February 2012 – Page 2 – Where is Phil now?

Advanced Open Water cert – day one

Day 56, Monday 20 Feb 2012, Malapascua

Considering the amount of people at the resort who are not diving it was very quiet after dark. There are lots of Russians and Germans in this particular resort – and listening to people as I walk around, it seems the island is mainly populated with Europeans rather than native English speakers. I slept Ok, not great – tonight I medicate as up at 4.30 or something for the early morning dive to try and see thresher sharks.

I had the morning to read three chapters of the PADI adventure dive book before the review at lunch time and the first dive at two, so I had a leisurely and unexciting, breakfast at the resort – included in the room so I ate a bit. I can tell I am the only backpacker in this particular resort as I am only one who has a deck half covered in washing.

Then again, I guess not many backpackers stay in resorts ! It is great to be static for a few days as I got my sandals and bed liner washed as well as a load of clothes. I bought a small waterproof bag at the dive shop today so tomorrow I can wash my day bag as well as it is pretty feral now.

I spent the morning on my bed studying and listening to music , it was great to be inside and let my peeling back be out of a shirt as well as out of the sun.

Lunch time soon came around so I was off back to the dive shop for my first reading reviews – Peak performance buoyancy and night dives. These are basically rubber stamping exercises and are partly revenue generating tools for someone, I don’t approve really as I didn’t really ‘learn’ much but I got all the answers right…

Bounty Beach – Malapascua.

After the review we hit the water, Jules our German instructor and Moritz (that is how it sounded, and yes I think of ice cream too) a German kid, who was the other pupil. We spent an hour under water doing some basic buoyancy exercises, some of which I was awful at, but we all pass ! I love PADI – everyone is a winner. At least I understood the concepts, my old body and complete lack of co-ordination hindered some of the exercises – that and maybe 1 kilo too much weight on the weightbelt for the depth we were in – 6 metres. It was fun anyway.

After the buoyancy session is what back to land for a quick break before heading out to the night dive at lighthouse reef – the second of my skill sessions for my advanced open water cert.

One of the “boat guys”, heading out to the night dive. He had to take a dive as the mooring line from another boat got tangles around the prop.

The dive starts at sunset and finishes in the dark. The key feature of this dive is the mating mandarin fish, they are only found in a few locations so this dive was popular.

And by popular I mean chaos under water – i hated it, far too many divers in a small spot, my lack of co-ordination and fine control just did not work here, trying to slot smoothly into a circle of proficient divers looking at small fish is damn hard ! and not enjoyable.

After watching mandarin fish make out for a while we then spent some time scoping the rest of the reef, again a lot of divers in what was a small space and fairly shallow, so all in all, not my best dive. I did see some nice sea horses which was most cool.

After the dive it was rush back to the hotel, eat dinner and study three more chapters as up at 4.00 AM to do the deep dive and see some thresher sharks – cannot wait !

Following on from yesterdays post-rock gem from Jakob, I introduce Mono, a Japanese band that have been around for since 1999. They recently played in Auckland and for some reason that I cannot recall now I did not go and see them. I have this album “one more step and you die” on vinyl and it got utterly hammered in my last few days at home. I particularly love this track – Com(?), ignore the lack of video, turn the volume up and close your eyes – warning, it does get noisy…

Malapascua

Day 55, Sunday 19 Feb 2012, Cebu – Malapascua.

Today I am off to Malapascua Island, which is about thirty minutes by boat off the northern tip of Cebu Island, so I need to catch a bus to Maya to get the boat. Have heard the road is rough !

Another reasonable sleep, this is almost becoming habit forming ! up at 7.00 and packed ready to go, got a coffee in the hotel restaurant but skipped breakfast as I don’t like to eat and drink too much before a long bus ride, you just never know! I got a cab to the long distance North Terminal and as we approached we saw the Maya bus leaving so I jumped on board, pack and all. For about five minutes I had a seat for the pack too…

I caught one of the local non-air-conned buses, it was only a four ride so I had heaps of time and I knew the bus would stop every few minutes and it was about time I went local. With all the windows open it was as cool as the air-con busses anyway, except when we were stopped waiting in a bus terminal about half way, then it got really warm! The journey was long, though not too uncomfortable considering I had my pack on my lap the whole way, the scenery was interesting with a good mix of stunning beach views, small villages and hill towns.

