El Nido to Puerto Princessa

Today was a travel day for us, making that grueling five hour ride back to Puerto Princessa, over the partially unfinished road. Phillip wanted me to say that this is what we rode in; however, I strive for accuracy! We actually rode in a van like we had been in to get to El Nido. It was an adventure, though, as the bus terminal staff put 20 people in a 15-passenger van. I was lucky and got the seat next to the window. The boy beside Phillip had a grocery sack with the handles hooked over his ears, as he was prone to motion sickness (we talked to his dad at the rest stop). However, it was his sister beside him who actually became ill on the bus. The man crouching in the step area was quick to slide open the window, so at least no incident occurred in the van… just along the outside of the van. Once in Puerto Princessa, we took a motorcycle taxi, similar to the one pictured to our hotel.

Phillip says that this is his favorite hotel so far. The security/doorman got our bags out of the taxi as I paid. The Underground River tour tomorrow, that I had emailed to hotel to arrange, is on. That’s the tour we are most looking forward to, so we were very happy. The hotel had a welcome sign for its guests just outside the reception area.  Nice staff, wonderful room. A table and two chairs on the porch in front of our room. Within a few minutes of trying out the chairs, a staff member brought us an iced drink of some sweet, coffee-tasting juice with little tapioca-feeling balls in it. Not sure what it was, but it was refreshing. Our room has two twin beds, which I prefer as the “big” beds are only an American full-size bed, not even a queen size. In Manila, in a “big” bed, Phillip stole my pillow twice in his sleep and woke me up. The walls are covered in woven bamboo. There’s a desk and stock mini-fridge (bottled water: 22 pesos, i.e. 50 cents. A good price for hotel water… $2.00 in the US at a hotel!) Electrical power 24/7 (we liked our El Nido pension, but it didn’t have a generator so no electricity from 6 am to 4 pm).

After settling in and dropping off our laundry at the reception desk (they have a laundry service!), we walked down the street from the hotel and found the Bay Walk, called a boardwalk or malecon in other countries. Clean, with vendors setting up for some event tonight. A group of kids were rehearsing on a stage. I’m not sure we’ll still be out for that as we are tired from the van and want to rest well for tomorrow’s tour. While we strolled along the Bay Walk, we noticed what first appeared to be a while plastic grocery sack in the water’s edge. As we got closer, we saw that it was a jelly fish, about the size of an inflated Walmart sack. This guy could do some serious harm, unlike the mucousy, translucent small ones that I saw yesterday while snorkeling.  I still don’t want to tangle with any of them.

We had dinner at the hotel this evening. Phillip is developing a taste for pork adobo. He really liked his dinner tonight. I had pork chops with rice (always, dinner come with rice). No mango shake today, but we did have a crepe filled with mango (a la mode) … delicious. The ice cream started to melt when I took this picture, but that just made it taste better. Tomorrow: Underground River!

Just Call Us Kermit: Two Days of Island Hopping

Phillip and I spent the last two days island hopping. No, we didn’t literally  jump from island to island nor did we actually see frogs (except for the little one that the pension owner’s dog played with). We went on all-day boat tours of some of the island near El Nido – and it was a great time as you’ll see in these pictures. We used the same tour company both days, so the boat on the second day looked pretty much the same as this boat for our first day. Twelve passengers with a crew of three. The distance traveled by the boats on both days wasn’t far, all within the bay area so the water was quite smooth. Even when I saw swells today, the design of this boat minimized rocking and bouncing, so it was a pleasurable ride, not a white-knuckled one. The sunshade over the seats was certainly necessary as those clouds you see in this picture were not with us very long.
Yesterday, we took Tour A, which went to five islands near to El Nido. We snorkled at every opportunity and saw fascinating coral. Phillip used the GoPro camera for the first time and got some great video. Remember, coral is not a rock, it is a living organism. They moved with the water and came in such a variety of shapes and colors. These looked like a 6-foot wide mushroom. The next picture shows a variety of the shapes. Some remind me of pasta, others look spiney and some are more of a blob. The  next one was really waved around like a purple mop. It wasn’t bright purple, rather a muted shade. And within it, you may be able to see the clown fish hiding. Nemo! There you are! Our favorite, however, was this one. These fellows opened and closed. Phillip and I saw several clusters of these, in all different colors. One cluster was close enough to the surface that he could wave his hand above it and we watched them close up as they felt the water move. I know Phillip has video of these in action. They appeared to be almost like colored fissures in the rock as they opened.
Our boat dropped anchor almost up on a beach. While the crew fixed lunch – fresh grilled fish, beef kabobs, rice, cabbage salad, and fresh fruit – Phillip found a cave and climbed up to it. Only at the beach areas did we find white sand and white rock like the one Phillip is on. Most of the islands are of black volcanic rock, and most do not have beaches or have only small beaches. None of the islands we visited or saw today had beaches that went around the entire island. A final picture from our first day. At one point, the boat went into a lagoon, but the entrance was shallow, so the captain had the six people seated in the rear of the boat move to the very front to change the weight distribution. While we were there, Daniela took our picture.
Today, we went on Tour C, at the recommendation of the other passengers from yesterday. Tour C goes farther out from El Nido and had more fish to see during our snorkeling opportunities. At our first stop, we swan into the “Hidden Lake.” We actually had to snorkel into it as the rocks were just above the top of the water. Once on the other side of these rocks, the walls opened up. Basically, we went into the side of the island through a crack in the rock. A couple more pictures of the islands:



