5,300 photos later

I've finally made my way through all 5,300 photos I took during the trip. Some turned out pretty well, many turned out horribly. It's been great going through them all, reliving the journey along the way.

Since coming back I've been asked about the highlights. It's really so hard to choose, but a few moments really stick out for me.

In the Philippines, my 3 day trek through the rice paddies was a spectacular experience. By trekking along I was able to visit areas that I'd likely have missed otherwise. Although it was scary at times, the scenery was unbelievable and it was a worthwhile adventure.

In Mongolia, the Naadam festival was also a highlight. The whole festival was so unlike anything I've ever experienced. For anyone thinking of going to Mongolia, I'd highly recommend planning a trip around the festival in July.

Otherwise, I will always remember such experiences as watching a Mongolian family blow-torch a marmot, hiking along the Great Wall, SCUBA diving with sea turtles and feeding bananas to monkeys.

This will be it for the blog for now. Hopefully I'll be off on another adventure soon enough at which point I'll get back to this. Until then, thanks for reading!

The longest 650km journey of my life

Mercedes and I arrived back in UB early yesterday morning after a beautiful eight day tour through parts of central and northern Mongolia. The countryside we drove through was absolutely spectacular. The lakes we visited were stunning. But really, the most exciting story of the tour was the journey home.

We were told it would be a 22h bus ride back from the provincial capital of Moron to the national capital of UB. These cities are 650km apart. It is an indication of the state of Mongolia's roads (well "roads" - they are more like pot-hole filled trails through grass most of the time) that this didn't completely surprise us.

The good news is that the journey actually only took us 15 hours. However, both of us agree - this was still the most painful journey of our lives. And we have pretty low standards.

Because of a local Naadam festival in Moron, the buses to UB were sold out when someone attempted to purchase us tickets a few days in advance. Instead of a bus we journeyed back in a van. This actually sounds like an upgrade. It was not. Fourteen adults were crammed in the back of the van that back in Canada might seat six. Also it was Barney-themed.

Mercedes and I were in the back that had a row of seats for three people. When someone decided to join us in our row, we opted to take the two window seats and let her sit in the middle. Bad decision. Once we finally set off (after we waited 2.5 hours for the van to fill), two rather large Mongolian women had pushed themselves between us and in the process shoved us to the side. This left us each with about 10cm of seat, and perhaps another 25cm of unsupported gap between the seat and the door, in which to fit our bodies. I tried putting bags underneath me for some support, but shockingly, a bag is not as comfortable as a seat. Especially when the bag is not even with the seat and has no back support. Adding to the comfort was a door with many metal bits sticking out that I was squeezed in next to. It made for a very bruised side.

As we journeyed onward the weather grew colder and rainier. When we closed our windows to stay dry and warm, the women between us would yell in Mongolian and gesture at us to open them. When Mercedes didn't, the woman next to her would reach across Mercedes' face and grab it open herself, often hitting her face in the process.

When we left Moron there was one very drunk man on the bus. A drunk man who took quite the liking to me and Mercedes. He told us repeatedly (through the two women who spoke some English and were forced into the job of translators) that we were very beautiful. He also asked us to join him in a tent for the night, kept grabbing us to smell our hair, and insisted on taking photos with our arms wrapped around him.

As the trip progressed more and more of the passengers joined in the drunkeness. A bottle of vodka was always being passed around. At one of our many, many stops (approximately one every 45 minutes) someone grabbed a teacup from the restaurant we were stopped outside of, and a bottle of very strong apple wine was shared amongst the passengers. They insisted we join in. And each finish two cupfuls.

As drunks do, the men eventually started singing. And didn't stop their sing-a-long of Mongolian songs until 3:30 AM when one of the women between me and Mercedes yelled at them to stop. Our original drunken friend tried to start things up again, but no one else dared cross the angry woman and he slowly petered out.

