Bolinao, Pangasinan - Wikipedia Bolinao is a town on the west coast of Luzon Island, in the northern Philippines
Same here... I'm planning to go to El Nido and Coron... hopefully by August there's something in those islands that fuels enthusiasm among tourists and my fellow countrymen
I met my wife in Malapascua. The mainland is not too far away, about 30 mins by boat. There is a hospital in Daanbantayan town, about another 30 mins, so the people are not too far away. My wife's island is further away and also does not have a clinic or hospital and it can be take up to 4 hours from the mainland when there are "big waves", 90 mins on calm waters. Her people are very self-sufficient and the last two times I went there we had to rush off the island and get our daughter to the hospital as she was suffering from 1) diarrhea then 2) heat-stroke more recently. I had travelled to Apo island just off Negros to go diving whilst my wife stayed for an extra week with her family but had to race back to the north tip of Cebu island where I saw my daughter in a hospital bed with a drip feed in her arm. Needless to say, my wife doesn't want to take our kids back there until they are older.
Thanks for that confirmation of @Stellar ’s post. I know in some parts of the world under similar circumstances that heli transfer can be used but obviously only where it can be afforded. So I suppose it is a case of check the specific point of destination before you consider going there if you are travelling with children etc etc
It doesn't confirm Stellar's post as families do go there, although it is so far north that mostly divers and wanderlusts go there. Stellar painted an overly-grim picture of Malapascua and if you look online you will find many happy people visiting Malapascua.
Stellar - aka Whippy - has his own reasons for painting negative pictures and, as is so often the case it seems, he is wrong about Malapascua. There is a medical clinic on the island staffed by a couple of nurses and it is situated next to the Barangay Hall. But it is not of the western standard that Whippy appears to expect of a poor third world country.
Ah, my wife and I didn't know about the clinic, thanks. Last time I was there, a Filipina near the place where I was sleeping had a baby right under cover. Perhaps it was too expensive or not possible to have the baby in the clinic.
No. But my partners knows the Chief Mermaid there. And what a great job she seems to be doing? Also the mother in law is in Bantayan right now. She visits there regularly. And is from way up north near Daanbantayan.
A few years old now but.... https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowT...18-Malapascua_Clinic-Cebu_Island_Visayas.html
I have always looked for mermaids whilst diving but have been unlucky so far! My wife and I were married in a civil wedding in Daanbantayan. From Wiki: The name Daanbantayan was derived from two words: the word "daan", which means "old" in Cebuano, and the word "bantayan", which refers to a place that served as a look out for Moro raiders during the Pre-Hispanic Philippines. The original site of the town might have been at an elevated vantage point near Punta, in Tapilon. Is your mother-in-law from Bantayan? (We stayed there a few years ago) or near Daanbantayan?
The other half is pure Tagalog and communicates in Tagalog with every local she meets!! No problem at all in 10 years. They learn Filipino in school ..Thats because it`s the national language.
She was originally from San Remigio, quite close to Daanbantayan. But she still has relatives that live up in the north. Her employer has a family home in Bantayan.
Indeed. Although it is 3 or 4 years old the postings give a range of opinion / info on medical facilities and accessibility on the island.
Yep. I believe the boat goes between San Remigio and Bantayan which my partner has been on a few times.
so what. That doesn't mean that all that many Filipinos actually speak it on a daily basis. only about half do. when somebody from Luzon who speaks Tagalog as a first language goes to a Visayan city like Cebu, or CDO etc to get a job, suddenly they are surrounded by people, on the street, in the malls, on the jeepney etc who are speaking a language that they can't understand. it is not like the other way round, when a Visayan person moves to Manila and the NCR to get a job there. They CAN understand, pretty much straight away. nobody is going to particularly want, to start speaking Tagalog just for their benefit during lunch break etc, at work. Tagalog is not the local language, and even though everybody is familiar with it and hears it on the radio and on television, etc, almost nobody ever actually speaks it from one day to the next. Of course it is fine getting by in shops, etc, in Tagalog, and people won't mind speaking it, but Tagalog speakers can't possibly expect large groups of Bisaya speaking people who are not used to speaking Tagalog much at all, to suddenly start talking in Tagalog just for their benefit. Not every Tagalog or Ilocano etc language speaker who migrates to Cebu or CDO etc, does learn the local language. They can get by in Tagalog more or less indefinitely. But If they are to live in the Visayas, it's much better if they do learn Bisaya than if they don't. Otherwise they will miss out. Markham is talking straight through his rear-end about the medical facilities on Malapascua. There is still no real clinic, no equipment, and no qualified nurses like he claims. Just a midwife. People die on Malapascua, regularly every year, and especially children, just because of there being no medical facilities and who would would live if there was.