The Philippines: Manila, Coron and a Wedding

Manila

After our motorbike adventures in Thailand, we were onto another new country that neither of us have ever been to. We were really excited about this stretch of the trip because we were heading to the Philippines to hang out with our good friends Carla and Brian, and most importantly, attending their destination wedding!

To be honest with you I didn’t really know what to expect of Manila. Manila is the capital city of the Philippines and his home to over 11 million people. When we got off the plane, my first impressions were that this place is EXTREMELY hot and humid and really chaotic. As the days went on we would experience that chaos first hand.

When we arrived, we were graciously picked up from the airport and driven to our home base in Manila. It was a nice, contemporary condo that we stayed at with Carla, Brian, and several others for our stint in the city. It was their family relative’s place, and acted as a great launch pad to everything that we did for the 4 nights we were there. The place was nicely furnished and luckily had air-conditioning, which felt amazing! The condo was in a massive outdoor shopping complex. One of the things that we learned very quickly about the Philippines is that the people LOVE shopping and shopping malls. They also really love American chains as well. For instance, very near the condo within walking distance of where we were staying there was a McDonalds, TGIF Fridays, Starbucks, Coffee Bean… and the list just keeps going (construction had started on a I-Hop). It almost felt like the Filipinos love the American chains even more than Americans do. This was perhaps the most American place that we had been since we left on our trip, and we weren’t expecting it!

The first night in town we met up with Brian and Carla and had a relaxing evening at the condo enjoying some drinks and catching up. It was nice seeing people we know well after being gone for so long. We even tried some local beer – Red Horse that we later dubbed ‘Dark Horse’ because it was pretty powerful stuff (and left us hurting in the morning)!

The next day, we hit the town and went to one of the many huge shopping malls to allow the bride and groom to get a few things that they needed for the wedding. I also found a nice button up short sleeve shirt for the wedding since I didn’t have a single respectable shirt that I’d brought along. We experienced the insane Manila traffic to and from every place we went including the mall trip. Luckily, we had a comfortable SUV that we all piled into to keep us safe from harms way and the millions of cars and motorbikes doing whatever they wanted to on the road. Anyplace we went whether it was 5 km or 50 km away took at least an hour. The traffic in Manila is some of the worse that I’ve ever seen and makes me think NY or the Bay Area traffic maybe wasn’t so bad after all.   We were very lucky that we didn’t have to drive and were very thankful for our drivers who had a lot more patience than I would have.

Later on that night, we indulged in a great massage. The upscale spa that we went to was a mere $10 per person for 90 minutes. My massage was one of the more intense ones I’ve ever gotten but felt good to get some of the kinks out of my back. We finished off the day by eating some awesome Japanese Raman at midnight. Overall, a very relaxing day, and nice meeting up with more people who were attending the wedding!

Mt. Pinatubo

After getting pampered the night before, we were up at 3 am after only a few hours of sleep to go trekking up Mt. Pinatubo, several hours north of Manila. We needed to get an early start because they stop taking people on tours at 8 am each morning due to the intense heat that develops in this area as the day goes on. We were pretty exhausted but excited for the adventures of the day.

After a short breakfast break at McDonalds and a brief minor ‘accident’ with a motorbike with a side car and a baby we made it to where we were to begin. The first step of the journey was to pile into make shift off-road vehicles. You might call them ‘Jeeps.’ These beasts were cobbled together heaps of metal parts of cars that seemed homemade. They were definitely a piece of work. There were 8 of us so we had 2 off-road vehicles for the adventure with a driver and guide upfront. The guide didn’t do much good in our car because somehow we ended up in the ‘white people’ vehicle (the 4 white Americans) whereas our Filipino friends who speak the local language, Tagalog, were all together in the other vehicle.

The 1.5 hr ride in the vehicle was crazy! Essentially we were driving up a canyon that had been forged out by the most recent eruption of Mt. Pinatubo that wasn’t that long ago – 1991. Our friends who grew up in Manila remember the eruption and the fact that their entire home was covered with inches of ash even inside their home! The views as we drove though the canyon and river were breathtaking! We did manage to get really, really dusty and thrashed all around in the back of the SUV as we went through the rugged, rocky terrain and through various rivers… but enjoyed the adventure of the journey. That being said, when we arrived at the trailhead, we were glad to be done with that portion of the trip. Our stomachs could finally settle back down and we could see again through all the dust.