The rest stop with the apple wine was actually enjoyable. Someone was selling bagfuls of absolutely delicious strawberries. And it was amazing the sense of camraderie that developed amongst everyone. People were sharing their food (and their wine). Everyone was exchanging phone numbers and talking like old friends. I guess bad experiences do bring people together. And we all watched on as somehow in the middle of a vast open field the driver managed to fix the axle of the van with no tools.

All told I think I had about 3 hours of highly interrupted sleep. I arrived with bruises in strange locations (such as my shoulder), a sore back and tired muscles, and a great "worst journey" story.

A very manly festival

Mercedes and I have spent the past week exploring Ulaan Baatar (UB) and enjoying the celebrations surrounding the Naadam Festival. This is a festival that occurs each year in all cities across Mongolia. The largest version of the festival is held in UB. This festival celebrates the "three manly sports" of Mongolia - wrestling, horseback riding and archery. It is pretty much the best (and most random) festival ever.

Leading up to the festival, performances of traditional Mongolian singing, dancing, and horsehead fiddle playing were held in the city's main square. As a tourist it was a great way to learn a bit about the country's folk art. Traditional singing involves either throat singing or a "long version" of traditional song that is so called because of the long trills it involves. Throat singing came about because it is said to sound like the wind in the open wilderness. I beg to differ. It sounds awful. The dancing though was quite spectacular and seemed to share some elements with traditional Russian dancing, but also involved a lot of shoulder shaking that I failed miserably at recreating. The horsehead fiddle came about when a man's beloved horse died. He used the horse's hair and skin to construct a fiddle that he then used to play mournful songs about his horse.

 

The opening ceremonies were held on Monday. One of the focal points of the ceremonies (and the festival itself) is the celebration of the nine honoured horses and the nine white banners. I'm not entirely clear about what the flags represent but it seemed that national hero Chinggis (Ghengis) Khan received nine white flags 800 some years ago and they spurred him on to victory. Or something like that.

The banners are carried by men on the nine honoured horses (apparently these are chosen at random for no particular reason. I find that hard to believe as they are called the honoured horses, but that may just be part of the randomness of it all) from the main city square to the stadium in which the opening ceremonies take place. There, the banners are placed on the stadium floor and soldiers stand guard over them until the festival is over. When wrestlers win a match they go perform some sort of praise ritual to the banners. Perhaps thanking them for strength? Really though, the ritual just looks like the manly wrestlers are flapping their arms like a bird.

The opening ceremonies also involved strange interpretive dancing by children and a parade that involved people in traditional dress, people carrying a random assortment of flags (Mongolia, India, China, Canada, the US and a few others), and then people dressed in a juice box costume and as a bunny rabbit and a robot started showing up. There was also a recreation of a Mongol horde (perhaps the Huns...not sure exactly what horde they were, but they were terrifying looking) attacking another horde. It felt like something out of medieval times.

Onto the sports:

The wrestling starts off with about 1,000 wrestlers (based on my crude calculation), and 10 rounds later a winner is declared. It is a single elimination event and wrestlers are randomly paired against each other. This, combined with the fact that there are no weight categories, makes for some very uneven matches. As soon as any part of a wrestler's body other than his feet or his hands touches the ground, he is out. This happened within seconds in some matches. For others (especially in the later rounds) it took considerably longer.

The wrestlers have quite the costume in tiny shorts that look like underwear and a tight fitting vest. The vest came about because many years ago a female competed and won (a big no no in the manly sports festival). So now all competitors must show they are men and that they have no breasts by wearing a revealing vest.

The archery was a bit less exciting. But it is the only sport women are allowed to compete in (a recent change). The archers took aim at a pile of something (it looked like perhaps rocks), and were awarded points based on how which stones were hit. People stood around the targets to convey to the judges how many points were earned for each shot. At first I thought they didn't need to worry too much as these were professionals. But pretty quickly Mercedes noticed that in fact these poor souls needed to dodge out of the way every so often to prevent being hit by a wayward shot. Also, the men shot from behind the women, meaning if any of them mis-shot, the women could be hit in the back. I didn't see it happen, but it definitely could.

