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A Taylor Family Reunion – Beers, Cheers & Tears!

Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc Island, 4 March – 16 March 2017

We flew from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) via Hong Kong. We arrived at the hotel where we were meeting Mum & Dad (Jen & Les) and went to the room knocking on the door shouting “room service!” After surprising Mum and Dad and a very teary reunion, we realised that Dad had booked us all to stay in a penthouse apartment in the Somerset Chancellor Court. This was pure luxury for us and we were totally spoilt, the penthouse was huge and had beautiful views over the city. It felt a shame to go out for dinner and leave it!

Catching up

We spent the next couple of days exploring the crazy, hectic, moped mad HCMC.

Policing the streets of Saigon is tiring work…

We visited the War Museum which was very insightful into the war and the atrocities that took place. It was very moving and left us feeling quite sombre.

On 8 June, US troops dropped napalm bombs on Trang Bang District, destroying pretty much everything in their path. It also caused 9 year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc to get burned terribly. The photo of “Napalm girl” was taken by Vietnamese reporter Huynh Cong Ut (Nick Ut) and won many international awards. It was also ranked 41 over 100 most influential photos in the 20th century. On 29 March 2013, Nick Ut presented this photo to the War Remnants Museum.

Here it is

Lightening the mood, we also found an interesting chain of coffee shops…

We sampled our first Vietnamese food which was delicious. We also tried out a BBQ style place where we cooked out own food at the table, much like in Japan, however, Mum got the shock of her life when one of the prawns we had ordered actually jumped across the table.. yes it was still alive!

“Did he just move!”

We flew to Phu Quoc island where we spent the next 9 nights. We stayed on Long Beach at The Terrace a lovely little resort close to the beach and with extremely comfortable beds, something very rare in Asia. Phu Quoc was also turning out to be incredibly cheap. We headed out to dinner on our first night, a local restaurant a stone’s throw away from our Rik (Uncle Jim’s phrase, Ricardo Villa, footballer, villa, you with me :-)) where they had happy hour on all drinks from 6-10pm, making beers 30p and cocktails £1.20! How cheap is that, it was ridiculous! So in true Taylor style, we took total advantage.

We soon realised that Phu Quoc was still very much a traditional Vietnamese island with locals going about their daily lives, very much unlike the islands in Thailand. Reportedly the Vietnamese are trying to make Phu Quoc a party island like Koh Phangan, I am glad we got to experience it before it changes.

We went to a local market in the main town on the island, Duong Dong. This was quite an eye opening experience… I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Catfish, eels and…frogs

Local butchers

Counter service

Winner winner chicken dinner?!

Tesco’s delivery eat your heart out!

It was a world apart from the cleanliness and hygiene we experience in the first world, with everything freshly laid out in supermarket counters. But I suppose that’s what you get when things are so incredibly cheap. We didn’t buy any goods from the market… But, I did get my hair cut in the local “salon” for 40p! 40P! And I most probably paid a tourist price… soooo cheap and it didn’t look like it had been cut by a lawnmower.

We hired a couple mopeds and explored the island… Yes you did just read that right, my safety conscious mother that fears pretty much everything, including crossing the road, authorised us all to go out on mopeds for the day, and not only one day, we hired them for two days! It was worth the risk hey Mum :-)

We cruised around the island, visiting an idyllic beach in the south of the island, Sao beach, but were reminded that we were on a third world island, riding passed a rubbish dump where people were living and working by hand… it was something you only see on the TV, but it is a reality for some.

We visited a bee farm which was really interesting and informative and we also tried the yummy honey.

Honey fritter

Bee keeping

Can you spot the queen bee?

Vietnamese Taylors & Tylers

We went on boat trip and visited some small neighbouring islands where we tried our hand at fishing.

All aboard

One of the paradisal beaches we snorkelled at…

We had a lovely time relaxing and catching up on Phu Quoc island. It is a very rural place that hasn’t yet been taken over my mass tourism. I mean where else can you get a two course meal for 4 people, drinks included for £14!

We headed back to HCMC and remember I said that my Mum was even scared of crossing the road? Well to be fair, in HCMC it was quite an ordeal, to the extent that a hotel we stayed at gave us this information sheet as part of our welcome pack!

We reluctantly said our teary goodbyes to Mum and Dad, we had a brilliant time with you both, thank you so much for coming to see us. Memories made to treasure forever.

Next up for Team TT was to see what the rest of Vietnam had to offer, riding across the country from HCMC to Hanoi on a Honda XR150. We had just under 3 weeks to do it, could we make it and beat Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Stay tuned to find out!

