Air conditioned minibus to Cebu for 100 Pesos? I’ll have some of that! I did get a bit car sick though because it was a bit cramped on the minibus so I had my bags on my lap the entire time (and my big bag is starting to stink because I put my dirty washing in the top compartment all the time) and on top of that I was doing a sudoku to pass the time which didn’t help the carsickness. I stopped the sudoku so I wouldn’t puke in the car and luckily that was a winning formula.
Once off the bus me, Lee, Harvey (Some random Australian bloke we met who was built like an absolute tank despite being 66 years old…) and Harvey’s Filipino girlfriend got off the bus and went to a local ferry. A ferry I had no idea about.
Bear in mind the ferry to Bohol was 400 Pesos (£5), this local ferry was a grand total of……. 14 Pesos (around 20-25p). Yup; 14 fucking Pesos! Granted I had to pay a whopping 2 Peso ‘terminal fee’ as well, but we were off, and hopefully heading towards Lapu Lapu and not the bottom of the ocean…
We slowly pulled away and I joked with Harvey that with his tree trunk arms he could probably swim there quicker than the boat went so I had no idea why he was paying for a ferry ticket. He laughed, and possibly flexed…
And we made it to the west side of Lapu Lapu. We walked through the market to the main road where the jeepneys were and me and Lee said goodbye to Harvey The Machine and girlfriend of Harvey The Machine. During this time Lee was chatting away to a lovely looking Filipino girl, as she was an English teacher on the island and she said they were looking for native English teachers. So once he found out where the school was and we got to his house he was online messaging schools saying he’s a big time English teacher plucked from heaven sent down to teach English on an obscure Filipino island.
After that we had some lunch, Hazel (Lee’s wife) cooked us some pork with vegetables and pineapples. It was above average. Then someone mentioned that there was a festival going on in Lapu Lapu for reasons that can only be explained through 80’s references, so we went out in search for it.
LEWIS! I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE FESTIVAL...
It wasn’t hard to find. Just follow the crowd and the noise really… We watched secondary school kids perform some long drawn out musical routine. To be fair to them it was actually quite good, but it should have been 3-4 minutes long, not twenty…
After buying some touristy things we went back to Lee’s and had some bacon and egg sarnies for dinner. Think of your favourite love ballad, that’s probably the way I would describe the bacon and egg sarnies…
Not actually Lapu Lapu, but I ran out of photos so lets just pretend nothing's wrong here...
The next day was my final day in the Philippines, and I wanted to show my gratitude to Lee and his family for how well they had treated me, and I knew they wouldn’t accept any money or me buying them dinner, so I bought them a fan. I knew they were struggling with the heat in their house so a fan was something that they’d actually use. Hazel wanted the standing fan and money was no object (only when the difference was literally $2) so I bought them that one. Then I bought Henley (Lee’s daughter) a McDonald’s ice cream. Henley asked for a strawberry sundae, and soon found out why I usually get the hot fudge one instead. She was eating it very slowly pretending she liked it when in reality she was most likely waiting for us all to look one way so she could launch it towards a bin or a homeless person (so he/she could eat it instead of course! Not to randomly abuse the needy. What kind of person do you think I am?)
Then Danny, the next door neighbour randomly popped his head around the door...
ONLY ME!!!
...saying that there was a ‘Mrs Gay’ ladyboy competition that evening (I’d rather not know what social circles he is in to know about this unprovoked…) and asked if we wanted to go. I thought it would be fun to go to on my last night in the Philippines, so we got ready and walked to where the competition was being held and got there at seven, when it was supposed to begin.
Except we were the only fuckers there! There wasn’t even any contestants, just a blinding spinning spotlight that would remind us it was there every ten seconds. Hazel asked one of the judges when it was going to start and he didn’t know. Half an hour later we were still the only idiots there. Eventually the judge said ‘Maybe nine…’ so we cut our losses and went home. I had an early flight anyway that I had to get up for. So I watched the film ‘Bleed For This’ instead, and I must say I do not regret my decision…
Again, not Lapu Lapu. This is somewhere in The Philippines though, so its passable for this post...
So that’s it! The next stop is Thailand where I will be fart arsing around trying to get my work permit sorted. If everything goes to plan this will be the end of my travelling escapades for now, if it is too difficult to get the work permit sorted (which isn’t that far fetched, I’ve heard it is very difficult to get a work permit processed in Thailand nowadays…) then it may be a case of moving on and going somewhere else. Which of course could be the best thing that ever happened to me as you never know what is waiting for you in a place you’ve never been before. Thanks for the upvotes and follows so far, and hopefully there'll be a lot more funny moments to come in the future…