The other sport, horseback racing, is a 35km long race. The jockeys range in age from 3 to 9 or 10 (at the very most) years old!! This is because they want light jockeys on the tiny Mongolian horses. These kids ride without a saddle and apparently every so often a child falls off a horse. We definitely saw horses with no children galloping along toward the finish line. Nowadays there are ambulances chasing behind to collect the children who fall off. They had only introduced helmets this very year to help prevent the serious head injuries and deaths that result. Also, every year horses drop dead at the finish line. We were standing near the finish line and there were some very tired looking horses who did not want to continue on. Luckily, we didn't see any deaths or serious injuries.

The two year old horse that comes in last gets a song of empathy written about it, while the top five horses in each race get songs of praise written about them.

The winners of all sports receive titles, honour and monetary prizes. It makes for some tough competition.

I must say the Naadam Festival was pretty amazing and I'm really glad I was in UB for it. Mercedes and I have moved on to the city of Tsetserleg, a bumpy 11h bus ride from UB. We will be touring around the countryside for about a week, sleeping in gers (the traditional nomadic tent), and testing out just how bad my horse allergies are. It is likely there will be no internet access along the way so this may be my last post until the 22nd. Until then, Happy Naadam!

Stair climbing on the Great Wall

Beijing was full of beautiful temples and modern architecture, but nothing can compare to the Great Wall. Really, a trip to Beijing is incomplete without a visit to one of the sections of the wall. Mercedes and I visited the MuTianYu section which is located about a two hour bus ride from downtown Beijing.

I don't really know who would be driving what up and down all the stairs, but I'm glad they were concerned about safety.

We chose this particular part of the wall because it was known to have fewer visitors and have more original sections than others nearby. It also promised to be a more challenging climb than the most visited sections (there's probably a reason for that). Even knowing ahead of time that it was supposed to be a tough hike, I was surprised at how difficult the wall was to climb. It is composed of never-ending stairs, broken up only by the gatehouses which originally provided shelter and served as lookout towers when the wall was used for protection. These days they were mostly used to house tired tourists looking for a reprieve from the scorching sun. The day we visited the wall it was a balmy 38C with a cloudless sky. It made for absolutely amazing photos, but it also made for very sweaty tourists.

When we arrived at the wall, it was suggested that we take the gondola up the side of the mountain to reach the wall to give us more time to explore. Turns out this "gondola" is a two person chair lift with a roof of sorts that was not designed for tall people (I managed to bang my head on the roof as I got off, only to have the guard yell to me after the fact to "watch out").

While this was a random enough way to ascend up the mountainside, the descent was even stranger. It was possible to take the chairlift back down, but the far more exciting option was to take a toboggan down the side of the mountain. A steel track was at some point installed and anyone (over the age of 8) is free to travel down on a tiny sled with a built in brake system. I can definitely say that I never thought the sentence "I tobogganed down from the Great Wall" would come out of my mouth (or even be plausible), but that is what I did. I didn't take any photos while going down, but here's a picture of the track as seen from the chair lift going up.

Upon arriving we were told that the best views were from the last gatehouse accessible to tourists, about a 3km walk (of nothing but up and down stairs) away. I decided to go for it, figuring the views would be worth it. They were not. The walk to the last few gatehouses was straight uphill, and the climb from the second last to the last gatehouse was up about 500 very steep stairs (so steep that descending involved almost bum-sitting my way down). This photo doesn't really convey the steepness, but the rise on each step was probably about 40cm.

I am usually quite comfortable climbing that many steps, but having done nothing but climb stairs for the past hour and doing so in the scorching sun made me quite shaky upon reaching the top. The views were nice, but no better than they had been at many other points along the way. And I would have been able to enjoy these other views without feeling dehydrated and exhausted.