The Philippines are a lot cleaner and tidier than Malaysia, though appear to be significantly poorer, you can see where infrastructure had been built 20-30 years ago before the worst of the corruption set in and things stated to decline. The bus arrived at the wharf in Maya just after 12.00 and I was soon joined by a Canadian couple and a couple of Canadians and we waited on the bangka (outrigger boat) for it to fill up before departing to the island.

I had my accommodation booked at Ocean Vida resort for four nights, but none of the others had anything arranged. I got talking to the two Canadian guys, Mike and Matt and Mike is considering Myanmar as well so we are going to catch up later and discuss a possible joint trip. Once checked in I spent a couple of hours wandering around bits of the island and looking for a good deal on dives. The island is (I am led to believe) about four and half kms in circumference, though that doesn’t seem right, feels bigger. On Bounty Beach there are a number of resorts and the place has a diving focus so lots of dive shops. The Island has a large indigenous population as well and I got rather lost wandering around the interior as it is a warren of twisty sand paths. There is a massive contrast between the local village and the resorts that back onto them though and there are a lot of armed guards walking around the resort areas. Then again there are armed guards all over the places I have been in the Philippines – I got searched by an armed guard going into the mall yesterday!

One of the primary dives at Malapascua, and the reason for its popularity, is an early morning (5.00 am !) dive to see thresher sharks, one of the few places in the world to do this. Unfortunately they are generally found around the 25-30 metre depth and my open water cert only allows dives to 18 metres. After some pondering and counting of beans I have decided to do a PADI Advanced Open Water Cert. The course includes five dives, one of which is a deep dive, which can be the thresher shark dive. It costs a bit more than individual dives but means I get my advanced cert and I can pretty much dive anywhere. So tomorrow I do my first dive, which will be visually dull, but probably fun as I learn a bit more about buoyancy. Tonight I have to study !

I caught up with Mike and Matt over an early dinner at my hotel bar, they are staying somewhere else, and then I went and snapped a couple of sunset shots and went to my room to internet, listen to music and study ! Early night and lucky no TV. My room is pretty cool by the way 🙂

Going to start educating you music illiterates, if I remember, each post with some musical awesomeness, mostly from New Zealand, but whatever takes my fancy and likely to be what I am listening too. Will start with a NZ band.

Jakob, from Napier. One of the worlds best instrumental post-rock bands, they have been around for just over 10 years but do not release a lot of material, recording a much anticipated new album at the moment. This track “I’m on your side” is off the wonderful subset of sets album – my favourite Jakob recording.

Cebu city

Day 53/54, Friday/Saturday 17/18 Feb, Puerto Princesa to Cebu and Cebu

A couple of non-event days really, so only deserving of one post. You may have thought I have had a few non-event days over the past few months but I still managed to write about them. I am not sure if the steam is running out on my blogging, I have certainly lasted lot longer than I expected at the start, or whether the steam is running out on my travels.

Saturday was one of those days, very hot and sunny in Cebu, no shade on the street and little wind. I mean no offence to Cebu, but I didn’t enjoy the day, not a lot to see and walking the streets of the older part of town was just unpleasant. A lot of traffic, a lot of air pollution and the drains stank, and then I discovered I had been shooting an hour long video of the inside of my camera lens cap, so when I got to one of the few things to see my camera battery was flat ! grrrrr.

Back to Friday ! I didn’t really get a lot of sleep again after we all went back to bed with the basement flooded, though I never really made it out of bed till eight or so. Surprisingly when I did look the basement was almost totally dry and the hostel staff were mopping up the last of the water – the downside was the kitchen was down there so breakfast was totally off the menu – bugger it ! My flight to Cebu was not till 12:40 and I had planned on a last great Banwa breakie to keep me going for the day, oh well.

I pretty much did nothing for the rest of the morning except pack up my stuff, check out and get a tricycle to the airport. Did nothing much at the airport either, eating a muffin was the highlight of the airport.

The one hour fifteen Airbus A320 flight from Puerto Princesa to Cebu was possibly the gentlest flight I have had since I left Auckland, though the landing was interesting… Cebu is one of those places where it is recommended you get a legal metered cab from the airport rather than try to find a cheaper alternative, nothing unsafe, just less likely to get ripped off, so that is what I did.

