Port Barton Palawan

Can it already be the 1st of July? I uploaded these photos a week ago and still haven't edited the text. Things at work are very busy (but very good) lots of my Knowledge management tools are coming to fruition which provides a nice sense of achievement after a slow start. Can't believe I am well into my second year here already and feeling so at home.

Having said that we will be in 3 weeks and I can't wait to see everyone. Only myself and the kids are now going. We got stung by the Oasis collapse and although I'm hopeful we will get the money back on the credit card its 2K pounds+ for all 4 of us to go to UK Also Marc now has a job with a friend of ours setting up a solid waste management company, whilst its not permanent, its good wages whilst it lasts and gets Marc in the job market again. Its hard here as local wages are so low - its difficult to compete within local labour. Marc's boss has suggested a new possible project from August for 3 months at a slightly lower salary - I'm just hopeful that the longer he stays the greater the chance of something more permanent coming up or an alternative comes up elsewhere.

The photos posted are from our summer holiday to Palawan with Jo, Gaz Stephi and kids from UK. It was a great trip. The actual road trip there was at times both terrifying and exhilarating
catch all the action here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMLt4uqdl3I

Port Bartin is a lovely place - very rural and therefore interesting, as you can get the beach holiday whilst getting a feel for rural life. Port Barton only consists of a couple of roads, a handful of resorts and bars along the beachfront and a few small shops. As the road is so bad they are very dependent on boats to get supplies in and if the weather is bad they are completely cut off. The house we stayed at was great owned by Mal Brewer an Aussie. It's the house with boat in foreground marked port Barton. The cost was about 250 quid for the week but for that we had another house thrown in at Nao Nao for overnights or picnics. The picture of the girls playing with machete in the sand was taken at Nao Nao, as were the action man coconut tree climbing shots. The house at PB had its own bar complete with pool table , table tennis and badminton for the lawn. We hired the local staff so had someone to cook clean and shop for us each day. The great thing about self catering in the Philippines is you don't actually have to do any "self-catering"at all! We ate well - lots of fish - fresh lobsters - and lots of barbeque's on the beach.

The house was large and could easily have slept a couple more than the 9 of us.

The main attraction is however the fabulous beaches off shore in the many small islands off Port Barton - I saw my first turtle and the kids loved the snorkeling once they got the hang of it, especially the clown fish (Nemo!) it really was the best so far here in the Philippines with giant clams, huge extensive coral reefs and abundant fish. We went out in the boats 3 of the 7 days we were there - a boat was around 16 quid for the day for 4 people - with a beach barbecue cooked by the fishermen for lunch. Back at Port Barton the favorite hang out was Judy's Place which did great food. Marc had met Jim ( and Aussie) and Judy on his previous trip to PB with Boyd last September http://camperbellescapers.blogspot.com/2007/10/action-action-action.html. The girls took themselves off for pancakes everyday and Judy quickly became their favorite person in town.

After the holiday there was time for a few girls nights out in Manila taking in the bars and revelry in Makati and Malate. Jo and the girls enjoyed the shopping and pampering sessions in the local malls. Gianna enjoyed the girls being around but of course there were the usual squabbles especially as 3 usually leaves someone out....

Since they left Gianna and Angelica have both restarted school and seem to be settling in really well. When we went to Gianna's school they had erected banners with pictures of the cheerdance competition. Guess who was featured - yes Gianna - her celebrity status assured for another year!

She had a great birthday party at the beauty bar where her and 7 friends had their nails painted with nail art followed by pizza. It was a good mix with a couple of the girls from the British school and the rest from Gianna's school they all seemed to get on well. Its so different, this year, compared to last, when we were completely lost and out of our depth, not knowing the school system. Suddenly its all so easy and familiar and Gianna has lots of friends. She is even talking about staying on at CSA next year. She has started guitar lessons no doubt with aspirations to become the next Avril Lavine.

We've had out first Typhoon in Manila. We slept thru most of it as it hit early Sunday morning. Marc and his mate Michael had been out watching the European football, well at least till the typhoon cut the power. They had to pay triple fare to get home as there was quite bad flooding. Apart from the power gone for a few hours we weren't really affected but other parts of the country were really badly affected the number of dead was 540 as of Friday evening included at least 291 were reported injured while 277 remained missing.

The typhoon affected almost 3 million people 4000 villages. At least 65k houses were destroyed and 167K damaged. The estimated cost of damage to infrastructure and agriculture amounted to P7 billion. The fact is that as most people live in wooden structures they don't stand a chance against the wind and high seas that come with the Typhoon. Most the the fatalities drowned either at sea or in their houses washed away by the floods.

