The Kinetic Canuck

Oslob’s Whale Sharks

My sunburn has subsided, and the bruises I collected on our Cebu holiday have now all but disappeared, but my memories of our time in the Philippines have not.

WeChat Image_20180808060848 — Some things….like this public urinal, for example…are unforgetable

Now, before I get into writing about our time in Cebu, I want to write about one activity we decided NOT to do. Most people who travel to Cebu Island stay in the little town of Oslob. We opted to stay in a town nearby this popular tourist destination, but we skipped the activity most people do while in the area: swimming with whale sharks.

5a48c3ec7af5071d30042611 — Whale Sharks are the world’s largest fish. But don’t worry…they aren’t the type of sharks that eat people. They just eat tiny krill, so swimming with them is pretty safe.

For those of you who know me, this probably seems like the kind of thing I would love! Swimming in the ocean…seeing incredible wildlife…learning about a fascinating animal… but after spending the last 4 years learning how to be a responsible tourist, I took the time to learn about the Oslob Whale Sharks, and I learned how human contact affects the fish.

oslob-hero2 — I learned that although the government has set up all sorts of rules that tourists and tour operators are suppose to follow, it doesn’t stop people from touching the fish. Sharks have very sensitive skin, so a watch or a ring can easily hurt one of these beautiful animals.

First, I should say that unlike riding an elephant, swimming with whale sharks is not as obviously harmful to the animals. They are not captive or trained in any way, so on the surface, it doesn’t seem like swimming with them should be too much of a problem. After all, they are just being given some free food. What’s the harm?

Whaleshark feeding in Oslob, Cebu — The whale sharks are swarmed by people and boats as soon as they arrive. Tourists are also only given a few moments in the water with them, before they are told to get out, to make way for more tourists…

Unfortunately, whale sharks in the area are becoming too comfortable around boats, and are frequently hurt when they approach fishermen, expecting food. Some fish are also dealing with malnutrition, because the krill they are fed by the fishermen is only 1 of the various types of fish they need in their diets. Unfortunately, if their bellies are full of this free krill, they don’t search for food, and don’t get all the nutrients they need.

But there’s actually a bigger problem with feeding the Whale Sharks of Cebu Island. The free food they receive is actually changing their migration patterns and many scientists believe that this will ultimately result in fewer whale shark babies being born.

I’d be happier if these animals didn’t join the very long list of critically endangered animals in our oceans.

Ultimately, we decided that seeing the whale sharks was not as important as protecting them, so we chose not to go on that adventure. We did, however, see Tumalog Falls, a church made of coral stone and of course, and the highest point on all of Cebu Island!

Over the next few weeks, I have several posts planned about our week in paradise. They will all be short, and full pictures, so stay tuned!

Day 9 – Travelling

Today, we leave the Philippines. Our flight actually leaves at 1:50am, but with everything closing down in Cebu city, we find ourselves at the airport 5 hours before our flight to Shanghai.

Luckily, we sweet talked our way out of excess baggage fees (because apparently a 12kg suitcase is over the limit for 2 people…) And I managed to get the pity of a security guard, who saw how badly I wanted to keep my honey, and let it go through. Apparently, people like me today!!

Our busride back to Cebu City was pretty miserable. 3 hours (a lot of it stuck in traffic), in a standing room bus…. Full of cranky people (us included!). At one point, someone brought in a massive Nemo balloon, filling up a large portion of the top of the bus. I thought I was going to suffocate.

You can see Nemo up at the front. At this point, a few people had already cleared out of the bus. It was so badly packed that we had to start pushing our way out of the bus 5 minutes before our stop

At least they played a movie: The Fast and the Furious. I had actually decided never to watch any of those movies, after seeing the first 10 minutes of the first one. Fate had other plans…

The following 2 days will go like this:

July 29th

Wake up at 8am

At 3pm, board a 3 hour busride to Cebu city.

Grab a taxi to the airport after getting a quick bite to eat.

July 30th

Our flight to Shanghai leaves at 1:50am

We arrive at Pudong airport at 5:40am

We travel to the hotel we stayed at before leaving for the Philippines and pick up our luggage.

Our flight to Vancouver leaves at 3:55pm

We arrive in Canada at 11:40 am… On the same day…due to time changes.

At 1:25, we depart for Winnipeg and will arrive at about 6pm.

Long story short…

We will be on the go for a good 42 hours…. Sleeping only if our flights allow it.

Goodness, I hope our plane is empty!

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.

