so i definitely think we found what we've been looking for in the philippines here in siargao
we're lloyd and mandy we're digital nomads currently traveling the world in search of
somewhere we can call our forever home we arrived in charge philippines a few days ago
and today we're going to explore the island to see what this place really has to offer
so today lloyd and i are exploring our new home we've come to a place called coconut trees lookout
it looks absolutely stunning there's a river just slightly off in the distance it's so beautiful
so about eight months ago there was actually a typhoon here so they're still in recovery mode
all over shiargao and you can see that the typhoons actually destroyed a lot of
these palm trees but they're starting to come back and slowly grow and they actually look
really beautiful the way that they are right now it looks makes the
forest sort of look a lot cleaner this view is incredible it's so beautiful
this island is so much bigger than lloyd and i expected didn't think there'd be this
much to adventure and to see but we're very pleasantly surprised this was only about a
half an hour scooter ride away which is awesome so you get the beach and also the forest can
definitely feel the effects of the super typhoon here because there's construction going on
everywhere like i'd say they're about 80 rebuilt at the moment but you can still
see where trees were falling houses and buildings were destroyed i think they've just been working
day and night getting everything rebuilt and finally things are coming back to normal but
yeah it's crazy to see the effects of the typhoon even 10 months later
guys we're just going to take a really quick break to tell you about today's video sponsor pay send
a send is a money transfer platform that lets you send money to friends and family all over the
world 24 7 from your laptop smartphone or tablet they transfer your money using local currency
or other supported currencies with no hidden fees or additional charges at the middle rate
all you need to know is the recipient's name credit card number or bank details and it
only takes a few minutes to sign up through the website or the mobile app add your card as funding
and send money around the world in a flash if you're like us and you have to outsource
contractors from all over the world you know just how difficult it can be to actually process
a payment to them and payson makes that so much easier it can sometimes take weeks for the money
to arrive and there's no real way of tracing that money once it's been sent by your bank not to
mention that they tend to charge you pretty high fees and conversion rates which is exactly why we
started using ksan for all of our international money transfers hasten always charges a fixed
fee per international transaction regardless of your amount sent if you are interested in
trying pay send for yourself click the link down below and use code lloydmandy and you'll
get your first three transactions fee free and with that being said let's get back to the video
oh
so as always we reckon the best way to explore a new place is just jump on a bike and
ride around and um we've already found two good spots here we're at the mason bridge
and there's a big like tower which has a lot of kids jumping off you're gonna jump off it no
there used to be a rope swing here but it's gone apparently it looks pretty cool though
there's people lining up to jump off this tower that's okay
so it looks like you can go on these little paddle boat tours of the river
there's also um a little market stall down there with souvenirs i had rum
i'm thinking about jumping off this tower here this platform just can't tell how deep the water
is but there's lots of kids jumping off it they're half my size though i might have to inspect it
oh okay you can do it do you have to go to that side though do you have to jump over to the side
so the guide said it was seven feet which is like just just deep enough i think he said you have to
lift your legs up when you go in but we're going to come back and do it mandy's going to do it too
no she's not the thought of doing it actually hasn't even crossed my mind
right
okay
i think it will be too early
any crocodiles here in sugar
alligator no well the cave pools are pretty fun we didn't know what we were signing up for
took way too much stuff down there pretty much need to go with just your bathers on and that's it
i didn't even have any shoes carrying the camera and a shirt and a hat and keys it was pretty good
especially the pool at the end it was just a bit freaky when um our guide pointed out hundreds
of bats on the roof uh definitely wasn't a fan of that it was very dark in there too but it's pretty
cheap i think it cost like less than 10 bucks for both of us to go took about 25 minutes not bad
so
since we got here i've noticed there's three main things that there's a lot of
there's a lot of palm trees there's a lot of dogs everywhere and there's a lot of barbecue
like almost every restaurant is barbecue when you drive around at night just smell barbecue and
there's a little haze going through the sky which i love because barbecue is like my favorite food
we haven't tried this place yet but they got a beef brisket which looks really good there
is a place we've been going to pretty much every night which we're gonna take you to tonight but
yeah the barbecue has been amazing the best i've ever had in my life and the best dogs as well here
and it's cheap too a plate of bbq is usually like 200 300 pesos so like seven dollars
so lunch wasn't quite big enough so we're heading to the local market to grab some mangoes
to fill us up before we head to cloud 9.
can you cut across
so one of my favourite things so far about being here is how local it feels like we're
fully immersed in what it actually feels like to live in the philippines it's not really designated
tourist areas or local areas it's like everyone's intermingled which i really like that i was just
about to tell you to put the camera on me so i could say that i think yeah the main difference
between here and like bali or phuket which is similar sort of place is that yeah the locals and
the tourists are all intertwined like you don't go out to a restaurant or a bar and just see other
westerners or tourists there it's like everyone's together everyone goes to the same markets um it's
a big difference to bali i think yeah one of the things we've found to be a bit like challenging
when finding somewhere to live has always been we're always treated like tourists not like
people who have moved or are thinking of moving somewhere so that's been a huge bonus for us
so we're just at the cloud9 boardwalk and uh it's really busy oh it's so beautiful though we've
come here at sunset and this is like the famous surfing spot yeah and uh there's a lot of people
surfing and a lot of people on the boardwalk the boardwalk goes for like 200 meters i'm actually
surprised how big it is there's got to be 200 people out there it's a pretty cool spot though
it definitely changes a lot during high tide and low tide like the tide really goes out far
so you don't get much of a beach but at the moment it's pretty good i'm not going out
though i've resigned myself to the fact that i can't surf there's way too many people out there
so
okay so like lloyd mentioned earlier in the video barbecue is the thing here in siargaol
and we've been coming here pretty much every night for dinner it's the best barbecue i've ever had in
my life it's so good it's the self-proclaimed best barbecue in town but it is yeah yeah it's pretty
bloody good we've been here most nights and every night you've got to line up like 20 minutes to
order but it's worth it takes another 20 minutes for it to come out as well but it's so good
he's going to be the fattest dog in the island he's the first fat dog i've seen in asia i'm gonna
wash my hands he's been here every night my hand is black from touching him every time i'm here
first time we came here we ordered way too much food because we didn't understand how big it was
and it's so affordable for how big they are look how juicy that is
also i don't use knives here no anywhere
called chopsticks which i like because i stuck in chopsticks
i wasn't a big meat eater before we came to southeast asia but i'm so happy i got rid
of that because i would have missed on so much good food but this is incredible it's so good
so we've managed to find a really good co-working uh co-living spot here in shigao unfortunately
it's booked out um for the next few nights so we'll have to move but it's got a rooftop
pool and i'm really surprised about how good the weather's been here since we've been here someone
damned this and told us that it was dry season here in shigao which surprised me because it seems
to be wet season everywhere else but since we've been here for the last week and it's rained twice
yeah and really quick like not long um rainy days which is really nice yeah so the rainy season
maybe isn't consistent all over the philippines they seem to have their own weather systems in
different provinces but it's been pretty sunny as you can see we've got a lot of sun yesterday
i'm going to get some more today which is really good we hope you guys enjoyed the vlog today
we just wanted to give a little bit of insight into why we moved here
and in the next vlog we'll be sharing a little bit more on the cost of living as
well as where we're staying at the moment uh so make sure you hit the like button and
subscribe to our channel and we will see you guys in the next one bye you