Lots of love Team TT xxx

#teamtt #travel #taylors&tylers #family #beerscheers&tears #didhejustmove #gamon

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15 Reasons Why We Love Japan!

15 February to 4 March 2017

We opted to leave the sun kissed white beaches, fascinating underwater marine life and the ice cold beers to discover the innovative, richly cultural if not a little crazy country that is JAPAN!

We were immensely looking forward to seeing Tokyo, the hub of the hi-tech world and we couldn’t wait to hit the slopes in the Hakuba valley on the main island. As the skiers of you know Japan is famous for it’s snowy conditions, the weather systems that move across Siberia mean that there are massive amounts of snow compared to the rest of the world’s ski areas and we all know that lots of snow means… lots of PAAAAAAAAAAWWDAAAAAAAAl! (powder). To give you an example the average snowfall in ski resorts in Japan is anything between 14-18 metres. Compare that with Europe, although European resorts don’t publish their average snowfall, so after scouring the internet I did find one article that reported Lech in Austria known historically for having superior snow cover and also the highest average snowfall of any resort in Europe at 10.6 metres, once, big difference hey! We were very excited to get amongst the paaaawdaaa and see this super snow for ourselves.

We couldn’t wait to don our newly bought winter coats and see what Japan had to offer. We had just under three weeks to explore this country. We had high expectations which meant we could have easily been disappointed, but it exceeded our expectations. We loved Japan! Here are some of the reasons why…(in no particular order):

1. Bullet trains

One of the things I was most excited about seeing and experiencing in Japan was their famous Shinkansen. We opted to buy a JR Rail Pass, which entitles you to use any participating train around Japan, including the bullet trains!

The Shinkansen is pretty impressive due to many factors, the futuristic appearance with its long nose is very stylistic. The punctuality of the trains are second to none, JR reported that the Shinkansen’s average delay is just 18 seconds, wow, C2C and Greater Anglia could take note. They’re also renowned for being pretty quick too, the top speed of the Shinkansen is 320km/h (200 mph).

Our first ride was from Kyoto to Tokyo, which took just over 2 hours and covered just under 500kms, pretty quick hey!

Excited and ready to set off

Trying to navigate our way to our hotel from the bullet train…

We loved the Shinkansen’s so much, we took ourselves off for the day on the train, accompanied by some wine and cheese, to an hour or so outside of Tokyo to cross platforms and head straight back!

2. Cleanliness

Everywhere was so incredibly clean. OK so we had just come from spending 4 months in South East Asia and so clean public facilities weren’t a common feature, but what was more common were pungent smells when you wandered down roads that were riddled with cockroaches. But seriously though, this country was spotless, there was no litter anywhere, no horrid smells, there are no cigarette butts and chewing gum on the pavements, in fact there are designated places, outside, for smoking, eating ice cream from a street vendor, yes you cannot walk along the road whilst eating.

The roads themselves are extremely well maintained, the streets in Kyoto and in particular Gion Shijo, which is like their equivalent of Oxford Street, was immaculate, to the extent that it looked fake, like a street you would see in a theme park, are you with me?? Dan and I rode along this stretch on our bikes (a little clip in the Kyoto vid).

3. Vending machines

You are never more than a hop, skip and a jump away from a vending machine in Japan. Everywhere you look two, three, four machines are lined to give you a thirst quenching treat.

The selection was mammoth, in a few seconds you could have your hands on water, fizzy pop, juice, beer, sake…

It was also the first place where not only a cold drink option was available, but also a hot beverage, and a selection of them! I went safe and opted for hot chocolate, it wasn’t quite PAUL standard but it was pretty good.

We soon discovered that these machines were not limited to supplying drinks and that you could buy a variety of goods…

1. Headphones

2. Watches

3. Noodles, yes, hot noodles!

4. Cigarettes

5. Snacks

6. Umbrellas

7. Ice cream

8. Vegetables in stick form!?!?

9. Dinner, yes DINNER!

So it’s quite simple, you order whatever picture takes your fancy, put your money in and within a couple of minutes your dinner/lunch is served!

4. Mount Fuji

We took the Shinkansen out to Hakone, a day trip from Tokyo and were impressed with the snowy peaked Mount Fuji. We travelled to Owakundani in Hakone which has great views of Mount Fuji and itself is a volcanic valley with active sulphur points, so we got the rotten egg smell and you can see the steam in the picture below.

Mount Fuji

We were lucky enough to see Mount Fuji on one of our sightseeing days in central Tokyo when we went to the top of the Metropolitan Government building, which was also free, lucky timing hey!

5. Sushi

I love sushi and couldn’t wait to try it in its birthplace. Dan who isn’t so keen also tried it and while it didn’t blow his mind, his conclusion was “I didn’t mind it” which I’ll take as a win as he would flatly refuse to try it in the UK.

