MoFate's Drop in the Bucket List: July 2017

Camiguin is a tiny island in the Central Visayas/Mindanao region of the Philippines in the Bohol Sea. Yes, its a pain in the butt to get to. But its totally worth it! Camiguin is best managed island we've seen in South-east Asia. Each tourist site is taken care of by government employees who provide receipts for everything, there are trashcans everywhere which people actually use, and facilities are well maintained. The resorts also have helped make the island "more eco" by not using straws and limiting the use of plastic, which really shows. The sea surrounding Camiguin is so much cleaner than Bali and Lombok.

In addition to the general cleanliness, Camiguin is great because the island doesn't survive on tourism. People actually live here. Which means that prices are super reasonable (see below) and locals aren't looking to make a buck off you at every turn. The food is also surprisingly good because many expats have settled down in Camiguin and opened up resort+restaurants. There's plenty to do like hiking one of the seven volcanoes on the island, scuba diving, free diving, riding around on scooters for sightseeing, snorkeling with giant clams, and taking a boat to tiny Mantigue Island nearby for beach chilling. We spent nine days here from July 17th to 26th.

Things to know if you visit

If you're travelling in from outside the Philippines, your cheapest path is probably going to be through Cebu City. CebuGo has a daily flight to Camiguin at the convenient time of 5:25am. You can also take a ferry from Bohol.
Getting from the airport to your hotel/homestay is straightforward. Once you step out of the tiny airport, you'll be greeted by several local tricycle or jeepney drivers. They know all of the homestays on the island and there are fixed prices for getting a jeepney to yourself (called "special ride") written on a board. But you can also take a jeepney with others and the price is a like 1/10th.
Getting around the island is once again done by scooters/motorcycles. Its actually a pretty good island to learn if you aren't too comfortable with handling a scooter since traffic is light and the main road is well maintained. A scooter from our Airbnb cost 250 php/day ($5.)
We paid $18/night for an Airbnb (Mountain View Cottages) that included an A/C room, bathroom, and attached kitchen. Definitely recommend staying here since the staff are very welcoming, the A/C is powerful, and the kitchen is super helpful for cooking up breakfast.
Things to recommend doing while here include:

Scuba diving - Black Forest and Old Volcano are our favorite sites. Johnny's Dive N Fun has good prices. The instructor Fate had was good but he's a freelancer. The divemasters are Johnny's are locals who know what they are doing but don't expect the full on PADI safety checks, dive planning, etc.
Tausan Falls - A nice small (<100 foot) waterfall which has several pools below it for swimming, though the water is pretty cold.
Katibawasan Falls - A much larger waterfall than Tausan with a beautiful surrounding jungle/forest that has some wild monkeys.
Giant Clam Sanctuary - Learn a bit about giant clams from the young guides and then snorkel in the sea to see the giant clams up close with a guide. A little pricey (~350php per person) but totally worth it.
Old Spanish Church Ruins - A free, quick walk around the ruins of an old church.
Ardent Hot Springs - Don't expect hot tub like waters but a good place to swim and relax in fresh water pools.
Old Volcano Walk - Provides nice views of the ocean and volcanoes. But be prepared for a steep, sweaty walk.
Katunggan Park - Walk around the mangroves and take some scenic pictures.
Mambajao Market - Get them fresh mangoes and bananas for cheap!

Our favorite restaurants include: Kurma for healthy options that are reasonably priced ($4 per entree), Guerrera's for awesome Thai and Indian flavors ($6.50 per entree), and La Dolce Vita for homemade pasta and pizza ($7 per entree).

Fun facts

A family van = a motorcycle with attached side cart
Make sure the place you rent your scooter provides actual motorcycle helmets not skateboarding helmets, which many locals support with flowery patterns painted on top. I guess they're more airy?
Old white men move to Camiguin to marry Filipinas who are around half their age.
The hippies are now all about freediving instead of scuba diving since its all natural. But don't worry, a one day class still costs $140 pp.
Sunday appears to be trash burning day on Camiguin.
Giant clams are hermaphrodites.

Summary of pictures

Mountain View Cottages

View of White Island from Paradiso Resort's Restaurant (food is meh)

Fancy vegetarian burger at Kurma

Stephen, our awesome guide at the Giant Clam Sanctuary

Another viewpoint on the main road of Camiguin

Distant view of Hibok Hibok volcano

Mangroves!

