Location: Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines

Sav: We woke up at ass o’clock (literally 3 am) to catch a flight to….

The Philippines!

Now don’t worry! The Taal volcano near Manila that had been at a category 4 (imminent eruption) has been downgraded to a category 3 (full time watch), and we weren’t passing through that airport anyway. People have started to return home so I figured it would be safe to come back to Cebu as a touch point before moving on.

We got off the plane and it was just a wall of humidity. I immediately removed my sweater (Max lives and dies in hoodies and apparently 30 degrees Celsius is still hoodie weather) and let out sighs of relief. Thank goodness for the heat! I already knew what to expect from the drive through the city towards Mad Monkey Party Hostel, but I was eager to see Max’s reaction. Cebu isn’t exactly super safe, so you don’t generally leave the hostel, and you definitely don’t walk if you do have to go anywhere.

Max: I have never been to a developing country and wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but the contrast between Taiwan’s organized streets and he chaos here left me in shock. For starters, the traffic is insane and nonsensical. There’s no lanes, drivers create new ones on a whim, and pedestrians and bikes randomly decide they have the right of way. I could never tell if we were on a main street or a backstreet. Most of the roads were dirt and almost all the buildings were in disrepair, but definitely still in use! Walls with holes in them led to crowded poorer residential areas with tarp walled, tin roof houses. I guess when it’s so hot year around, you’re not too worried about being exposed to the open air though. We finally made it to our hostel and a guard opened the door for us. Suddenly we were in a clean, white tiled building, being giving our room keys. What a context switch.

Sav: Arriving back at Mad Monkey was so nice. It’s clean, the staff are super friendly, the parties are a blast and the rooftop bar and pool is a godsend in the heat. We immediately grabbed food from the bar, and then had a nap since we’d slept a total of 2 hours the night before and were feeling like zombies. The last time I was in the Philippines was a disaster since I got a double ear infection and the hospital in Cebu is terrifying, so I was looking forward to changing my memories of the place. I was so happy to find out that Carly and Nathalie (Filipino women I met last time) were back just for one night, so we were going to get to party with them!

Max: We woke up to the sound of party remixes and went upstairs to get in on the action, one sisig pizza, a beer and some free highballs later (it is a party hostel after all) and we were ready to compete in the weekly music quiz. Sav, Carly, Nathalie and I had a pretty broad range of musical knowledge, so we thought we had a good chance. On top of that, to get extra points, someone from your team had to enthusiastically karaoke part of the song.

Sav: Max totally crushed the karaoke section, singing as many songs as he could- and we ended up in third place! He even convinced me to belt out a Whitney Houston song since I knew all the lyrics. We definitely had a lot of fun tonight.

What a great start to the Philippines!

Sav