We had sushi at a sushi train restaurant at the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. We sat at the counter where the chefs made the sushi in front of us which was a great experience. The Tsukiji fish market is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world and has a renowned tuna auction which takes place daily, however it is limited to 120 visitors per day and so we weren’t lucky enough to witness this event. We did however sample the best toro (high quity tuna) I have ever tasted, delicious!

Taking orders

Enjoying something other than sushi

We did sample these and they were NOT nice!

6. Musical tunes

This may seem a strange heading, but there is music everywhere in Japan. Christophe loved it!

There was musical tunes when you took cash out of the ATM’s, when you crossed the road, when you entered a 7-Eleven, when you used a public toilet… OK so you may be thinking that there are sounds everywhere when you do all the above (maybe except for the loos!), but that’s just it, it wasn’t simply a toy machine gun sound when the green man appeared at a crossing, or an urgent set of beep beep beeps when your cash appeared, making you fear that if you weren’t quick enough to retrieve it, the cash machine may gobble it back up. No, these were melodies, tunes that made you smile and in Christophe’s case, sorry, Dan’s case, want to sing along.

Moving onto the music in the loos, well, the toilets were quite frankly awesome, see ‘Electronic Toilets’ below. When you entered a cubicle, music started, the sound of running water and birds tweeting, what a genius idea in order to ensure patrons could be discreet, or slightly foolhardy if you were cutting it fine, I am not sure the sound of running water would help!

7. Temples et al

We spent a day and a half navigating our way around the numerous temples, gardens, imperial palaces and Shinto shrines in the previous capital of Japan, Kyoto. We hired bikes and were on our way, first up, the Golden Pavillion, Kinkaku-ji Temple…

Geisha spotting in the Golden Pavilion Gardens

Here we lit candles and had a go at getting our fortune. Unluckily we didn’t get a good fortune and so we tied our fortune up and left it there, apparently this averts you from receiving the bad luck, fingers crossed!

Next up was the Bamboo Forest at Arashiyama, OK so not strictly a temple, but it was amazing and felt like you were in another world, plus there are temples around it. The bamboo forest is quite awe inspiring and according to CNN is one of the most beautiful groves on Earth!

We visited the Imperial Palace gardens

We then headed for Sannen-zaka, a typical Japanese street full of Japanese sweet delicacy shops and lots and lots of tourists. From there we headed uphill to Kiyomizu-dera Temple.

Mr Grey

The Pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

From the temple there was a lovely view of Kyoto

…and Team TT

The final destination of the day was the world famous Shinto shrine, Fushimi Inari-taisha, which is a spectacular area full of Tori gates (orange shrine columns). Thousands of these tori gates form passageways and snake through the forest into the Inari mountain range. We were quite tired by the time we reached this temple and so didn’t walk the full 4 kilometres of shrines but we did cover approximately half of it, which was quite mesmerising.

We also passed many fox statues made out of stone, which are said to be the messengers of Inari, the Shinto god of rice, generally guarding the place. Dan and a very tired looking tourist giving the foxes a hand.

We refuelled with a Yatsuhshi Chou which is the most popular traditional Japanese sweet made from rice flour, sugar and cinnamon… not bad.

8. Electronic toilets

Yes the toilets are EPIC! Not only could you probably eat your dinner off of them as their public loos are super clean, the Japanese have gone one step further and turned these thrones into technological marvels! They actually call them Washlets and they can have up to 20 functions… I won’t bore you with them all and we didn’t really like the idea of the bidet function, which also included different water pressure jets that could clean your behind, accompanied with a drying function of different temperatures! What was a lovely surprise though was the heated toilet seat, especially on those skiing days, with music playing (see ‘Musical tunes’ above) and an automatic toilet lid, so as you entered the cubicle, the lid lifted, genius! :-) However, when you marry a big kid, you can sometimes get more than what you bargained for… These toilets can also come with remote controls, which sometimes are attached to the outside of the toilet door. Can you see where this is going… Yes, I got a little surprise during one visit to the bathroom!

9. Taxi drivers

The taxi drivers in Japan are always very smartly dressed wearing a suit, driving cars that look like they were straight out of the 80s and the drivers tended to be older men. Maybe it’s what you do when you retire in Japan… well you should know the roads pretty well by then!

They are also renowned for being incredibly expensive and so we only got one taxi whilst we were in Japan, see ‘Golden Gui’.

