The heavenly hell of the Philippines

January 2020, I have almost 3 weeks of vacation left, it's the middle of winter. My head is full of thoughts about sailing, about sailing far away, where I've never been. Last year, around this time, I decided to sail to Greece, and in April 2019 I did it, it was an incredible experience. Now it's time for something new, I'm thinking, March, sailing the Adriatic and beyond, maybe Malta, Sicily,... No, too much winter time, I'm not saying a weekend or a couple of days, but 3 weeks doesn't suit me, unless I had unlimited time and I would set off around the world. I'm thinking about it, but my time hasn't come yet, because it will take a lot of effort to put into the boat and to find sponsors, contributions,...

We're talking about what if I choose a vacation somewhere exotic for a change, where I might swim with sharks for the first time, dive among coral reefs, see something new that I can't do in Europe. I'm thinking about the Maldives and Sri Lanka, I'm looking and searching the internet on portals on how to travel to these islands, I wouldn't want to be on one and the same island on one and the same beach for a week or 10 days. A day or two, yes, a week, no. Then I'm thinking about the flight from the Maldives to Sri Lanka, another wasted day.

The idea of ​​the Philippines comes to mind, I somehow immediately change my mind about the original plan, and all my thoughts turn to the new destination "Philippines". It doesn't take long, after many years of dreaming about an exotic vacation, it makes me think that now is the time, the time to explore something I never did. 20 years ago, when I was with cyclists, I had already traveled a lot, traveled all over Europe from Portugal, England, Denmark, Turkey and everything in between, I also spent a few weeks in Canada and California, so traveling was not completely foreign to me. I also know Božidar in the Philippines, who was my diving instructor years ago and we even sailed a few miles together. He has been living on the island of Siquijor for a few years now and has his own diving center. I decide to start my vacation with him. I arrange a vacation at work, book a plane ticket, and wait for my trip to begin. I decided to take two backpacks with me, one larger one for my clothes and similar things and a smaller, waterproof backpack for more personal items. Since I'm going to an area where most of the time the temperature doesn't drop below 25 degrees at night and during the day the temperatures reach up to 35 degrees, and the sea is 26 to 30 degrees, I take very little wardrobe with me. In the backpack, which I will have with me most of the time, I take the DJI Mavic Mini drone, which is currently new on the market with a 2.7K camera, 3-axis stabilizer, GPS and only 249g in weight, for which you do not need any flying certificate in most countries. In addition to the drone, I take the new Gopro 8 camera, which is also new on the market, with the best image stabilizer ever, and I will also use it for underwater exploration. Last year when I sailed to Greece, I also bought a DJI Osmo 2 stabilizer, for phones. In addition to all the recording gear, I added a tablet, phone, 2 extra batteries along with a charger for the Gopro, because one camera battery lasts for about 1 to 1.5 hours of recording, and a 2TB external drive, on which I will store a copy of the footage. I decided that everything I would record would be in FHD quality, which means 1920 x 1080 pixels and 60 frames per second. This would give me good quality footage and reduce the file size, as if I were recording in 4K quality.

Monday, March 2, 2020, I reached the moment when I fly from Ljubljana to Istanbul and then on to the Philippines, to the capital city of Manila, and on to the island of Cebu. I am traveling with my friend Natalia. The trip went smoothly according to schedule. The airport in Istanbul is, above all, large, very organized, like entering a shopping mall. After a good hour, we boarded the flight to Manila, and after 12 hours we arrived in the paradise Philippines.

