Melissa and Elisa: on to the Philippines...

the "tricycles" (motorbikes with a sidekick car attached) proved to be the best way to cheaply get around


a view from our hotels restaurant hut


sights from the top of our bus to the chocolate hills


it was only us a four boys that braved the highest level of seating


a view of the chocolate hills


I don't know if the clouds being reflected in Elisa's Ray Bans do them justice but just know that they were amazing


Michele and Martin- our fellow travelers for a few days


a fine catch for the day- he appeases me by holding up his future dinner or livelihood



This is what the inside of a Filipino jeepney looks like. I don't think you could really fit more people in it if you tried.



the beautiful sunset that I had to capture even though we were still frantically looking for a room for the night


elisa and her prezzies on her bday


lounging on the beach- moving with the sun


greenery


San Miguel (light) that we grew quite fond of


Elisa and her traditional dessert of "halo halo" (really gross combination of some kind of root icecream, coconut milk, corn, beans, cornflakes and jelly pieces) let's just say we didn't have halo halo again.


a view of our hotel in Alona Beach (only $10 a night- one of our bigger splurges)


loading up the boat for snorkeling excursion #1


It took us a looong time to get from our hostel in Bangkok to our guesthouse in Bohol. We went to the airport around 10 pm, took a 1 am flight to Manila, waited 3 hours for our connection to Cebu in the southern Philippines, than took a cab to the ferry, which took us to Bohol, then a tricycle (yes, a tricycle- more like a motorbike with a side kick car) to our guest house called Nuts Huts. It was highly recommended, and was extremely beautiful- huts in the middle of the jungle (1.5 km from the road) next to the river, but it was very secluded and had few people to talk to or meet (it is low season here). So we quickly grabbed some food and went to sleep at 4 in the afternoon. We were planning on waking up for dinner that night, but Melissa had a difficult time with our new alarm clock so we woke up around 11pm and decided to just keep sleeping. We were exhausted to the point of delirium.
The next day, we got up early and had breakfast, where we met a very nice swiss couple (there's pretty much only couples in the Philippines. Yippee.) We decided to go with them to visit the Chocolate Hills, these famous land formations that look like really big...hills. Kind of a letdown. But the transport made it all worth it- we managed to flag down the public bus, and were told to sit on top rather than inside of it, making for a windy, terrifying, yet very beautiful one hour ride to these disappointing hills. We made sure we got a seat inside on the way back... As quaint as this public transportation was, we got a little jaded with it when it took us 3 hours to get to our next hostel, in Alona Beach. If we had hired a taxi, it would have taken us 1 hour. We may need to splurge next time (by splurge, we mean shelling out 3 extra dollars. Tough choice). Alona Beach is beautiful (white sand, turquoise water, palm trees, the whole bit) but we had a bit of a hard time finding a hostel as it is a 3 day weekend for Filipinos as their Independence day is Monday. We managed to get some lounging hours in on the beach today, and as it is Elisa's birthday (yay! 21!) we are going to go out for a yummy dinner (though this might be hard, as food in the Philippines doesn't compare to Thai food) and especially yummy drinks tonight. The national beer here is San Miguel, which is cheap and quite decent. We have plans to go snorkeling at 9 am in the morning, so we won't go tooooo wild... probably. This won't be too difficult as the disco we went to last night was filled with old white men with young Filipino women (sex tourism is really pronounced and blatant here). We managed to find the only young Western travelers and hung out with them. We're still traveling with the young Swiss couple, who are very nice, but we will part ways with them tomorrow as we take a ferry for Negros, another island, tomorrow night. Also, we both agree that the clouds here are incredible. We don't really know why.