Brian Thacker's Blog, page 10

Chill out with Hobbits.

Last week I decided that the Melbourne winter wasn’t cold enough, so I went to a bar where it was -10 degrees inside and drinks were served in glasses made of ice. The Chill On Ice Lounge & Ski Lodge isn’t up in the mountains, though. It’s smack in the heart of Melbourne. I was there for an ASTW (Australian Society of Travel Writers) lunch (although we didn’t eat our actual lunch in the bar – we ate that next door in the ‘Ski Lodge’). Before you are escorted into the ice bar you are decked out in thick gloves and a big fur-lined plastic poncho. The poncho is plastic because the cocktail glasses are made of ice and are as slippery as hell – because I imagine many people would drop their drinks. We were only in the -10 degrees  for 10 minutes, so I did feel a bit sorry for the barman who, by the look of his chattering teeth, must have been in there for quite a while.

I’ve always wanted to visit an ‘ice bar’ after seeing the Ice Hotel (in Sweden) in a TV travel show. I do love a good novelty themed bar and have visited a few in my travels. Here are some of my favourites I have been to:

The Hobbit House – Manila, Philippines

I’m sure this very un-PC bar would be closed down in Australia. The entire staff in this bar are – now what is the politically correct term – vertically challenged (I think that’s right). A local took me to the bar, but didn’t tell me about the staff, so when our waiter popped his head up over the table and asked us if we wanted to order a drink I almost fell off my chair.

The Clinic – Singapore

Sadly, I think this kooky hospital-themed Clinic Bar is now closed, but it was quite fun sitting in a gold-plated wheelchair then ordering an IV bag of booze. The IV cocktails included “Sex on the Drip” and “Blood Transfusion”. The shots come in syringes or test tubes. The Croft Institute Bar in Melbourne also serves up drinks in test tubes and looks like a doctor’s surgery – they just don’t have hospital beds for chairs and staff dressed as nurses and doctors!

The Daly Creek Hotel – Northern Territory, Australia

This bar doesn’t necessarily have a theme, but it does have an entire bar covered in bras (donated by female patrons after a few drinks I imagine) and an entire wall full of thongs.

I did also go to a bar in Reykjavik, Iceland that had coffins for tables. And there were like black candles on the wall. I think. I say I think, because boy was I drunk. Not sure what the theme was, but I do remember dancing on the coffin.

Sleeping over the world – one off the sofa confessions.

That’s the title of my new book. Well, that’s what comes up on Google translation for my recently released Chinese version of ‘Sleeping Around – A couch surfing tour of the globe’. For my 1.2 billion Chinese fans you can buy it for a special price of 29.8 yuan. For those that don’t know my original book here is the Google translated description:

Who would be happy never met a stranger sleeping in their own couch?

Who dares to promise, that let out sleep sofa to their landlord is not a perverted killer?

Went to a neighbor’s living room at ground floor to make a makeshift one night, became the happiest journey. Brian  Thacker felt very rare, so launched a global couch surfing trip to broach exactly. He crossed the United States, Africa, India, Iceland, he slept in 77 countries, beds and sofas! Sometimes lying beside a set of drums, it may shrink in the clothes closet overnight. With those or strangely, or hospitality, or simply a madman and then people go out to play.

Rio de Janeiro, where Marianne says he is the best, the most happy girl; Brian Smalley fed rotten shark meat to eat; Chicago and a very hospitable Bob (he’s in front of Brian face child with others did a really put him as one of themselves). Let us introduce these few bars. However, if you are in that room shacks in Nairobi, sweating Mosquito made a night of struggle, maybe this life will not be moving away from the idea of ​​travel.

These trips will be conducted to when and where, Brian can not tell, who knows what it will encounter. However, whatever it was you or him, you can safely take their bet last dollar in his pocket, this is definitely a new and unique, beyond imagination, fascinating, moderate horror but fun adventure.