We saw a lot more fish today as we snorkled. One variety of fish kept swimming in front of me and looking at me. Phillip said that those fish actually came at his camera and hit it as he was videoing. I haven’t watched the videos yet (except for one from yesterday to make sure he was operating the camera coreectly), so I’m looking forward to that video in particular. I saw a lot of these little blue guys, but they’d usually swim out of the frame before I could get their picture, but they were bright blue. At all our snorkel locations today, there was a definite drop-off at some point out from the rock or beach. This is what it looked like from a snorkeler’s perspective. I never swam out above the drop-off because it looked like a cliff. Yes, I was wearing a life vest and would never have fallen in, but it was heart-stopping for me. This picture was taken looking down, not out. Actually, I can’t say for sure that our last location had a drop-off. I can tell you it had jellyfish. Phillip and I did not get stung, but I came out of the water as soon as one got about an arm’s length from me. They look like big blobs of floating mucous. With a multitude of mucous legs. I tried to take a picture, but, as you can imagine, I didn’t get close enough and it was like taking a picture of a ghost. One guy on the boat yesterday did tangle with some and ended up with red rash-looking stripes across his chest. The final picture for this posting is of us with Daniela, the international teacher we met in the Manila airport. We enjoyed her company on both tour days and learned quite a bit about Saudi Arabia, where she taught for a couple of years, and China, where she teaches now. She has traveled extensively and recommended several locations for us to visit for our adventures. Thank you, Daniela!

Journey to El Nido

We didn’t have internet at last night’s hotel, but we have it here in El Nido, so time for a blog posting. On Saturday, the 29^th, we had the morning to walk around Manila some more before we needed to return to the hotel to leave for the airport and our flight to the island of Palawan. We walked past the American Embassy and along to other side of Roxas Boulevard from our hotel. We walked almost to the Pasig River before we turned and came back thru Intramuros. Even though it was only about 10:30 am when we got back to Rizal Park, it was hot and we were sweltering. Fortunately for us, the ice cream vendor was open, so we had another mango shake. Here it is, with a scoop of melon ice cream. Phillip didn’t want melon ice cream, so he pointed to another one that resembled vanilla with chunks. They scooped it on for him. Cheese ice cream. I didn’t get a picture of it, but I think he’ll ask next time what flavor the ice cream is before he gets it!

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The lines were actually tremendously shorter than when we had taken Mom for her 5 am flight. Our flight ended up leaving two hours late, so we spent over 4-1/2 hours in the airport. We did meet Daniela, a vacationing international teacher on her way to Puerto Princessa, then on to El Nido, just like us. Our hotel in Puerto Princessa had a van awaiting us (and five other guests of theirs on the same flight) as we deplaned and got our luggage. Although the hotel was very new, it is not one we will return to. It had very spare furnishings, steep stairs, and no blankets. The picture on the Internet did not show the surrounding buildings, and for good reason. They were shacks.

