Namaste Travelling!: Philipines

Morning sunrise over the Philippines

Our first stop in the Philippines was Cebu and we were on the quest for whale sharks. Having heard that there was a place in the south of the island where you could swim with the sharks as soon as we landed we headed off to the bus terminal, and on to Oslob. We arrived about 2pm to a normal residential stretch of road with only a couple of whale shark pictures to assure us we were in the right place. A friendly fisherman met us from the bus and ushered us towards one of the local houses. The whale sharks were only discovered in Oslob in October 2011 and as before then it was just a small residential fishing village, subsequently it’s not really set up for tourists. In the last couple of months one or two small guest houses have opened but with a lack of places to stay some of the locals have also opened up their homes for guests.

Katy and the Whale Shark

We stayed with an old American guy who had moved to Oslob 20 years ago and married one of the local girls. He was a great character and had lots of never ending stories about obscure parts England that he loved to recount to us. Every so often he would remember something else and come and find us to ask if we had heard of it, or seen it or if we still did things a certain way. When it was time for us to come down for dinner or breakfast he would call up the stairs ‘Hey London… BBC calling!’ which he thought was hilarious. Another time we were sitting on the pier and he crept up behind us and started singing… After we’d been awkwardly listening to him for a couple of minutes unsure whether we should be joining in or just enjoying the recital, he stopped and asked us if school children still sang that song. He was sad to hear that unfortunately no they don’t.

The whale shark trips happen first thing in the morning when the fisherman, slightly controversially, feed them. We got up at 6 and walked 20m along the beach to pay our 1000 pesos (15 pounds) and listen to a talk where we were told not to go closer than 5m to the sharks…easier said than done! We then got into a canoe and rowed literally 50m off shore to the snorkeling spot. We saw about 10 sharks over the half hour we were swimming and it was impossible to keep a 5m distance! You would be intently watching one when another would silently swim up behind and past you, missing you by inches, scaring the life out of you at the same time!!Although not as big as whale sharks can be they were still huge ranging from 3m for the babies to about 8m for the bigger ones. The experience was amazing and every bit as exciting as we’d hoped it would be. Mike loved it so much he even went back for a second day…it was like watching a small boy at Christmas.

Whales sharks feeding

After Oslob we moved up the west coast of Cebu to Moalboal where we had planned to do some diving. For various reasons we decided to move straight on the next day to an apparently better place for diving but not before a crazy night out at the local Philippino disco!! I think it’s probably fair to say we were bullied into partaking in rum and coke and then practically forced to attend the disco by our crazy, party loving Australian friend. We were also joined by a very nice, slightly reserved Swedish guy. Slightly reserved that is…until we reached the disco! He was like a machine on the dance floor and the four of us had a great time, much to the amusement of the locals who mostly sat around the edge watching!