Goodbye, Baler.

Yesterday at 4:30 in the morning I boarded a bus and left Baler for good. It seems surreal. I experienced the same feelings when I left Vietnam. If you remember right before I left Vietnam for real, I traveled to  Thailand and Cambodia and so when I left Vietnam to come to the Philippines it didn't really seem like I was leaving for good. It felt like I was just going on another side trip and would shortly return. Since I just left Baler only a few weeks ago to travel with Hannah, I feel like I am doing the same thing again, and in a few short weeks I will be right back there. I know that isn't the case but that is how it feels. I guess I fully haven't accepted and don't understand that I am not going to be back in Baler, with my friends, in my home, anytime soon. It will probably hit me next week when I am at the airport. So no sentimental post right now, maybe in a few days I will know exactly what I want to say about leaving Baler. For now lets just leave it at this: I have grown to love Baler, however hesitantly, it doesn't matter. It will always have a piece of my heart.

Downtown Baler. Photo credit: Hannah

I go back to the U.S in exactly one week. So for the next few days I will be traveling in Banaue and Sagada, beautiful rice terraces in Northern Luzon. I am going to be by myself– I am excited to do some independent traveling again. Hopefully it won't be too crazy with Filipino tourists, it is Holy Week, so everyone is on vacation. I will be back in Manila on Thursday or Friday. Until then :)

Baler meets an American taller and paler than me.

Okay, back to square one: The first day Hannah arrived in the Philippines. I went all the way to Manila to get my sister, a long bumpy bus ride so I could pick her up at the airport. This turned out to be the biggest struggle of our whole entire trip because I was at the wrong terminal and I felt, and still feel, so stupid. I apologized like 500 times. And enough of that story.

After a couple of confusing phone calls of "Wait, where are you?" we were gloriously reunited and immediately hopped in a taxi to catch the night bus to Baler, and thankfully we got there in time. We  arrived in the wee hours of the morning. Hannah had her first tricycle ride and before we knew it we were at Castillo House. I only let Hannah sleep for a couple hours because I had a full day planned for her– mainly a food tour. But I also wanted to bring her to the beach. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very good while we were in Baler so surfing wasn't as fun as I hoped it would be. Hannah was able to stand up on her second try! But, then she didn't get up again. But that is okay. All the surf instructors understood it was because she was jet lagged– luckily that is a cognate :) Besides the beach, we explored the public market, walked around town, and just hung out. I also took Hannah to the salon where she got a mani, pedi, and a haircut for a whopping $4.50.

Hannah is up... and down.

We also went to two of my schools, Maria Aurora and Baler Central. The kids were so shy around Hannah, it was very cute.

Hannah makes friends.

Hannah was so shocked by the number of stares, double takes, and whats-your-name she got while in Baler. It was so funny to see everyone's reaction to her. Most of the citizens are accustomed to seeing me after two months, but when they saw another foreigner with me they were so shocked! The looks on peoples faces was priceless. It was also nice to have Hannah around because I was no longer the tall, pale girl. More than once my friends and acquaintances told me that I no longer looked pale when standing next to Hannah. hehehe. I take that as a compliment, but they mean it as a bad thing. Being pale is a sign of wealth and beauty, because it means one doesn't work out in the sun. Pale skin is desired by not only women, but men. Many people always have umbrellas with them so rain or shine they can be protected from the weather, regardless if it is water or UV rays.

We only spent one night in Baler, I really wish we had more time so Hannah could see more of my daily life but we had to get back to Manila to catch our flight to Bohol (chocolate hills, tarsiers, and crazy Cris). I loved having Hannah in Baler, it was so much fun to share, explain, and show someone from back home my life here in the Philippines.

Hannah also fell in love with Trixie.

And ironically, now that I have completed the first days of Hannah's trip I have completed the entirety of Hannah's trip. There is obviously a lot more that I want to say and share, but I don't have the time, effort, or to be honest the patience to explain each story. Plus, I'll be home soon (brt) so you all can just ask me face to face for some funny stories. I will say that it was honestly two of the best weeks of my life. Hannah and I had never traveled together before. When we were younger we always said we would live in Paris together and walk through the streets, arms linked, swinging bags of baguettes. Well, that hasn't and probably won't happen. But the Philippines did and to be honest: Balut for baguettes? Sounds like a fair trade to me.

Oh, one more thing we ate

Balut. Remember that time in Vietnam when I ate a fertilzed duck egg. Well, yeah. That happened again. Only it is called balut here, and the Philippines is well known for it.

First you break open the very top of the egg and sip out all
the fluid. It tastes like the broth of chicken soup.

Hannah's little ducky.

My little ducky.

Yeah, that is pretty gross. No way of getting around it.

I'm incredibly focused to finish it.

