Where I’ve Wandered Off To in September

Postings at Ambot-ah have been slooow, if not stagnant, for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been away from home since the second week of September doing a series of week long trips. Between doing the actual travel schedule of the day and planning for the next day’s itinerary plan, it has been a challenge to even just check for email and facebook updates. I’ve already posted some of my travel plans, but where have I exactly gone to so far?

Bohol – Misamis Oriental (Cagayan de Oro) – Lanao del Norte (Marawi) – Misamis Occidental (Ozamiz) – Cebu (Cebu City, Southern Cebu)

I started my travel spree in Bohol via Cebu City. It was a prime agenda to be able to get in close contact with those cute tarsiers, which I am so happy to have achieved! Their fuzzy fur and googly eyes and are just so adorable! The Chocolate Hills are of course a “not to miss” attraction in Bohol. I also went around Panglao Island and did a church tour of South Western Bohol Towns.

Then, I joined Eric and Sinjin on a road trip from Misamis Oriental to Misamis Occidental in Mindanao. We started our trip in Cagayan de Oro City, the highlight of which was a visit to the Gardens of Malasag Eco-Tourism Village and my first taste of ostrich meat.

I had my BIGGEST travel misadventure when we were in Marawi City. I basically left my sling bag inside the van transport. When I had realized this, I ran to where we were dropped off but the van was already nowhere in sight. I was very scared because the sling bag contained my camera, all my cash, ATM card, cellphone, iPod Touch. I returned to the van terminal, waited, and waived my fate to whatever circumstance could have happened next. Judging from the narrative tone of this whole post, I guess you can figure out how things turned out in the end but I’ll save the whole story for another post.

We went to Ozamiz City to visit the Misamis Occidental Aquamarine Park a few towns north of the city. I was so hoping to swim with the dolphins there but I had suffered a big expense during my Marawi misadventure and decided to cancel my close encounter with the dolphins so I can stay within my budget.

From Ozamiz City, I went back to Cebu City and went on a commuting tour of Southern Cebu, this aside from exploring some new places in Cebu and Lapu-lapu Cities.

Bicol: Camarines Sur (Naga, Caramoan) – Albay (Legazpi) – Sorsogon (Bulusan)

I was alone yet again, this time, on a weeklong backpacking tour of Bicol Region. I landed in Naga City, Camarines Sur just in time for the Penafrancia Festival. The highlight of my trip was a visit to the Caramoan Islands famous for being the setting of past seasons of Survivor France, Serbia, Israel and soon US. I was lucky there was no “shooting” at the time so I got the chance to visit the “Matukad Area” and got to see the actual tribe camp.

My next destination was Legazpi City, Albay where I got to see the Mayon Volcano and its perfect cone for the first time. I made sure not to leave Albay without a good shot of Mayon.

I had previously blogged that I was supposed to go to Calagua Islands in Camarines Norte and do the whale watching in Donsol but these segments of the trip were cancelled and instead, I went to Lake Bulusan in Sorsogon.

Singapore – Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur – Malacca)

My last “out-of-the-country” destinations of the year. I was with my siblings again … the itinerary I had planned for us was a major fail! It was F1 season and the streets surrounding the core attractions of Singapore were closed off. Access to even the Merlion, the Esplanade, the Marina Bay area was very hard … going around all the fences they put up was very tiring. If only we had known our visit to Singapore coincided with the F1 weekend, I could have searched around for tips on how we could enjoy the F1 events. We did manage to visit the most important items in our itinerary and did a bit of unplanned walk-a-thons, which made for great experiences.

Pizzalicious suggested that we make a stopover at Malacca on our way to Kuala Lumpur. I was apprehensive at first considering our initial itinerary plan but after making some last minute adjustments, we did manage to do an overnight stopover in Malacca, which afforded us a few hours to tour the heritage core of the city.

Then, it was a few hours travel by bus to Kuala Lumpur. We didn’t get to fulfill 100% of our itinerary in Kuala Lumpur since our itinerary had gone haywire by then. Good thing we were met by our aunt and uncle based in KL who toured us around the city and gave us very helpful travel tips. Before flying out of KL, I insisted we visit Putra Jaya, which was just along the way to the airport. For me, it was one of the highlights of our whole trip. We arrived in Putra Jaya just in time for the sunset … seeing the massive pink mosque along the river glow with the warmth of the sunset was just breathtaking.

My September travel activities is all I’m going to report for now. I’m actually still in the middle of a roadtrip of Northern Luzon. I’ll be posting more updates when I get the chance. Photos, itineraries, and travel journals are, as usual, to be expected.