10. Onsens

We were a little dubious about onsens. We wanted to experience a Japanese style bath and say we’d been in an onsen, however, communal bathing with dozens of other naked Japanese people would be very uncomfortable! So whilst in the Hakuba valley we opted for a private onsen. It was set in idyllic open air surroundings and we were ready for some relaxation and to reap the benefits of the mineral composition of the bath. However, it was bloody hot! Apparently, Japanese people can sit in hot springs up to 55 degrees! 55 degrees!! Not sure I want to be part boiled.

Relaxed

11. Polite, disciplined and friendly

The Japanese people really do lead by example, they are so incredibly polite and disciplined. They queue meticulously for everything, think of Canary Wharf underground station during rush hour, on steroids! The Japanese also are extremely disciplined at pedestrian crossings. They don’t just quickly skip across the road when there are no cars coming, they patiently wait for the green man even when the road is a single lane road.

The Japanese really are so helpful and friendly, continually bowing when they greet you which feels a bit awkward, do you bow in return, then fear you may do it wrong or bash heads or just stand there like a lemon…

Dan and I were looking at the Tokyo underground station map, trying to work out how we could get to the Tokyo Tower. This kind Japanese man asked us in broken English if he could help. We started to explain where we were headed. He looked confused, unsure how to get there himself. Next thing, he was running away from us, briefcase in hand, (picture a Japanese Tin Tin, just missing Snowy) towards an information desk which we didn’t see, he found out the directions, then gestured for us to follow him, he kept saying, “I will take you”. We asked him where he was supposed to be going, he just said “it’s OK”. What a complete gentleman, we kind of worked out that he wasn’t really heading in our direction but he was so helpful and happy. We all got on the train and he took us all the way to the Tokyo Tower, changing trains and platforms along the way! When we left him at the Tokyo Tower station a good twenty minutes later, he bowed and bowed at us and I opted for none of the above and couldn’t just stand there like a lemon, so went for the very English handshake. We couldn’t really believe what had happened, a total stranger, in a huge city, during rush hour and probably on his way to work, went out of his way literally to help two lost tourists, a heart warming experience and something we won’t forget, offering someone your kindness and your time.

12. 7-Eleven

So we were a little worried about going to Japan as we had heard that it’s just so bloody expensive, would we burn all our cash in three weeks! We hoped not, and it turns out that it is not expensive as everyone thinks. Australia for one is much much pricier. And these little corner stores, yes there is literally one every 100 yards, turned out to be very convenient and helpful in saving our pennies. They sold everything, to the extent that people would actually have their evening meal and sit inside so it was a 7-Eleven as we would know it, plus a dine in restaurant and take away! The Japanese people that served us were uber friendly, loving their life grinning from ear to ear, chatting away to us whilst we paid, not that we understood a word they were saying… Either way, they were ultra convenient and pretty tasty, the sushi wasn’t bad from these joints either!

13. Tipping is rude

Luckily for Team TT we found out this fact before we arrived in Japan and so saved ourselves from insulting any locals. I was a bit surprised to begin with as you pretty much tip for everything at home but after some thought, I kind of liked the message behind it.

14. Golden Gui

On our first night in Tokyo we opted for some traditional Japanese food at a BBQ place where you order your meat, and you cooked it yourself on a BBQ grill in the middle of the table. We had Kobe beef which was delicious, along with beef tongue, not so delicious! In fact it was disgusting!!

Trying Sake

Sticking to what we know

The restaurant was close to Golden Gui, a small area near to Shinjuku station where there are approx. 6 rows of small shed like buildings, housing around 200 bars. They are tiny in size, a few metres wide, fitting only 5 or so patrons at any one time. We picked one and had a few drinks chatting to another couple that made up the customers in the bar, oh and the barman.

We got on the red wine, uh-oh and ended up leaving around 4am, as the owner had to take his son skiing that morning. We were chatting to a lovely couple from Mexico and decided that it woulld be good to move on and hit up a karaoke bar.

Christophe in action

We ended up getting a taxi home around 8.00am! Needless to say the next day we didn’t make the most of our first full day in Tokyo :-) and Golden Gui most certainly beat us. We had a fantastic night and Japan was turning into a fantastic trip. Thanks for a fab night Lina and Carlos!

15. Skiing

We took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano near to the Hakuba Valley where we would spend the next 8 days skiing the best of the 10 ski areas. We stayed at the hotel Reposer Hakuba located in Echoland a small village just outside of Happo-One the main ski area in the valley.

View from our room

We only had summer clothes with us :-/ so quickly headed to the hire shop and got fully kitted up ready to hit the slopes.

Ready to go

Ok so I know I agreed to take my husband family name, but surely this was one step too far!? :-)

First up, we decided to ski the 1998 Winter Olympic ski field, Happo-One. Being immensely excited and keenos, we were ready to get the first lift and I wanted photographic evidence.