Hannah does not like her balut I guess.

All finished. Clean plate. Ta-da!

Malinamnam means yummy

This was a new word that I learned while traveling with Hannah. One of the the first words I learned in Tagalog was masarap, delicious. But somehow I was never taught malinamnam, which is a shame because it is so fun to say. I think it is funny that it ends with namnam, which sounds a whole lot like nom nom nom.

We ate. A lot. There were so many dishes, delicacies, and flavors that I wanted Hannah to try. We ate too much. When I returned to Baler my housemates told me I gained weight. Well, it was totally worth it. These are some of the things we ate: 

Temporado and hot chocolate made from cacao beans
grown right in Baler. Jhen, one of my housemates, made
this as a treat for Hannah. Oh yeah, this was breakfast.

Saging-cue aka grilled banana on a stick

Street food. A whole lot of malinamnam right there.

Lunch while island hopping.

This lady knew how to make a halo-halo! She put avocado in it! YES!!

an incredibly delicious fruit. I can't remember the name! SORRY!

sizzling squid

After the Undeground River we had lunch on the beach with our
Irish friends. Everything tastes better on a banana leaf eh?

Soursop. As Hannah explained it, "It tastes like Jolly Ranchers!"

taho. Tofu and a molasses sort of sauce.

Hannah enjoys some instant coffee (blargh) after snorkeling

Black Island

While at Coral Bay Resort we also had the opportunity to do a little island hopping. Our first full day there we took a looooong boat ride to Black Island to go snorkeling. The island is named Black Island because from afar it literally just looks like a big black block, but as we approached we began to see the different hues across the limestone rocks. There is also a stunning beach at Black Island, with lots of amazing seashells and broken coral scattered about.

Rolling on up to Black Island.

The snorkeling was even better than it was at our resort! My best spot of the day was a stingray. It had yellow and blue spots– it was beautiful! I so badly wished that I had an underwater camera. Micky, I could have used ya right then (not that you have that camera anymore...)

Sticking to the light.

Another plus about Black Island was the cave. This was a surprise for us, we were expecting just to go snorkeling but we also got to go spelunking (well not really but we walked around the cave). There were two small pools in the cave and we both took a plunge into them with our snorkels on. However, I got really scared of the dark black water and opted to stay in the water that was lit up from the sunlight streaming in through the cave entrance. I guess the unknown scares me!

It was a fairly good sized cave.

Hannah was wearing the sarong I got her in
Thailand and she actually looked like a cave
woman. This picture makes her out to be a
Smithsonian Exhibit. Classic.

We found paradise in Coron

After Puerto Princesa we flew to the most northern part of Palawan to Coron where we spoiled ourselves. We stayed at Coral Bay Resort, a really nice but affordable resort on Popototan Island. Simply put, it was paradise. We  spent just over three days here– we mostly relaxed and laid out in the sun (with sunblock on of course, seriously though), played cards, read, swam, snorkeled– more on that later, ate, and one day we even went on a little hike. It was incredibly relaxing.  The best thing by far was the snorkeling. I am not kidding when I say all we had to do was walk to the end of the dock, jump off, swim 10 meters, and we were at the edge of this incredible coral reef. I've never experienced anything like it.

I think in three days I probably accumulated six hours of snorkeling. I am not kidding when I say every five minutes I would see a new kind of fish. According to the owners, there are 1000 different species of fish out on the house reef (yup it is called the house reef). Every way I turned my head I could see dozens and dozens of these amazing brightly colored fish. There were clown fish, parrot fish, groupers, angelfish, and so much more! And the reefs themselves were incredible: blue, orange, pink, purple. It was stunning. As much I loved the bright and colorful fish, I enjoyed trying to spot the fish that had neutral colors. There were some humongous fish that laid in the sand and camouflaged right in.

Irwn & fossa.

Each meal at Coral Bay Beach Resort was included in our set price (a mere $60 a night whaaat!) so we obviously spent a lot of time in the restaurant that sat right on the water. Because of this, we became well acquainted with one of the waiters, Irwin. The first time he heard Hannah's name he thought she said "henna," so she became known as Tattoo. I shortened that to Tuta, tagalog for puppy. To get even with me, Hannah told him to call me fossa. Long story that doesn't necessarily need explaining here. The point is: we definitely had Irwin confused. But even better than Irwin was another waiter who had such a crush on Hannah. Whenever he saw me he would ask where she was. He never really asked Hannah questions, he would only ask me questions about her. It was like middle school all over again. When he found out we were sisters he said, "Oh but not the same face." Sorry to disappoint bud.

This was our bungalow. We had a very nice hammock on
our front porch that we both spent a lot of time in.