I had two nights booked at the Mayflower Inn, Lonely Planet didn’t recommend any budget accommodation in town, so I picked this place based on their recommendation and some good reviews on Tripadvisor which is becoming a bit of an accommodation bible for me – I must do a post on travelling via the internet.

Hotel is Ok, very friendly, very clean, ok shower, decent wifi. Appears to be miles from anywhere, but I am not sure if there is an anywhere to be that the hotel could be closer to. I pretty much did sod all else, went to the bread stall next door and grabbed some rolls, had dinner, which was shite – the hotel kitchen has gone down hill since lonely planet reviewed it. I did discover there are about fifty TV channels though ! so I watched bad movies and caught up on email and blogs. Once I found the air con was not on cold I slept OK…

Saturday

Up and breakie around 7:30, breakie was dull – but at least fully cooked and filled the gap. I was really considering spending the whole day in the room and having a major planning session. Having good internet and a free day I could have got a lot of things organised. However I decided to look at both highlights of Cebu instead and then hit a mall and pick up a few things on my list, I needed a new t-shirt after wrecking one while diving in el nido, my boardies are falling apart and I need to get more trail runners wallets (Glad bags).

I got a cab to the Sugbo Museum from the hotel with a Swedish couple travelling with a baby – good on them, but insane! Museum was kind of interesting, housed in the old prison building in Cebu. Cebu has an old and illustrious history with Magellan meeting his end near here in 1521.

Selfie – looking scruffy and un-illustrious, need a haircut and a shave – but I do like my fake Nike shirt.

From the museum I took a walk down to Fort San Pedro, which could have been interesting if there was some information (or more) about the place. The fort was also hosting a wedding so I cannot say a lot about the place, apart from it was old…

From there I walked and then caught a jeepney to the SM Mall, Pizza for lunch, failed to buy the things I wanted or needed, but did stock up on cheap water and a bottle of shiraz. Back to the hotel for the late afternoon and evening – skyping and messaging friend and family over a red, a nice end to the day.

Loved this wall in the hotel stairwell

I can tell a bad couple of days, only 8 photos taken and no effort made in the editing either !

And back to Puerto Princesa

Day 52, Thursday 16 Feb, El Nido back to Puerto Princesa

When I got back from diving last night I booked myself a seat on the seven am van back to Puerto Princesa. This meant for a fairly early night last night as an early start this morning. Lousy sleep for some reason so pretty much got up when the fan went off along with the power at 6.

I packed up and got a tricycle up to the bus depot, I wanted to get there early to try a score a decent seat for the six hour ride – may as well have stayed in bed… I was lucky I got there early as I went to text a friend in NZ and couldn’t find my phone and knew exactly where it was – lying on the bed in the hostel with the alarm clock going off ! I grabbed a tricycle and got back to the hostel in time to get my phone and get back to the van before it left at 7. Come 7.30 we finally got on the van and I got the second crappest seat, middle front (middle back has to be the worst). There were fourteen passengers on the van and it started raining soon after we left town, neither of which made the driver not want to set a new record…

At Roxas, about two thirds of the way into the journey we shed a few passengers and I got too sprawl a bit. Which was part blessing and part curse – at least when you are squeezed in you don’t roll all over the place !

We arrived in the Puerto Princesa one hour early after five hours on the road. I was glad to get out… I grabbed a tricycle back to the Banwa Pension, where I had stayed a few days ago. – yes it did have a front wheel and no that was not our van.

Crap !

I had a shower, some food, water, more water and more food and did bugger all else apart from blog updates and email catch ups.

Seems I ate or drank something a bit dodgy as well as I spent the rest of the day not moving too far from a loo. Lay on the couch reading until bed time, the crowd here was not as good as last time I was here !

In the middle of the night I woke to the sound of very heavy rain, and at 2 am, the hostel people came into our dorm with some of the guys from downstairs, we all got up to have a look as it was flooding ! We watched the water rise in the basement for a while and helped move all the soft furnishings up to the ground floor, the water was a foot deep when I went back to bed.

El Nido – Diving !

Day 50, Wednesday 15 Feb, El Nidoc- Diving !