Manila has a population of between 13 and 15 million according to various years. The airport was in total confusion, we barely figured out which terminal we were in, we had to exchange euros for Philippine pesos. When we figured out which terminal we were going to, we looked for a bus. The problem with the terminals in Manila is that this airport is in the city center, and the terminals are quite far apart and it is impossible to get there without some kind of transportation around the city. We had a good 3 hours for the flight to Cebu. It may have seemed like enough time to me, but it later turned out to be quite complicated, because when we found the bus stop, it took almost an hour for the bus to arrive, load the passengers, and then drive to Terminal 2. Unfortunately, we didn't know that it would of course go to Terminal 4 and 1 first. The route looked like the bus would leave from the terminal outside the airport, drive through city streets, where I can't describe the crowds, honking, various means of transportation, and according to our laws, probably not a single vehicle is technically flawless. In short, he then drove back to the airport terminal, where the security guards who let us in dropped off the passengers at the entrance, and then repeated the journey twice until we finally arrived at our last terminal. All of this took so long that we became a bit impatient so as not to miss our next flight. Every time we entered the terminal, luggage and people had to be checked, and only then did the rest of the airport's obligations begin. Considering that we arrived from what is practically winter, we first experienced heat shock, because the temperatures here do not fall below 30 degrees during the day, and do not drop below 25 degrees at night. When we arrived, we were also separated from home by a 7-hour time difference, and so on. With somewhat mixed feelings, he later arrived at the airport in Cebu. Cebu is also a city of millions, so it is not much different from Manila. Since we arrived at 1:30 in the morning, the buses had already stopped running, but there were plenty of eager taxi drivers offering their services. Since we didn't have a ferry to continue our journey until 7 am, we decided to wait for the shuttle and set off on foot towards the center. On the way, we observed the surroundings, we noticed that the water pipes were installed right next to the sidewalks, nothing was buried in the ground, the electrical wiring looked like a spider web, and there was trash everywhere. After about 2 km, a taxi driver offered us a ride, and I knew from the start that it wouldn't work without negotiating the price. I offered him 3 times less than if I had gotten into a taxi in front of the airport and he accepted the offer. For the trip to the ferry terminal, which was a good 10 km away, we paid 200 php or just under 4 euros in our currency, which was more than a good deal for us, and apparently for him too. The price of gasoline here costs about a euro. At the terminal from which the ferry would leave for the island of Bohol, we managed to agree that instead of 7 am, we would depart at 5 am. So we spent our first sleepless night, and boarded the ferry. These are ferries for people, not for vehicles, and the journey took just under 2 hours. When we arrived on the island of Bohol, we had to wait a few hours for the next ferry to our starting point in the Philippines, the island of Siquijor, which lies south of Cebu.

We arrived around 11:30 am and my friend Božidar was already waiting for us at the terminal. We loaded our luggage into his semi-truck, and he drove us to our place of residence where we would spend a few days. We rented a room with a bathroom right on the coast, the room had a bed and a table, and one part was fenced off with bamboo trunks behind which the sink and toilet were hidden. We immediately set off to explore the nearby beach and took a dip in the warm sea. The sea in the Philippines is somewhere above 26 degrees and up to 30 degrees there.

The next morning we walked to the diving center that Božo owns, 7 minutes away, and in the meantime we observed how people live in the area. The diving center is called Dive Point Siquijor and is located right on the coast. The center looks very nice at first glance, because it is built of bamboo, the roof is covered with leaves, everything is so natural. All the diving equipment is hanging on special racks, everything is neatly stacked, including diving cylinders and a compressor for filling. In the middle there is a table, chairs, a TV screen where diving stuff is spinning, in short, it is nicely arranged. There is also a boat moored in front of the coast, which is adapted for divers.

Natalija decided at home to start her open water diver course there, or after school SSI OWD, which stands for Open Water Diver. Although she had already studied the book for the course at home, I had already explained some things to her, and they immediately started with the theory. Since I have been diving myself since 2009, I went diving with an American, Will, whom I met there. We prepared our diving equipment, armed ourselves with additional lights, which we use when exploring holes in the wall or between corals and to illuminate certain parts when filming. We both also took a GoPro camera with which I recorded memories and shared some beautiful moments with the rest of you. We went into the water right from the shore, the entire coast looks like there is about 50 to 100 m of completely shallow water up to your knees, and then you reach the edge of the coral reef, where a high wall separates it from the deep. There we dived right next to the wall to a depth of about 20 m and explored what was hidden in the depths. I noticed that there were a lot of different, colorful fish, corals of all shapes and sizes, and quite a few large turtles swam by. I love watching them swim easily, how they move with their swings and look like a bird flying through the air. You are not allowed to touch the corals and turtles, but you can watch and admire them. After a good hour of diving, we returned to the center and Natalija had already mastered some of the basics of theory. She also learned about diving equipment.

We spent most of the next 3 days in this context, the diving course and then diving itself. On the last day, she also did the written part of the theory and the practical part and thus became a new diver. With this exam, she obtained the title of open water diver, with which you can officially dive up to 18 m deep. Finally, we all went diving together on the last day by boat, to other locations, less than an hour away. With this, we concluded our diving on the island of Siquijor and both entered a few new dives in our dive logs. In the meantime, I filmed Božidar a little bit of the center and the location with a drone, and later made a short animation with my phone so that he could use it for promotion. As a thank you, Božo offered me free use of the equipment and the dives.