Puerto Princesa Underground River

After Bohol, we flew to the island of Palawan, where we spent the rest of our time. Our first order of business was seeing the Underground River, named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World (the third one I've been to!) It was fantastic– such an incredible experience. To get the entrance we endured a two hour long van drive with one of the worst drivers in the Philippines, seriously this guy drove like a granny. People drive fast here, and when someone drives really slow they are putting everyone at risk. He also felt it necessary to honk at everything in the road. I wish I had my ipod.

Photo: Hannah. Inside the
Underground River!

The cave entrance

After our van ride we had a 20 minute long boat ride and then finally we transferred into small boats and entered the cave. There were about eight people in our boat and there was  a guide in the back who paddled us along. The Underground River is 8.2 kilometers long, but we only navigated 1.5 k of it. There are so many stalagmites and stalactites, they grow at about .2 mm per year so someday in thousands of years the Underground River will be no more, basically it will be a rock wall. Good thing we live in the millennium. No one is allowed to touch any of the rocks because oil from hands can slow down the growth of the rocks. Throughout our tour, the guide would point out interesting rock formations and tell us what they resembled. At one point we went through the produce aisle at a grocery store and saw mushrooms, corn, eggplant, Throughout our boat ride we could hear the *plinks* of the "Holy Water" dripping from the ceiling.

And then there was the Holy Shit.

Holy Shit: If one opens their mouth in awe of the great vastness of the Underground River and suddenly tastes something warm and salty it means only one thing– they have been blessed with holy shit, the work of one of the 40,000 bats that inhabit the Underground River. I remembered to keep my mouth shut. As ridiculous as our helmets were, I was glad to have it on as it protected my head not from falling rocks, but from the Holy Shit.

As Hannah put it, ready to work for the DOT!

When we emerged from the cave (Holy Shit free) we saw monkeys and the humongous monitor lizards. Then we went back to the mainland and ate lunch from a banana leaf and befriended two Irish girls.

These guys are crazy big! I would say he
was probably three feet long.

The little guys with big eyes, butterflies, ziplines, and Cris.

Cris, tricycle, me. 'nuf said.

Okay, I previously mentioned that I was going to be jumping all over the place. And I am doing a really good job keeping my word. But right now I am going to try to go in order for a little bit starting with Bohol. Hannah and I flew into Tagbiliaran airport, a teensy tiny airport. Our plane actually did a 180 degree turn at the end of the runway to bring us to the airport, a two building room. Cool. Outside the airport we met Cris, a wonderfully crazy tricycle driver who became the inspiration for many of our running jokes. Cris gave us a super sweet deal and drove us around the whole entire island the following day for a very cheap price– and he entertained us. Actually, I think maybe we entertained him even more. He told us, and I quote, "I have met many people from all over the world, but you, you are the most unique." He told us this after overhearing Hannah's explanation on monarch butterfly's migration patterns. Cris loved us. And he made sure that he documented everything we did– I'm sure this is so he could show it to the next lucky tourist who happens to catch a ride in his bright yellow tricycle (at one point a different tour guide was trying to convince us to go on a cave tour with him and he whipped out his camera and showed us pictures of tourists and said, "see look a real tourist! From Canada!" Then he also told us he had a flashlight, like that would convince us. We opted out of that tour).

So Friday the 16th we rode around with Cris all day. Our first stop was at the tarsier sanctuary.

This is a tarsier:

I know, so cute right! Tarsiers are only 11 to 15 centimeters long and weigh a mere 130 grams, give or take a little of course. What is super cool about tarsiers are their long tails, which are 20 plus centimeters long– almost twice the length of the body! But of course, my favorite thing about the tarsiers are their HUGE eyes. Tarsiers eyes are fixed in their skull, meaning they can't move them. To compensate for this biological feature they can swivel their head 180 degrees. They are nocturnal so during the day they actually can't see much. They also have super sensitive hearing so we had to be very quiet while walking around the tarsier reservation place. Hannah did a good job using her inside voice.

 

EVIL tarsier

We continued our whirlwind tour of Bohol making stops at a butterfly garden, the Chocolate Hills, a cool bamboo bridge, the Loboc River which we floated down while eating a (unfortunately) sub par lunch, and we went ziplining. It was all so much fun! Cris wanted to bring us to see a python snake, but Hannah and I were both beat by the end of the day and decided to go back to our hotel and rest because the next day we were flying to Palawan!

Hannah superman ziplines

Chocolate Hills

Which actually don't look like chocolate right now since it is only the beginning of summer in the Philippines. The hills are still a nice beautiful green, but once it gets really hot and dry they will turn brown, hence the name Chocolate Hills. I think I prefer them green.