And, if you want to find out more about me, this is what they had to say (or Google translation had to say at least):

Brian Sack (Brian Thacker) was born in England, but because they do not like it there’s the weather, was six years old to migrate to Australia. After completing the degree in advertising, he began riding completed 10,000 kilometers across the European tour in the 1990s. Brian hooked sofa tourism and hands, and he slept in 77 countries, beds and sofas, and write multiple travel books, such as “hip-hop leader” (Rule No.5: No Sex on the Bus ) and on the road wrote thousands of postcards.

He also served as team leader, ski guide, advertising creative director, silverware store clerk, painters, bars male paternity, newspaper delivery, a health and butcher assistant.

Oh, and make sure you also buy my first book ‘Hip-hop leader’. Or, I should say, ‘Yo, check it out.’

I think I contracted a venereal disease at this hotel.

I didn’t contract a venereal disease from a hotel (or ever, I might add), but that is just one of the great quotes from a review on Trip Advisor. I admit that I use Trip Advisor quite a bit and have stayed in some fantastic accommodation and eaten in some amazing restaurants because of the advice on Trip Advisor. Yes, it’s nice to just wander around aimlessly sometimes to find that ‘hidden gem’, but there is a very good chance that the hidden gem is ranked No.4 for that town or city on Trip Advisor anyway. And they can still be hidden gems, by the way, even if they are on Trip Advisor. On my trip last year to the Philippines I went to the No.1 ranked restaurant in Taglibaren City and beside enjoying my best meal in the Philippines it was truly a hidden gem because no tourists really stay in Taglibaren City anyway. Nearly all of the reviews were from locals.

The reason I’m talking Trip Advisor is because I’ve just booked a couple of restaurants for my upcoming trip to the States (one in San Fran and one in Minneapolis). I know that they both will be amazing because the endless stream of comments say, well, amazing things about them. Also, Trip Advisor can help steer you clear of dodgy restaurants and hotels. And yes, maybe competing hotels and restaurants might throw in a shocking review, but when there are 272 reviews for a hotel and 251 say that it is terrible then you can be pretty sure that is it worthy of a wide berth. Some of the reviews for these terrible establishments are fantastic. The aforementioned hotel (the Nanford Guest House in Oxford, England) with all those bad reviews had these words of wisdom in its reviews:

‘You’ll need therapy after this hotel. Save yourself and just don’t do it.’

‘The Worst Hotel in the History of Mankind.’

A photo from Trip Advisor of a surprise found next to the bed from a… ahem, ‘larger’ guest.

‘Had I known that I would be faced with this cesspit I would have gladly slept in my car in the freezing conditions.

We were greeted by a creepy looking man who gave no eye contact, spoke pretty much with grunts and treated us like we were a nuisance. The room smelt disgusting, like cigarettes and old people.’

‘Where do I start, pulled blanket back and it was covered in pubes and what looked like urine stains all over.
’

I’d steer clear of the Hotel Carter in New York as well:

‘To call this a ‘fleabag’ hotel would be an unconscionable insult to both fleas and bags everywhere.’

‘Go and sleep on the subway, it’s cleaner.’

One guest at the Hotel Carter wasn’t taking any risks (this is a real shot of the Hotel!)

‘We believe the 9th floor is the point of origin for every bacteria known to man.’

‘I felt sick every minute I spent on this hotel. I could never imagine to find such a trash place, not even in my worst nightmare…’

‘I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to stay here.’

And if you don’t want to catch a venereal disease don’t stay at the Parisian Hotel & Suites in Miami Beach. The hotel gets an impressive 87 terrible reviews out of 91.

‘When we arrived we were told we had a 2 bed room with a bathroom, we were given a bunk bed in a glorified jail cell with a desk. We had a community bathroom at the end of the hall where we discovered a condom on the sink. The room maid stole my friend’s prescription pills out of his suitcase while we were on the beach. I felt like I got AIDS by touching the sheets. Do not stay here under any circumstances. Please.