WeChat Image_20180728185645 — It was a pretty beautiful place to take a selfie!

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.

WeChat Image_20180728185852 — I find it amazing that I got any shots of Dave and I without other tourists in them. I managed…but only because I’m incredible patient (and incredibly determined!)

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.

WeChat Image_20180728185842 — This is in the background of the Selfie Dave and I took. She was literally carrying her shawl in her mouth up onto that rock, so that she could get photos of herself with the shawl blowing in the wind.

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.

Dave’s beautiful selfie. He didn’t have a shawl, or he would have carried it up the rocks in his mouth….

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’.

The woman in the long skirt at the left of the photo had to be carried on a Filipino man’s back because she was either scared of the water (like the woman before her had been), or she didn’t want to get her skirt wet getting back into the boat. The woman sitting next to her, is your average Asian tourist. They hate the sun. They hate it like a vampire hates it.

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!

WeChat Image_20180728185635 — It’s been a beautiful week!

Thanks for checking in!

Day 7 – The Scenery

We live on an extraordinary planet. It supports so much life, and is so stunningly beautiful. I’ve been lucky enough to see that beauty on several continents and in many different countries. I’ve watched vibrant sunsets in Vietnam, stood atop gorgeous cliffs in Laos, explored ancient towns and rivers in China, and even admired desert landscapes in India. There hasn’t been a single place we’ve gone that hasn’t been spectacular in some way.

You can see where each picture was taken by opening the photo, or just scrolling your cursor over the photo.

Padar Island in Indonesia

Wheat Feild near Steinbach, Manitoba

Volcano on Sumatra, Indonesia

Rushing River National Park, Ontario

Sumatran Jungle, Indonesia

Sun setting in Phu Quoc, Vietnam

Bryce Canyon, Utah

A temple over the canal in Suzhou, China

Sun setting in Goa, India

A lone tree on a beach in Phu Quoc, Vietnam

Palm trees over a setting sun in Goa, India

Waterfalls in Laos

The view on the way to Luang Prabang, Laos

Vang Vieng, Laos

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Stanley Park, Vancouver, Canada

The entrance to a Hong near Phuket, Thailand

Magroves are a beautiful sight

Rice Terraces in Guanxi, China

The Li River, Guangxi China

Of course, The Philippines is no different and has provided us with some great scenery! We’ve spent the last few days cruising along the south east coast of Cebu island, and I wanted to share some of our more scenic pictures with you.

WeChat Image_20180727221545 — Our motorbike for the week. She runs very well and has a comfy seat!

Overloaded trikes are part of the scenery in South East Asia

Overloaded motorbikes too!

Surprisingly…these trikes don’t always run perfectly…

We got some great shots on our way up to a waterfall (which I’ll be writing about in a future post, as soon as I have the time!)

The way to the waterfall was easy and downhill. The way back up was too steep and we had to hire motorbikes to take us back to our motorbike, that was left behind with all the other tourist vehicles

Beautiful and green!

At the bottom of the hills, you can see the ocean, where we’ll be spending tomorrow!

And of course, there are always the necessary selfies…

We were honestly just looking for a reason to pull over and stretch!!

The end of our day was pretty beautiful as well. We’re on the wrong side of Cebu island for seeing sunsets, but we do get to see the moon rise!

I got all 3 of these pictures with my Pixle (cellphone)

Our air Bnb host was so impressed he asked me to send them to him to use on his site!

And he asked me to get this shot with the pool in it. It’s a great shot 🙂

We’ve got a full day planned tomorrow that will include some more beautiful scenery, some snorkeling and more driving around on our sweet motorbike! Stay tuned!!!

Day 6 – Coffee!

Dave and I are very independent people. Some people don’t really know how we work, because we are so different. He is very science minded, and I’m all about the humanities. He loves reading about political science and current affairs, I’m all about the fiction. Dave’s a cat person, I love dogs.

Ok….I might be a dog person who also loves cats

But where it matters, we see eye to eye. Politics, religion… and coffee!!!

Unfortunately for us, the only coffee available in this part of the Philippines seems to be instant. It’s sugary, processed and tastes vaguely like marshmallows. Worst of all, I’m pretty sure it has negative caffeine in it. It’s upsetting, really.

Kopiko is slightly better than Nescafe… But this is what we see in every convenience store: a wall of individual portions of instant coffee mixture.

Today, we decided to go for a drive down to Oslob, and on the way, we ran into this sweet little place:

When we walked in and I saw canisters of actual beans you could choose from, I felt overjoyed. Our moods improved significantly from that point on, and we enjoyed the rest of our day!