The one benefit of walking so far was that I got entire sections of the wall to myself at times, allowing for some great photos of a tourist-free wall.

To be fair there were some stair-free flat-ish sections, but they were not as prevalent as I'd have desired.

I think what amazed me the most were the vendors who had somehow managed to carry freezers of cold water and beer, and souvenirs, up and down the steps in order to sell to thirsty tourists ready to pay outrageous prices for something to quench their thirst. I'm assuming the umbrella was not taken down each and every day, but it's quite possible it was also carried around.

I finished the day ready for a nap, but pleased with the experience.

Upon arriving back in Beijing, Mercedes and I found Magnum bars for less than $1 Canadian. A perfect ending to the day (for those of you who don't know what a Magnum bar is, well it's pretty well the perfect ice cream bar and normally sells for 3 or 4 times the price).

Although I saw many more exciting things in Beijing, I will not be writing about them as I must also update about Mongolia and the Naadam Festival (a festival of the "three manly sports"). It is pretty much the greatest festival ever. Stay tuned.

Culinary adventures at the Beijing night markets

Beijing has some absolutely amazing food - tasty dumplings, fresh steamed buns and flavourful noodles. It also has some very interesting street food, particularly at the night markets seen around the city.

These markets are marked by their red lanterns (now lit by energy efficient fluorescent bulbs rather than candles) and are well known for their unique protein offerings.

The market is essentially a long row of food vendors all trying to tempt tourists into trying strange and exotic foods.

Upon arriving at one market, a snake on a stick was shoved in my face. Mercedes actually braved up and tried snake after being assured it was quite delicious by some people from our hostel, but claimed it was a horrible soft, mushy texture and far too salty. I decided it fell into the category of meat and didn't fit in with my pescetarian ways.

I suppose starfish may count as seafood, but I was not too keen to try.

Despite the fact that sharks live in the sea they were too mammal-y to even consider trying them. And the sea urchins just looked sharp.

Worst of all I would say were the scorpions still moving on their skewers. One vendor took particular glee in waving them in the faces of unsuspecting female tourists, laughing at their shrieks.

Also available? Dog and cat. Both looked like normal pieces of meat, but a vendor was kind enough to show the origin of the cut of meat to prove the authenticity of his claim (although he showed it too quickly to snap a photo).

Despite all of these awful sounding foods, there were actually quite a few very tasty items available. I tried crab dumplings, fried tofu, sugar coated fruit and fried banana, all of which were delicious. And it was definitely fun watching other brave tourists try all sorts of proteins - insects, reptiles, unusual mammals and more. Better them than me.

Aboard the Trans-Mongolian

First off, sorry for the lack of updates last week. China blocks Blogger along with many other websites like Facebook and Youtube. Every so often I would try to visit a website only to be told that the server did not exist. Even certain search terms on Google were blocked. A few years ago I remember seeing a comparison between Google search results in China and the rest of the world for Tiananmen Square. Well I wasn't even allowed to search the term Tiananmen Square while in Beijing.

I'll update on Beijing soon, but first....my journey to Mongolia!

On Wednesday morning at 7:47 AM, Mercedes and I took off on the Trans-Mongolian train which runs from Beijing through Mongolia before continuing all the way to Moscow. We got off in Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia.

It took over 12 hours for the train to make its way through China to the Mongolian-Chinese border. The first few hours the train alternated between spectacular views of the mountains and long periods of darkness as we tunneled through the mountains.

Eventually the mountains flattened and the land began to stretch on to eternity. From the outer edges of China (in the appropriately named province of Inner Mongolia) all the way to UB the land did not change. It is big, the Gobi Desert. Vast expanses of arid land with little more than the occasional ger (polite Mongolian term for a yurt, which is the Mongolian nomadic tent) and random herds of horses, sheep, cows, camels or even yaks to break up the scenery.