‘Absolutely filthy, tiny, excuse for a room, towels were tiny pieces of sandpaper covered in filth, blood and rust. The bed felt like sleeping on nails and rocks. We would have slept on the floor but the carpet was so dirty we didn’t take our shoes off!  We found a disgusting pair of used panties in the closet.’

‘Dirty, filthy, run-down, smelly, crack-hotel feel to this place! Carpeting is old, stained and dirty. Towels are old, stained, and dirty. Beds are old, stained, and dirty. Walls are old, stained, and dirty. Bed spread full of hair. It is almost midnight and we cannot even force ourselves to stay here another minute! Camping in a tent in the middle of the woods is cleaner than this place!’

This pic on Trip Advisor is marked ‘body fluids on mattress’. I’m more worried what the hell that is under the bed!

‘Avoid staying here by all means – stay under a bridge you will sleep better and get a better treatment.’

And I love this one (for the same dirty, filthy, run-down, smelly, crack-hotel):

When ape like creatures gathered themselves together, invented fire, realised the absence of humour in Adam Sandler films and finally moved out of faeces lined caves, I think they imagined they would never return to that place. Sadly, some modern day hominids had the misfortune of unearthing the cave, or Parisian Hotel & Suites as they call it now.

The subsequent million years haven’t been kind to the place, though it may pass for a museum of ;

a) Strange coloured stains, upon all fittings.
b) The horrors of the drug trade, the syringes carefully displayed in separate draws.
c) Conception techniques throughout the ages, from the modern condom beneath the bed, to the shower that only ran in ice cold jets straight from a Russian base in the Arctic.

Like all good museums, out front was displayed several mummified bodies, tenuously referred to as “staff” They really were quite convincing, I though I saw one of them move slightly, but to believe that would be a bit daft.’

Some restaurants haven’t faired much better when it come to reviews. Here are some random terrible reviews for random terrible restaurants:

‘Casa Pukey. Avoid like the plague.’

‘I’d prefer to bite a ball of tinfoil than swallow any of the food from this place again. The ‘jambon italia’ starter was basically a half eaten rasher. Think I spotted some cat whiskers on it even. Highlight of the evening was the brain freeze I got from my gelato dessert – at least it distracted me from the horrible taste in my mouth.’

‘Quite honestly the worst dining experience ever. It was so completely bad in every aspect that it became a comical farce. Terrible service, menus stolen from another restaurant, frozen cheese in the dishes, etc etc. 4 other sets of tables walked out before we finally did. On walking out the ‘manager’ told the waiter “I told you we should have turned the oven on”.’

‘Probably the worst Indian food on the planet. Clearly this place relies on trade from late diners when everyone has had a skinful; however with food this bad no amount of booze could make it taste any better.’

So not only does Trip Advisor direct me to some great hotels and restaurants, it keeps me away from places like these!

My 10-week old and his moral turpitude.

Our little Luca got his passport this week. He now has this passport until he is five – when he won’t look anything at all like his five-week old self. It’s not easy getting a photo of a five-week old. The strict guidelines for a passport photo stipulates that the person must look directly at the camera, have their mouth closed and not smiling and to be able to sit up even if you have absolutely no control of your neck muscles or limbs. Okay, I made that last one up, but babies that young can’t hold their own head up and my wife spent almost two hours at the chemist trying to get a photo. In the end I took it with my wife holding his head up with a white sheet behind him – and I Photoshopped out the sheet.

We’re off to the the States in five weeks, so I also had to apply for a US visa waiver for Luca. As part of the application we had to answer some questions on behalf of Luca.  I really had to think about whether Luca had ‘ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a violation related to a controlled substance’ or if he had been ‘a controlled substance trafficker’. One question was a toughie, though. Will Luca partake in ‘immoral activities?’ Does that include pooing and weeing  and screaming uncontrollably in public? At least I’m pretty sure that Luca has not been involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 he was involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies.’

Luca does look pretty cute in his photo, however (and I’m not biased in any way!). It could have been a lot worse – he could have looked like this baby passport photo…

An orgy of travel writers.