Since we were staying on the island for less than 2 days, we agreed and rented a scooter with which we went to explore the island the next day. We got up early in the morning and set off. First, it took us about an hour and a half to get to the other end of the island, and in between we observed how the people on this island live. Along the road, we noticed quite a few fenced areas with special canopies, and under them were roosters tied to their legs, which are used here for fighting. During the journey, we also noticed some rice fields, and above all, lots of huts and people who live right next to the road. When we arrived on the other side of the island, we first went to visit the famous Salagdoong beach, which is famous for jumping from cliffs deep into the water. Of course, when we first visited a landmark, we found out that there were certain taxes, called "fees", for everything. These are like fees that you pay per person, for a motorbike, before boarding a ferry, in short, for all sorts of things. Since it was a short day, we went further, where we went to visit the "Cambugahay falls". We climbed the hill and a lady met us at the parking lot, where you leave your motorbike and of course pay a fee, then we went towards the entrance, where the path to the waterfalls is, where we paid the fee or entrance fee again. We went down the steep stairs and saw beautiful blue waterfalls in front of us. These waterfalls are arranged in several levels, along which warm water flows. There were some locals by the water, selling and baking various things. It's interesting that when you walk on the stones of the waterfalls, they don't slide at all, as if someone had cleaned all that slimy algae off them. Since it's all in the shade, and it's really pleasant by the water, we stayed there for a while, then returned to our paradise by the coast. An interesting thing that we noticed on the way is that there are a lot of dogs along the road, but as if they were all socialized, not one of them jumps onto the road, not one of them barks, and what's a lot, really a lot, is the honking. They honk for every little thing. When I later asked Božot why they honk so much, he explained it to me like this: they honk to warn people, and if you have a traffic accident, they'll ask if you honked? You did the right thing by honking, because you warned people, and that's why you don't get into trouble. So since then, I've been honking on similar occasions.

The next day we had a ferry from Siquijor Island, but it wasn't without complications. The day before we had agreed to return the motorbike at 10am, and ordered a tricycle to take us to the terminal about 20km away. When we brought the motorbike back, the tricycle wasn't there yet. And everything started to get delayed, because our ferry was supposed to leave at 12.30pm, and the tricycle arrived at 10.30pm, but the next problem that arose was that when we borrowed it I had to leave my passport there, and the owner forgot that we had left, and went to the other end of the island to the bank, with my passport with her. We called her and told her that we would miss the ferry, so she quickly started to return, well I wouldn't exactly say quickly, because she came back almost 1 hour before our ferry left. Finally, all three of us, along with the driver, loaded onto the tricycle and "rushed" towards the ferry. However, in a completely Filipino way, without any panic or speed, he immediately turned off the road and into a gas station 3 minutes later. The minutes passed, and we were already nervous about whether we would manage to get there on time. The tricycle ride was downright disastrous, the speed was perhaps a bit faster than I would have gone on a bicycle myself, through steep climbs, and I thought I would have to jump out and help push. A little after 12 o'clock, we finally managed to arrive after more than half an hour of travel to the port. There, we were again chasing the last minutes, because we had to check in and pay the fee. We only managed to make it a minute or so before departure, and finally sailed to the island of Bohol.