After the island hopping tours, diving is the number one activity in El Nido. With numerous limestone islands and white sand beaches scattered around the bay there are a vast number of wall, reef and beach dives to be done – and are a number of companies willing to take your money and get you diving. For no specific reason I chose Palawan Divers.

I overslept a little, so up at 7.30 and no breakfast after yesterdays near debacle, grabbed a bottle of water on the way out the door as a bit dehydrated from last night, though not feeling hungover. I got to the dive shop on time for 8 and hung round for thirty pointless minutes before gathering that they had not written my booking up on the board. Luckily there was only a couple of people going today, or I would have been left dry and furious !

Fortunately that was the only dodgy part to the day and the rest of the organisation and dive management practises were good, and the dive masters were fun too. We had three dives scheduled for the day at three different sites, but for good reason we only ended up diving in two of those places.

The first dive was at a place called Populcan forest , as you can see from the location photo it is right near a vertical cliff face, so it was a boat entry. In Borneo we dived off proper dive boats, but here we were diving off the traditional bangka outrigger, which introduced a new set of challenges as they are quite narrow – and there is a lot of gear !

Once in the water we dropped down the wall to the bottom at around 20 metres, slightly deeper than my licence “allowed”, but the sea doesn’t always obey PADI rules! The forest is a reef dive through some interesting coral, the visibility was OK, a lot of plankton in the water – which proved to be an awesome thing ! There was a reasonable amount of sea life, not a huge amount and the coral was Ok.

I was thinking that this was no where near as good as the diving we did in Borneo when AJ our lead dive master started banging on his tank with a metal rod (used for pointing out things of interest) I was right behind him and looked to where he was pointing and approaching us in the gloom was a massive whale shark !! I don’t think awesome can describe how exciting this was – fortunately I knew whale sharks are very safe only eating plankton. The shark passed about 7-8 metres from us and we followed it for as long as we could keep up. It was a real wow moment – and another trip highlight.

The whale sharks can grow up to 20 metres long, so this one, at around 5 metres was a juvenile. They are common in Feb / March in some locations in the Philippines but apparently quite rare in El Nido waters, AJ has logged over 1000 dives here and has never seen one, so we were all extraordinary lucky – and got some major cudos back in the shop at the end of the day !

We carried on with our dive and were heading back to the boat when I spotted the shark coming back our way, I grabbed AJ’s flipper and we all stopped and watched it pass by again. After a few under water hi-fives we surfaced to much excitement and got back on the boat for a very animated hour between dives

The crew proposed we flag dive site two and do the second dive here, but dive the wall rather than the forest, with the hope of seeing the whale shark again, us customers were very happy with this option. After an hours break we donned gear and dived the wall, staying around 10-15 metres where we saw the shark the last time. Alas, though it was a great dive we did not see the shark again.

We motored over to Dilumucad Island (well the dive was called that, no idea what the island was called, assuming the same !) and had a nice lunch on the white sand beach. The sun was so bright I could not see the screen on the back of the camera so missing the front of the boat – I should have brought the GF1 with the view finder! But you get the picture – its pretty nice here !

The dive site was at the end of this point, yeah I know – doing it tough 🙂

After the required number of hours break (and no – I didn’t work it out myself – fun dives with professional dive masters – are supposed to be fun!) we dived a sloping reef. This was definitely the best dive site of the day, some great coral and lots and lots of small fish life, tropical fish tank stuff, but lots of it and all around you ! We had quite a bit of sun on this dive so visibility was very good – and I found a decent size turtle, which we followed for a while.

I think of all the dives I have done I was the best in the water on this dive, my buoyancy was about right for the whole dive – this is quite hard to achieve !!! I also used very little air as well, which meant I moved efficiently in the water, so very pleased. It is so much easier underwater when you have the basics right!

El Nido from the sea

After the dives it was back to the shop to do log books (great thing with tour dives is they clean the gear !) and then to the hostel for beer, dinner and an early night.

Another good day !

El Nido – tour B

Day 49, Tuesday 14 Feb (Valentines day !), El Nido

Once the racket from the restaurant stopped and the Russians stopped screaming at each in the street I actually got some good sleep- untill the power went off at 6 AM and the room started to heat up. I got out of bed and got myself organised for my island hopping and snorkelling tour which left the guesthouse at 9.00. I got to the cafe at 8 and ordered breakfast, waited, waited, got my coffee, waited waited, got my shake, went and did a couple of chores, at 8.55 my omelette arrived, at 8.56 the tour people arrived… gulped breakfast, which was quite nice and ran out the door.