If you want to hear a whole bunch of talented travel writers talking about, well…their travels then take a trip to the Australian Festival of Travel Writing. It runs for three days from Friday the 22nd of March and takes place at the rather appropriately named Melbourne Brain Centre in Genetics Lane (I kid you not) in Melbourne. I’ll be doing a couple of talks on Sunday the 24th which I’m very much looking forward to. My first talk is with Tony Wheeler the co-founder of Lonely Planet where we’ll be talking about my trip around SAE using the original Lonely Planet guide book then in the afternoon I’ll be ‘Travelling for Laughs’ with Ben Groundwater (otherwise known as The Backpacker from his weekly column in the Age).

There are some other great speakers as well including the vagabonding Rolf Potts, train traveller Patrick Holland, Carpet warmonger Christopher Kremmer and French ‘wine educator’ Olivier Magny.

You can find the full program here.

Ask Brian and the Leyland Brothers.

For those who aren’t Australian or over 35 probably won’t know who the Leyland Brothers are. Mike and Mal Leyland hosted a TV show from 1976 to 84 called ‘Ask the Leyland Brothers’ where they travelled all around Australia introducing us to fair-dinkum beauty bonza Aussie wildlife and landscapes. Mike passed away in 2009, but Mal is still ‘travelling around the countryside’, and next month Mal will be in Bright, Victoria talking about his adventures at the The Adventure Travel Film Festival. And so will I (except I won’t be talking about Mal’s adventures). In fact, during the weekend of festivities there will be lots of other great speakers and amazing films by true vagabonds who make my travels look like a nice weekend away at a nice holiday house. These hardy folks have done things like climbed Mt. Everest solo, paddled across Africa, cycled around the world, skied to the North Pole (and South Pole) and there is one couple who set off on an 18 month motorcycle trip and 400,000 kms and ten years later are still going. The festival takes place in the lovely town of Bright from Friday Feb 15th to Sunday the 17th. I’ll be doing an after dinner talk on Saturday night at the Bright Brewery (that’s if I’m still standing up of course). So, if you’d like a weekend full of great tales and films – and a few fine local brewed ales – come up (or down) and check it out. It’s worth it just to be able to say you asked one of the Leyland Brothers. Find the full details here. And hopefully Mal is a bit more exciting than when he made this back in 1969…

Travel highlights of 2012.

It was a pretty good year travel wise, but I can’t include my trip earlier this year to the US and Mexico in my highlights because I included it into my 2011 highlights (the trip crossed over from December into January). Mind you, the few overseas and local trips that I took after that were full of great highlights, including jumping out of a helicopter in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, hanging with some kooky tarsiers, big turtles and even bigger humpback whales and adding country number 78 to my list. So without further ado here is my Top Ten Travel Highlights from 2012 (in no particular order):

Balicasag Island, Phillipines

For under $20 I hired a boat (and boat driver!) to take me from Panglao Island in Bohol on a snorkelling trip to the tiny island of Balicasag. Below is a pic of our approach to the island. I spent the day snorkelling over (and in between) magnificent coral reefs surrounded by the usual suspects of colourful fish and surprisingly curious giant turtles. I finished off my day with a delicious meal of grilled chicken and fish and an ice cold San Miguel beer – which was very impressive seeing as the ‘restaurant’ was a really just a few tarps strung up in the trees (see below).

Grampians, Victoria, Australia

I may have seen a lot of the world, but up until this year I hadn’t been to one of the biggest tourist attractions in my own backyard. And I don’t know why I waited so long. Only a few hour’s drive from Melbourne we had a wonderful weekend in the Grampians staying in a gorgeous B&B, taking long hikes through and in and over spectacular rock formations and dining in front of roaring fire with a rather delightful local pinot noir.