Tausan Falls

View of the Old Volcano during the torture that is Old Volcano Walk

Fate barely let Mohit take this picture due to her face melting in the heat

Agent Zahura chilling after a filling lunch at Kurma

Nemo spotted during diving

Old Spanish Church ruin

We get a 30 day visa on arrival for Indonesia, and we decided to make the most of it by spending 26 nights in the country. Our trip was divided into four major regions: Lombok, Bali, Yogyakarta (or Jogja), and Jakarta. Everyone said to skip Jakarta but Mohit insisting on visiting due to his delusions of moving to SEA in the future.

Indonesia has a fascinatingly diverse landscape. A tiny island like Lombok has great beaches, apparently awesome surf breaks (we wouldn't know but the hordes of Aussies were a tip off), beautiful reefs for diving and snorkeling, towering volcanoes to hike, and picturesque rice paddies to stroll around in. It's also quite accessible if you can ride a motorbike/scooter (but please don't try to learn in Bali.) The roads are pretty well maintained, and people follow the traffic laws (most of the time.) We were able to ride ~600km on scooters across Lombok, Bali, and Jogja. We also found the people to be very friendly and easy to talk to, even when they didn't speak much English.

From a cost perspective, the country is a great vacation spot:

$26/night for a mid-range room at non-chain hotels, homestays, and Airbnbs
$6pp for meals including an entree and drink
$5/day for automatic scooter rental
$15 for a day of snorkeling
$65 for two dives in Lombok including transportation (car + boat) - more expensive than Malaysia and Philippines but not bad compared to the US

Fun facts

Trash burning seems to common practice across Indonesia. Trash that includes plastic. So yeah... buy a mask from the drugstore.
If your Airbnb host ever tells you to check out the local "Idul fitri parade", make sure to ask her about the traffic situation in the town. Otherwise you might get stuck in the middle of the parade on a scooter for 2 hours listening to school boys and girls singing some very repetitive lyrics.
Never cheap out on a haircut in Ubud. Rule of thumb, if the "barber" has to be called in on a motorbike to the "spa" and looks like he's never used scissors on human hair before, go somewhere more expensive.
If a sketchy guy asks you "mushrooms?", he's referring to the drug.
You could have bought a few hundred square meters of land in Lombok for a motorbike about 10 years ago.
If you've ever wondered how to carry a surfboard on a scooter, just visit Kuta (either one, Lombok or Bali.)
Breaking down the tourists in Ubud: 70% women, 10% families and couples, 15% middle-aged men (looking to mac on said 70% women), 5% white people without shoes
When Czech couples tell you they're helping local business with building bamboo building, always double check to see if they're running a bamboo eco lodge business charging $140/night for stays...
Always check the proximity of your hotel to a mosque in Jogja unless you like being woken up at 4:37am for prayer
Nevada is a common brand of jeans. Unless there's a Nevada in Indonesia, we're very confused as to why Nevada jeans would be appealing here.
50% of Balinese people are named either Nyoman or Wayan.

Lombok

Senggigi (north-east) is the resort area with great access to snorkeling and diving at the nearby gilis (small islands) and Kuta (south) is a great spot for surfing. Senggigi definitely has a chiller, safer, family friendly vibe while Kuta has a frenzied, Aussie surfer bro vibe.
Getting to your hotel is best done with Blue Bird Taxi. They aren't allowed inside the airport pickup queue but you can meet your taxi in the parking lot that's just in front of the airport. Its a tiny place and we were able to find out driver even after dark.
Get a local SIM card. For 20,000 IDR ($1.50) we were able to get a Telkomsel SIM card with 2.5GB of data that lasted us the entire time in Indonesia.
Airbnbs and homestays on Agoda/Booking.com are the way to go for cheap but very decent accommodation. Most places include free breakfast which beat most American Residence Inn shitty cereal and muffins, so it's worth checking if your place offers it before booking.
Place to visit:

Scooter ride to Mt. Rinjani base with beautiful views of the volcano and rice paddies along the way
Gili Layar for snorkeling/beach laying by hiring a boat from the several family run boats here
Diving the wreck off of Senggigi
Mataram mosque at night
Beaches near Senggigi including Pentai Sentagi, Nipah, and Pandanan
Beaches near Kuta including Pentai Mawi, Selong Belank, and Pentai Tanjuan Aan