The main tourism activity in El Nido is island tours, there are four tours to do, imaginatively named A, B, C and D, with multiple operators doing each tour, the Palawan government has fixed the cost of the tours so no real need to shop around. I chose tour B as it was supposed to have some good snorkelling, though I suspect they all do…

We left on the Bangka at 9.00, myself a young couple from Melbourne, an older Italian guy with his Philippine GF and four Norwegians. I pretty much hung with the Norwegians all day, but chatted to the Aussies over lunch – they had similar music taste to me! Alex the Norwegian was as keen on doing as much snorkelling as possible, which suited me as that was why I was there.

The first stop was on an island that I cannot remember its name, the snorkelling was great ! I took the small camera so I could use it underwater, it is rated to 3 metres and managed to survive the day OK. I was actually reasonably happy with some of the shots, though it is quite hard to take photos while underwater and holding your breath – and the damn fish don’t stay still ! some of the coral was pretty cool too !

From there we went to Snake Island, and walked up a small hill to look down on the sand bar – supposed to look like a snake, the water was so clear here, but unable to swim due to jellyfish.

Next stop was Cudugnan Cave, the cave was cool, but nothing compared to some of the caves I have seen !

We had a snorkel here as well, I used flippers to get some depth and didn’t take the camera, a very good reef here, so enjoyable snorkel.

I meant to pack a t-shirt to swim in this morning, but totally forgot, so got quite burnt on this snorkel, Alex and I were out for quite a while. A great lunch was served here and then on to Cathedral Cave. We were not allowed into the cave here unfortunately, but would have been an awesome place to snorkel. I really like the way the sea has eaten away at the limestone here, a lot of the small islets are like this, it is most extraordinary.

Finally we stopped at Pinabuyutan Island for more snorkelling for those of us who wanted to snorkel I cannot believe people didnt! I got a few reasonable shots here, and got Alex to grab a couple of me as well.

The Bangka got us back to the hostel for six PM, so a good long day and well worth the $40 or so it cost. The snorkelling was really good and a very promising sign for the diving tomorrow!

I had dinner with three of the people I met in Puerto Princessa, and then French Vanessa and I went for a few drinks at the local music bar Balay tubay, where I drank too much considering I was diving in the morning ! But Vodka tonics did make the covers band sound so much better – even that bloody awful Hotel California was survivable – and it is my most hated song.

El Nido

Day 48, Monday 13 Feb, Puerto Princesa to el Nido

I am writing this post in the semi-dark, two days later in el Nido after a few vodka tonics in a local bar and a couple of beers with dinner, don’t expect Hemingway – I am not that drunk !, but short and possibly incoherent post.

Up early after a lousy sleep, the van to el Nido was supposed to arrive between 7 and 7.30 but was uber early at 6.45 and I was only gazing sadly into my coffee at that stage, so mad rush to get out the door.

Van ride was Ok, the road was not as bad as I expected for the first five hours and I had a wee bit of leg room, though I think our driver was trying to set a record for a van ride with 13 tourists, lets just say he drove like me and used all available road space! It did feel safe though. We stopped a couple of times, the last stop was at Taytay, where we picked up a woman who squeezed in next to me and went to sleep on my shoulder. The concrete road ended here, the new roads in Palawan are made from foot thick concrete, as the tarseal just falls apart too quickly.

The van arrived in El Nido, in the north of Palawan just before 1 PM. My Finnish friend and I were immediately set upon my tricycle drivers and it took a while to extract ourselves from the melee and consult on trying to find accommodation. We took a tricycle out to where one of his countrymen was staying and they had one bed left which he took. I got the tricycle back to the centre of town, checked out a couple of places on the way and ended up getting a room for the night at the “Alternative” a guesthouse on the bay – and I mean ON, under the deck is THE bay. It was actually my original first choice, but it is more guesthouse than hostel – but it had a good bar and an excellent restaurant which was a plus, the minus was it was not a great backpacker hang out, so not many people to chat too.

