I strongly doubt that ‘internetless’ is a word but for the sake of this post lets just let that one slide. I’m in an internet cafe on Bohol Island, Philippines and the stool I’m sitting on is making my arse ache and I just want to escape so go easy on any made up words or other literary crimes.

I’ve been spending time in some very cool, remote jungle hostels and haven’t had an internet connection. This has made getting anything done pretty hard. I’ve been filling my time instead with a bit of article writing for my new site and have been attempting to improve my terrible photographic skills.

It’s kind of relaxing being away from the net and not being able to check stats every 14 seconds. It makes coming to the internet cafe an event because I always have lots to catch up on. I’m still not totally comfortable working in them, though. Not sure I ever will be. This one is small and airy and there are no online gamers in site which is nice. It’s just this damned stool… so uncomfortable!

January is looking like a great month and might be my best or close to it. I’ve finally passed the $300 a month mark with Adsense and it looks like I’ll even clear $400 easily. I don’t have any explanation for this at all though.

On the budgeting side of things… the news isn’t quite as good. I’ve been having a great time, flying all over the place, doing what I want, drinking lots of rum and not keeping track of any of my spending so things could be bad when I tally everything up. Despite my lack of a budget though I still don’t think I’m close to spending as much as I’ll earn this month and that’s the ultimate goal, really. Budgets are boring!

Once I get back to Manila I’ll be checking in with some reviews of places I’ve stayed, how they are to work in and some photos and stuff so, fear not! I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. Not yet, anyways.

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Bohol is one of the major stops for tourists in The Philippines because it is home to the tarsier, a little monkey-like thing with freakishly huge eyes. They can be found scattered around the island in cages but there’s also a sanctuary thing where you can see them in their own environment. They’re cool little beasties with a long tail and their head can turn almost the whole way around on their neck. They sort of follow you as you move around near them and their head just sort of swivels as you go. It’s like somethin gout of a horror movie except they’re really tiny and really cute.

Not so freaky are the Chocolate Hills but they’re still mostly unexplained which is kind of cool. The area is made up of loads of large hills, all around the same size and shape and nobody is really too sure how they got there. It’s pretty neat looking but really at the end of the day it’s just a bunch of hills.

Bohol was good but nothing too exciting. The place I stayed, Nuts Huts, was really good. It’s stuck away in the jungle and you have to take a boat to get to it. Pretty secluded so all there really is to do is swim, do a bit of hiking or laze in a hammock in their cafe. I chose the laze option more often than not and hung around chatting to the owners about their experiences running the hostel.

The more I travel the more my dream to open a backpacker’s hostel comes roaring on back. Either way, chatting with hostel owners along the way has really been interesting and I’m taking notes.

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I spent yesterday drinking lots of rum. The local tipple is called Tanduay and only costs a couple quid for a big bottle. Sweet.

I started my day on White Island which is just a big sand bar that people flock to to do some sun tanning and swimming. I headed there for a look, snapped some photos and was invited to join a group of local guys who were manning the food and drinks stall. They were helping themselves to the rum and I could hardly refuse an offer like that!

The problem was we were drinking it in shots and chasing it with Sprite. Not my usual choice but when in Rome… After a couple bottles I offered to buy one and we stuck in again. Then the wife of one of the guys arrived, screamed a bit at him, then grabbed the Sprite and my precious rum and poured it out. Where is the respect? Turns out she was jealous of her hubby drinking with another girl – me. That was kinda cool… I’ve never caused someone to spiral into a jealous rage before.

So we moved our drinking to the beach before I headed back to Enigmata for, what I thought would be, a quiet night. Not two steps into the doorway I was accosted by Rowena, the owner’s sister and before I knew it I was on the back of a motorbike heading out to a karaoke place. I think I’ve found my calling. Where has karaoke been all these years? I think my theory of the louder you sing the better you become was tested but I’m not sure if it was proven correct or not. We did manage to clear the place out while polishing off even more rum.