After about an hour of sailing, we arrived at the Tagbilaran port and walked to a room 2.5 km away, which we had booked in advance through the Agoda mobile application. This city has a population of about 100,000 people, and the roads were incredibly crowded, so we barely crossed the road a few times. After walking for about a kilometer, we were already sorry that we hadn't immediately rented a tricycle to take us around, so we were burning in the hot sun, and I had the feeling that the meters here were longer than they are here. When we arrived at our destination, we settled into a room that we were thrilled with, because it had everything we needed or wanted. A room with its own bathroom, air conditioning, and television. In the evening, we headed back to the coast with the intention of renting a scooter to go around the island. After walking for 2 km, a man on a scooter pulled up next to us and asked us if we could rent a motorbike, as if he knew what we were looking for, but we pretended not to be interested, and he immediately started lowering the price. We decided that we might as well take it for the whole 2 days, so I offered him my price and asked him if he wanted to rent a motorbike or not. Of course, he couldn't say no, and so we agreed on 600 php, which is about 12 euros. He told us to get on the motorbike and he would take us to the garage where they rent them out. We looked at each other and asked if he thought the three of us would ride on one motorbike, he said yes without surprise, we looked at each other once and laughed and then got on the motorbike. He took us to the scooter, where we also got helmets, I signed the rental papers, but I had to leave one document. Since I wasn't keen on leaving documents, and because I had already asked about these things before leaving, I took my 20-year-old student card with me, and they were happy with it without any problems, and I was more so. In the evening, we made a plan for the next day in the room, what we would go see and looked on the map how far it was to each place. In the morning we immediately set off towards the interior of the island of Bohol, where we went to see monkey-like animals, basically they are primates, which are already called therzije. We arrived a few minutes before opening, together with 3 other tourists we sat in a special house, where the guide told us what they are, what is allowed and what is not, and how they behave, and then she took us on a tour. Therzije are primates, similar to monkeys, for their size they have extremely large eyes, which are even larger than their brains. They are very shy and practically do not move, so you are not allowed to get too close during the tour, and you also have to be very quiet. They allow you to take pictures of them, but you are not allowed to use a flash. They live on tree branches, and if the guide had not shown us where they are, we would definitely not have seen them. She showed us 5 different ones, on individual branches. After the tour, we decided not to venture into the interior of Bohol, because the island is big and there are no other special attractions to see or they are too far away. We went back to where we were staying, continued our journey across the bridge to Panglao Island, where we first visited the underground cave of Hinagdanan. You go down the narrow stairs into the cave, and the middle of the cave is flooded with water. Natural light comes in through a small opening in the ceiling. While visiting the cave, when I was taking pictures, I heard something familiar, and we were two Slovenians. After visiting the cave, we drove around the island to Momo beach. The beach was beautiful, sandy and empty, only a few locals were nearby. We took a few photos, then went on to a more touristy beach called Alona beach. Wherever we drove, they wouldn't let us park, or they wanted to pay a parking fee. After a few minutes of searching, we gave up, paid the parking fee, and headed to the beach. Since it's a more touristy beach, there were quite a few restaurants, diving centers, and lots of locals offering us boat trips. The price of the trip was initially 1500 php and he walked next to us for about 100 m, lowering the price, so that in the end the price was only 750 php, but we still didn't decide to go on the trip. We arrived at the beach, it was beautiful, wherever you looked, you could see a beautiful white sandy beach, and every now and then tourists sunbathing or swimming in the water. We went to the end of the beach, where there were no people and we had almost the entire back part of the beach to ourselves. First, we went into the water, where we snorkeled and enjoyed the warm sea. We stayed there for a few hours, and since I also had a drone with me, I made a few flights to have as a memory. Since the day was coming to an end, we went back, and later, when night had fallen, we visited a shopping mall not far from us. The mall was huge, on three floors. On the top floor there were more than half the smartphone stores, on the middle level there were a few clothing stores and fast food restaurants. And right below was a large self-service store, with 60 cash registers. When we saw how big it was, we thought there would be no problems here and we would get whatever we wanted, but we soon realized that we were out of luck. They had all kinds of fruit, which we bought, but nowhere did they have salami, pate, cheese like we do here. Just piles of various canned goods, 100 types of chips and various instant things. We bought a few things anyway, and then next to the shop we bought some bread-like products in the bakery. The bread here is not even remotely like ours, because all the bread is very sweet. Next to the center, there was also a market open, which we went to shop a bit, but we didn't stay long, because the smell was unbearable. The next morning we went back to Panglao Island, where we visited two more very beautiful beaches and spent the day there. We enjoyed the whole day on the beach, I filmed some of the coast with a drone, but we spent a lot of time in the water and mostly in the shade, because the sun is really hot here. After a nice day, we returned to our apartment, and in the evening I went to the center by myself, where I had to return the scooter, and then I walked back. At the reception we ordered a tricycle for early in the morning, with which we would go to the port. We got up at 4:30 in the morning, packed up, and then hoped for our transportation, but this time it wasn't without complications either. Because there was no tricycle, and the receptionist said she would go look for it, we waited at the reception, and when I started looking around, I noticed that the receptionist, about 150 m away, was standing and waiting on the main road. I thought she was waiting for someone to come by and stop him. I thought that maybe it would be better to arrange transportation myself, because we were again at the departure time from the port. We took our luggage and headed to the main road and then on foot towards the city center, luckily we found transportation a little further on.