El Nido is located on the Bacuit Bay and was initially made famous for its diving, and beauty, by Jacques Cousteau back in the 70’s. Scattered throughout the bay are numerous limestone islands. Tourism hasn’t really hit the town in a big ugly way yet, though tourism is its main money earner, so there is still a good feel and a rustic charm to the place – for instance there is no electricity in town from 6.00 am to 2.00pm !

I wandered around town for a bit and booked myself an island hopping/snorkelling tour for tomorrow and a dive trip on Wednesday. The view from my hostel deck.

Walkabout

They are filming the final in the “Bourne” series in El Nido, watch out for this boat in the movie…

Boat (bangka) building – Philippine style…

El Nido Lots of pawn shops on Palawan, I did not see these in Malaysia. My hostel was just up the road.

Can you tell I used two cameras for these photos !

I had a very nice vegetarian meal and a couple of San Miguels and went to bed, where I listened to really, truely awful music from the restaurant until almost 1.00!

The Underground river tour

Day 47, Sunday 12 Feb, Puerto Princesa, Sabang – Underground River

The prime reason I chose too come to Puerto Princesa (PP) was to visit the underground river near Sabang. The underground river has been nominated for selection as one of the new seven wonders of the world and is a protected national park. Sabang and the park are accessible by self travel, but you have to get a permit to visit the underground river. The cost to do an organised tour is virtually the same as doing it yourself so I elected to have the hostel organise me to join a tour. I got the last free spot in the next four days! However, as you will read, I am not sure if it was a good or bad thing. Two others from the hostel managed to visit themselves as they missed out on tours.

The day started well, nice omelette for breakie and chatting with the others in the hostel until the van arrived forty five minutes late, a Korean and his Philippine girlfriend were the only other occupants so we paid a visit to two hotels to pick up the rest of the people on the tour. I am not going to say much about them here, I will just say through their foul mouthed, hung over, racist, sexual explicit comments and whinging they ruined my day. With an almost two hour bus ride there and back and a full day at a cool place, I was really hoping for a good bunch of people to share the experience with.

Yes, it was another one of those days, and before this post sounds like a whinge fest, I will say the place was awesome and I highly recommend it, my experience would have been more interesting if I was not effectively, on my own.

We stopped a couple of times on the way to Sabang for a site see and to allow at least one of my fellow van passengers the chance to bring up lasts night binging on the road side. Me looking like I was not really enjoying myself !

We reached Sabang at 11.30 and were advised by our tour guides that our permits were for entering the park at 3.30, this was not particularly amusing as this meant I had four hours to kill in a one ~~horse~~ bullock town on my own. They did offer to sell us a couple of sub-tours to help pass the time – I hate that crap ! Lunch was at 12.30 so I went exploring and I soon found the bullock.

Actually there was more than one.

The beach is quite nice though!

After lunch we went up to the Sabang ‘wharf’ area to wait for our outrigger canoe to take us to the park itself. The outriggers are an extremely common form of transport in the Philippines, unlike Borneo where the boats were all outboard driven, these are all in board diesel motors. I snapped this awesome jeepney.

The journey from the wharf takes about half an hour and we were deposited on another nice stretch of beach where killed another hour milling around pointlessly.

I did see some more macaques – and one stole an Italian womens scarf and took it up a tree, which was amusing for everyone else! She did get it back though when the monkey dropped it. Also saw a small monitor lizard, my first.

And finally after a few failed attempts, some socks and sandals – yes !

The cave is entered in 10 person canoes. The ride is about 45 minutes long and we went about 1.5km into the system and back out again. The river itself is 8.5 km long. The photos from inside were rubbish, so none here. The cave was pretty cool, would love to spend some time in there in a kayak exploring some of the side caves and getting further up river. Lots of bats and swiftlets just like the cave systems in Borneo.

After the river ride we boated back to Sabang and back to PP in the van, the rednecks were not quite so bad on the way back, but I was glad to breathe some clean fresh air at the end of the trip. A good day ruined by bad people, shame.

I had a great dinner of eggplant pasta in the hostel and had a couple of large rums while chatting to a Finnish guy and a Dutch women – so many nationalities met. Love that about hostels. A quite night as I have a long van ride to el Nido tomorrow.

