SLO.

I am becoming more and more enamored of San Luis Obispo.

Last weekend, Josh and I had a rare 3 days off together.  We decided to pack up and get out of the city for a while.

SLO was the perfect destination -- only 3 to 4 hours south, sunny and chock-full of beaches, wineries and fun distractions!

First stop: Avila Beach! Sunny and beautiful little town by the water. Of course, being from SF, we neglected to pack sandals.. Oops. :)

Spent the night at Morro Bay Campsite.  Kind of crazy car camping experience.  Lots of loud children and lost elderly people.  We were also treated to a heated argument in the early morning.

And, because they are so plentiful in the area, we winery hopped throughout the weekend.  Beautiful views, lovely service and tasty wines!!

island hopping through the visayas.. .

from puerto princesa, josh and i caught a flight over to the visayas and deplaned in dumaguete -- the main port on the island of negros. we spent quite a few days there, relaxing, reading, surfing the net -- things we long to indulgde in. :) we also got around to the surrounding areas to check out the sights of negros.

one day, we went up to the national park to do some trekking. to get there, we had to ride this habal habal (a motorcycle with an attached uncomfortable seat on the rear for extra seating) on a long gravel road that had me terrified the whole ride up and back down the mountain. once we reached the park, we found that due to high waters, trekking wasn't possible so instead we kayaked around the twin lakes and hung out and enjoyed the scenary.


as another side adventure, we went caving in mabinay! we met our caving guide, jeffrey early in the morning and he prepared us for the experience. although i had brought a swimsuit and extra clothes, we had been apparently misinformed that flip flops would be sufficient for caving. jeffrey frowned at our choice of footwear but took us to a cave called baliw which was listed in the "difficult" category on our list of caves from the tourist agency. the cave itself was so much fun. we squeezed through small crevices, sunk in mud and guano, belly crawled through parts impassable otherwise, and in the end had to take off our helmets to swim through the small slit leading us out of the cave.





after dumaguete, we took a LONG few bus rides to the other side of the island and stayed on a beautiful secluded beach called sugar beach (or, langub beach). we met a lot of nice people at the neighboring driftwood resort and hung out there and went snorkeling at the marine reserve. we again saw a lot of cool marine life and corals -- but still nothing compares to the colors and expanse of coral we saw at port barton.





after saying goodbye to our pseudo family at driftwood (they stood waving on the shoreline and shouting goodbyes as our boat sailed away), we bused and boated to ilo ilo in hopes of being about to do some rock climbing at the national park. however, once we arrived, the climbing gym we were supposed to seek information at was closed (the owner had moved to the u.s. apparently) and the park was off limits due to the rebel inhabitants.

instead of climbing, we took a trip to guimeras where we checked out a waterfall where local kids went to swim and a mango research farm (which wasn't as cool as it was made out to be). bummed out, we bought some mangoes and prepared to go back to manila and to donsol, our last stop before going home.

back to the beach..

and, happily, it was back to the beach.

josh and i caught a plane to puerto princesa on the island of palawan and settled there for a night. the next day, we took a jeepney up to sabang, the home of the famous underground river (a navigable river that flows through a cave formation). aside from the long wait and the 2-hour hike to get there (we opted for the 20-min boat ride on the way back), the tour itself were really nice. the actual boat ride seemed a little short in comparison to the wait.. but it was okay. the town of sabang was a small beach town with waterfalls and charm. plus, our hostel had a water buffalo-drawn cart!



next, we headed up to the town of port barton and ended up at a wonderful friendly place called elsa's (josh met a guy that worked there on top of the jeepney that took us there). we were seaside with breathtaking sunsets and our own personal beach. we took a bangka boat out one day with a belgian couple and went snorkeling (the coral! wow!) and island hopping.





from there, we went to el nido, the top tip of palawan. another nice town perfect for hopping between the small white sand beach islands. we stayed there a few nights (among the barking puppies in the middle of the night and the chorus of roosters crowing to wake us up) and did more island hopping with an amiable guide named kalui and his friend (whose name we never got). we got to see a both big and small lagoons as well as "secret" lagoon, which was accessible only by crawling through a small crevice. we did a bunch more snorkeling (here the coral was less impressive, and a lot of it was dead) and swimming. they even made a nice fish lunch on the beach!