Our favorite restaurants:

Senggigi - Temptations, Omah Cobek
Kuta - Warung Flora, awesome fresh juice place right next to the Alfamart (left side if you're facing Alfamart)

Bali

Kuta (south west) is the "ruined tourist area" with a series of beautiful beaches, Ubud (central) is the Eat, Pray, Love tourist heart of Bali, and Sideman (east of Ubud) is the quiet rice paddy filled Bali we all imagine when we book our flights. Though we didn't get to visit, we hear Amed (east coast) is the divers haven for viewing awesome fish like mola mola and a deep reef called the Wall.
If staying in Ubud, try to stay away from the three main streets: Monkey Forest, Hanoman, and Raya Ubud. You can easily scooter or walk here for lunch/dinner if you stay a couple of streets away. If you want a more remote experience, try going more north towards Tegalalang. We recommend Kupu-Kupu Villa on Airbnb for ~$35/night.
Definitely take a Grab from the Airport to wherever you're staying. The local drivers in Ubud are pretty aggressive towards Grab/Uber/Gojek so they can continue their racket of ripping off tourists so getting a Grab out of Ubud can be challenge. But they're very available in Kuta along with Blue Bird Taxi, a good backup to Grab.
Places to visit:

Jatiluwih rice terraces - 40,000 IDR pp for entry to walk around the very large rice terraces. The ride from Ubud has nice country stretches and takes about 2 hours one way.
Campuhan ridge walk - free and a quick 5 minute scooter ride from central Ubud . The walk itself took around an hour with some light hill climbing. Great views of the forest filled with palm trees and ending in, you guessed it, rice paddies.
Munduk scooter ride for beautiful mountain roads with lake views ending in a quiet village (check out Jojo's Warung and ride down to Munduk Rice Terraces (walk along the path until you stumble upon a cafe - best coffee we had in Indonesia)
Sideman - chill rice paddies village on the verge of blowing up with tourism. Stay at Great Mountain View resorts.
White Sand Beach, which should be renamed Soft Sand Beach, and Karamas beach are nice day trips from Ubud. Make sure to stop at Swan Cafe at Karamas beach to watch the surfers perform nearby.

Our favorite restaurants:

Ubud - Moksa (fancy vegan food), Dayu's Warung (vegetarian Indonesianish), and JB Warung (its near Kupu-Kupu Villa)
Kuta - Warung Tujuh (Indonesian), and The Pad on Legion (breakfast)

Yogyakarta (Jogja)

Luckily no geography lesson needed for Jogja. People go here mainly to visit the two UNESCO World Heritage sites: Borobudur and Prambanan temples.
Jogja is much more densely populated than Bali or Lombok so only ride a scooter/motorcycle here if you are okay with Asian traffic. Seriously, you have to be able to weave through cars at red lights and keep up with the sea of bikes. Definitely not a place to begin learning.
Tips for visiting Borobudur and Prambanan:

Buy the combo tickets, you end up saving $20 compared to buying separately
Get to Borobudur early! The regular ticket allows entry at 6am, so get there by 6am. There will already be people in there who paid for the sunrise 4:30am access, and the hordes of locals + tourists will start arriving by 6:30am.
Take the slightly longer but non-highway route back from Borobudur to Jogja. And if you have the energy, stop by Punthuk Setumbu for a great view of the distant volcanoes.
Get to Prambanan early as well, just after an early breakfast. Many tourists end up doing Borodubur and Prambanan the same day, so Prambanan gets really busy in the afternoon (we heard.) Be sure to walk over Candi Sewa for a much emptier but no less beautiful temple in the same compound.

If you have a free day, make a day trip to Canting Mas Puncak Dipowono. Its next to Kiliburu National Park and offers great scooter ride ending in panoramic views of the Jogja countryside. The road if good except for the last few miles, which are very rocky and hilly.
Pantai Baru, a black volcanic sand beach, is also a good stop on your extra day on the way back from Dipowono. We only saw Indonesians on the beach, which was a first for us.
Our favorite restaurants included IndoChine (a Vietnamese restaurant... we don't get the name either), and Gadgah Wang (expensive but good.)