Day 8 – Selfies & Tourists

We had a beautiful day here, in The Philippines.  We started the day visiting the highest peak on Cebu island, and then headed back towards Oslob to check out Sumilon Island, where snorkeling was suppose to be good.  All in all, it was a day full of beautiful views, lots of tourists and of course….selfies.

Of course, those who know me know that I’m not much of a fan of tourists.  I realize that this is silly, seeing as how I am one myself, but an abundance of tourist usually means I don’t enjoy myself very much.  I was reminded of that today.

I believe that a selfie or two in a beautiful place is a great way to commemorate the time you spent there.  Other people, as it would seem, will go to great lengths to get every pose, on every inch, of every rock….and then they’ll go back because they had a single hair out of place.

This particular group of tourists was made up of young girls and a tour guide.  Each girl got up on those rocks one by one and posed…and then they all went up again and again to get different poses and try to outdo each other.  Dave and I eventually grew bored waiting, hopped on a different set of rocks, and get a couple of shots of our own.

Later, on our trip Sumilon island, we saw more bad tourist behaviour.  Now, I should begin by explaining that what I saw today was something I have seen many, many times before.  Some tourists…for reasons unknown to me… go on boating tours…when they are TERRIFIED of both water and the sun.  The result usually involves several locals needing to carry these tourists in and out of the water, and a lot of people refusing to get off the boat to snorkel ‘because it’s too deep and they don’t know how to swim’.

In case you need more proof…here’s a short and blurry photo I took of the second woman being carried onto the boat.  One of the boat hands had to literally put her on his shoulders and carry her to the boat.  He was walking barefoot on a lot of coral while he did this.  I feel like that is important information.

So, today was a mixed bag.  I really enjoyed some of the scenery we saw today (I’ll be writing more about our experiences later), but I was pretty fed up with people by the end of the day.

Tomorrow is our last day in the Philippines (for this trip, anyway!).  I’ll be back with one more daily post, and then some detailed posts about our time on Cebu Island!

Thanks for checking in!