Have Internet Will Travel A blog about travel freelancing in the Philippines

Last time I was in Thailand I never got around to taking a cooking class. It’s something I really wished I would have done, so this time around it was at the top of my list.

Tuesday morning we were picked up from our hotel and driven half way around the island to The Phuket Thai Cookery School. Sure, there were closer ones to our hotel, but most were more expensive, shorter, or just didn’t look as good. Plus the Thai Cookery School looked like it was the most hands on, which is what I was looking for.

Read More…

Our visit to the sanctuary to the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary was unforgettable, and the highlight of our six months in Asia so far. While doing some research online I came across the email address for a man named Razali…. also known as The Elephant Man. Not really knowing what to expect I sent him an email and enquired about a trip to the sanctuary. He quickly responded and we arranged to met up saturday morning.

During the two hour ride out to the sanctuary, Razali told us story after story of the elephants and the history of Kuala Gandah. This man is an endless source of information and knows pretty much everything there is to know about elephants. We arrived at the sanctuary just before ten and joined the staff for a quick breakfast before being introduced to the elephants. Most of the activity happens in the afternoon, so all of the organized tours from KL arrive between 12 and 1pm, but because we were there early and with Razali we were able to get involved almost as soon as we arrived.

Read More…

While doing a bit of research on getting our 90-day visas for Thailand, we read a few negative reviews of the Thai Embassy in Manila, so instead decided to try our luck in Kuala Lumpur. On Tuesday morning we flew to Manila where we had a 10 hour layover before flying to KL… yes that’s right 10 hours. I’m not sure what the other terminals of the Manila airport are like, but the newly opened terminal 3 is not a very enjoyable place to spend 10 hours. Most of it is still under construction, however it didn’t seem like any work was actually being done. Everything was boarded up and there was not a construction worker in sight. There are very few options for food, so if you’re flying through this terminal, try and eat before you get to the airport.

We finally arrived in KL at around 12:30am, and by the time we got to our hotel it was just after 2am. We had an early start the next morning as we wanted to make sure we were at the Thai Embassy before 9, in order to avoid the line. The whole process went pretty smoothly and we were told to come back the next afternoon to pick up our passports.

Our hotel was situated in the heart of KL’s Chinatown, which is pretty much tourist central. As a result most of our time was spent close to there, which was good, but I think if we return to KL we’ll look at other options, as after four days it was a little bit busy for us.

Read More…

It’s likely due to our limited time left in the Philippines that this week we attempted to be a little more social with a few of our local friends. We’ve been busy working and preparing for the next phase of our trip, but no excuses! Parties must be partied…

Early in the week we had Patrick from Dive Society over for a lasagna dinner accompanied by a few bottles of wine. He’s given his notice at the dive shop where he works as a dive instructor and will be becoming a nomadic yogi rambling through Bali in the near future. We hope to meet up again in Thailand in a couple months. Patrick is also an illustrator. Check out his portfolio site if you’ve got a minute.

Read More…

We’re becoming a bit more familiar with the area now that we’re settled in and starting to explore the surrounding areas a bit further. Our friends back home in Canada and some of our newer readers have asked for more information about visiting the Dauin and Dumaguete area. Rather than try to rewrite all the great information already available online, I thought I would compile a list of some of the resources we’ve come across and found useful. Sure, it’s a little biased towards scuba divers, but there’s lots of great accomodations and general information too. We’ve found the forums particularly helpful. Feel free to post in the comments section if you have any specific questions about the area that we might be able to help you with, or suggest a resource we might have missed! Read More…

It’s starting to feel like we actually live here now, and not just like an extended vacation. We’re starting to get into a bit of a routine and things are feeling really comfortable. It’s also been almost a month since we’ve done anything really ‘touristy’.  So when Cita, the woman who owns our house, asked if we wanted to join her and some friends on a day trip to Bias, to go dolphin watching we jumped at the chance.

