Southeast Asian Adventures

The 11th of october we started a mini adventure. We took our motorbike and drove ourselves to Dumaguete. There we met Jeremy, a nice French companion we met earlier here in Moalboal, and from there we started our 14 day motorbike adventure: Tour de Negros. Negros is about the size of Belgium, but green (and rainy), rich of volcanoes and dramatic coastlines. We did roughly 700km. Add 200km to get us from and back to Moalboal.

Highlights were the road from Hinoba-an over Sipalay to Kabankalan, Masskara festival in Bacolod, and the road through the mountains (Bacolod to San Carlos). Definitely worth doing again, where I would put more emphasize on the Sipalay area. Here you can find dramatic cliffs, beautiful bays, hidden white sand beaches and awesome diving spots. Imagine mini-Palawan scenerie.

I didn’t take that much pictures, mainly because of driving a lot and having too much fun to even think about shooting pics. Masskara I enjoyed without a camera…see my post previous year for impressions of the Festival.

Anyway, here are a few impressions from our roadtrip:

Yeah, I know…I’ve been pretty lame with my blog the last 6 months or more.

Most friends are able to follow me on FB and actually it’s a bit more fun there, because of the interaction. Then, to do everything twice isn’t really entertaining.

Anyway, for those who wonder, what have I been doing lately?

Apart from enjoying stressless & slow life here in Moalboal:

* few motorbike daytrips in the nearby mountains
* few motorbike visatrips to Dumaguete and back. Visited the twin lake national park on the way.
* been caught up in Manila…sure you heard of the typhoons torturing this metropole. We were there…but don’t worry…safe.
* Lots of freediving and sharing underwater time with the hawksbill turtles!

I managed to break a few personal underwater records:

I went down to 32,2meter deep with one single breath.
I managed to stay 2min 06secs underwater at a depth of 14m.
I’m still alive.

Upcoming:

* tomorrow we leave for a 10 day motorbike tour around Negros island. On the way we will enjoy the Masskara Festival in Bacolod.
Estimated travel: 700km+ along beautiful coastlines and cross west to east through volcano landscapes.

* a visit from my parents for about a month
* Palawan (I write it here so I would finally do it…been to long on my wishlist)
* …Palau maybe? Donations are welcome. hehe.

As long as the government leaves me alone, no trip to Belgium planned.

But…always eager to hear something from the Belgian side!
What’s up?

Cheers

Tom

After our almost 1 month lasting Davao adventures we flew back to Cebu and immediately moved out Cebu city. I couldn’t deal with the city anymore, wanted a place where we could walk to the sea and preferably had some mountains more inland…so we found!
Have a small looksee at our new place, Moalboal & the near vistas.
We plan to stay here for at least a year! Give us a visit!

Our open air kitchen

front view…we live on top of the garage

front garden view

view from our kitchen balcony…our bay and the mountains

view from our front balcony. In the distance you see island Negros

inside our studio…just one room, but spacy enough and all what we need is there

fresh coconuts at our kitchen balcony

the very near & tiny island Pescador…a (free)diver’s heaven

frogfish

huge school of sardines

jellyfish and it’s lightsignals

eel

thunderstorm behind the mountains, view from our kitchen balcony

our bay, about 100m walking

view from a higher point…very nice motorbike trail towards this viewpoint

how we do it…Shayne & Wolfgang

the building you see is a school…imagine!

view of the other side of southern Cebu island, Alcoy village.

macro from a few insects I found during a hike through one of the last forests in Cebu…pretty close to our place

So…What’s next? Aside of just enjoying life here, I’m planning a motorbike tour around island Negros. That will be quite a tour, around 10 days & hundreds of km’s cruising, trying to find some nice secluded areas and have a stopover in Bacolod during it’s famous Masskara Festival (see last year october).
Do I miss Belgium? Hell no! haha.