We took the ferry back to Cebu Island and took a taxi to the airport. Of course, I had to use my condition here too, because the taxi driver wanted to charge us for the mileage and would probably drive us somewhere around town, but I made it clear to him whether you're going for the agreed amount or just leave. From Cebu Airport, we flew to Palawan Island in Puerto Princesa with Air Asia. The flight lasted a good hour, and in front of the airport, various transportation to certain locations was already waiting. We found a van to take us to El Nido, which is 5 hours away, which is located in the north of the island. We paid 700 php per person for the transportation, and there were 12 of us in the van, so there wasn't much space. Halfway there was a stop for half an hour, where we stopped by the road, where they offered us something to eat. We continued our journey and after 5 hours arrived in El Nido. El Nido is surrounded by high mountains, which give it its charm.

In front of the hotel where we were staying, they offered various tours that took you by boat to certain locations. We agreed to go on tours, 2 days in a row, namely tours A and C. At 9 am, we met the lady, and she took us to the beach, where we each got our own mask and snorkel. About 20 of us tourists and a few crew members got on the boat. On the back of the boat, they had a special corner, like a kind of kitchen, where they started to grill fish. We boarded the boat by bringing the vessel almost to the shore, and lowering special stairs. We walked in a column through the water and climbed onto the boat. Not far after setting sail, when we sailed around the mountain, one of the most beautiful scenes opened up before us, with a sandy beach in the background and tall coconut palms. There we had our first stop, where we enjoyed the beach. The whole trip lasted 6 hours and we visited 5 different locations. In between the trips, we visited another beach where they prepared food for us, which they had previously prepared on the boat in a special place at the back. When we returned, we found out that a virus had appeared at home and that we would have to leave the Philippines early.

The next day we agreed on a similar trip. It was Saturday and we had a scheduled return flight to Cebu on Monday, so we used the day for tour C. Since some had already had the opportunity to return to other islands, the number of tourists decreased significantly in one day, mainly flying from the smaller airport in El Nido. There were 8 of us on tour C, and we also visited 5 different locations. How beautiful it is, the pictures and videos that I took, and also filmed some locations with a drone, tell the most. There were a lot of jellyfish in the sea, and Natalia was also attacked by a fish that bit her until she bled, and then another tourist, so we quickly got out of the sea.

After the trip, when we got back, where we had wifi, we started to wonder what was going on with our tickets that we had booked for home. They were all active, and we read online about the problems that were occurring in individual territories. We checked if there was a case of the virus in Turkey, because we were flying with Turkish airlines, but they didn't have the virus, so we hoped that we wouldn't have any major problems. In the evening, I got a message that our flight to Cebu was canceled. We didn't know what to do, so we decided to rent a scooter and rush to the airport in El Nido in the morning, and we also found a ferry to Cebu, with 2 intermediate islands. Right in the place where we were staying, we went to the airport information point, where they directed us to visit the airport, because their system had crashed. We drove to the airport right away in the morning, and there we were surprised by the sight: there were a few hundred people in front of the building, all waiting for the plane, but there was no room for everyone. We had no choice but to head back on the 5-hour journey to Puerto Princesa, as the ferries had not left either. Through a Slovenian living in the Philippines, we arranged for him to arrange transportation for us back. As soon as we returned, we visited the airport, and there were a few hundred people at the terminal waiting for a flight. In the meantime, we booked a place to stay right next to the airport through the Agoda app. After a few hours of waiting in line, they informed us that they would organize some flights from the island anyway, and so arranged transportation for us back to Cebu Island for the next day. We went to our place to stay and went for a short walk in the evening. The next day, we had to wait for our flight, which was in the middle of the day. Despite everything, we were happy that we were returning as planned, so to speak.