After breakfast the next morning, the hotel called us a taxi – a motorcycle taxi. At the bus terminal, we waited a bit and finally got all loaded for the 5 hour trip to El Nido – 8 passengers in a fifteen passenger van. That’s our luggage being tied on top of the van. We had plenty of room until the van picked up four more passengers for the last hour of the trip. That last hour was over unpaved roads about 60% of the time. They are constructing a concrete road, it just isn’t finished yet. And the van driver – let’s say that lane markings are just suggestions and the horn is the most important part on the van. I’m sure that Phillip was wondering what I’d gotten him into as the road got worse and worse and the van’s air conditioner couldn’t keep up with the extra people and afternoon sun. We finally arrived at El Nido – and a lovely room in a pension (basically a small bed and breakfast inn). We were greeted by a smiling, friendly lady with bearing bottles of cold water. And the bay… Today’s bay pictures don’t really show the beauty of the area because the sun had already dropped behind the mountains when I took them, but I’ll have some great shots in my next post.

As we walked along the beach, Daniela, drinking a San Miguel in a beachfront café, called out to us and we stopped to talk. She hadn’t booked any tours yet, so the three of us walked inland a block to the tour agency recommended in Lonely Planet and booked the same tour for tomorrow – several islands by boat with snorkeling. We parted ways with Daniela and headed back to the beach for dinner – here’s Phillip’s chicken adobo and shrimp plate, 200 pesos (less than $5). I had the fish plate, same price. And we got a free delicious fried banana appetizer. Tomorrow: island hopping!

Fountain Show and Singers

Yesterday evening, we walked back to Rizal Park to see the fountain. Albano, the security/doorman at our hotel, had told us that the huge park fountain was operational only in the evening. I figured it was because it was too hot during the day to run it because of the amount of evaporation that would have occurred. Silly me, the reason wasn’t practical, it was artistic. The fountain is actually a light show with flame blasts. A sequence of colored lights run their routine with different and varying heights from the water columns. The ball-looking things on the water are actually water spouts that change color also. I took some video while the speakers played a song about Manila. Here are some of the still shots I took. The yellow-ish blasts in this second photo were flames bursts that came in one of the areas of the fountain, kinda like fireworks. The lights they used changed the colors of the fountains from red to purple to blue to green to yellow. Sometimes all colors were seen in different parts of the fountain.

 

 

We gazed at the water show for awhile, then noticed that music from the nearby amphitheater was competing with songs coming from the speakers. When we walked around the fountain, we found a free music show with two singers. The female singer, with a powerful and excellent voice, was just finishing her set. The male singer was some type of Filipino Justin Bieber. The teens and pre-teen girls in the audience went crazy when he stepped out onto the stage. At one point he walked out in the audience and the girls were screaming as he walked, singing, to a few of them and held their hand while he sang. A real Bobby Sherman moment. We left as he was singing his last song to avoid the crush of young girls.

Intramuros: The Walled City

Today, we walked. A lot. In the heat. We are still getting used to 90 degrees and about 90% humidity. We had an early start today, really early as we woke at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Don’t feel too sorry for us, yesterday evening we had two beers each, then came up to our room at about 6:45 pm. By 7 pm, Phillip was snoring and I turned out the lights and joined him, so our 4 am wake-up meant that we did get 9 hours of sleep. About that beer… San Miguel, the most common beer here and pretty darn tasty. It is a pale pilsner, so it has enough flavor even to this dark beer drinker. Or perhaps it tasted so good because we walked yesterday… We’ll have to try it again tonight!

We walked to the mall this morning because of all the food kiosks and eateries there, planning to eat breakfast. However, like USA malls, it didn’t open until 10 am. So we had breakfast at a nearby diner. Phillip’s breakfast came with  sausages that tasted like a cross between regular breakfast sausage and a hot dog. The love child of Jimmy Dean and Oscar Meyer. No picture of that breakfast, but Phillip did have a mango shake while I ate my fresh papaya slices in the mall. His first mango shake of the day. I bought the papaya from the supermarket in the mall, paying the equivalent of 88 cents for almost a pound of ripe, sliced and peeled papaya in a container with a fork. For a fruit lover, this is heaven with mangos and papayas at their best.