The train arrived at the Chinese border city of Erlian around 8:30 PM. We finally left the Mongolian border city of Zamid Uud over FIVE HOURS later at 1:47 AM. That time was used to emigrate all passengers out of China, change the wheels on the train cars as Mongolia and China use different tracks, change the restaurant car (Chinese food in Mongolia would simply be unacceptable), immigrate all passengers into Mongolia and who knows what else. It really seems as though a more efficient system should be possible, especially considering this happens multiple times each week, and has been happening for many, many years. But I suppose that it is all part of the adventure.

We finally arrived in UB at around 1:20 PM making the total trip just under 30h. That time passed surprisingly quickly. The ability to get up and walk around, stretch out on my berth and the novelty of it all made for a comfortable journey. I don't know if I'd be saying the same thing had I spent another 3 or 4 days taking the train all the way to China, but I quite enjoyed the journey I did make.

That being said, beers were necessary once we finally made it to the city.

Alright, that is all for that journey, but I will definitely update more on Beijing and what I've seen so far in Mongolia (it includes horsehead fiddles, throat singing and more!)

Sun on the beach and rain in the city

Following my adventures in Sagada I headed to the pristine beach of Boracay. I had been told again and again that it was one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and I figured it to be the perfect place to end my travels in the Philippines. So after a night bus to Manila from Baguio, I hopped on an early morning flight to Boracay, leaving the rain behind for beautiful blue skies and sun.

I didn't do much while I was there other than lie on the beach reading, napping and drinking fresh fruit shakes. The beach is about 4km long and I wandered up and down parts of it at times, but that was the extent of my activity during the day. In the evening I walked around to take in the entertainment and activities at the various restaurants, each vying for my patronage. Some offered drinking challenges, others performers.

There were also many Mongolian buffets. I passed on those, figuring that I'd get better Mongolian food when I'm in Mongolia in just over a week. As much as Boracay wanted me to drink my face off and party well into the night, I actually found the whole place to be quiet and relaxing. During the day I was able to lie on a smoke-free and litter-free beach (something of a novelty in the Philippines). And at night I enjoyed the drinks, entertainment and fellow tourists' company for awhile, but was able to retreat to my hotel at the quiet end of the beach at Station 3 for a peaceful night's sleep. All in all a perfect end to the Philippines and a great way to recharge me for the rest of the trip.

On Monday night I flew back to Hong Kong and back into the rain. With nothing much else to do I wandered around a few malls yesterday morning and somehow happened upon the grand opening of a luxury supermarket. There, the friendly staff fed me lunch with free samples of cake, fruit, pasta, chocolate covered ginger, sake, a freshly prepared mocha, green tea, and more!

In the afternoon I went for afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel. Since Hong Kong was a British territory for so long, it has picked up many Britishisms, including afternoon tea. My Mom and I have a tradition of going for afternoon tea at a fancy hotel whenever we are travelling. I convinced her that since it was raining and I had nothing else to do, but was a poor backpacker on a budget she should treat me to afternoon tea. I must say it is one of the better afternoon teas I've ever been to with tasty sandwiches, pretty decent scones and rich desserts. Thanks, Mom!

Last night I went for a drink at a swanky oyster bar on the 28th floor overlooking the Hong Kong skyline.

I spent two hours nursing my glass of wine, staring at the city lights and chatting with the man shucking oysters who was very concerned that I was going to be killed in a tiny mall in Beijing. Yes, specifically in a small mall. Big ones would be ok and on the street I would be fine, but within the tiny malls murderers away. I told him that I would stay safe and not visit sketchy malls, but he didn't seem convinced.

And on that note....I am off to Beijing this afternoon. I have a 23 hour train ride ahead of me, but hopefully it will be a nice way to see some parts of China. Tomorrow evening my friend (and classmate), Mercedes, arrives from Canada to join me for the rest of the trip. It will be very exciting to see a familiar face!