We returned to Cebu, where there is an international airport, so we thought it wouldn't be difficult to fly home from there. However, immediately after landing, we realized when we looked at the flight screen that all flights were canceled. We had no choice but to go to the information desk and try to find out the real situation. Since the airport was full of people and everyone wanted information, we were given a slip of paper, similar to how a blood laboratory works in our country, with which we waited for our turn. We waited for a few hours, and it was already getting dark, but we still waited until it was our turn. Unfortunately, all we found out was what we had already found out ourselves, that the flights were canceled and that there were no scheduled flights. Since we still had active tickets through Turkish, we tried to see if there was any option to reschedule the flight. We couldn't get to the international airport because we didn't have active tickets for the flight, and since it was evening and all the information desks were closed, we stayed in front of the airport overnight. As much as we could, we slept on nearby benches, and towards morning, directly under the information desk. As the day began to dawn, crowds of people soon began to appear, and I was determined to stay first in line and not move from the Emirates counter, because this company was the only one that still had flights. Next to this counter was a general information counter, and people were looking for any news, and there were also some harsh words. For example, I remember well how one foreigner came and got really upset, claiming that he had bought a plane ticket in the evening, which he had of course overpaid for, and within a couple of hours received a notification that the flight had been cancelled and that they would not refund the money. Of course, I understand it very well, so I didn't want to risk such a risky purchase myself, when you already know in advance that the planes are not flying, but they offer tickets online. But when you checked directly with the carrier, there was no flight. My information window was supposed to open at 8 a.m., but it was almost 9 a.m. and there was still no sign or sound of any movement on the other side of the window. While Natalija and I were waiting and talking, I heard a voice that sounded like Slovenian, I immediately redirected my attention and, lo and behold, two men appeared, speaking Slovenian. Since I was the first in line, they approached me and asked in English when it would open, and I answered them in Slovenian, but at first they didn't understand at all, then I repeated it, we looked at each other and realized that we were compatriots. They told us where they were from, where they were going and what they were doing here. They said that they had come to check their flight home in a few days, even though it had not been canceled. During the conversation, they also gave us useful information about where in Cebu you can extend your visa and how much it costs. Since they didn't have the information and didn't open it, we agreed that we would let them know if there were any news. So, we had to wait not only the previous day, all night, but also until 11 am for the window to open. There were already about 100 people in line behind us, and when we finally got to be the first in line, we learned that the only flight that was still operating was fully booked. We stayed at the airport for a while, talking to other foreigners, observing the situation, and then decided that we had to leave.

The day before and that day we didn't eat anything because there was nowhere to get food in front of the airport, so we set off on foot towards the city center with the idea of ​​getting some food first. After 5 minutes of walking, a man with a private car drove past us and spoke to us through the window, asking if we would like to take a ride with him, offering us a ride for 2500 php. Since we thought he was a taxi driver, we didn't want to talk to him, but the man kept insisting, so we asked him what he was offering us, and found out that it was a private car, which happened to be going to Moalboal, a place we had secretly wanted to visit. So we agreed to take the ride for 1000 php instead of 2500 and used the ride, without getting any food again. Moalboal is a more touristy town on the other side of the island, which is very popular, home to many turtles and whole schools of sardines. The most sensible thing for us seemed to be to move out of the city of 3 million people to somewhere where we could get cheap accommodation and there wouldn't be so many people. I sent an email to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking for their help, because we couldn't do more than what we had done up until then. After a two-hour drive through curves, hills, and valleys, we arrived in Moalboal. We booked the cheapest accommodation for the next 2 days through the Agoda mobile app. Even then, we decided not to book more than a couple of days in advance, because we didn't know how long or where we would be. We asked our driver to take us all the way to the coast, because carrying 30 kg on our shoulders in 33-degree heat is not easy. First, we went to the first restaurant and ordered the long-awaited food. Since we hadn't eaten much for a while, we didn't need much to be full. We had accommodation just a few meters away, so we could quickly settle into our room. All tired, we took some time to rest and started browsing the internet, hoping to find some transportation. We searched for other Slovenians in the Philippines on Facebook and signed up for various groups, such as airline tickets, Slovenians in the Philippines, cheap travel around the world, and carefully checked various information. The next day, I received an email from the MFA, telling me to fill out a form on their website, which I did. Since we had shared accommodation, we also had to change room accommodations. Through Facebook, we found out that there was another girl from Slovenia, Eva, close to us, so we contacted her and arranged to meet. Since we knew that we would definitely have to stay in this place for a day, we also borrowed a scooter, with which we planned to visit some interesting places in the area the next day. The MFA informed us that they had received our form, and asked us if we were still in the Philippines. I replied with the current situation, and then they said that they were exploring the possibilities of returning, but that we should also contact the embassies in Austria and Germany, which we did. Right in the morning, we headed towards the Kawasan Falls, which were already closed due to the situation that had begun in connection with the virus. Since we knew that we wouldn't be able to get to them via the standard route, we used maps to find a shortcut and took it to bypass the standard entrance. The route led us along a steep, narrow path, as long as the scooter could still pull. The path was really steep, we left the scooter on the path and continued on foot, but a motorbike soon followed us and two men on foot, who told us that the path was closed and we had to go back to the valley. Since we didn't want to cause any trouble, we obeyed and returned. Our trip ended like this. On the way back, we tried our luck with a canyoning trip, but it was also closed. We returned to Moalboal, and together with Eva and the Slovenian Igor, who has his own resort there, we went by scooter to another waterfall, which was supposedly not so touristy, but we didn't have any luck there either. On the way home, we also visited the famous White Beach, which I also filmed with a drone. We spent a few days in this place, in between we moved to another resort, where they offered us breakfast for a similar price. They also called us from the embassy in Tokyo, where they told us that we had made the right decision to leave the city and that we should wait there until they found a solution or we could find it ourselves. For the first few days, we were still able to swim in front of our resort, where every time we swam in the sea, we met turtles and schools of sardines. There were really a lot of turtles, and we enjoyed swimming among them, as well as in schools of sardines. There were so many sardines that if you dived a few meters under them for a breath, it was almost dark because the light couldn't get through, but then you swam directly into the school, and before you there appeared like a tunnel to the light. An incredible experience that I will never forget, because there really are thousands of sardines.

