Saturday, 5 January 2019

The calm before the storm

Given all the hospital drama that followed, the first 10 days we had in the Visayas actually gave us some amazing experiences and memories.

Diving, cliff jumping, beaches, turtles, sardines, waterfalls, sunsets and more.



MoalBoal

We started off with 3 days in MoalBoal, home to the famous sardine run (this is not our video but gives an idea of what we saw).

We spent our first day here snorkelling with the sardines, apparently over 1 Million of them just off the shore - it was an absolutely amazing experience and we also got to see turtles up close.  The kids absolutely loved this, it really was a special day.




The next day we went Canyoneering, the No1 thing to do in MoalBoal.  It's basically 5 hours of cliff jumping and swimming through the Badian Canyon, ending at the spectacular Kawasan Falls.

For the sake of full disclosure, I have to say, this is not my idea of fun - jumping from heights of up to 13 meters into water, I'd rather be at the dentist but Shoshi and the kids were absolutely desperate to do this so I pretended to be brave and went along.  We hired a local guide, Daniel, who brought along a colleague in order to help with the kids (in the end, they helped me more!) and they absolutely made the day for us, brilliant guides.

The jumps range from 4 meters to 13 meters in spectacular scenery into turquoise blue water.  Absolutely amazing to see Shoshi and the kids jump, absolutely petrifying for me!

The scores on the doors by the end of 5 hours of jumping and swimming were:

Eyal - 7 jumps, highest 13 meters
Shoshi - 7 jumps, highest 13m
Mili - 6 jumps, highest 13m
Guy - 4 jumps, highest 7m
Darren 3 jumps, highest 4m (although it felt like 50m to me when standing on the edge and looking down!)

The pictures don't really do it justice, but just to put it into perspective, 13 meters is similar to a 4 storey apartment block!

The kids and Shoshi all say this was the highlight of their entire time in the Philippines, very proud of my family of adrenaline junkies!



Guy jumps 7m


7m



Shoshi jumps 13m

Mili jumps 13m

Eyal jumps 13m!
Kawasan Falls

Dumaguete

After MoalBoal, we headed down to Dumaguete for a couple of nights, a nice University city on Negros Island.  At the time, we didn't know that we would be back in Dumaguete 10 days later for a week long hospital stint but our initial time there was great with the highlight being the trek to the amazing Casaroro Waterfalls near the village of Valencia. Seeing the Falls was a real 'WOW' moment, surprisingly stunning.






2 cows and 3 monkeys

Apo Island

Apo Island is a tiny Island, around 30 min boat ride from Dumaguete.  It has been listed as one of the world's top 100 dive sites due to its coral reef and over 100 turtles which swim in the shallow waters around the coral.

We spent 2 days here, staying at Mario's Homestay for a really brilliant experience.  Mario told us that his Grandmother was the first inhabitant of Apo and actually owned the Island.  He is now the Barangay Captain, basically the Mayor of Apo.

At Mario's we met other divers from all across the world and spent 2 days snorkelling with turtles and diving.  Shoshi went out for a more advanced dive as she already has her PADI, while me, Mili and Eyal did our basic dive.

Swimming with turtles was a once in a lifetime experience (actually twice in a lifetime as we'd already had a taster in MoalBoal) but the turtles around the waters of Apo are quite amazing.

This was definitely one of the highlights of our time in the Philippines.




Mili, Eyal and Darren doing our beginners dive

Shoshi, our family PADI Master


Siquijor

After Apo, we headed off to Siquijor Island for what we thought was going to be a relaxing 10 days at the Bruce Hotel, a lovely resort right on the beach, owned by an old gentleman who left Scotland around 60 years ago but who had retained his sense of Scottishness!

Great beach bungalow, nice swimming pool kids were really enjoying it, Shoshi celebrated her birthday on 19th December, everything was going well, then on the 22nd Dec things started to go wrong, Shoshi got ill and then rest is history...