Then things get a bit blurry but I think there was a lot of dancing involved. A lot of bad dancing, I mean. And there is a hangover involved right now. So that tells me it was a good night!

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I’m in the small city of Kalibo for a festival called Ati-Atihan which I think is a celebration of native Filipinos. I should probably know what it’s all about, that’s pretty bad. As far as I’m concerned it has been a parade with street dancing and lots of drums and costumes and lots of booze consumption by tourists and locals alike. There are places to buy beer every few metres.

The place is packed with people watching the dancers. I even seemed to attract a crowd of my own when I stopped to put some sunscreen on. A little crowd of kids approached and I thought they had their hand out for money but it turns out they just wanted sunscreen. Well, I hope they did. If they did want money then they will have gone away feeling totally ripped off. I can understand how I might have attracted a crowd though… I’m sure my disturbingly pasty white skin with red splotches of sun burn would have attracted attention anywhere.

The basic idea is that there are loads of different groups of people, each with their own costumes and some with small floats that have been rigged up on the top of motorbike tricycles. All of them have drums, some have xylophone things and crowds of people dance along behind while others watch from the sidelines. This goes on all day long with everyone getting progressively drunker. I don’t know how the little kids can march and dance for so long in the hot sun with giant costumes hanging from their heads. I’m undecided about whether it’s a new form of child abuse or not.

I was watching along with the rest of the crowds and was dragged in to dance by my new friend who I will call Stalker Boy. He kept ‘accidentally’ grabbing my ass. But besides that little problem he was ok and one of his mates was the boss of one of the groups and got me a gig as a drummer! So I was marching along, drumming badly and thinking up new forms of ass grab defense for ages and had a damn fine time.

A bunch of us grabbed a bite in some back alley restaurant that, now that I think about it, didn’t seem like a restaurant at all but someone’s house. Then we ended up at a video karaoke place and then I made a run for it from Stalker Boy because he was getting just a bit too ass grabby.

All up a really great festival, good music, nice people and I had a blast!

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For the first time since my arrival in The Philippines about 10 days ago I’ve got no wifi in my hotel. They have a computer in their reception area but it was mysteriously ‘closed’ with no real explanation. I guess that means it doesn’t work? I will never know.

So I’ve found myself in a Filipino internet cafe to book a flight for tomorrow and if I wanted to work I think it would be pretty much impossible. The lights are all off and I’m surrounded by teenage boys tapping away at their keyboards, each with an army of more kids watching them play various flashing, fit inducing games.

I could probably do with a good working session since on Boracay, the last place, I did more beach sitting and hangover recovery than work but in reality I can’t wait to get the hell out of this room!

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I’ve discovered that I’m not the type of person who will head out to a bar alone, no matter how friendless I am and no matter how much I want to. I spent the first three days on Boracay as a big, fat friendless loser. Not because I was too shy to meet anyone but because there was nobody in my hostel to meet. Well there were, allegedly, but I was shacked up in a room on my own and didn’t see any of these phantom guests. I could have hit the bars on my own but I’m too chicken so opted instead to be a nerd and take advantage of the wifi connection to do some work and have a quiet beer with the owner of the place.

But then a couple of Norwegian girls arrived and things got a bit more interesting. With my new bar buddies in tow we hit the strip and were in fine form hopping from bar to bar then jumping into the sea and finishing the night off at 7am with a greasy breakfast before passing out.

Everyone here is up for a party and there are places all the way along the huge beach to indulge. I repeated my efforts on my last night and it was a struggle scraping myself out of bed and onto a boat then bus. Not the best day to have a hangover.

It’s one of those places where you party your face off by night and sleep on the beach by day. I’m happy to have escaped though because that’s the sort of place that lots of money can be spent, lots of liver damage can be accomplished and lots of tops layers of skin can be burned off.