We were in contact with friends back home the whole time, who helped us as much as they could by calling the travel agency through which we bought the tickets, and by calling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Every day that we were there, things got tougher. First, they introduced a curfew and restrictions on movement, as we were no longer allowed to go into the sea or to the beaches. Police officers with long-barreled weapons and bulletproof vests began patrolling the beaches, and when you looked at all this, it looked like a state of war. Various boats were patrolling the water, both coast guard and rescue boats and the like. We no longer dared to go to the beach, because I saw them handcuffing a tourist who decided to snorkel off the coast. There were both police and the army on the streets. Various room providers started closing their resorts, some bars closed, and there were fewer and fewer people to be seen. There were quite a few tourists chatting, but we were all mainly waiting for some additional flights or rescue flights back home. In Moalboal, we also met a family of 4 who later got a flight home through the MFA, I think with Czechs or Slovaks. Since families with children, the elderly, and the disabled had priority over us, we were left without a flight. The next day, I remember, Eva also got a flight on a German rescue flight, but when she was supposed to head to the airport, they canceled it. The impatience intensified with the ban on bars, because you could only order food to take home, and most bars were closed. To make things not too easy, they threw us out on the street one day because we didn't have a document that no one told us we had to get. Over the phone, I spoke to the owner of the rooms, who was German by the way, and promised her that we would go immediately to get the necessary permits. With the Slovenian Igor, we agreed that he would lend us a scooter, with which we went a few km away to a tourist organization, where they measured our body temperature, we had to give all our information, tell and write down the entire history of our trip, and then they issued us a special certificate with which we returned to the resort. We were in daily contact by phone or email with the embassy in Tokyo, but there was no progress. Things got so far that a "lockdown" was being prepared, which meant that all public transport would be suspended, and movement outside the resort would be restricted. They told us that we also had to arrange a special permit, which only one of us would be able to get, with which you would be able to leave the resort and go somewhere to get food. In Moalboal, we met another Slovenian, Maja, who was spending half a year there as a diving instructor. In Tokyo, they assured us that we were on the waiting list with the Germans, and if there was a place available, we would be able to go with them, but they told us that there were 2 older Slovenians on the island with some problems and that they had priority over us and Eva. We were preparing for the worst, how could we just be locked up in our room, where there was no television or private bathroom, and wait for what would happen in the future. I received an email from the Austrian embassy saying that we had a confirmed "sweeper" flight from Cebu to Manila and immediately contacted the embassy in Tokyo and asked them what this meant now, whether we might have a solution to get home or if it was just a flight to the capital. Since they didn't know anything about it and asked me if we had registered ourselves, we replied that we had registered at various embassies, as they had already said to us a week ago. We had to wait for them to check with the Austrian embassy whether we might have a confirmed flight home. Since there was only one day left before the traffic was closed, despite the fact that we still had paid for our overnight stay, we packed our luggage and waited for an answer as to whether we needed to leave Moalboal quickly and head for the airport. The flight to Manila was scheduled for 5:30 PM, and it was already almost 11 AM, so we were impatient. They informed us that the flight to Vienna was also confirmed, and that Natalija, Eva, and I had confirmed flights. We quickly arranged transportation and headed for the airport. It took us a few hours, there were already roadblocks on the roads, but we didn't have any major problems, since we had a ticket for the rescue flight in hand. We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before takeoff.