After the visit to the mall, we walked thru Rizal Park and on to Intramuros, the historic walled city. This is the oldest section of Manila, with the wall having been built in the 1500’s by the Spanish. Six entrances, like this one we walked thru, allow people access to the area. Now, it is just another part of the city, albeit one they do not let jeepneys into.  The buildings within Intramuros sustained heavy damage during WW II, as the Japanese used it as a military HQ, just like the Spanish had in previous centuries. Fort Santiago, now a park area, at the south end of Intramuros (which means “within walls” in Spanish) still had canons in the walls and military artifacts around the grounds. We attended a personal  slide show of the history of the area at 2:30 pm, i.e., we were the only ones in the room. That’s probably because other people knew that at 2:30 pm, it was  too hot to be cavorting around tropical military ruins! It was really interesting, though, as Phillip and I walked along the ramparts in some areas of the wall. Here are steps thru an archway that lead to the top. Immediately to the south of Fort Santiago (which is the south end of Intramuros) is the Pasig River. The Fort was built by the Spanish when they built the Intramuros wall.  Not only was Intramuros separated from land to the south by the river, but some areas of the wall still had the moat, which had surrounded the walled city centuries ago. It was neat to see a real moat and drawbridge, but all I could think of was today’s danger from such a feature: mosquitos! The City had apparently treated the waters with larvacide, as Phillip didn’t get swarmed. In the picture of the drawbridge, you can see the chains that would pull it up. The yellowish color of the water doesn’t mean the water is nasty or filthy. The color comes from the flower parts that have dropped off the nearby trees. Tree poop. While we walked along the top of the wall on the north end, we noticed a shot that showed an opening in the ramparts, framed by the lush vegetation that grows here. Almost makes the heat seem bearable when we can see history and natural beauty together like this.

Speaking of beauty, as we were leaving Intramuros, we noticed a crowd near a church. Forgetting that we really shouldn’t join crowds in foreign countries, I walked over to see what was going on. We had come upon a church with a wedding just as the bride was walking into the cathedral. I snapped a few pictures, just as strangers in New Orleans had done when Leslie married Rock earlier this month. This picture is for Leslie!

As we returned toward our hotel, walking thru Rizal Park, hot and tired, what do we see but an ice cream stand. And what flavor do they advertise with the biggest letters? Mango. Time for another mango shake, this time topped with a scoop of melon ice cream. I was more interested in enjoying the shake than taking a picture of it, but trust me, it was wonderful. Tomorrow, we fly to the island of Palawan, to the town of Puerto Princessa. Our flight isn’t till 3 pm, so we’ll have time for some more adventures here in Manila, but probably no long walks.

Successful Arrival: Manila and Samar (my mom)

We all made it successfully to our destinations. Phillip and I are in Manila for a few days  and my mother is with my brother on West Samar. I will say that the flights to get here were real a**kickers. We’re almost too old for this and I know that Mom was probably at her limit. A 14 hour flight to Tokyo, then a 5 hour flight to Manila. We do thank my brother-in-law, Terry, for taking us to the airport and procuring Filipino pesos for us before we left. For those of you who read my 2011 travel postings, notice that Phillip is again not wearing jeans at my request. Yes, we are all wearing the touristy cargo pants, but we accept that we can never blend in with the locals anyway, so why not be comfortable?

We finished our flights and got to our hotel rooms at about midnight last night. We then had to get up at 2:30 am to get Mom back to the airport for her 5:15 am flight to Burt’s island. None of us actually slept during those 2-1/2 hours. Our bodies thought it was noon, not midnight. Still, it

was wonderful to stretch out on the bed, even if we didn’t sleep. We got Mom to the airport via taxi and the nice folks at the airline counter got a staff member to escort Mom thru security and on to her gate, since I couldn’t do it. I took this picture right before she went thru security. Today is her birthday – it’s hard to believe this is a picture of a 91-year old woman who hadn’t slept for 36 hours! I spoke with Burt a few minutes ago and she made it to his house and is now resting.

Phillip and I came back to our hotel after we dropped off Mom and took a three-hour nap. We ate breakfast in our hotel and were amazed at how good the toast was – it was two slices of fairly dense, thick sweet bread. We only put butter on it, no jelly. This was plain toast, nothing fancy to which the restaurant did anything special, but it was delicious. It made up for the instant coffee we were served! After breakfast, we did go next door to Starbucks for real coffee.

We walked to Rizal Park, about a block away. It is a huge public park, with a monument to perhaps the most famous historical figure in the Philippines, Dr. Jose Rizal. He fought for Filipino independence and ended up being executed. This picture is of the bronze statutes, larger than life-size, of the firing squad. A lot of the other statues around Rizal Park were of martyrs who died in the various struggles over the years for Filipino independence.