The worst incident was of course the sunken ship. The figures don't include the 500+ still missing from the ferry that sank. Typically the incident illustrates the poor safety records in the Philippines and complete disregard to basic good practice. For starters the manifest doesn't match the number of people on the boat, the boat set sail even though a typhoon warning was in place and it appears that although a distress signal was sent 2pm in the afternoon the ship was not reached for almost 24 hours even though it was close to shore as all rescue vessel were in Manila. Very few people got into life boats even though land was within sight of the boat and survivers report that the crew were more interested in saving themselves - most children and older passengers did not even have life vests on when the boat turned. Most alarming was the discovery that the ship was carrying highly toxic pesticides not included on the manifest at the time it sank. This was only disclosed after the divers hadalready begun operations to retrieve the bodies leading to the divers having to be hospitalised to check they had not became contaminated. Apparently the pesticide was being sent to the Del Monte factory although I heard reported its use was supposed to be banned several years ago. No more canned pineapples then! We have never actually been on one of the large ferries and incidents like this reinforce the view, that carbon footprint or not we're better off in the skies. This is the 4th major ferry disaster for this company in the last 20 years.

We've also had a kidnapping which in the soap opera we call "Living in the Philippines". It started off as a journalist and her crew being kidnapped by "Muslim extremists linked with Al Quiada" and ended up as basic extortion with the Mayor's son being charged with Kidnap - He who had negotiated the release of the hostages for millions of pesos. Seems the Journo wanted an exclusive with the Leader of the Muslim Group and everyone decided to get a piece of the action. A major flaw in stopping kidnapping is that ransoms are routinely paid for kidnap victims. So whilst most victims are freed unharmed kidnap is generally accepted as a easy way to raise funds for whatever cause you are seeking to support, including a better lifestyle for yourself. Having said that I certainly would not want to the hostage if the payment policy changed!

Kareoke Kapers, river cruise, makati meal and volcanic donkey derby!

JO arrived late Monday night and already have had an adventurous time! Tuesday we took he karaoke virgins to red box which was heaps of fun - Jo and I definitely think its the way to go. lock yourself in a padded room play the music of your choice as loud as u like. There's glitter balls pool tables and flashing lights in the rooms so u can have your very own private club night without worrying that the rest of he clubbers are young enough to be your grandchildren ...

Wednesday we went off to greenbelt for meal after a day sightseeing and Pasig ferry cruise whilst yesterday Jo Gaz an the kids went up the Taal Volcano - Jo and Jessica said was probably one of the best ever days out. They were very lucky as they had blue skys over lake Taal. They went up on horses - As u can see in the picture Gary's horse was so small his feet almost touched the floor - after the pic was take the guide jumped on the back and they galloped to the top. Gary said he'd never been in a donkey derby on a volcano before!

Baler Aurora - Surfing fun

Baler - the capital of Aurora province

After our trip to Lanuza and the bus ride from hell I decided we were primed for the 7 hour journey over the (Sierra Madre Mountains) to Baler which is were they filmed the surf scene in Apocalypse now.

We set off for the 5.30 am bus at Cubao and managed to get the last few seats squeezed between surf boards plastic chairs and a folding table. There was a mixed crowd on the bus some local and foreign tourists as well as people returning home to the provinces for the May bank holiday weekend. The bus station had recently moved (leading to much confusion prior to departure) but took a detour to its old location to pick up extra passengers. Given there were no seats left this seemed rather ambitious until we realised the plastic chairs were to be put in the aisle ( I did wonder at this point were the folding table was going to be placed but it stayed stored for some unknown future use). The initial part of the journey was uneventful with stops every few hours then we began the climb up in the mountains - the scenery was fantastic and the roads challenging - Not for the faint hearted- the bus got hotter and hotter - a novel experience here where most of the time the aircon is set to freezing and people are forced to wear woolly hats and coats just to survive long trips without experiencing hypothermia!

Then the bus broke down! In the middle of nowhere . I knew something was up when the driver started to walk away and then hid being a small roadside shack- the major obstacle was actually getting any information as to what might happen next - we soon realised that the smart people had just started hopping on any form of local transport to get off the mountain- so we followed. The latter part of the journey was completed on the local bus which was great fun - piled high with rice and other provisions - the open windows actually made it easier to see the view and the breeze was refreshing after the stinky hot äircon"bus -

We arrived in Baler late afternoon almost 12 hours since we left the house - and loved the place. Our friend Paul Watts, another volunteer has a house right on the beach. He and his wife were away the first night so we had the place to ourselves. Theres a handful of guest houses- Bays'Inn being about the best which is next to Paul's place - they had a great food somewhat of a novelty in small places like Baler. I discovered eggplant salad yum yum! (barbecued aubergine mixed with onions,tomatoes, chilli's and vinegar P75). They have aircon rooms for around P850 - Baler was about the cheapest place we have been to so far! Facilities seemed fairly basic but OK - For most people the attraction is the waves.

There are surf instructors and it cost P450 for an hours lesson - they were pretty good as most people seemed to get up on the boards fairly quickly.

