Howdy all!
Firstly and most importantly...Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Stepho, happy birthday to you! Hope you had a fab day and enjoyed our birthday chat! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 23 birthday kisses!
I am totally relaxed and ready for the final 2 weeks of our travels :-(. Cebu City itself is hardly worth mentioning. The plane journey was interesting. I had my camera ready to record the safety dance but they didn't do it which made me very sad! They did however play a couple of games where passengers could win prizes! Other than that Alex has been able to make some scrambled eggs which made him very happy. The day after we arrived in Cebu we took a 4 hour bus journey to Maya and then a 20 minute boat ride to Malapuscua. The men at the dock in Maya were pretty amusing. As soon as we arrived they were trying to get us to pay 600 pesos for a private boat across to the island as oppose to the 50 pesos advertised. We said we would wait. A bit later they came over and basically whispered to us that they might cancel the boat but if we paid 200 pesos each they would take us. Again we said we would risk it. Literally 2 minutes later everyone was called to say the boat was ready. They still tried to insist we paid 100 pesos each, even though the sign next to the dock said 50 pesos. I would be so embarrassed if I was them, but they felt no shame!
Malapuscua was sooooo relaxing. As our flight to Palawan was postponed by a day we ended up spending 7 nights and 6 days on the island. Everything in Malapuscua was a lot more expensive then we thought it would be. Luckily we found a nice enough room with bathroom 10 seconds walk from the beach for 600 pesos a night. Pretty much everywhere else we looked was over 1000 pesos. Food was also pretty expensive. We ended up eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in the same restaurant every day we were there, bar 1 evening meal, just because it was the cheapest place. Yesterday night we decided to treat ourselves, but I felt like I was cheating on our regular! The first 3 days we decided to just chillax. On the 4th day it was time to face my fear and go diving again! Malapuscua is famous for Thresher Sharks, and most tourists go there purely to dive. We had to get up at 4:15am to ensure we got to the spot early enough- welcome to my Dad's sleeping world. Seeing the sharks didn't really scare me...how good my mask was did! The dive itself went well. We had two dive masters who were very friendly and sensing my nervousness took extra care of me. We also went to a depth of 23 meters which isn't technically allowed with our qualification...so again the dive masters wanted to pay more attention to us. Apparently my eyes went really wide at one point, so he decided to hold on to me! Unfortunately I was the only person not to see the sharks which were right next to us! I think I was probably concentrating so much on breathing through my mouth and not my nose. Alex did though which was fun for him. I did see some cool fish though, and no sea urchins...my kind of dive. We also took a boat trip around the island and did some snorkeling. We were both surprised at how small the island was. We thought we were half way round when we spotted the flags near the starting point. In places the coral was amazing, and it has got me excited about Palawan where snorkeling and diving is supposed to be amazing.
On the last day I fulfilled one of my traveling wishes and had my feet eaten by fish! I wanted to get this done in Vietnam originally but didn't come across anywhere to do it. It was quite expensive in Malapuscua, but like Alex said, my trip wouldn't be complete without my feet being eaten by fish. I even got to put my hands in the tub as well. It was so tickly, my mum wouldn't have been able to hack it.
Other than that there isn't much else I can tell you about Malapuscua. The Filipinos are all so friendly, perhaps a little too friendly at times. The massage ladies were constantly chatting to you trying to persuade you to have a massage...and the children were constantly chatting to you trying to sell shells or Christmas carols. Two little girls in particular became a little frustrating. After swimming around with us and playing with our masks and snorkels they followed us back to our hut and then even out to lunch. Alex had to tell them to stop following us...meany. We were lucky enough to have amazing weather as well so have both been tanning nicely. Apparently Palawan should be even hotter...the tanning war continues!
xoxo
Happy Birthday Stepho
Firstly and most importantly...Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Stepho, happy birthday to you! Hope you had a fab day and enjoyed our birthday chat! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 23 birthday kisses!
I am totally relaxed and ready for the final 2 weeks of our travels :-(. Cebu City itself is hardly worth mentioning. The plane journey was interesting. I had my camera ready to record the safety dance but they didn't do it which made me very sad! They did however play a couple of games where passengers could win prizes! Other than that Alex has been able to make some scrambled eggs which made him very happy. The day after we arrived in Cebu we took a 4 hour bus journey to Maya and then a 20 minute boat ride to Malapuscua. The men at the dock in Maya were pretty amusing. As soon as we arrived they were trying to get us to pay 600 pesos for a private boat across to the island as oppose to the 50 pesos advertised. We said we would wait. A bit later they came over and basically whispered to us that they might cancel the boat but if we paid 200 pesos each they would take us. Again we said we would risk it. Literally 2 minutes later everyone was called to say the boat was ready. They still tried to insist we paid 100 pesos each, even though the sign next to the dock said 50 pesos. I would be so embarrassed if I was them, but they felt no shame!
Malapuscua was sooooo relaxing. As our flight to Palawan was postponed by a day we ended up spending 7 nights and 6 days on the island. Everything in Malapuscua was a lot more expensive then we thought it would be. Luckily we found a nice enough room with bathroom 10 seconds walk from the beach for 600 pesos a night. Pretty much everywhere else we looked was over 1000 pesos. Food was also pretty expensive. We ended up eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in the same restaurant every day we were there, bar 1 evening meal, just because it was the cheapest place. Yesterday night we decided to treat ourselves, but I felt like I was cheating on our regular! The first 3 days we decided to just chillax. On the 4th day it was time to face my fear and go diving again! Malapuscua is famous for Thresher Sharks, and most tourists go there purely to dive. We had to get up at 4:15am to ensure we got to the spot early enough- welcome to my Dad's sleeping world. Seeing the sharks didn't really scare me...how good my mask was did! The dive itself went well. We had two dive masters who were very friendly and sensing my nervousness took extra care of me. We also went to a depth of 23 meters which isn't technically allowed with our qualification...so again the dive masters wanted to pay more attention to us. Apparently my eyes went really wide at one point, so he decided to hold on to me! Unfortunately I was the only person not to see the sharks which were right next to us! I think I was probably concentrating so much on breathing through my mouth and not my nose. Alex did though which was fun for him. I did see some cool fish though, and no sea urchins...my kind of dive. We also took a boat trip around the island and did some snorkeling. We were both surprised at how small the island was. We thought we were half way round when we spotted the flags near the starting point. In places the coral was amazing, and it has got me excited about Palawan where snorkeling and diving is supposed to be amazing.
On the last day I fulfilled one of my traveling wishes and had my feet eaten by fish! I wanted to get this done in Vietnam originally but didn't come across anywhere to do it. It was quite expensive in Malapuscua, but like Alex said, my trip wouldn't be complete without my feet being eaten by fish. I even got to put my hands in the tub as well. It was so tickly, my mum wouldn't have been able to hack it.
Other than that there isn't much else I can tell you about Malapuscua. The Filipinos are all so friendly, perhaps a little too friendly at times. The massage ladies were constantly chatting to you trying to persuade you to have a massage...and the children were constantly chatting to you trying to sell shells or Christmas carols. Two little girls in particular became a little frustrating. After swimming around with us and playing with our masks and snorkels they followed us back to our hut and then even out to lunch. Alex had to tell them to stop following us...meany. We were lucky enough to have amazing weather as well so have both been tanning nicely. Apparently Palawan should be even hotter...the tanning war continues!
xoxo
Happy Birthday Stepho
Well deserved cup of tea.
A grave that had been dug up.
One of the annoying kids whilst they were still cute.
Our regular.
Alex snorkeling.
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