As we walked thru the park, we noticed the absence of pigeons and pigeon droppings. We saw a few cats wandering around, looking for a handout, but they didn’t seem fat enough to have taken care of the pigeons. Then we saw the pigeon houses. Such a unique way to handle the inevitable pigeon problem! Instead of fighting them, the park provides a place for them, somewhere they’ll want to stay. We spoke with a lady at a food booth nearby and she said the attendants feed the pigeons in their home area. Maybe Fort Worth needs to do that with the grackles? Although the picture doesn’t show a lot of pigeons on the houses in the sun, pigeons covered the roofs of the houses in the shade.

When we started walking this morning, the weather was cloudy with a very light misty rain. When the sun came out, however, it became hot and humid really quickly. We headed back to the hotel so we wouldn’t become a puddle on the sidewalk. I needed to write this anyway… Tomorrow, we’ll head out in the morning for another historic area of Manila. The rest of Manila seems to be like any other major urban center – traffic, homeless areas, high rises, more traffic. I am impressed with the number of trash cans I see, much better than Bangkok. Consequently, the city, at least the area we’ve walked thru, seems cleaner, although it has a layer of grime from vehicle exhausts. More on traffic, I’m sure in a future post. (Note: Sorry one picture may be sideways, having some formatting issues!)

A New Adventure Begins!

The time has come for a new adventure for Phillip and Pat. It’s been three years since our last extended international travel (except for numerous cruises). We leave Tuesday for the Philippines, a three week quick tour of some exotic locales and a visit with my half-brother, Burt, and his family. This trip has been an idea for the past eighteen months and it is now all planned. Why the Philippines? Two reasons: To take my mother to see her son and because it’s a great location for visiting, snorkeling, and eating fresh fruit.

My mom has not seen Burt since 1990 and I haven’t seen him since 1984. Some of you hadn’t even been born (can we say “Robin”?) the last time I saw him. He retired out of the Navy many years ago and settled in the Philippines with his Filipino wife, Lin. My dad never wanted to travel to the Philippines, as he had been there during WW II as a sailor and had no desire to return. After Dad passed away in June of 2012, I had the thought that Phillip and I could take Mom during our 2014 travel year. Phillip was on board with the idea and Mom’s health has stayed strong. Her daily trips to the gym have certainly helped that. She will turn 91 the day she arrives on Burt’s island, Samar. Mom of course jumped at the idea and is excited beyond words as our travel date approaches.

The Philippines consists of over 7000 islands; we will visit 4 major islands, starting with the big one that Manila is on. We fly into Manila (via Tokyo) and I send Mom on another flight the next day to Burt. Phillip and I will go to Palawan, then Cebu, and on to Samar to visit Burt and pick up Mom for our return to Manila and then back to the USA. Our route is counter-clockwise on the map. I had initially planned a different route that included Tacloban, but Typhoon Yolanda made that route impossible. Although the map shows four direction changes, we will actually make six. On Palawan, we will travel to the north end of the island to El Nido for a few days, then back to the middle for a few days in Puerto Princessa. On Cebu, we will fly into the east coast of the island, but will travel to the west coast to stay a few days in Moalboal.

As in our previous travels, we may miss our family. I know that this time, however, we will miss one family member in particular, Zelda. We recued her from the Humane Society over two years ago and she has been our constant companion at the ranch and in town. We delight in her antics (chasing reflections on the floor, whining whenever she sees cows because she so much wants to chase them, herding a five gallon bucket around the yard) and she has become a good watch dog (usually, although she has slept thru Chris’ entry via the front door).  I know that Leslie and Rock will take good care of her and that if she and Daisy (Leslie’s dog) develop any issues, that her alternate home at Chris and Kathryn’s with Riggs will be fine.

I hope to post regular entries to this blog, regaling you with tales of the big city of Manila, the beautiful beaches of El Nido, island hopping tours, the Underground River, and food experiences. I will say up front that, unlike in Ecuador where we ate the national exotic dish, cuy (roasted guinea pig), I have no plans to eat the Filipino equivalent dish, balut. Balut is a boiled duck egg containing a partially developed embryo with feathers. That’s not to say I won’t, but I have no plans to!

We leave in four days, so I guess it’s time for me to start packing. I know my mom has already begun!