Caving and hanging coffins

Yesterday I visited another town in the Cordillera mountains, Sagada. This town is known for its spectacular caves and a tradition of hanging coffins. It is also has a reputation as a sleepy town that is not overwhelmed by tourists. This may be due to the fact that it is a very bumpy ride up a tortuous mountain "road" that likely dissuades some from visiting. To get up to Sagada I took a one hour jeepney ride from the town of Bontoc. When I went to board the jeepney, a group of friendly girls suggested that I ride on the roof with them. I figured, why not. It was a much more interesting ride - I could actually see the scenery. And as we were driving so slowly up the mountain it wasn't scary at all. The only downside was when it started to rain and the jeepney below was full so we were forced to stay on the roof. Luckily a friendly person below threw up a tarp and we used that to keep ourselves dry for the quick shower.

 

Once in Sagada I joined the girls to hike to some of the hanging coffins. It is a town (or maybe area) tradition that stems from the idea that putting a coffin on the side of a cliff is less suffocating and brings the deceased closer to Heaven. Some of the coffins are quite old, but some are from recent years. Apparently to hang the coffin, they construct scaffolding and hoist it up somehow before drilling holes into the limestone.

After seeing the coffins we went caving in the Sumaguing Cave system. This was quite the experience. Again, my balance and the grip of my shoes (this time flip flops as we were going to get very wet) were tested. I spent most of the time crawling around like an ape trying to keep my balance by staying as close as possible to the ground. At one point towards the end we were given an option of going through a section which would get us very wet. I figured why not, as by that point I was already covered in mud (containing bat droppings) and partially wet anyway. It was somewhat frightening wading through the water that came up to at least my waist, hoping the bottom didn't drop off suddenly. It was also quite scary descending the slippery, water covered rocks, hoping the guides knew what they were talking about when they told me where to put my feet. On the way up we had to climb a rope up the face of a giant rock (sort of like rappelling in reverse). It was a nervewracking experience, but the rock formations were spectacular and it was a fun adventure activity.

Today I took a very (very) bumpy bus to Baguio. The highway was again quite tortuous, twisting and turning alongside the side of the Cordillera mountains. The driver's heavy foot did not help matters. It was a very long 6 hour ride. Tonight I'm taking a bus down to Manila, and tomorrow I'm heading back to the beach for a couple of days rest before I fly back to Hong Kong. I can't believe my time in the Philippines is almost over!

Trekking along rice terraces

Yesterday I finished a three day trek through the Ifugao rice terraces surrounding the tiny village of Banaue in Northern Luzon. I hiked from village to village in the mountains alongside spectacular terraced rice paddies.

My guide had one rule for the trek: "No viewing while walking. Because if you view while you walk, you will trip and fall." And tripping and falling on this trek meant either falling into the muddy leech-filled rice paddy on one side, or down 3-10m to the rice paddy, stream or who knows what else on the other side of the 30cm wide uneven ledge on which I was walking.

Even with careful concentration I still managed at one point to fall over the ledge and had to grab on to the side to prevent myself from dropping all the way down. In the process of trying to grab me, my guide also fell over the side. It took a few minutes to drag ourselves back up. Luckily I escaped with nothing more than a very large bruise. I spent the rest of the 3 days leaning to one side, away from the dropoff, deciding that if I were to fall again I'd rather it be into the level rice paddy rather than down the dropoff to serious injury.

The hike itself was something of an eye opener regarding rice. I knew that rice was grown in rice paddies and had seen photos of them before, but had never given much thought to where the rice grains themselves come from. If I'd been forced to guess, I would have said that they were part of the root. Turns out that rice plants are much like wheat, and the rice grains are the fruit of the plant, growing out of the shoots.

I finished the trek exhausted, but satisfied. The scenery was spectacular and it was an amazing way of seeing the terraces and visiting smaller villages I likely would not have reached otherwise. Here's a photo of me at the end of the trek waiting for our ride back to Banaue where we started.