Arrowsmith Ranges, Canterbury, New Zealand

What a perfect way to spend a birthday. Jump in a helicopter then jump out of it on top of a steep New Zealand mountain peak even Froddo would be too scared to climb. Then launch yourself into steep and deep snow on a pair of skis. Then repeat seven times. Then in the middle of all that stop for a spectacular lunch (that’s the food and the view) right in the middle of Middle Earth. Throw in a chocolate birthday cake and you have the perfect birthday.

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

It’s been a while since I’ve added a new country to my list, but I hit country No. 78 when I popped into Brunei. I only popped in for a day and a night, but that was probably enough. For a start the country is entirely dry, as in no alcohol at all – and what fun is that! On my one and only evening I was in bed at 8.30 watching a movie in my hotel room. There are no bars or in fact anywhere to go at night except wander the empty and spotlessly clean streets (throwing rubbish gets you three months in jail!). The next day after I’d seen a couple of large mosques, checked out the palace, visited the market and been for a boat ride to visit the ‘floating village’ I’d just about done the entire country and was ready for a beer.

Karaoke, Anda, Philippines

I love karaoke almost as much as the Filipinos. The family that I stayed with in the tiny village of Cassica may not have had a bathroom or a kitchen or a fridge, but they did have a huge PA system with mixing desk, radio mics, a TV set just for karaoke and over 5,000 songs to choose from (below is the ‘karaoke lounge’). And when they fire it up the whole village can hear it. And on the night that we karaoked the family made me sing. All night. I sang over 30 songs and many of them they chose for me, including classics by Kenny Rodgers and Celine Dion. (The PA system and karaoke TV with curtains is in the corner in shot below)

Craigieburn ski field, Southern Alps, New Zealand

Craigieburn is one of the many ‘club fields’ in the South Island of New Zealand that offers private patches of mountain managed and run by ski clubs. And there sure is a lot to love about them. Firstly, there are no crowds. On the perfectly clear day that we were there I counted all of 32 cars in the car park (see pic below). That means big wide open slopes (see the same pic below) virtually to yourself. Admittedly I’ve had better skiing (the snow was a bit ‘hard’), but I loved being in the middle of the Southern Alps with amazing views and, my favourite bit, having lunch on the verandah of the clubhouse where you purchased a slab of raw meat and cooked it yourself (that’s me and my friend Wally below cooking up our burgers!).

MONA, Hobart, Tasmania

I did a blog about my visit to the MONA and not only was visiting the ‘museum’ one of my highlights of the year, but its up there with the best galleries I’ve visited. Which gives me an idea for an upcoming blog: My Top Ten favourite galleries of the world. Stay tuned!

Scooter ride, Loboc, Philippines

I hired a scooter a few times while I was in the Philippines, but my favourite expedition was my ride from Loboc to the Chocolate Hills. I rode up steep mountains roads in the shade of giant trees, through lush green rice fields, wound my way through the amazing Chocolate Hills and stopped to check out a tarsier sanctuary. From the photo below you can see that I’m almost as happy about it as the tarsier statues.

Crown Metropol Hotel, Melbourne, Australia

I love being upgraded. And it’s even better when you’re being upgraded in a hotel that is already luxurious enough. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary with a night out at the Metropol Hotel and not only did we get upgraded to one of the executive suites, but that included the ‘executive breakfast’ in the top floor bar. And besides all that we swam in the amazing pool, ate a wonderful meal at Mr. Hive restaurant and stole all the fancy toiletries.

Whale watching, Harvey Bay, Queensland

You can pay around $150 for a whale watching trip in Harvey Bay, but I luckily have a brother who lives up there and who owns a boat and knows where the whales are. We had a lovely day cruising around with his family and my daughter and  we saw at least a dozen humpback whales (many with their calves in tow) and on quite a few occasions had the whales to ourselves (without the large whale watching boats in tow). My daughter Jasmine insisted that she attracted the whales with her ‘whale calls’ (made famous by Ellen Degeneres’s character Dory in the movie ‘Nemo’).

Well, happy new year folks and I hope it’s filled with rewarding travel experiences whether that be near or far.