Chilling in Puerto Princesa

Day 46, Saturday 11 Feb, Puerto Princesa

It was a warm night in the eight bed dorm with only one fan, however I seemed to get enough sleep, which was good. Up at 7.30 and had a great breakie of eggs, bacon and rice. I had today planned as a down day. Though I didn’t do much in the last two days I really needed to get a load of washing done, catch up on a few days of email and most importantly spend a few hours in front of a power point recharging all my devices, mp3, book reader, phone and the spare camera batteries. Though there is always tons of power points around I only have one converter and a double adapter so it can be a time consuming activity.

After breakie I went for a walk around town, Lonely Planet lists two sites to see, so not exactly a tourist location, and I only got to one of them, the cathedral.

But found this memorial garden commemorating the massacre of American troops in Palawan at the end of the second world war.

Palawan is totally different to Malaysia and Borneo, houses look different, even the shacks are not the same. One thing I did notice that is different was the variety of rice on sale.

One of the major differences is that in theory they do drive on the other side of the road here (Malaysia and Singapore are the same as NZ), so I had an early, close experience with a motorbike. Though similar to small town Malaysia they mostly drive up the middle of the road, or where they feel like it !

There are tricycles every where, these are amazing little things, basically a small cc motorcycle with a covered side car. They all seem to be Hondas too.

They are used by locals and tourists alike to get around town. I spent some time hunting down of the other key features of town and after a while I found an ATM and got more cash, there are two ATM’s in Puerto Princesca, and none anywhere else on the island, with my next destination, El Nido, six or seven hours away by mini-van, I had to stock up on cash before I got too far away ! Found a great jeepney too.

And someone who was a bit unsure about their product.

After that I went back to the hostel for a few hours to do all the above jobs and drink gallons of water as I have been a bit slack lately…

Beer is about a $1 a bottle in the hostel – bound to be heaps cheaper elsewhere, but still !!! So I sat around for most of the late afternoon, rocking on a hammock, drinking San Miguel and chatting to a guy from Sweden and an English girl. Later that evening we went to an awesome vegetarian restaurant for dinner. I will say that the food I have had so far in the Phillies has been awesome, which is not what I was led to expect.

Singapore to Puerto Princesa

Day 45, Friday 10 Feb, Singapore to Puerto Princesa.

Short post and no piccies, basically 12 hours of travel today!

With the magical powers of half a blue pill working I managed to get some sleep despite the best efforts of some of my rather temporary neighbours. In fact slept like a dead person until my alarm went off at 6.15. I packed up my bags and left with no turning back and walked the five minutes to the MRT and caught the train to Changi airport. Lesson learnt here, cheap hotels in Singapore are cheap for a reason ! Once checked in i sucked down a coffee and waited for the flight to Manila.

Cannot believe I am doing this, big step difference between this and the other places I have been, Singapore was safe and easy, just by its very nature, Malaysia was made safe and easy with the gentle introduction by Alex. This is my first truely foreign place I am going to ‘unsupported’. I have decided to skip Manila as much as possible, from a tourist perspective it appears to hold little of value and just seems too big and crazy for me.

Though of course my flight from Singapore with Cebu Pacific landed there and I had a couple of hours before my connecting flight to Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan. As you have to produce a ticket out of the Philippines when you check in to a flight I only allowed two weeks in the Phillies, which could possibly too short as there seems to be a lot to do according to some of the people I have met in the hostel, but better too short than too long. Hmm, got off track there….

I spent an increasingly frustrating hour in Manila airport trying to find a cash machine that A) worked, B) accepted Visa or Mastercard and C) a combination of working and accepting the cards. I finally found an ATM but could only get out 10,000 pesos (about $290 NZ), well that is not going to last a while!

The flight to Puerto Princesa was late so I didn’t land till after dark, I got a tricycle to my hostel, Banwa Art House. More on tricycles and Banwa tomorrow. Internet is intermittent here but the beer is cold and the people here seem good and they played some old punky Clash on the sound system – awesome.

I ran into my first exposure to sex tourism today, something I have been thinking on for a few days and will blog about soon, mainly because I am a middle aged white guy on his own, and apparently I am only here for sex, which is so obviously not true. In fact the Aussie guy who talked to me at the airport pretty was only here for that so I guess the stereotype has some wings.