The Beach at Baler has brown sand but is long and picturesque framed by the Sierra Madre with its white cloud topped peaks. The waves were great and its a real surf spot! The surfers are out all day but the beach is at its busiest first thing in the morning. Its the real thing with some pretty impressive moves happening on waves. The kids were out on the boogie board and Marc on Paul's surf board all day - There's even a night scene - with a couple of disco / karaoke bars and even an acoustic venue. The market was awash with wonderful vegetables - very different to Lanuza where we found it difficult to get enough for a simple meal.

Paul and his wife were back for the Saturday night when we all went to the acoustic bar to drink beer and watch surf videos. Its such a small place we kept running into the people who had been on our bus all weekend - By Saturday night we felt like locals and knew the other people in the bar.

On our last day we met the Governor of Aurora who bought us lunch. She was very hospitable and working to promote Baler as a tourist spot.

The journey back was slightly quicker - we took the adventurous route back - yes even more challenging than on way - the last bus to manila leaves early on Sunday morning so Paul and Marivic suggested we take a van to Cabanatuan later in the day and hook up with a Manila bus there - The road - winding madly up and down the mountains- was very beautiful. As we came down the other side the sun was setting on the valley below - very memorable. Certainly i hope we can return to Baler. They have now started weekly flights but if u had a decent car and driver u could make it in 7 hours making it possible for long weekends - A fun place to visit - especially for the surf competition in February!

Mindanao

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Birthday bash 2008

Another year older! Spent my birthday weekend at a house I found on the Internet. Owned by the lovely Erik and business partner Michel - it is a fantabulous place. They bought land in 1980s, dug the plot out of the side of a mountain and seem to have been building ever since. The style is sort of Gaudi meets Bali meets Amsterdam red light district....Erik is a real character and was until recently a chef in Iraq - French by way of nationality and divides his time between various Asia countries and France. There were 9 of us including the children and their nanny - Leona and Michael who live here in Manila although from London, Mark on holidays from the Bahamas, Fiona our friend, from UK and Marc and myself. We had a ball. The house worked out very cheap when shared between us especially when compared with resort prices - not exactly self catering as we had our own housekeeper who looked after us....On the Saturday night we had a great fish feast bought from the local market but the rest if the food we brought with us from Manila. Easy to do with porters loading and unloading the boats!

We played loud music ,took silly pictures and talked a lot of rubbish! The birthday girl was the first in bed - (fell asleep putting Angelica down!) It had been a long hard day of celebrations - Gianna partied on my behalf till midnight!

On Sunday we transferred over to Sabang/Laguna beach. The boys were keen to see some "action" with several "important footy matches that night. In hindsight we should have simply stayed at house and hired a jeepney over to Sabang(20 mins). Even though we stayed at cheap resort we ended up spending more there for one night than the previous two at the house. All the same we had a good night playing pool - a good meal and our visitors got to see the more (trashy) noisy side of Puerto Galera life.

We set off the next day for the 7am boat back home only to find it had left at 6.45! Very Filipino! When we finally fot to Batangas pier on Luzon we hired a van to take us back to Manila as the local buses were hanging around for another hour and the day was already slipping away - something that very esaily happens here - The only one free was the most "beat up "one there although the driver turned out to be great and got us back safely in less than 3 hours. At first I was a little suspicious as the driver and his wife were whispering to each other and sitting so close I did wonder what they were plotting - In hindsight this clearly was paranoia caused by very little sleep and too much partying! It turned out they were just sweethearts although a little older than your usual canoodling couples- probably his mistress as oppose to his wife...

I was rushing to get back as one of 4 programme managers at work was leaving - She won't be replaced and leaves a sense of the beginning of the end for the Programme Office even though still 2 years to go before VSO exits. The budget for this year has finally been agreed by London and my work has not been hugely affected by the cuts we have sustained. If anything I have an opportunity to work more broadly with the remaining programme managers as they struggle with the their workloads delivering both programme and exit objectives. I'm very much still enjoying all the new opportunities to acquire new skills - the latest being film making and producing short videos of all volunteers as they exit - My editing skills are getting better but it will be sometime before we see a major Hollywood production I'm afraid - At least I'll be able to do something with the pile of mini DV tapes when I get home!

Marc has been offered a trial (3 month) job with a friend who is researching into establishing a company dealing with waste. Marc is to research the competitors to test the business case. Its a huge opportunity and he is working hard to make an impression. It has been a challenge at first to get stuck in after 12 months not working but things seem to be moving now and he is becoming our own recycling/waste management guru.

Our guests have been doing their own thing - Fiona went off to Boracay and did a diving course. Mark is currently off seeing the Whale sharks and volcano near Legaspi and then will return briefly to Manila before heading to Boracay himself.

Last weekend we did the "Manila thing ". Thursday we were at the Penguin Bar in Malate watching reggae bands, