Philippines Time
We were up nice and early so that we would be ready to meet the van to take us to the airport. We had arranged with Andy for a 5am pickup which would give us enough time to finish the checkin process and catch our flight to Siargao. We made our way down to the parking area in front of the church and waited. 5:40 am rolled around and we were still waiting, things were looking grim and we were looking for alternative methods of getting to the airport. We had checked Byron’s Uber app and found that Uber is not a thing in the Phillipines. Just as we were considering walking to the airport, Andy rolled up on his motorcycle grinning ear to ear and was like “hey guys what’s up?”. Not far behind him was one of the trusty white vans similar to the one that had driven us around the night before. Relieved, we all piled in to the van and headed down to the airport. This was our introduction to Philippines time. Thankfully the airline also worked on Phillipines time. Here in Australia if you don’t arrive at the airport at least four hours before a domestic flight, you are declared late and will not be permitted to board the plane, irrespective of the fact that they haven’t finished building it yet and it is still in another state. In the Phillipines they peered out the window and said, “it’s ok the plane is still taxiing down the runway, if you run you should be able to catch it”. Having just come off an international flight with scoot that that cost thousands of dollars and didn’t even come with a glass of water, we were not expecting anything on this Phillipines Air flight of 30 minutes that only cost $100. Once again we were surprised with as much water as you could handle and bags of dried and salted vegetables.
Siargao
Between Cebu and Siargao there was an array of tiny islands dotting the ocean. Flying into Siargao we were greeted with the spectacular view of undulating green mountains covered in coconuts and bananas as far as the eye could see. As Flo had said this place was a paradise.
The Siargao airport was a tiny little building with one runway and a tiny control centre. We touched down in a small turbo prop plane where it was recommend that we didn’t move around the cabin too much so as not to alter the balance of the plane. We quickly passed through the building, paid our 20 php environmental fee and were loaded into one of the numerous white vans that were waiting to take tourists to their destinations.
On the drive to General De Luna we chatted with a couple of Italian’s who were travelling the world working remotely for their companies back home. This would turn out to be a common theme with many of the tourists we came across living large on a tropical island while working for their firms back home. I did wonder how I would go trying to teach year 8 maths from the tropical paradise and decided that it probably wasn’t going to work. I could picture it now, “sorry sir, you are breaking up”, as one of the students switched off the computer and projector.
The van dropped us at a resort by the name of Ocean 101, where Flo and Richard were staying, we were meeting up with them for breakfast and a surf before we could check in to our accomodation at midday. Flo was waiting for us, Richard was already out body boarding, and took us to the restaurant. The restaurant was amazing and laid out a huge spread of delicious food for us. We ate drank and caught up.
The first surf
After we had eaten and drank our fill we got changed and made our way to a nearby surfboard hire place that Flo had organised. They rented us 9’ single fins for 400 php per 2 hours. Flo took us down to a point where we could paddle out to a range of surf breaks, one of which was the world famous cloud 9. We paddled out and were confronted with the world famous cloud 9 reef breaks. Now to us soft sand break surfing surfers the thought of dropping down the face of a wave onto a pile of sharp rocks and coral was not overly appealing. Byron who has been surfing his whole life had no trouble adapting to his surrounds and was catching waves like a champion in no time. I, on the other hand, did not adapt so quickly and spent my time pulling out of waves like champion. I eventually got the handle of things and ended up catching quite a few waves. Thankfully the reef was not as bad as I was expecting and with our trusty reef shoes, that Scotty had picked up for us from Kmart, our soft feet were relatively safe.
Once we had had our fill of waves, we dropped our boards back showered off at Flo’s resort, Ocean 101, and made our way by tricycle over to the accomodation at Siargao residency. Here they were waiting for us, they had our name on a board at the front, and we got exactly what we paid for.
We settled in to our units, showered off and had siestas. Now as you will remember from our exciting flight adventure, we lost the bulk of our sunscreen and mossie repellent at security on the way out of the country, of course in our hurry to get into the water and the thrill of not having to wear a wetsuit having come from the middle of winter to a warm tropical island, we all went surfing wearing as little as possible. This of course led to some spectacular sunburns the aftereffects of which where still with us weeks later.
The Supermarket
When we got up after our siesta Mum, Christine and I decided to make our way out to a supermarket to collect some supplies. James, the resort owner, organised a trike to take us out and back for 600 php. The trip out was fascinating, especially as we were able to relax and check out the things that were happening around us. Siargao is in the process of rebuilding after a large typhoon, named Odette (Rai), hit the island in 2021 and decimated much of the town and businesses. This has led to a hodgepodge of new trendy establishments interspaced with run down storm damaged derelict houses and buildings. We collected a variety of meats and dry goods. The supermarket didn’t have vegetables so we asked the driver if he knew of anywhere and he took us across the road to a rustic fruit and vegetable stand where we were able to purchase eggs and a variety of fruits and vegetables.
A relaxing evening with friends
We loaded our bounty into the refrigerator once we arrived back at the unit, and then went by took took with Flo, Richard and Josh to dinner at one of their friend’s restaurants. The restaurant was owned by a British bloke who was friends with David Franchou, a French guy who owns Emerald Ecco Village, the accomodation where Flo and Richard normally stay when they are in Siargao. The food was good, the ambience was relaxing and as we were all exhausted after our massive day we were happy to relax and soak it up. We relaxed ate food and chatted into the evening.
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