Sometimes travelling is just plain boring and quite miserable. You sit endless hours in crappy crammed jeepneys, buses, boats and tricycles because they stop every ten meters to take in more people. It’s so tight and moist that you can hardly breath, the air doesn’t change and it’s raining inside and outside. Everything you own is wet and by the looks of it, that's not gonna change. The rain continues. Endlessly.
With a boat we made it from Bohol to Padre Burgos in Leyte where we were excited to visit the Sogod Bay Dive resort. This is the second home to a couple of enthusiastic divers from home, family friends. My parents have also visited the place some years ago.
We came in late and soaked. The welcoming staff took us to a beautiful seaside room, a bit over our budget but we decided to enjoy it after the miserably long day.
We chose an excellent day to arrive: they had a Christmas party and we were kindly invited to join. The tables were filled with lechon, a whole pig on a skewer, turkey and gravy, roasted veggies and much more. We brought regards from Finland, talked about diving and enjoyed watching the excited kids play around. First time it felt a bit like Christmas really.
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| Christmas Party at Sogod Bay scuba resort |
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| Lechon! |
Pintuyan was another one of those funny little towns. Tourism there is pretty much relying on whale sharks. Well, there is also one expensive dive resort around but that's about it. The other lodgings are quite basic. Restaurant scene consists of the tiny little eateries that serve food that has been standing around the whole day. And yeah...there’s not much to do.
Even if the facilities for tourists are somewhat limited, it doesn’t mean the tourists are not fully welcomed. We started with meeting the tourism officer to ask how to arrange the trip to see the whale sharks. He ended up arranging us the lodging and specially prepared dinner, taking us on a tour around the town and explaining us about all the possible activities around (note: there weren’t that many). We felt like VIP guests ;)
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| Pintuyan beach |
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| Pintuyan beach the other way |
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| Valid question. |
In the evening two more couples arrived and we ended up walking around the town together and chatting until it was time to sleep. This was a lot of fun and we were happy to meet new people.
The next day we packed our stuff and went to the small village of Son-ok, where we could organize a boat, a guide and a spotter to try and find the whale sharks. They had last spotted these gentle beasts around San Ricardo which was further south and where our boat to Surigao would also eventually go from. So we took all our things with us and asked to be dropped off there at the end.
More sitting around. Uncomfortably. And for nothing! There were no whale sharks around and we were circling around in the small bangka for hours. What a bummer. Third day in a row just sitting on our asses, I felt horrible.
We took the ferry to Surigao, bargained our way to a hotel that luckily had space, found no tickets to Siargao for the next day but instead a very decent meal. The rain just continued.
I was worried about the rain. What if it would rain nonstop in Siargao? There wouldn’t be much to do, now would there? I guess you can surf even in the rain, hey?
The next day we had no trouble finding the big bangka to take us to Siargao. The boat ride was not too long and in Dapa we had fun bargaining with the tricycle drivers who asked ridiculous amounts to take us to General Luna. In the end we got one for 250 pesos and a Christmas song. I think they would’ve made a better deal if we hadn’t sung :’D
When we started driving the rain finally stopped.
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| Whale shark interaction instructions |
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| Ready to go |
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| But no whale sharks |
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| Not even one |
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| At least the day was pretty and the water clear |
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| Sunset stuff! |
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