Bus departure from Phnom Penh to Hochiminh City at 8.45AM, it spends about 6 hours and cost 10$ per one way. We spent a day for lunch, visited some local markets and sightseeing. Ben Tanh market is the one ancient local market, you need to do bargain as always. In Hochiminh City Pham Ngu Lao street is the foreigners block and so crowed, many people keep moving around, bar, pub, restaurant and brand name such Starbucks, Burger king, Lotteria, McDonald so on….and the next road of Pham Ngu Lao you can find tons of small pubs along the street, they play loud music there.
On 29th October, we took off to Manila, Capital city of Philippine. Manila airport is quite big. No one really like staying even a night in Manila, some people they told me Manila was the worst city in the world, well it depends on people’s experiences. In personally, I think Hanoi is the worst ones for me.
Next day, flew to Cebu, city of islands. The accommodations there are pretty expensive if you comparing to Cambodia, it cost about 60USD per night, that I could get only 25USD in Phnom Penh. They had like the cheaper one but extremely ugly and dusty with the broken bathroom haha,,,, I think it was not the place for people to stay.
When you are there in Philippine no worry about how to deal with them, they speak pretty good English many street foods with cheaper price but it was a bit small portion. I got the hard time with their foods like chicken, pork and fat meat were everywhere, people there seem really enjoy with their foods, morning serve with chicken, lunch with chicken and dinner with chicken again, I can’t stand with it.
We spent some time in Cebu, took a day tour with the map.me APP. Then, we took a local bus up and down in City when we did not even know where to stop. I could not find the nightlife around my staying this was bring my mood down.
Early morning headed to Cebu pier about 45 minutes from town by taxi, many express boats work almost every one hour from Cebu to Bohol. So, you don’t have to worry about the transport to Bohol. Express boats will cost you 15-25USD it depended on the class you take. We are traveling on budget so we could not afford to the price they want, we were trying looking for the good cost to Bohol. Later, had one guy came up and take us to MV Star boat, it was pretty cheap just 7USD for one way. We stayed at one hostel I did not remember the name, it was located at Tubingo district, far away from downtown about 30Km, but it was easy to take a local bus for every hour within 3USD only.
Chocolate hill is the best scenery in Bohol, along the way to Chocolate hill [CHAP] was like the activities place or kind of resort for zip bike and fitness test center. We rented [tuk tuk], Tuk Tuk here is the name of transportation, spent like a whole day with price 20USD. We spent for the entrance ticket was 25USD including zip bike and other activities in CHAP. Zip bike was the amazing game ever to me, I could not even explain it. I felt like I might be no tomorrow to see my lovely mom and family when I rode the bike on zip line, more than 100 meters deep down. My feeling was flying away to somewhere I did not know. It was the first time and last time for me to do this crazy game, god save me, was excited overwhelm.
Panglao island is the most beautiful beach, with white sand and clear water. I got into water I could see very clear in the bottom. The Dumaloan and Alona beach was recommended by the handsome tuk tuk driver. He was really nice guy and helpful, he spoke a bit English but good enough to understand.
Alona beach had more white people than local people. In Philippine, they are separately between local and foreigner places. In Dumaloan beach they have a lot of activities to play such, kayaking, swing boat, banana boat and flying boat, quite cheaper here to enjoy those activities.
After two hours swimming, we back to Tubingon pier where we stayed and took boat to Cebu. Actually, we were planning to celebrated Halloween’s day in Philippine but it was disappointed so much they did not make any parties or some costumes dressing or ghost make up.