For the hike, we had 2 guides who led the 8 of us up through the canyon. They were very helpful with several river crossings to minimize how wet our feet got and even carried some ‘J-Co’ donuts that we had picked up in the morning for our snack at the destination of the hike. Nothing like donuts mid-hike right? We had a few people on the trek that love their sweets, so this was a must.

The destination of the hike was a beautiful crater lake that was created by the eruption of the volcano. It was quick a sight! We wish that we could have swam in the lake as it was getting pretty hot but unfortunately they don’t allow people to swim in it anymore since someone had died a few years back doing that. We did enjoy all of the snacks and treats that we hiked with.

Overall the hike was about 8 miles round trip. It was a nice workout and we really enjoyed hanging out with our friends while doing the hike. After finishing the hike, it was back into the off-road vehicles and back down the canyon. Very unique experience and something that I won’t forget!  After the hike, we all could use a little shut eye (including in the SUV on the ride home).

Coron Island & The Wedding

After our days in and around the capital, we were off to the island where the wedding would take place. There are over 7000 islands that make up the Philippines, so we were excited to check out a few by taking a short 1 hour flight from Manila to the island of Coron.

The plan once we landed was to head straight to the port on the island and do a island hopping excursion over the next 24 hours or so before heading back to the wedding location. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans for us. When we arrived at the port, we were told that there were Typhoon warnings and they wouldn’t allow boats to go out. This was pretty frightening news since some of our friends had already been island hopping for a few days. There was a lot of harsh sounding dialogue back and forth in the local language from the wedding party trying to get them back to the mainland where it was safe and sound. After a few hours of hanging out at the port, the party of 5 (which includes a baby under a year old) made it safe back to the mainland. This was after their boat had troubles so they had to switch boats and after hours of the boat getting rocked at sea on the way back. The journey also concluded in the pitch dark on a rickety boat, even with the coast guard not allowing any boats to come in or out of the port. The worst part was that their luggage was ‘lost at sea’ and never recovered from their original boat. This included wedding decorations too, which was a bummer. Definitely a third world situation because who knows what really happened to their luggage… but everyone was just glad that our friends were safe. The typhoon ended up not being too large. It was dark and threatening looking on the land but was just a little windy in the port town with no rain.

Then it was a mad scramble for our friends to find a hotel for 12 people last minute that we could stay near the port that night instead of going out in the boat. This ended up being quite a local experience. We basically rented out the whole family run guesthouse and had them cook up all of the food that our group had purchased. It was quite a feast of all sorts of seafood including crab, shrimp and different kinds of fish. It wasn’t quite what was planned but at least everyone was together. In fact we were closer than ever since we had 3 double beds where 3 couples slept in one room! The interesting thing about this day is that it was Thanksgiving in the US – not quite your ‘typical’ holiday!

The next day after a really large spread for breakfast, we took a shuttle 1 hour across the island to the wedding location. It ended up being a really nice place with a killer pool. We enjoyed the rest of the day just hanging poolside and relaxing.

Since we didn’t get any island hopping in as planned, we all wanted to have a little beach time before the wedding. So Saturday a group of us all got up early and a took a boat over to a nearby island for a morning in the sun and some snorkeling. Even the bride joined us for a little bit on her wedding day! It ended up being one of the better snorkeling experiences that we’ve had. The reefs were full of life and there was a huge variety of fish, coral, and jellyfish (not poisonous thank god) along the shallow shores of the island. The beach was pretty amazing as well with squeaky white sand, aqua blue waters and hardly anyone on it. Apparently this is very common in the Philippines. Unfortunately this was the only other island other than Coron that we would see on the trip. Dang typhoon!

Later that evening was the wedding and all its festivities. This was one of the more unique weddings that we have ever been to.   Being a destination wedding, it was pretty small, and very laid back. We enjoyed the closeness of all of the wedding guests with the bride and groom. Marissa and I were also very honored to speak during the ceremony as well. Marissa read a Bible verse and I read a poem about marriage.

The ceremony was held in a beautiful garden overlooking the bay with happy hour in a bayside cocktail lounge and dinner in the main building of the hotel. This sat high on a hill with sweeping ocean views. After the dinner, instead of having the traditional dances, there was a casual pool party in the amazing infinity pool. Overall, we had had a great time and couldn’t be happier for Brian and Carla, and feel blessed to be part of their special day.

The Philippines looked like an incredible place, and we merely scratched the surface of what it had to offer. Hopefully someday we can make it back to more of these remote islands and explore the reefs- dive certified and typhoon free!