But at least for the start of our time on Siquijor, we got to relax, saw some amazing waterfalls, breathtaking sunsets and more...




Happy Birthday to Shoshi





Natural fish spa


400 year old tree with 'mystical' properties






So that was our final blog of our time in the Philippines, great country but a bittersweet experience for us in the end. Hopefully in a few weeks we'll look back and the memories of illness and hospital will have faded, leaving us just with all the good stuff.

We've now moved on to Siem Reap in Cambodia  for the next leg of the trip, where I managed to lose/ have stolen my wallet within 1 hour of landing. Things can only get better...

Wednesday, 2 January 2019

As the sun sets on our time in the Philippines...

After 7 weeks in the Philippines, it's time to leave and to be honest, we're very relieved to be moving on.

We leave in a pretty battered state after the last 10 days of illness but the first 5 weeks were an amazing adventure.

Apart from the wonderful people, amazing beaches, stunning blue water, snorkelling with sardines, diving with turtles, cliff jumping, waterfalls, breathtaking rice terraces, dancing Shamen, Greek Anthropologists, 9 hour bus journeys, crappy food, Dengue Fever, Typhoid and 6 days in hospital...the most amazing thing has been the sunsets.

No sunset was ever the same.
Different in each place.
Different on each day.
Mesmerising each time.

Apo Island

Port Barton
Siquijor

Port Barton
El Nido

Port Barton

El Nido

MoalBoal
Apo Island

Apo Island

Siquijor

Siquijor

Siquijor

Siquijor

Siquijor

Monday, 31 December 2018

'Happy' New Year?

The famous Scottish poet Robbie Burns once wrote, 'The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.'

Our plan was to spend New Year on Alona Beach, Panglao Island but it didn't quite work out like that.

On Saturday 22nd Dec, we were in Siquijor Island and Shoshi started feeling ill that afternoon, seemed like a touch of the flu.

48 hours later, after increasingly unpleasant fever, pain and headaches, we spent Christmas Day morning at Siquijor Hospital Emergency Room (Third World standards!), with Shoshi doing quick blood tests.  It transpired that she had suspected Dengue Fever and they advised us to go to the nearest 'proper' hospital for the necessary treatment.

The nearest proper hospital was a ferry trip away, either on Bohol Island or in Dumaguete on Negros Island.  Shoshi didn't feel up to such a trip and so we decided to wait another 24 hours and travel on the morning of the 26th.

We got up on Boxing Day and caught the 9am ferry to Dumaguete, arriving at the Silliman University Hospital at 11am.  5 hours of tests, waiting, more tests...Shoshi was taken to the ER and admitted to hospital with confirmed Dengue Fever.

Not what we had imagined that Santa would bring us for Christmas but hey, ho, ho, ho...

The following morning, Guy woke with fever and I headed back to hospital with the kids to check on Shoshi.  We then spent the next 8 hours, doing various tests on Guy after which he was confirmed also with Dengue and so he was also admitted.

Shoshi and Guy, sharing a hospital room, both trying to recover from Dengue.


And just when we thought things couldn't get any worse, they did!

Shoshi was also confirmed as having Typhoid Fever, a very nasty tropical disease indeed, which made the treatment of the Dengue more difficult as the doctors could not be sure which of the viruses were causing her symptoms.

The next 3 days were exceptionally tough for Shoshi.  Very strong medications, very little sleep, not able to really eat or rest.  A real nightmare.  Thankfully this morning, her numbers had improved enough and so after 5 days in hospital, really great care from the doctors and nurses, finally, at 4pm n 31st December, Shoshi and Guy were allowed to leave,


Guy is back to his old self (cheeky) but Shoshi is still pretty poorly and has to return on New Year's Day for further tests. She also has another 10 days or so of killer antibiotics to get through which is taking its toll.

Not the Hogmanay we had expected but just glad the worst of it is hopefully behind us.

On the plus side, Rangers pumped Celtic so as they say, 'every cloud has a silver lining...'

Happy New Year to everyone...