It annoys me greatly that I didn’t turn that chocolate bar around. It was delicious, by the way (and if you’re in the weightloss challenge and reading this.. Dave and I shared it!!)

I’ll have more on what we did that day soon!

Day 5 – Market

We were pretty stationary today. Between Dave being sick and the rain that wouldn’t let up, we spent most of the day reading, playing games on our phones and napping.

Eventually, the weather improved and we ventured into town to get some food to BBQ for dinner. Before leaving, we asked Karen, one of the staff at our Air BNB, where we should go. She told us the market would have everything we need.

It was busy when we arrived so we knew it was popular

And we did find what we needed….and then some.

In Asia’s markets, you can buy dinner for tonight AND dinner for 3-4 months from now!

The thing about Asian markets is that they would be SO illegal in Canada. They’d never pass health inspections and they just couldn’t exist.

Dried fish is a staple at any market in Asia

I’ve seen dried sardines, squid, and every type of fish you can imagine

Of course, there’s plenty of fruit in these markets!

In this shop, you can buy just enough ground pepper, chili, ginger or garlic for 1 meal. Groceries are bought on a need to have basis in many countries. People don’t just stock up on pay day the way we did in my family

Taken on my way up to the second floor. Dried noodles and a whole lot of scales. Everything is sold by weight.

Even shampoo is bought on a day to day basis. Cell phone plans too, as I recently learned!!

We were careful to choose a vendor that had a decent set up (many vendors just hit their product with a plastic bag when you walk by so you can see they are keeping it insect-free). It took us 4 or 5 shops to get everything we needed (meat, vegetables, skewers, coal), but before long, we were on our way back up the hill to our little home for the week.

Their chicken didn’t have a weird purple colour to it like many of them did

I’ll be writing more about what we made in my post about the Bee Farm (coming soon!).

Day 4 – Air BNB

I’m a planner.

Every trip we take involves hours of me reading over blogs, checking out websites and comparing hotels. I’ve become pretty good at it, and although it might seem like a lot of work, for me, it’s part of the adventure.

I took a picture of our hotel door in Cebu because I was pretty sure I’d never remember which room we were in otherwise.

Dave and I have simple but specific tastes when it comes to hotels. We usually stay in middle range places, where we can rely on the hotels to be clean, safe and comfortable.

I decided to search for “funny hotel reviews”. I was not disappointed.

Sometimes we are lucky and are able to find really good deals in our price range. Usually, I book our stays on booking.com, but recently I’ve been searching Airbnb as well, and the extra options have been great!

We’re on the top of a hill, overlooking the ocean. It’s quiet, beautiful and very comfortable!!

This gorgeous pool is a perfect place to relax after a month of craziness!

There’s a nice lounging area too, where we can read, blog and enjoy the view

For $24 a night, I’d say this is a steal of a deal!!!

This is Happy…. The friendliest dog in the world!!!

Day 3 – Friends!

Living abroad, you meet people from everywhere. One of the best things of meeting new people when you’re abroad is that you know that at the very least, you have 1 thing in common: you have an adventurous spirit.

Seen Here: 4 Adventurers on a very small boat on a very wavy ocean.

Occasionally, you end up travelling at the same time, in the same place, as one of your friends. Sometimes it’s on purpose, and sometimes it’s by luck. By luck, 2 of our best friends had booked a holiday in the Philippines at the same time we were set to be there! A little bit of schedule juggling made it possible for us to meet up on the island of Bohol.

bohol-and-cebu-map — When they told us they would be on Bohol Island at the same time we were in Cebu city, we knew we had this make it work and meet up!

We didn’t have a lot of time together but we did a lot with the time we had! I have a special post planned for our time at The Bee Farm, but I wanted to share a little bit about our snorkeling adventure with Dedrick and Deb for yesterday’s recap. It was definitely the most memorable part of our day!

Photos of our morning adventure together

We were on a boat similar to this one

One of several turtles we spotted

The weather was a bit nasty when we woke up, but not nasty enough to cancel the trip, so at 7am, we head down to a little dive shop Dedrick had found, and set off on a boating adventure. The water was choppy and the sky looked like it might unleash rain on us at any moment, but before long, it calmed down and we were able to enjoy some snorkeling! The sun even peeped out before we left, and Dave and I both ended up with nasty sun burns too!