My NEW book is out just in time for Christmas.

Okay, well it’s not entirely all my book, but I have contributed a chapter to a fantastic new book on Sri Lanka entitled Snapshots of Sri Lanka – Travel tales from the island of serendipity. The book, which is a collection 21 stories about Sri Lanka from Australia’s best travel writers, is the brainchild of fellow Australian Society of Travel Writers member Lee Mylne. Lee met a woman at a travel writer’s workshop she was running who asked her for some advice on a fund-raising idea that she had. This is the result and the profits will go towards building  new pre-school in Sri Lanka. You can buy the book here and here’s a bit more of a blurb on the book:

Once called “the island of serendipity”, Sri Lanka is a place where a rich culture and chequered history combine. Where cricket tragics, surfers, and adventurers meet Buddhist monks, fishermen, and orphaned elephants. Where the scent of cinnamon floats on the air and there’s a feeling that anything is possible.

This collection of travellers’ tales has been put together to benefit the “Samadhi Grove” early childhood development centre in the village of Smagipura in southern Sri Lanka. The preschool is the dream of an Australian Buddhist nun, Sister Susila, who has been visiting Sri Lanka since the 2004 tsunami, working with underprivileged and disabled children.

Join some of Australia’s best known travel writers, who have generously donated their work to this anthology, as they explore the serendipitous joys of travel in Sri Lanka. Susan Kurosawa explores the eccentricities of this wonderful island nation, John Borthwick pauses on the ‘siesta coast’, Daniel Scott takes the cycling tour of his life, keen surfers Louise Southerden and Brad Crouch test the waves, and Brian Thacker helps his Dad relive some memories. Then there’s cricket, white-water rafting, elephants and whales, unusual hotels, and a cast of wonderful characters.

Hills made of chocolate and kooky critters.

Sadly the hills in central Bohol, Philippines weren’t made of chocolate, but it was home to one of the kookiest creatures I’ve ever laid my eyes on. After leaving the tropical paradise of Anda I headed inland to the town of Loboc on the the Loboc River where I stayed with Filma and her two children Joshua (9) and Isabelle (6) in another homestay through the Philippines Homestay Experience. This was quite the step up from my homestay in Anda. Filma had a cook and a maid and the shower was inside the house and it was actually a shower instead of a bucket. I spent my time there cruising down the river in a floating restaurant, riding a clapped-out scooter through the lush countryside and eating delicious food served up by Filma’s cook. Here a few pics from my time in Loboc and beyond…

Filma’s cheerfully-painted house in Loboc, Bohol

The view from Filma’s front gate (the house on the right was where I ‘hired’ my scooter from.

The view from the back door!

Filma on her way out to work at a cable TV channel in Bohol’s capital Tagbilaren City (one hour away by bus).

The maid, the cook and the kids.

The Cook in the outdoor kitchen.

The dining room (my bedroom was just off to the left after the doorway).

Filma’s next door neighbour who every morning at around 8 o’clock would ask if I’d like to come over for a drink. As in whiskey or beer. ‘Come on, let’s get drunk!’ he would say when I declined every morning.

My floating restaurant on the Loboc River (one of many!) and…

…the large and tasty buffet.

The very green Loboc River and a local band and dance troupe waiting to perform (each floating restaurants pulls up to listen to a couple of songs).

The Chocolate Hills (sponsored by Cadburys). Actually they are called the Chocolate Hills because the turn a chocolate-brown in the dry season.

This is a tarsier – the kooky little critter fits in your hand has eyes that are, by scale, 150 times bigger than a humans. They call also jump 40 times their own body length and eats frogs, birds and bats. They are endangered, but I went to a tarsier sanctuary where they had around 40 of the little fellows.

The delightfully decorative Filipino Jeepney (public bus). This is the one I took from Loboc to the capital Tagbilaren City.