we spent the last of our time on palawan eating comfort food and vegging out (josh hurt his neck on the bus one day) in puerto before heading off to cebu.

heaven.. i'm in heaven...

ah, yes, i sit here in an internet cafe on the east side of railay beach where the song "heaven, i'm in heaven" is playing.. and yes, i feel so much like it is.

we have been back on tonsai in our qaint bungalow at the lovely andaman resort since our side trips to phi phi and lanta and have been loving it.



we spent a nice christmas evening at a beach bar watching fireworks and the obligatory fireshow with some people from california. we even went to this one place where they had a guy who can twirl poi and the firestick WHILE being on the slackrope. amazing! spent a quiet christmas day relaxing and going out for a nice dinner.

since then, we have been climbing and hanging out with bruce and smithy again (yay! they came back to tonsai for the holidays too!). i have been doing well and liking it. and i even did my first lead climb today! :) one day, we took a steep hike to the lagoon in the middle of railay. we also went to the viewpoint where you could see both beaches and, in the distance, tonsai as well!






for new year's we hung out with the boys and a swedish couple we met at wee's climbing shop and ended up on the beach where this really good semi-reggae band played the night away. we ended up seeing everyone we knew and it was a lovely way to ring in the new year.




we are thinking about headed back to koh phangan for a while to run out our visas and then heading on to laos or malaysia... or maybe to the phillipines.

side tripping...

after tonsai, we took a few side trips to koh phi phi and koh lanta. koh phi phi wasn't very interesting to either of us but we stayed there overnight to take advantage of the snorkeling there. we took a longboat in the morning to phi phi ley (the smaller of the phi phi islands) and snorkeled at the infamous "the beach" beach (from the film about the secluded beautiful stretch of beach -- you know the movie; the one with the guy from titanic.. . :) ). we saw some really beautiful fishes, coral and a moray eel! we also tried to go looking for sharks, but due to poor visibility in the water (it was a bit choppy that day), we didn't get to see any.

at night, we checked out the nightlife and found it was a bit reminiscent of a fraternity party. :-/ one highlight was the bar where they give a free bucket (see: picture below) to anyone who will "muay thai" fight in the ring. i use the word "muay thai" in quotes since it was more like drunken bouts.




after phi phi, we spent a few days on koh lanta. this was a nice big island with a long stretch of beach for relaxing and reading (oh, we have read SO many books!). we also went elephant trekking which was a tad kitschy but fun. we got to feed him bananas and pineapples whole!





as the holidays approached, we found that we wanted to spend them where we felt the most comfortable so back to tonsai we headed. :)

climber's paradise.. .

from koh phangan, we caught a 3-hour boat ride to surat thani and a 2-hour bus ride to ao nang - a nice little shoreline town on the andaman sea. then, we caught a longtail boat with a few other couples to haad tonsai, a nice quiet beach next to the popular railay beach.

here, we found an amazing place to stay, nice restaurants, and pleasant people. we called the andaman nature resort our home for almost a week -- cheap bungalows with an amazing restaurant (it got very popular at night, showing movies 'til 10, and having seating and cushions to lay out on the viewing floor). also, during low tide, we could walk over to railay, a pretty stretch of white sand beach, full of very pricey resorts.

haad tonsai is a climber's paradise. surrounding the waters are large steep cliffs that fall either to the beach below or straight into the ocean. one day, we rented kayaks and navigated through the cliffs and into caves.

one day when playing cribbage at a local restaurant by the shore, we met two other fellows playing as well. we met them (smitty and bruce), and their reading friend val, and spent the rest of the day playing cards and conversing. they were all from brighton in the u.k. and regaled us of tales of beach raves with fatboy slim and their random hatred of beckham. we met up again with them at night to play crib under the waning full moon.

leaving, we still felt like we wanted to return. and, even now, we're trying to figure out a way to get back and are hoping that andaman still has a bungalow for us even thought it's so close to christmas.