The captain of our first boat. Eventually we had to switch to a second boat. We had to pay for both boats individually. It’s a bit of a racket, but it was still a pretty good deal, so no one complained much

Here’s a short video on our way to the little snorkeling island. I’m actually quite bruised from all the bumping around on this boat. I was happy to get back on land when it was all over!

I’ll be back with another post soon!

Day 2 – Catholicism

Our second day in The Philippines was spent traveling to and around the island of Bohol.

We reached Bohol via 2 hour ferry ride. They had the temperature so low in business class that I thought I might freeze to death!!! One passenger compared it to a meat cooler. I agreed fully!

I was starting to feel better so we rented a motorbike, and as anyone who knows us or reads my blog knows…. That’s when it really felt like our vacation starts.

This may come as news to the kitty sleeping in this picture… But motorbikes are not only useful as cat beds!

Motorbiking around a new areas is always an adventure. It’s a fast way to get around and it keeps us cool in the equatorial heat. It’s also a ton of fun!

Alternatively, you can hire a Tricycle to take you around. Everywhere we go these vehicles are called something different. In Thailand they’re called Tuk Tuks. Sometimes they’re just called taxis… But most countries have some variety of these nifty little vehicles.

We travelled around the city of Tagbilaran for a while and saw some of the countryside too. One thing was very obvious to us as we scooted around…. The Philippines is Catholic+++.

We visited Tagbilaran on a Sunday and the streets were empty. Today, on a Monday, it took 4x as long to get anywhere. We couldn’t even book our ferry tickets on Sunday because it was an unnecessary service. Sundays are a day of rest wherever possible.

We saw numerous churches and even a monestary. There were Bible quotes on all the taxis and every shop we went into had biblical quotes, paintings and status displayed. There were even reminders graffitied onto walls for people to be honest and good Christians.

I don’t think you can talk about the Philippines and not discuss Catholicism… So I figure this important part of Filipino culture deserves its own post.

Day 1 – Cebu City

I’ve really grown to love writing these mini posts while we travel. I prefer writing when things are fresh in my mind and I find these posts a perfect way to wind down for the day and to reflect on the day’s adventures.

And it gives me a chance to go through ridiculous photos I took throughout the day

Today it was hard for me to choose which mini topic to write about, because the first day in any new country is always hard for me. No matter how well I try to prepare myself and no matter how excited I am, I always suffer from a bit of culture shock when we first land. I suppose it makes sense, given that your first few hours in a new country are filled with firsts, but I always hate myself for being so overwhelmed. Dave often has to remind me to be easier on myself because I get so frustrated with my mind and body for not doing exactly what I want them to do!

2 hours of sleep is not enough to fuel me on my first day in a new country… But I still remembered to get the quintessential airport line up selfie

Although I spent a good deal of today resting, hydrating and trying to stay cool, I still did get some blogging material. 2 things really stood out on our first day in The Philippines.

#1 – Water Refill Stations

Our hotel didn’t give us plastic bottles to use while we are here. Instead, they offer a water dispenser and reusable mugs. I love this idea and strongly feel like this needs to be something practiced worldwide.

Because plastic doesn’t break down, every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still on the planet. This is a huge problem, especially for the oceans. It amazes me when I hear that wealthy countries like Canada and the US are doing so little to reduce the waste, but poor countries like Indonesia and the Philippines actually are.

I later discovered that these dispensers are all over the city. You put coins in the machine and water is dispensed. Brilliant.

#2 – “Everything Stores”

We’ve learned over the last few years that having a usable cellphone while you’re traveling is about so much more than being on Facebook or Wechat. Having access to Google maps etc when you’re on the road really simplifies situations.

This is especially true in countries where you don’t speak the local language. Some apps work without the internet, but others don’t. The internet is an invaluable tool for the modern day nomad.

Best of all, when you’re in South East Asia, you don’t need to go find a cell phone provider to get set up. SIMS are sold pretty much everywhere, and prepaid phone cards are dirt cheap.

This bad boy cost under a dollar and it comes with a bunch of freebies that will get me through a few days. In total I’ll probably spend less than $10 to have a phone for the whole week

I was looking to stay close to the hotel due to reasons I mentioned earlier, but luckily, a little store right outside our hotel sells SIMs. And rice. And flip flops. And earrings. And is a bakery….

These little stores are very popular in Asia and it always baffles me how one store can possibly hold so much product, but they do.

Look closely at my pictures and see how many different items you can find in this one tiny store! Leave me a message about the item you found most surprising in the comment section.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stories from The Philippines!