There are over 1,200 (I guess between 1268 and 1776, why they can't actually count them and get the exact number I do not know) of these cool hills on the island of Bohol. Hannah was obviously REALLY REALLY REALLY excited to go here because it has to do with geology. If blogspot wasn't being lame I would upload more photos, but I just ran out of photo space on my blog (didn't know that was possible) so I had to go through and delete some old photos and from here on out won't be as generous with the photographic evidence of my adventures. Dang. Anyways, just believe me when I say I have some excellent photos of Hannah freaking out about the Chocolate Hills, reading a plaque for a good ten minutes, and of course: holding a rock. Obviously.

So now that I have made fun of Hannah and her love for rocks, I should probably briefly explain how these hills were formed. And when I say explain I mean I will write verbatim what it said on Hannah's favorite plaque:

"The unique land form known as the Chocolate Hills of Bohol was formed ages ago by the uplift of coral deposits and the action of rain water and erosion. " And then, "The grassy hills were once coral reefs that erupted from the sea in a massive geologic shift. Wind and water put on the finishing touches over hundreds of thousands of years. "

Okay but I like this story better, a giant named Arogo was broken hearted (poor fellow) and was crying his eyes out. His tears dried and formed the Chocolate Hills.

Island Hopping in Palawan

Hello! Well, I just had the best two weeks with Hannah. Literally, it was amazing. But I have a lot of blogging to do. I am not going to go in order because Hannah has some of the really good photos, so I am just going to jump all over the place starting with one of my favorite days. This day was operation get Hannah some color aka island hopping. I am proud to say that Hannah no longer looks like she is half albino. She now looks like she is half pig. Just kidding, she isn't that burnt. Only her legs.

Our cool boat

yah, we are pretty cool

 Island hopping was incredible and so much fun. First we went snorkeling and saw so many amazing fish. The water had a lot of algae in it so it wasn't very clear, but I was still flabbergasted by all the colors flashing before my eyes. The only bad thing is we had to wear life vests while snorkeling– SO LAME! But there is a reason for this: tourists tend to dive down and touch the coral, getting their nasty hand oil all over it and killing the beautiful reefs. And since there were about twenty plus tourists bobbing up and down it made sense that we all had to wear life vests since some tourists are complete idiots when it comes to the environment (more on that later). After forty minutes or so of rocking out our life vests and snorkels we boarded the boat to our next destination: Starfish Island! We hopped off the boat and hightailed it to the end of a long sandbar, it looked almost like a leg– I figured that was why it was called Starfish Island, ya know, maybe there were five legs like that. But nope! Right where we dropped our bags in front of the water I spotted 10 huge pink starfish. Starfish Island is named after the starfish, not because it physically resembles a starfish fyi. We took tons of photos with/around them careful not to touch any of them.

This is when my "some tourists have no clue about the environment" story begins. These two girls came down to where we were (another reason not to like them because they ruined our remote and peaceful part of the beach) and situated themselves nearby us. Hannah and I were lounging in the surf soaking up the water and sun– if you recall this was operation get Hannah some color– when I see one of the girls walking in from the ocean with a pile of starfish in her hands. She then

Hannah is a starfish

proceeds to THROW the starfish on the sand. Seriously, she chucked them. Hannah, being the boss she is, walked over to them and said GUYS, then in a sweet nice voice, uh hi. Then again in a "I'm a boss and heart the environment" voice proceeded to tell them the anatomy of a starfish and how they breath and are living creatures blah diddy blah blah science stuff falalala, basically to sum it up she called the girls starfish murderers and so trembling with fear of the tall pale American they returned the starfish to the ocean. Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic but Hannah did a wonderful job helping the starfish and informing the girls that starfish are animals and not plants (we decided to give the girls the benefit of the doubt and figured that they aren't animal haters but just incredibly stupid and thought starfish were plants, not animals.) I'm being a bit bitter, but it is so frustrating to see people disrespect and abuse such a beautiful place and creature.

I love starfish and the environment.

if only those girls had read this sign.

Okay, so besides that episode, Starfish Island was truly incredible. By far the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. And we ate lunch on a banana leaf, and lets be honest: food always tastes better on a banana leaf. We then went to another island and again lounged and explored. It was truly paradise.

um yes please to fresh buko on the beach.

Trixie!

Since I arrived in the Philippines I have been looking for a puppy. One of my students lent me her puppy for the week. Literally, she was just like here have my puppy. It's not like I stole this kid's puppy– her family kept telling me to take her. So, Trixie has been my puppy for the last week. And she is oh so cute.

Life is about to get way more exciting than a puppy– Hannah gets here in 5 hours! yay yay yay! I am in Manila right now to pick her up and tonight we will take the night bus to Baler. I CAN'T WAIT TO JUMP ON TOP OF HER AND SMOTHER HER IN HUGS AND KISSES. Next post, expect pictures of not one, but TWO James girls.