold! That was the first time that I was really cold in Sri Lanka, and the local people were freezing even though they had gloves and so on. There is a temple at the top, and many Sri Lankan pilgrims where praying and singing altogether, that was very impressive and made a peaceful atmosphere. We waited an hour for the sunrise, although there was no sun because of the clouds, it was beautiful and we discovered the landscapes around, full of tea plantations. On the way down, we met Malaysian people who were making a video reportage for their local channel, so we got interviewed again ;) It was funny, but actually it’s not so funny because it will bring many tourists groups (I assume those reportages are made by travel agencies for tourists groups and not backpackers).
We slept a bit at the guesthouse before going for a walk in the tea plantations, where we were alone and enjoyed the green landscapes. I really liked the atmosphere in this very small village, with shops all around (many biscuits for the ascent, but also dolls, bresilian bracelets, fake flowers…), people were peaceful and recognized us and talked to us when we passed again in front of them. The mango seller was lovely with his old glasses, and as we chose all the time one type of mangoes he offered us one of the other type which is very sweet, because he really wanted us to try it too.

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Today is dedicated to go to Ella, further East, which is good because we had a few muscles pains this morning due to yesterday’s ascent so we were happy not to walk that much today. We took a bus to the train station, the road was still wonderful, amongst tea plantations and a huge and beautiful lake. When the train arrived at the station, it was really overcrowded. We managed to get our feet inside, but we couldn’t move further so we were staying near the exit door. The compartment next to us was “reserved” so I asked them if I could put my backpack inside to stop disturbing people that wanted to exit the train. They immediately invited me anf Florenc to stay in their private compartment, and they told us that they are in the army. They fought for the government during the civil war and “thanks to them the country is free now”. They were travelling with their families to a former training camp to have a big party, and as they are in the army they have privileges, that’s why they got this private compartment. The men were drinking a lot, singing, playing music, that was interesting. It sounded  like a “integration weekend” that we have in our schools in France (C’est le WEI!). One of the men was really drunk and quite annoying, almost falling on us when he tried to talk to us. Then he showed us his fake hand (because he lost it during war) and called his friend to show us his fake leg… Fortunately the others were very nice, they offered us food in tupperware (cuz they were in the train since 6am so they took food for lunch), then they gave us yoghurts as a dessert and they bought us peanuts. Of course they offered us drinks but we politely declined: we were not very confident drinking amongst soldiers! They all looked quite rich (here when you’re dressed like an European, with proper shoes, it shows that you have money), they even had digital cameras. The men explained us that they don’t earn such a good money but they have many privileges instead, their children go to good schools for free, and so on. Actually the kids could speak good English, they told us that it’s because their lectures are in English. Then the drunk annoying man came back and showed us his gun in his belt; not very reassuring! As the train was still full we spent the journey with them, we couldn’t see that much the landscapes but there were many clouds so we didn’t miss so much and had an interesting experience instead :)
Finally it took us 8 hours to go from Dalhousie to Ella by local transportation, which is about 130 km: this is Sri Lanka!