The Sister Trip, Week 3.1

The third week of the trip was a getaway to Moalboal on Cebu Island in the Philippines. Drew and I had been to the Philippines before with his parents over Christmas, but it was a first time for everyone else. The trip began with a quick 3.5 hour trip into Cebu Airport. We got picked up by a hired driver, stopped at a few ATMs, hit a local fast joint called Jolly B's, then hit the road for a "2 hour drive" to Moalboal. It was definitely longer than 2 hours, closer to 3, but we made it all in one piece, and that's what matters. It happened to be Good Friday, and the Philippines is a very Catholic country, to they were definitely celebrating. Well celebrating isn't the right word. Remembering? This included street parades with figures of holy men and women on floats, and even a recreation of Jesus' walk to be crucified. A very serious recreation. We also passed by numerous churches with people milling all around the grounds. We didn't take these pictures, but we saw these same sights.

I think everyone sighed in relief when we finally made it to our rented house in White Beach. Drew and I were prepared for the sights along the drive, but I don't think anyone else was really. The country is incredibly poor, so most people live in shacks. This is a picture of the slums in Cebu, which we drove past on our way out of the city. It's easy to see how a typhoon can cause so much devastation in a place like this. The rules of the road are also iffy. So many dogs, cows, chickens, kids etc. in the street, it feels like someone is going to run over something. But, they are used to it. We are the only ones having mini-panic attacks.





And it doesn't seem like birth control is widely used because there were little kids running around everywhere. I asked a family about this later, and the mom thought the average family size was 6-8 people. Yikes. Can't tell you how many times we saw kids taking care of kids.

The main source of transportation for a family is a scooter or motorbike. I think the most we saw riding one bike at a time was 5 people, 2 adults and 3 kids. Helmets were not common. 

For visitors, the main form of transport was a trike. These were essentially motorbikes with a large side cart attached. A local family could fit 5 or 6 people on a trike, but with our broad shoulders, we couldn't fit more than 3 :) We road these trikes every day to get to our scuba shop, which was about a 20 min drive away, depending on the short cut the driver took. 

Our house was right on the beach, had a nice patio, and we hired a lady to cook all of our meals for mere $8/day. It fit our needs perfectly.





Every evening after a day full of fun, we'd head to a bar to see the sunset and have a cocktail. The scuba shop was located in Panagsama Beach, a town full of hotels, bars etc., so finding a drink there was easy. Near our house, there was one bar literally right next door that we frequented quite a bit, and there was another bar a few minutes walk down the beach.