I stayed in Tagbilaren City for a couple of days and hired a scooter and rode to Panglao Island,  Bohol’s biggest tourist destination. It was full of tourists and tourist restaurants and bars (which was a little bit of a shock haven’t not seen any for a couple of weeks), but the main beach area was still stunning. And no high rises have popped up…yet.

I think I need another research trip back in the Philippines VERY soon.

Where the HELL is Brian?

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but that’s because I’ve been incredibly busy. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’ve been a little slack and so now I have a lot to catch up on. Most recently I’ve just returned from two weeks in the Philippines where I was doing some research for my new book. Although when you see some of the photos below you might say it doesn’t really look like ‘research’ – more like a holiday in a tropical paradise. Which I suppose it was.

I travelled to the island of Bohol (an hour’s flight south of Manila) and took a bus almost almost three hours from the capital of Tagbilaren City to Anda on the south coast and finally a 40 minute walk inland to the village of Cassica. In this small and delightfully charming village I stayed with Elfrena and Judito Mapeso. I’d found out about the Mapeso’s homestay  through Philippines Homestay Experience, which offers homestays all across the Philippines. For around $15 a night you get a bed in a home and, best of all, get to experience the daily life of a Filipino family and village. Plus your tourism dollars are going directly to the local communities. I stayed with two separate families in two quite different villages. Below are pics from my stay in Cassica…

The road from the town of Anda to Cassica takes you past a large lagoon, rice fields, tropical jungle and to the base of lush green hills.

The ‘Main Street’ of Cassica and, like many villages throughout the Phillipines, the central ’square’ is…

…a basketball court. The Filipinos LOVE basketball. I had a game with the locals and they NEVER miss!

My hosts Judito and Efrena in front of their house. Their 19 year old son is at Uni (doing accounting) in Manila, so I had his old bedroom.

The loungeroom. Judito and Efrena may have had no fridge, no shower and cooked outside on an open fire, but they did have…

…a full-blown, state-of-the-art Karaoke system with a booming PA system (in bottom left of shot), mixing desk, radio mics and over 5,000 songs in their playlist. One night I sang, and I’m not exaggerating, over 30 songs! Oh, and don’t you love the curtains.

This is Efrena’s open kitchen where she cooked up fried fish, chicken and some sort of beef log thing that tasted better than it looked.

This plate of fish was JUST for me one night for dinner. I also got a huge bowl of rice and stir-fried vegetables. A home-cooked meal costs just over 2 dollars on top of your accommodation.

This is where I ate my meals. That fridge doesn’t work by the way. it’s used for storage.

My bedroom. The bed was comfy and I did have a little fan to cool me down and, best of all, those damn mosquitos couldn’t get to me.

The village of Cassica (in the background behind the palms) is surrounded by rice fields. I asked Efrena if there was anywhere that I could hire a scooter and she rang her cousin who brought around her brand new bike and gave it to me for a few bucks for the day. And only 15 minutes ride away was this…

This is Anda beach. Or only part of Anda beach – it actually stretches about 10 kms around the coast. I walked for a couple of hours past untouched stunning beaches with only the odd local putting out their boats or picking out sea urchins from the shallows. Like these kids here…

And yes, how amazing is that water. I brought my own goggles and snorkel with me and just off shore were thousands of brightly-coloured fish and giant sea turtles amongst the coral. This beach (and all along the coast) would easily make it into my Best Beaches in the World list!

More locals. More stunning blue water. And more reasons why I wish i was back there right now.

And if you do feel like a glass of wine and a view there are a few resorts dotted along the caost. This one here (the Anda White beach Resort) was about an hour’s walk along the coast from Anda town. And yes, I had a lovely glass of italian win and bowl of giant prawns for under $10.

In my next blog (next week I promise) I’ll take you to Loboc where I saw the famous Chocolate Hills and a kooky little critter called a tarsier.

Spend your tourism dollars wisely and give back to local communities as you travel. Experience more from meeting locals.
Stay in local style accommodation and live the daily life of many great Filipinos. We don’t sugar coat our accommodation – It is basic, but the experience is enriching.