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I met a guy in Manila who described himself as a web marketer and of course I had to find out more. I think his idea is an interesting one and something I hadn’t thought of or heard of anyone else doing.

His plan is to register lots of local domain names for various services. So for example, torontodentist.com, hamiltondentist.com, niagarafallsdentist.com etc. The options are limitless really because you could focus on any sort of small business and any location.

He was in The Philippines because he had just employed four locals to work making cold calls back to cities in the US. His plan was to get to the top of Google for whatever keywords the domain was focused on and then to call around to related businesses to see if they would be interested in renting the top spot from him for $200 a month.

He doesn’t actually know anything about SEO beyond that it exists and plans to pay people to optimise all of this sites to get them to the top. Because he’s focused locally, he doesn’t seem to think he’ll have any problems ranking in the top spot for all of his domains. He’s aiming to sell 500 this year and at $200 each a month he’ll be rolling in it if he can pull it off.

What do you think of this idea? I think it’s quite creative and I can see why a business would want to rent it because if they don’t, their competition might. I think he might have a harder time than he thinks getting the domains to the top, especially without any good content on the site, but he seems confident.

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My first hostel is a dream for wireless workers. Their wireless connection is reliable and didn’t go down at all while I was there. In fact, I don’t think it even disconnected once. The internet connection even oozed down into my room which was great for when I just wanted to send a quick email or something without having to cart my gear upstairs.

There are plenty of power points scattered all around the common area with tables nearby as well. This is something I never would have even thought of but it really important if you’re looking to get a lot of work done without having to stop and charge up or work in an awkward position just because it’s near a power point.

I wasn’t alone either, there were always at least four or five other people tapping away at their laptops which was great because it made me feel like less of a nerd. I met one guy who was an internet marketer and he told me his idea which is an interesting one which I’ll share in a later post. Then there were a couple freelance photographers and I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone else if they were working on the move.

Friendly’s Hostel was a great place to stay for anyone who needs an internet connection and beyond that, the guy who runs the place makes sure everyone has fun. They even do a wine and cheese night on Saturdays which quickly deteriorated into a boozefest.

I’d stay there again in a heartbeat so add it to the list of wireless worker friendly places.

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I really didn’t have high expectations for Manila and, to be honest, I still don’t have a clue what to expect from the place because I didn’t see much. My time here was spent getting a visa for Bangladesh, playing poker, and spending an all nighter at a local pub.

My visa effort was a disaster. I managed to suss out the rough area I needed to go, figured out public transport, walked for a zillion years and got to the street the Embassy of Bangladesh was on only to discover I’d left the address behind. I promptly hopped in a cab back to the hostel, grabbed the address, started chatting to a Canadian guy, had lunch with him, and then grabbed another cab straight back to where I was.

Big waste of time but I did learn that there are some nice cabbies who will put your fare on the metre and some bad dudes who will attempt to cut you a deal for twice as much off the metre claiming that traffic is really bad and it will work out cheaper. Well, it won’t. I know this now.

Back at the hostel I found myself in a game of poker, then another, then another, then another the next night and another and, well, you get the idea. I won once and got second three times which means I got my money back. I think I might be a little bit of a poker shark, if I may say so. Are poker people called ’sharks’ or is that only for pool? Anyways, I like it and not knowing what you’re doing seems to throw the other people off.

On Saturday night the place I was staying, Friendly’s Hostel, put on a wine and cheese night thing with other munchies. New bottles of wine kept appearing and it was a really sociable atmosphere and a big bunch of us ended up at a pub around the corner with some live bands.

I was worried about missing my 9am flight the next morning because I don’t have an alarm clock but it turns out I should have been more worried about missing it due to still being at the pub. Me, a Dutch girl and a Belgian dude ended up drinking with the staff and owner until 6am so I just went straight from the pub to the airport.

Anyone who knows what my hangovers are like will know that the following journey of plane, bus, boat was a very long and painful adventure.

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