First in line, so up and away on the first chairlift! :-)

The runs were empty, the snow was soft, light, fluffy and squeaked when you walked on it. Due to the massive amount of snow Japanese resorts receive each season means that they are not known for having many blue bird days. However, Mr Lucky strikes again and we had 8 days of sunshine and blue sky! This meant that we unfortunately didn’t have any powder days, making first tracks in the snow, but the snow on the pistes was the best we have ever skied in perfect conditions. You gotta take the rough with the smooth! :-)

Over the next week we skied Hakuba Cortina, Tsugaike Kogen, Iwatake, Happo-one, Hakuba 47 and Hakuba Goryu. Our favourite was Iwatake, the runs were empty and it was like a ghost town. We pretty much had the place to ourselves to the extent that when we reached a chair lift, the lift operators were so pleased to see us like we were the only people they had seen all day, maybe we were!

This meant we could practice our technique and for me that meant taking the perfectly timed shot.

The pro carving up the snow

View from the top

Alone on the runs

“Because I‘m happy”

We had an incredible week skiing and absolutely loved Japan. We hope you enjoy the two videos below.

Next up for Team TT was a road trip through Vietnam, not before meeting up with my fantastic folks, it was going to be an emotional reunion.

Stay tuned.

Lots of love

Team TT xxx

#teamtt #travel #japan #favouritecountry #konichiwa #arigato #irasshaimase

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Thailand with Team TT plus one!

Bangkok, Ko Lanta & Koh Lipe, 23 January - 15 February 2017

After leaving the Philippines we headed to Thailand. We had a few days in Bangkok before meeting up with Nic where we spent the next two weeks dodging tourists by going to a couple of less touristy islands, Ko Lanta and Koh Lipe. Team TT had never been to Thailand before and we had heard very mixed reviews from other travellers.

We kicked off our Thai experience by wandering around Bangkok enjoying the architecture, the street food and the Thai culture of Khao San road (!), seeing some “local” sites along the way…

Some scrummy street food

We visited the Grand Palace which was pretty impressive, however, what was more moving was seeing the huge amount of Thai people dressed in black mourning their late King…

Monks too…

Inside the grounds of the very Grand Palace

Remember visiting Buckingham Palace as a kid on a school trip, laughing and joking and daring the naughty kid to go up to the Queen’s guards to make them laugh…

Did he succeed, what do you think?!

From Bangkok we flew to Ao Nang on the mainland in the Krabi Province where we were meeting Nic, although neither of us realised we had booked a room above the notorious Ao Nang red light district!

After a teary Taylor reunion and Dan being propositioned by many lady boys, we made a quick exit and boarded our ferry over to Ko Lanta.

"Sisters are doing it for themselves"

Arriving and then our first sunset on the beautiful Ko Lanta

We cruised around the island once again enjoying beach bum life, we visited Long Beach which, yep you guessed it, is a very long beach.

We enjoyed the sunshine, catching up, relaxing and a few beers…

This tended to be the general theme of our holiday with Nic!

However, we didn’t spend all our time enjoying the white sand beaches, glorious sunshine, turquoise tranquil sea, ice cold local beer and cocktails… we all had a cookery class with Time for Lime. A great little organisation where they also run an animal welfare charity that shelters rescued dogs and cats and looks to relocate them around the world, quite impressive hey! The cookery class was pretty awesome too…

There was a bit of relaxing before we started, well I was with Mr Timely and Miss Organised so of course we arrived early :-)

It was a great afternoon, we made lots of delicious Thai food including a chicken Massaman curry and a fried papaya salad, yummy!

Does Dan look intimidated to you…?

Dinner time

I already mentioned that we cruised around the island, we hired a couple of scooters and felt the wind in our hair (under our helmets of course), I wasn’t brave enough to drive one myself so Dan and Nic led the way!

We also went on a boat trip and visited nearby Phi Phi island.

Maya beach, “The Beach”

Maya beach is beautiful, there is no disputing that, just unsurprisingly extremely busy with many boat loads of tourists. If you can resist not seeing "The Beach" I wouldn’t bother, there are tons and tons of beautiful beaches in South East Asia where you won’t see another tourist. Exactly how it must have been for “Richard” or whoever was the first person to clap eyes on this beautiful bay.

Next up was snorkelling at Phi Phi Don…

Tiring this holiday lark…

After all the strenuous activity it was back to enjoying the beach…

After a lovely week on Ko Lanta it was time to head to Koh Lipe, a southern Thai island very close to Malaysia. Not before a final night out on Ko Lanta…

Not the best time to hit the buckets of cocktails hey…the night before having to get on a boat to travel to Koh Lipe! :-( No picture required.

