"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip..."

Ok, ok. This trip was No Gilligans Island, but still boat ride, beautiful tropic island, theres something there. lol.

Our day started at 6am. We woke up and quickly threw our luggage together, ate a quick breakfast, and caught the 6:45am jeepney to Rio Tuba. Those of you who aren't familiar with Jeepney's, they are a small, bus-like vehicle that are similar to the American city bus. The funny/annoying thing about Jeepney's is that they have NO sense of personal space...they can and will squeeze as many people as they possibly can into them. They don't call it quits until you're crammed inside like sardines, the roof is full, and people are hanging from the sides...and even then...they'll make exceptions. Its kinda ridiculous.

When it stopped by our house, however, it was relatively empty. So Roy told LeAnne and I to sit in the front seat. This way we wouldn't be crammed later when the Jeepney filled up....SOOO nice. And we were off for the 2-hour drive down to Rio Tuba. The ride actually went by pretty fast, I was relieved.

We arrived at the port of Rio Tuba, which I've stated in my last blog, is the DIRTIEST, most disgusting place you will see in the Philippines....and thats saying a lot. We found our passenger boat and boarded. Boarding these boats can be scary, seeing as to how they only have a small little plank of wood going between the dock and the moving boat. My first time was No picnic, so I was kinda excited to see LeAnne go across for the first time. Much to my dismay, it was nothing for her. She just grabbed her bags and walked right across. Seriously, is there anything she can't do?

While waiting for the boat to depart, there were some problems with capacity. To put it simply, the boats can only "legally" take 36 people. However since this is the Philippines, and there is no such thing as full capacity, they usually take as many people as they can, but only turn 36 names into the Coast Guard (Sooo sneaky, I tell ya!) Well, since we were some of the last people to board, they didn't have room for Me and LeAnne's name on the list. This was a problem, ONLY because if something were to happen to the boat...nobody would be able to track us down, because they wouldn't have record of us being on the boat. 

Roy and Shielah didn't like that idea (nor did we), so they asked if their names could be taken off the list and ours put on instead, I'm not really sure what happened after that. I just remember hearing that there were No other boats leaving until tomorrow and we didn't know what to do, but then the captain suggested that Roy take a little boat just outside the  port and then when we went by we would pick him up....not sure how that solved everything but it did. So we picked Roy up right outside the port and started our 3 hour journey on water to the island of Bancalaan.

I realized that I had forgotten to take my iPod out of my bag after traveling back from Santiago. So I pulled it out and LeAnne and I shared the headphones and listened to some tunes to help the trip go by faster. At one point, we both decided that since it was after Thanksgiving, Christmas music was fair game. So we enjoyed the sounds of the season....while sailing through clear blue waters to a tropical island...

LeAnne: "Not gonna lie. Its a little weird listening to Christmas music right now." Allison: "Yeah, doesn't go very well with our current surroundings"

Yeah...Green and Yellow. We don't even plan these things. Greatness
just comes naturally. ;)

After 3 hours of boat travel we finally arrived at Bancalaan. Bancalaan is a little island off the coast of Balabac, which is the big island off the coast of Palawan. It is a BEAUTIFUL island complete with clear, Blue Sea and soft, White Sand. The ONLY form of transportation on the island is motorcycle. So upon arriving LeAnne and I, along with all of our stuff, had to hop on the back of someones motorcycle and drive 15 minutes to the Southern side of the island where we would be staying.

They had a picture of me in their house,
from the last time I had been here.

Sam and I had come to this island towards the end of our trip last year. We loved EVERYTHING about it, but most of all we loved all the kids! There are seriously SOOO many kids on this island. When Sam and I had arrived, we were the first white people they had ever seen, so they crowded around us in shock when we pulled up. The first thing they commented on, besides our white skin, was the size of our noses. They were awe-struck. This time around was no different. As soon as we arrived, we were swarmed by children. 

We brought our things into the house where we would be staying and sat down to talk to our host for a little bit. Then Roy came in and said, "The children want you guys to sit down there." So we went and sat down in the little store downstairs and the kids just sat there and watched us. We would try and ask little questions in Tagalog or would request High-fives, but they would just giggle and continue to stare at us. It was a little awkward, but it made them happy. So we went with it. ;)

Soo....This is what its like to live in a zoo....

After Shielah had settled in a bit, she decided to walk to different houses and visit friends so we tagged along with her....therefore a parade of kids tagged along with us. We visited this little girl who was paralyzed from the neck down. She wasn't born this way, she had gotten sick and the treatment had caused paralysis to her body. It was sad to see. :(

After that we continued going house to house with Shielah, and the kids continued to follow us. Then as the sun began to set, we headed back to our house for the night. 

"Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God."

~1 Peter 2:16