Our day started with a 4 hour taxi from Oslob to Cebu City. We opted to get a bed and breakfast by the airport for a less stressful travel day to Manila which was an early flight the following day. We did not do much in Cebu City. We got Jollibee again, and walked the street outside our accommodations. Our time in the Philippines was slowly coming to an end which was sad.

After an early morning flight we finally made it to our last stop of Manila. We flew over a volcano crater which was beautiful. It was time for the taxi to our hotel, smooth sailing from there, or so we thought. This was the only time we were obviously being scammed in our time in the Philippines. The yellow airport taxis have a stand at the airport with set metered prices, probably to reduce tourists being scammed. However Nick noticed that the metered price was 4x higher than what it should’ve been. We asked how the fair was calculated and the taxi driver started to go off on a long rant. If we wanted a cheap taxi we should take Grab or a white taxi, the yellow taxis have to wait so long for customers, gas is expensive, the list went on and on.

We asked for a receipt and immediately found the issue. He was charging us for 62km even though we only drove for 12km. I quickly took a photo of the receipt which was good because the driver took it back. Nick told him we would pay for 12km and the taxi driver tried to put our bags back into the cab. We grabbed our belongings and told him we were not getting back into his car.

He threatened to take us to the police which we were happy to do because he was the one in the wrong. Luckily there was a nearby neighborhood office that had people who could moderate the situation for us.

Luckily the taxi was the spiciest encounter we had during our month in the Philippines. We had a smooth hotel check in, did a workout (a rarity on this trip) and had a fancy dinner celebrating Nick’s 30th birthday early. We tried the tasting menu at Toyo Eatery. It was 8 courses with a total of 22 dishes. Our favorite was the clam mousse, it was divine. It was fun getting to try so many elevated Filipino dishes and local vegetables. There were a few dishes we did not enjoy as much but overall it was yummy. The photos are of some of our favorites. We also show the full menu.

After a 3 hour sleep our alarms went off at 2am for our hiking activity. Our van picked us up from the hotel at 2:30am for the 2 hour drive to the military check point. After confirming we had the right paperwork and they were satisfied with our passports we continued on. There was an area where all the hikers had to wait, sign waivers, get their mandatory hike guide, and be assigned to a jeep. This is where I sat and ate my breakfast in the dark.

Our hiking guide was efficient and got us in the first jeep of the day. It was a 1 hour drive through beautiful marsh land that had water buffalo and cranes. There were many river crossings and the road was bumpy. We had a quick stop to stretch the legs and the guide wanted to take our photo. He took it with his phone and we never got it which was pretty funny. There were two pigs who somehow managed to knock down the chicken cage from its post and were rolling it around. The poor chicken was clearly annoyed. Our guide put the chicken cage back up out of reach.

Finally at 6:40am we started our hike of Mt. Pinatubo. The hike was 4 miles out and back, or 6.4km. It had little elevation gain so it was incredibly easy. The trail was through a dry riverbed, had a few creek crossings, then through a lush forest with many ferns.

It was incredible getting there first as we had the place all to ourselves. It took us 45 minutes to get to the top with the view of the crater lake. We took photos, went down to the water, then back up for some food. We were there alone for almost 30 minutes. The water had reflections of the mountains too.

On the drive back to the van parking lot we got stopped for over an hour. The area is used by the military (hence the military checkpoint) and the US and Philippines air forces were doing training. Nick made friends with a goat by giving it some scratches while we waited. We had originally booked the hike as an overnight in order to also do some waterfall hikes in the area but due to the military presence that is no longer allowed. The craziest part is that the original itinerary with meals, an overnight, and more hiking was the same cost as our updated itinerary with just one hike and no food. Their margins must be great! I slept the whole van ride back to our hotel.

We had one last day in Manila which we used for logistics. Nick and I also went to a restaurant called Bugis Singapore Street Food for lunch. We tried the char kuey teow, laksa, and pork siomai. The mango shake was my favorite but the food was good too. Overall we enjoyed our time in the Philippines and were looking forward to our next country.