Koh Lipe was very impressive, a tiny island with that small island feel, a walking street with all the bars and restaurants and some wicked diving, where we were reunited with our dive instructor Matthias from the Gili’s!

I’m not even sure words can describe the beauty of Koh Lipe, other than to say there are no filters whatsoever used on these shots, it was truly magnificent to capture and experience.

We decided to explore some more of this idyllic island so hired some bikes and set off… it was bloody hot!

Downhill at last, yeeeehaaaa!

The next day while Nic was working on her sun tan we had an underwater Gili reunion…

Koh Lipe offered us some stunning sunsets, we thank you Koh Lipe…

No filters on these either, just me and my Olympus OMD EM10 Mark II.

We had to say goodbye to Koh Lipe and head back to Bangkok where Nic was catching her flight home :-(

We had an AMAZING two weeks in Thailand, not because we were in Thailand but because we got to share it with Nic. It was sad to say goodbye, thank you for coming to see us Nic and make lifelong memories, such fun times, “kill it!”

Next up for Team TT was JAPAN!!! Stay tuned…

Love and hugs

Team TT xxx

#teamtttplus1 #thailand #sisters #makingmemories #teamtt

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It really is more fun in the Philippines!

After 10 weeks in this amazing country it was time to leave and move onto our next destination. We had originally only planned to stay here for 30 days, but we just kept hearing of more and more islands in this wonderful country that we must visit and we were not disappointed.

We took 9 internal flights, numerous buses and did 60 odd scuba dives! We met some awesome people and made lots of new friends.

Thank you to everyone that made our time in this wonderful country as memorable and spectacular as it was!

Team TT will definitely be back.

Onto Thailand to see Nic! :-) Stay tuned.

Lots of love

Team TT

xxx

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It's more fun in the Philippines!

Siargao and the Sinulog Festival - Cebu, 6-14 January 2017

We set off with Lisa to Siargao an island right in the bottom corner of the Philippines. We were going to show her all the bits of the Philippines that we had fell in love with and waste away the days sunning ourselves on the idyllic beaches on Siargao and its neighbouring islands. Well, it seemed Team TT’s luck had ran out as it did not stop raining for 5 days! Let’s just say we got through quite a few games of noms :-)

It rained so much that the roads were flooded which made getting about extremely difficult. One night we found a local bar and some of the locals were playing pool so Dan joined in and we bought a bottle of rum and coke settling in there for night to hide from the rain. The pool competition soon turned into the Philippines vs England, with the locals challenging Dan to singles matches for money. Dan ended up winning quite a few games and so was taking money off these local men :-/ In return he bought them some beers and they were over the moon! We ended up staying in the bar until around 2.30am and by then the road outside was about 18 inches deep with water and we needed to travel about 2 miles to get back to our room. We were lucky that Dan was generous with these men as one of the guys went and borrowed his friend's tricycle to take us back. However, every few metres the trike kept cutting out as the roads were flooded. Each time this happened the poor guy hopped off the bike and tried to get it started again in the pouring rain. Needless to say, the journey was eventful and we eventually made it back to the room about a hour later!

We soon gave up with Siargao not before taking Lisa to watch some cock fighting. We headed back to Cebu for the Sinulog festival a carnival type party that takes place over the third weekend in January, also Sue’s birthday weekend. Dan treated Sue for her birthday and checked us into a rather plush hotel, we had hot water and everything! :-)

We also got to finally meet Carlo in person, a great guy who had been helping us with recommendations for the Philippines. We enjoyed partying in Cebu with Lisa, Carlo and some of his friends, celebrating Sue’s birthday and experiencing Sinulog!

How cute is that kitten!

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Sinulog festival! We had a great few days in Cebu and fantastic 10 days with Lisa! Although it was time to move on again and say goodbye to the Philippines. Lots of love Team TT xxx

#teamtt #friendsreunited #newfriends #sinulogfestival #whenitrainsitpours #wheredidthesungo #noms

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It's more fun in the Philippines!

Cebu & Negros islands, 29 December 2016-4 January 2017

We left idyllic Busuanga and finally ended up in Cebu via Manila a day later, Cebu is an island to the east of Busuanga. Here we were picking up a comfortable 400cc motor bike with saddle bags for our luggage in order to commence our week long road trip down through the south of Cebu and across to neighbouring Negros. However, we encountered our first problem, the guy that was hiring us the bike wouldn’t let us take it without leaving our passports and our passports were in Manila in order to get our visas extended! Oops. This meant that the only bike we could hire from anyone…was a 125cc scooter!