Dolphin watching in Bias has been on our list since we got to Dumaguete, but we hadn’t managed to make it up there yet.  We hadn’t figured out the best way to get to Bias and arrange the boat trip, and we also weren’t sure when was the best time to actually see dolphins. The ‘tourist trail’ in the Philippines is significantly under-developed compared to a lot of countries we’ve travelled to. It can be hard to find specific information on arranging travel and sorting out details, so when Cita invited us along, we were quite happy to let her do the organizing. Read More…

We’ve spent 2 months in the Philippines! Wow, that went by fast. This week we headed off to the Buglasan festival in Dumaguete which is kind of like a tourism fair for the local communities on Negros Oriental where each town or barangay sets up a display area lauding their tourist attractions. It was quaint, and there was a great selection of barbecued foods and baked goods at the concession area. Plus, each evening there are musical competitions and we were lucky enough to show up on rock band night having missed the marching band event the previous day… There were around 40 bands playing that night for 10 minutes each. I don’t know the words to many of the songs they were singing, but it was a nice break from the love ballads pouring out of most places.

A couple days later we headed off to Boracay to check out the white sand beaches. We’d been putting it off because we’d heard it was over-commercialized and touristy, but after the last 2 months in the Philippines and realizing just how rural the country is outside of the cities, we decided to take a week or two to see if it was a viable place to live long term. We flew from Dumaguete to Manilla but due to a flight delay we really didn’t have any time to scope out Manilla. From what I saw it was big, with lots of hi-rises. Flying on to Caticlan, we were met at the airport by the hotel ‘shuttle service’ – where a guy with our names on a card piled us and our luggage into a trike and took us to the Caticlan port. We then took a short 5 minute boat ride over to Boracay and another 5 minute trike ride to the hotel we had arranged to stay in.

Read More…

While Kelly is a certified Dive Master and has done more than 150 dives during her various travels, I was always somewhat reserved about getting involved in the sport. Partially because it was her hobby and I was into motorcycles, giving us each our own independent, expensive, recreational interests. More so because the idea of submerging yourself underwater with a can of air can be daunting at first. But, given that we’re in such legendary aquatic surroundings, I decided to do a discovery dive.

After getting fitted with a wetsuit, fins, mask, weights, regulator, and BCD (Buoyancy Control Device… basically a vest that fills with air) another couple and I submerged below the surface of the five foot deep pool at the resort and proceeded to learn the basics of diving from Phillip our instructor. Learning to clear the mask when full of water, signs to communicate underwater, how to find the regulator if you should lose it, and basic buoyancy control came to me quickly. So that afternoon we continued the discovery dive in the house reef beside the resort. Lucky for me, the house reef at El Dorado is a marine sanctuary with an abundance of fish, corals, and sea life. Going no deeper than 10 meters, I had an amazing first dive surrounded by all kinds of coral and small fishes. I was even lucky enough to see a turtle. Needless to say, I was hooked and dubbed the ‘Canadian Fish’.
Read More…

Saturday morning we left for Siquijor. A small island about 45 minutes from Dumaguete. We got up early and took a trike into town, had breakfast and then headed to the pier. We had planned to take one of the larger car ferries because we heard they were reliable and unlike the fast ferries there is room to walk around, stretch your legs and check out the view from the open decks. However, when we arrived at the pier we were informed that the 10am ferry was cancelled during low season, so instead we ended up taking one of the Delta Fast Ferries, instead.

Read More…

Yesterday we visited the beautiful Casaroro Falls. We hired a van in Dumaguete the day before, and arranged to be picked up from our resort in Dauin the next morning. We managed to haggle the price down from 3000pesos to 2500pesos (about $58) but it was still a bit expensive with only the two of us. We tried to find a couple more people to come with us to cut the cost a bit, but seeing as it’s low season we were outta luck.

We set out at 9 o’clock for a bumpy half-hour ride through the town of Valencia and up towards the falls. About 1/2 a Km before the entrance to the falls the road became too rough for our van and it was time to walk. (You could do this trip on a motorbike or 4×4 and make it all the way to the jump off point).

Read More…