Before sunset we boarded the plane and flew to the capital of the Philippines, Manila. Eva also contacted the honorary consul in Manila, and he arranged a hotel for us to stay in for an extra day, and then go home. A driver came to the terminal to pick us up, put us in the car, and took us to the hotel. We spent an extra day at the hotel, and Jan from Panglao Island and Anja joined us. The hotel was right next to the airport, so I could watch all the planes that were still on the ground through the window. Our flight to Austria was scheduled for the day after tomorrow at 1:30 in the morning. However, we had to check in at the airport at 4 in the afternoon. The airport was crowded, and it took a few hours to check in so we could go to the plane. We had been at the airport since almost 3pm, when we learned that a plane with 8 people on board had crashed while landing at 8pm, killing all of them. I immediately checked the local news and realized that there was probably no flight for us that night. At 2 am they opened the gates, and we were all waiting for something, the pilot of the Austrian plane stepped in front of us and told us about the accident, and that it would take 2-3 hours to clear the runway, but he immediately told us that as far as he knew the conditions, it would not be just a couple of hours but a day or so. For Austria, this was also a historic moment, because never in the history of flights had an Austrian plane taken off and landed in the Philippines. All together, they then transported us to the hotel in vans and various other means of transport, where we then waited for information about the flight home. Apparently the clock had not moved with us, because it only showed a 6-hour difference. Since we didn't go to bed until 3:30 am, we slept a little longer in a luxury hotel paid for by the Austrian embassy, ​​at least that's how we got the message. At 9 am, room service woke us up, and since there is a lockdown in Manila and we are not allowed to go out, they delivered breakfast to our rooms. We spent the day in bed in front of the TV and waited for news about our flight. At 1:10 pm, I got a call in my room that we had to be at the reception at 1:30 pm because we would be taken to the airport. They took our temperatures again in front of the airport, and then we went through various controls to the terminal. We had to check in again, they separated us into 4 columns and by the initials of our last names. For the second time, we got a stamp in our passports that we were leaving the Philippines. Luck was on our side this time and at 6 pm, we started boarding the plane. Before the flight, we also had to sign a statement that we were returning home from Austria directly with only isolation, and fill in the bank account details to pay for the flight home, and the price was twice the price we had originally paid through the agency. We flew to Hanoi, Vietnam, where we waited for about an hour on the plane, where others joined us, and then continued our journey to Vienna together.

On March 31st, we arrived at Vienna airport at 5 am, and the entire terminal was empty, because there were no other passengers at the airport. That day was also the 18th day since we started heading home. It took us a long 18 days to get this flight. At the airport, we booked a train ticket to Graz via a mobile app and then to the Šentilj border crossing.

The first train was immediately canceled, so after a phone conversation, they told us to take the first train that would leave, that there was no problem, due to the current situation. We arrived at the final station at exactly 12 noon and walked to the border crossing 2.5 km away. There, the police stopped us, asked us where we were coming from and let us go on, and on our side, we each arranged our own transportation, and so we returned home. After the phone conversation, I called my doctor, they asked me if I had any symptoms, and that they had nothing else to tell me. So I'm staying home now, where I'll have time to review the pictures, videos, and rest from all this traveling and the jet lag. Definitely a special experience, where I learned who real friends are, who come to your aid regardless of the situation, and also a lot of accusations, especially from people who, in my opinion, are very limited in their thinking and actions. To quickly summarize everything, I set off on my journey on March 2nd when there was no concern about the virus, the whole of Slovenia was functioning completely normally. On March 6th, the first case appeared, when I was already 12,000 km away from home, and on March 13th, I saw that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was calling for citizens to return home, and I immediately started returning. Unfortunately, some people do not want to understand and do not know the situation in such places. The Philippines is almost as far in size as Ljubljana to Moscow and has over 7,100 islands and over 105 million inhabitants. For such a distance, from where I was at the moment the situation arose to home, it would have taken me about 4 to 5 days if everything had gone normally. This trip will definitely remain in my memory forever, and the next time I visit these places again, it will be a trip by water.