Team TT loaded up and ready to go!

#overloaded #sorearses

We began our 230 mile road trip…

We enjoyed cruising, well maybe cruising isn’t the right word (!), through the winding roads of south Cebu enjoying the landscape of rice paddies, beaches fringed with palm trees and small villages where children would run to the road and wave furiously at us, screaming hello in excitement. We really did feel like celebs, apart from the numb bums and the three punctures we encountered along the way!

We caught a ferry to neighbouring Negros, with Dan pushing the bike on board as we had yet another puncture. We managed to get it fixed in a local garage near to the port on Negros island. Whilst waiting for our bike to be fixed we unfortunately saw an accident where a man got knocked off his bike by a passing pick-up truck and looked to have badly broken his leg. The poor man had to wait by his bike in the middle of the road where the accident occurred until the police arrived on the scene, the Filippino way! With buses, coaches, bikes and whatever else trying to pass and carry on with their journeys. After some commotion the police arrived simply moving the remains of the bike to the side and everyone continued their day.

We were soon on the road with the scooter having two inflated tyres, result, and headed towards our destination, Dauin via Dumaguete. After only being on the road a short while we were overtaking a small truck and a stray dog that didn’t look in the best shape, slowly meandered across the road. The truck didn’t sound its horn, it just ploughed into the dog, the sound of the dog being flattened went through us :-(

What a eventful journey… Only in the Philippines!

Thankfully we soon arrived unscathed in Dumaguete, the capital city of Negros island with a cosmopolitan harbourfront promenade which has a lot of Spanish influence and there we had a well earned drink!

We stayed in Dauin for a few days, a small town to the south of Dumaguete, at a dive resort called Bongo Bongo Divers. We enjoyed some great muck diving on their house reef, visited the nearby Apo Island and enjoyed celebrating New Year’s on the beach.

We visited Moalboal on route back to Cebu and stopped here to dive the famous Sardine Run. This is a shore dive so you can simply walk out and swim 20-30 metres where the reef wall drops dramatically to around 70 metres and it is here you can see the huge clouds of sardines spanning the whole coastline. There are many millions of these glittery fish swarming in one direction only to suddenly dart in another, creating different shapes and forms, it really was breathtaking.

Below is a video of our experience, we hope you enjoy.

We made it safely back to Cebu where we were meeting our first visitor, Lisa and heading to yet another island, Siargao.

Stay tuned!

Lots of love

Team TT

xxx

#teamtt #roadtrip #philippines #Cebu&Negros #needmorepower #numbbums #crazydrivers

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teamtt-blog1 · 7 years

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The Famous Sardine Run!

Moalboal, 4 January 2017

xxx

#teamtt #sardinerun #roadtrip

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teamtt-blog1 · 7 years

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It's more fun in the Philippines! Busuanga Island

13-28 December 2016

We left Palawan and boarded a ferry to the neighbouring island, Busuanga. Most tourists that visit this island come to “Coron” although Coron island is another island to the south of Busuanga, but Coron is the main town on Busuanga, confused…

Tourists that visit “Coron”, come to scuba dive the 11 World War II Japanese wrecks that were sunk by American naval bombs on 24 September 1944 in Busuanga Bay. We had only dove small wrecks so far, so couldn’t wait to get back in the water and take a closer look at these ships.

We met a guy in Bohol in a bar, Danish Mike, who runs a guesthouse on Busuanga island. His place is right near the wrecks, approx. 5-20 minutes away, whereas if you opt to stay in Coron town you are looking at a 2 hour boat ride to the closest wrecks. As this was a no brainer, we decided to stay with Danish Mike and his wife Ann in a sleepy village called Concepcion north west of Coron town and we were not disappointed. Although the bus journey there from the port was quite memorable… First up we waited an hour and a half on the bus before it moved, sitting in a cramped Filippino ‘jeepney’, buses converted from US jeeps left behind from the Second World War. They are renowed for overloading their jeepney’s and our experience was no different.

Our jeepney

By the time it left the bus station, there was around 40 passengers on the bus on what would have comfortably only held 18 people. Lots of people opted for the roof of the bus in order to sit down, luckily for Team TT we were squished inside along with bags and bags of cement, a washing machine, chickens, boxes and boxes of eggs, and many other mysterious packages. It also transpired that it wasn’t only a traditional bus, but also a delivery van that randomly stopped to deliver packages to homes along the way! It was also a collection service and a ‘hop off and do your shopping’ style bus stopping at shops including a bakery and pharmacy for passengers to do their weekly shop whilst everyone else waited patiently, squashed, on board. Oh and I forgot to mention, it was also a very humid 33 degrees and so we were boiling on that jeepney. We FINALLY arrived at Mike & Ann's four and a half hours after arriving at the bus station and we had travelled a total of 40 kilometres! Only in the Philippines!!

