So far, Donsol had been a bit of a bust. It had been a mission to get there, and thus far the fireflies and whale sharks had been a disappointment. But we had one more creature left on our list to see — manta rays. We had arrived in the middle of peak season for the…

We had come to Donsol for one reason: to see the locally named butanding in the proudly named Whale Shark Capital of the World. Long before my plane first landed in the Philippines, when my trip was just daydreams and scrawled notes in the margins of a guidebook, this moment was what I looked forward to the…

I drifted into consciousness to the familiar hum of a plane preparing for descent. Heather and I were in the midst of a twenty-seven hour transit marathon from Sagada that would involve a bus, another bus, a cab, a flight, a trike, a minibus, and another final trike ride. This flight, which turned a twelve-hour bus…

I remember back to years ago, before I first stepped foot in Southeast Asia. I knew that geographically there were different countries here but I couldn’t help but picture them as one homogenous lump of rice, temples, and elephants. Of course, it didn’t take me long after arrival to begin to appreciate the nuances and individualities…

Has it only been a week since I last checked in? I’m traveling through the Philippines in a manner I’m not really accustomed to — at lightening speed. Generally I’m a slow, lazy traveler. I like it that way. But with only a three-week visa and so much I wanted to see, I thought I’d give…