GETTING READY

(Fun In The Philippines Part 1)

Travel Tales Index – Fun In The Philippines Index – Philippines Pix

 

Dear Family, Friends, Fellow Travelers and Remote Acquaintances;

This year, we are taking a trip to the Philippines from December 28, 2010 until February 26, 2011. For one reason or another, your name is on our travelogue e-mail list. If you know anyone else that would like to receive our e-mails, have them contact Paul at PaulWorksHard@hotmail.com. This is the first of a series of e-mails you will be receiving related to our trip. Here is information about planning, packing, logistics and answers to some questions people have asked us:

 

Why The Philippines? (i.e. Paul, Where Do You Get These Nutty Ideas?)

This year, we wanted to go somewhere in Asia. We considered Sri Lanka, Southern India, Burma and the Philippines. The major criteria was that it had to be warm in January and February. We spent more time than usual in Colombia in the water; hot springs, lakes, rivers, swimming pools and the ocean. We thought it would be nice to go somewhere we could continue that trend. The Philippines is an archipelago of over 7000 islands, is predominantly Catholic, has a strong Spanish influence and yet, is an Asian country. Paul was looking around and found we could easily use frequent flier miles to go to the Philippines. Those were all the reasons we needed.

 

How Do You Plan Your Trip?

Our two biggest resources are the library and the Internet. Normally, we get as many guidebooks and look at as many web sites as we can. This year, we have done almost no planning for the trip. We only know what we are doing for the first three days. Beyond that, we have no plans. What follows is how, given enough time, we like to plan our trips. The idea is to decide which cities/towns/villages/small grouping of huts might be interesting to visit. We don't figure out exactly what we want to do in a town, just how many days we might want to spend there.

Which guidebook to use is dependent on the destination. For Central & South America, Footprint is by far the best. For Asia, Lonely Planets tends to be better, however, we preferred the Rough Guide in Vietnam. For Cuba, Moon Handbooks could not be beat.

Guidebook we are using on this trip:

After doing our research, we create a list of places we want to visit and how long we want to stay. We get a map of the country (usually from an on-line source) and circle each place on the map. Next, it is simply a matter of trying to connect the dots in an intelligent fashion. The guidebooks we use tend to focus more on logistics than information about various sites. So, they have maps of each town with lists of places to stay and eat and information about getting from point A to point B by bus, truck, boat, taxi etc. With the dots connected, we have a rough idea of our itinerary and what modes of transportation we will use between places. The initial plan may be changed radically or not at all depending on how much time we have, if a place is better/worse than it sounded in the books, if we decide to add/delete a town because of information from someone we meet on the road, etc.

 

What Do You Take With You? (i.e. Paul, Do You Bring Your Telescope?)

Here’s our packing list for this trip (including what we wear heading out):

Our latest gift to ourselves is the iPOD touch. We can use this to surf the web anywhere there is Wi-Fi, read e-books, listen to audio books, translate English to Tagalog, store maps and many other wonderful things. If you look back at our first travelogue (Khmer Tales), you will see the only electronics we had was a film camera. Over time, more and more electronics are making their way into our packs. The iPOD is definitely lightening our load because it contains the Lonely Planets guide book in electronic form and we are using it to hold most of the books we will read on this trip. In fact, we can check out e-books from our library in McLean while we are in the Philippines and load them onto the iPOD. Technology can be wonderful!

The notebook is a Sony VGN-TX670 which weighs in at 2.75 pounds and includes a memory card reader for our cameras and a DVD/CD writer. We can make phone calls using Skype, make DVDs of our photos, review photos and, of course, edit travelogues. The Steripen is a neat little tool which uses ultraviolet light to kill all bacteria and viruses in water. We used it throughout Africa and had no problems drinking tap water. This allows us to be a little more green and not go through so many plastic water bottles. We are bringing a cell phone so that we can get a Philippine sim card and make local calls (plus if you want, you will be able to call us, if you can figure out how to dial internationally to Philippines). The SLR is a Canon EOS 7D which we have slowly learned how to use effectively. Believe it or not, the goal is to bring as little as possible. Our packs weigh about 25 pounds each this year.

 

What Happens If You Get Sick?

You feel miserable for a little while and spend lots of time in the bathroom. On our Cambodia trip, Paul got seriously dehydrated, but made it to a clinic; got the best and most attentive medical care he ever received and was ready to go the next day. We bring Imodium and Ciprofloxacin. The Imodium stops you up and Cipro is a broad based antibiotic for any bacterial GI problems. We have used both of these on a couple of occasions. Worst case, you need to be evacuated to a nearby city with modern health care facilities. Insurance covers this. In fact, if you join DAN (Diver's Alert Network) for $40 a year, they have fantastic medical evacuation insurance.

 

Where Do You Stay? (i.e. At The Holiday Inn?)

Hotels, motels, guesthouses, inns, pensiones, albergues - any place that has cheap rooms for rent. The guidebooks list places to stay in each town. We have a reservation for our first night in Cali.

Our understanding is that rooms are in the $15-$25 range. We'll probably spend toward the high end of the range in the major cities and toward the low end elsewhere. We plan on staying in private rooms in most places. In some cases, we might end up sharing a bathroom.

We usually don't know where we are staying until we walk up to the place, ask to see a room and decide whether or not we like it. Occasionally, we call ahead if the next stop is a large city or we expect it to be difficult to find a room. We have never slept out in the cold, but have paid more than we wanted; stayed in a place we really didn't like or spent an hour or two looking.

 

Money, Money, Money?

Costs to date:

Based on the reading we've done, we are expecting costs to be around $60 per day for the two of us. We are bringing $842 cash, credit cards and two ATM cards. The cheapest and best way to change money is to use your ATM card to get local currency. If you open a Fidelity My Smart Cash account, there are no fees and they reimburse you for any fees charged when using your ATM card, anywhere in the world. We expect to find ATMs about as readily as in the United States. The credit cards and cash are backups.

 

How Do You Communicate?

The official languages of the Philippines and Filipino (based on Tagalog) and English. We have downloaded a Tagalog dictionary to our iPOD and we suspect English will serve us reasonably well.

 

How Do You Get Two Months Off From Work?

Ask. It works for Paul. Don’t ask and don’t work. That is Lois’ method. Actually, Paul is quite lucky. The people Paul works for have been exceptionally accommodating of his desire to take a little extra time off. So, thank you very much to Steve and Craig.

 

What Is Your Route?

Click here to see a map of the Philippines. We fly to Manila via Chicago and Beijing. We will spend one night in Manila then fly to the island of Palawan where we have reservations for two nights. For us, in terms of hotels, this is super advanced planning. However, beyond that, we have no plan or list of places we would like to go. We guess we will have to start reading our guidebooks! At the end of our trip, we have a four night stop over in Beijing before returning to the US.

 

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year To Everyone!

Lois & Paul
December 27, 2010

 

 

all content is copyright © Paul Schneider, 2010.