We ended up staying at Mike & Ann's longer than originally planned and spent Christmas with them European style, celebrating on Christmas Eve with a delicious feast of Lechon, roasted pig! We blogged some pictures back in December, but here is a recap…

The Ladz

On Christmas Eve we also dove Barracuda Lake with the lovely Nicole Tayag which was the most wonderful experience dive we have ever had. Nicole just told us to use our imaginations and let go and so we did! No wetsuit required, we entered the freshwater lake and it was a balmy 28 degrees, we descended further and the temperature went up to 34 degrees, and then when we reached the bottom at approx. 27 metres it was 39 degrees, wowzers! We were roasting, like the little piggy we would be munching on later. We could see the thermoclines where the temperature changed, we played with the sand at the bottom and it was like everything was in slow motion. We relaxed and glided along, acting like Peter Pan, moon walked along the stone ridged walls of the lake and generally behaved like big kids, it was awesome! Thanks Nicole for an brilliant experience dive.

Over our two weeks in Concepcion we dove the Japanese wrecks enjoying the short journey time and they were truly magnificent. We dove the Akitsushima and Okikawa numerous times and these two wrecks were our favourite. The Akitsushima was a seaplane tender of the Imperial Japanese Navy which lays on her starboard side. She is 140 metres in length and sits on the sea bed at a max depth of 38 metres. It is so impressive to see the crane which is still fully in tact which lifted the seaplanes and you can also see the anti aircraft machine guns, awesome.

The Okikawa was an oil tanker in service to the Imperial Japanese Navy which sits at a max depth of 26 metres, however, the top deck sits between 6-10 metres making this a much shallower dive. The merchant oil tanker is the longest wreck at 180 metres. When penetrating this wreck we went into the engine room of the tanker and saw the on board prison for naughty sailors! We also penetrated the propreller shaft which was challenging but incredible.

Divers say you haven’t seen wrecks until you have dove the Coron wrecks and they are not wrong. We unfortunately haven’t got any video footage of the wrecks as it is extremely dark inside and trying to maintain your buoyancy when swimming inside small enclosures whilst using your torch to see where you are going is difficult enough!

We were very lucky to be in the right place at the right time at a bar in Busuanga Bay and watch a presentation by Peter Heimstaedt (next to Sue) about the history of the wrecks that we were diving. We were introduced to Peter by Gunter Bernert (a friend of Mike’s who we also met in Bohol) and got chatting. It turns out that these two chaps are pretty much responsible for identifying the wrecks and piecing together the history of the ships. Gunter (next to Dan) opened the first dive shop in Coron town around 30 years ago and dove these mysterious wrecks. In order to find out what they were he taught his friend, a seaman and historian, how to dive. Peter has spent the last 30 odd years researching this area and the Japanese ships. It was extremely interesting chatting to him and so we had to get a token picture of us and the men that discovered the Coron wrecks!

We didn’t just dive whilst on Busuanga, although we did complete our Rescue Course. We learnt skills to prevent and manage problems in the water, to become more self reliant and generally to be more confident in our skills as divers. We can also now help others if needed and assist in rescue situations. So, we are now both qualified Rescue Divers! Yay! Another string to our bows.

We hired a bike from Mike for a few days whilst on Busuanga and toured the island visiting the Concepcion waterfalls, Black island beach where we saw some gorgeous little piglets, we spent a day on Kalumbuyan island drinking rum like a local, visited a local working farm, went on an island tour and visited the Macquinit hot springs. Oh and watched numerous outstanding sunsets that would blow your mind. I don’t think I could ever get bored watching the sun set.

A variety of pictures for you…

Black island beach, handsome husband, and a rainbow.

Sunset view from Concepcion pier 50 metres from our room.

Island hopping, Paradise island

Kayangan Lake

King of the Sea

Maquinit hot springs

Our home for two weeks in Concepcion, looking towards the pier.

Team TT & Mike on our last day :-(

All the gang!

It was time to leave Busuanga unfortunately and head onto our next destination, Negros & Cebu where we would be hiring a motor bike and commencing our road trip through these picturesque islands!

We were very sad to be saying goodbye, we were welcomed into Mike & Ann’s like family and we had a brilliant two weeks and wonderful Christmas in their home. Thank you so much, we are so glad we met Mike in that bar in Bohol. We will be back!

Stay tuned for the road trip…

Lots of love

Team TT

xxx

#teamtt #wreckdiving #christmas #busuangaisland #therightplaceattherighttime

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