Today I journeyed to another mountain town, Sagada where I went caving and saw hanging coffins. More about that soon!

Animal Planet

Yesterday I went for a hike in the Rajah Sikatuna National Park. This is an area in the interior of Bohol Island. To get there I took a 1.5h bus ride (to travel the 40km) to the village of Bilar. From there I hopped on a motorbike to reach the park entrance. Upon dropping me off, my driver pointed to a man in a worn out tshirt, shorts and flip flops standing beside the locked visitor information building. My driver told me "that's my cousin. He will take care of you." At this point my driver took off and the cousin started howling like a maniac. It was then that I started to become concerned, wondering what I had gotten myself into. Alone in an isolated forest with a man who was crying out for no apparent reason who did not appear to be associated with the national park.

Turns out he was howling to attract the monkeys and he does work for the park, he just isn't required to wear any sort of uniform. Pretty soon a troop of monkeys had descended on us and I was feeding them bananas.

He then guided me through a small area of the park. We saw a flying lemur sleeping in a tree, some frogs, lizards and just before stepping on it, my guide noticed a poisonous Philippines Cobra lying on our path (this is now my second close encounter with a poisonous snake in less than a week).

Towards the end of our hike we visited a cave with many bats hanging from the roof. It was quite creepy to look back at the entrance to the cave and see a bat's silhouette flying away. Even creepier was having one fly what seemed to be cms away from my face. While we were in the cave that it started to pour rain. Part of me thought it made more sense to wait out the rain where it was dry. And then more bats flew past me and I changed my mind. The thought of one of them flying into my head was more than enough to get me out of there.

While hiking around I found it amusing that it was only me, in my expensive hiking boots, who was slipping on the wet pathway, while my guide in his flip flops was constantly turning back to help me over the more treacherous areas. I'll say it was his experience and knowledge of the trails along with my usual clumsiness that made the difference.

Later that afternoon I went to visit the Tarsier Sanctuary. These are the smallest primates in the world - so small in fact that they are about the size of my palm. They can turn their heads 180 degrees in either direction and their eyes are proportionally 150x larger than humans'. The sanctuary was established to help protect these endangered animals, and also to give visitors a sustainable method of seeing these creatures. Sadly, in the past people would catch them and keep them in cages and then charge tourists to take photos with the tarsiers. In this setting, a tarsier will die within a year and risks being crushed by careless hands. Now, in the sanctuary, it is possible to guarantee a sighting of them in their natural environment, all while promoting their protection.

To give an idea of their size, my finger was pretty well right next to the tarsier.

To get to the sanctuary I took a jeepney, the Philippines' version of a city bus (or if you've been to east Africa, a better analogy is a dala dala). They are basically extended jeeps that cram as many people as possible into their backs. They first came about after WWII when locals started using US military jeeps left behind as a means of transporting people around. The basic shape stuck, although now with an extended rear area.

Many motorbike drivers were trying to insist that I needed them to drive me as the sanctuary was very far from the main road and the jeepney wouldn't bring me all the way in. I insisted that I was ok walking however far it was, especially considering that my return trip on the jeepney was about 1/5 the cost of a motobike ride. Also it turns out that the sanctuary was about 600m from the road, a distance I am perfectly capable of walking on my own (shocking, I know). However, after leaving the sanctuary I was starting to regret my decision. I had waited over an hour for a jeepney to arrive. The sun would be setting soon and I was starting to wonder if I would have to walk a few kilometers along the highway to the nearest town and hire someone to drive me back into the city from there. Had I hired a motorbike he would have waited for me at the centre while I went in. Luckily, my patience paid off and a jeepney finally arrived and brought me back problem free.

I've now moved on to Alona Beach and will be diving again tomorrow. Sadly, it's been pouring rain all day. But that won't matter too much tomorrow when I'm 20m below the surface!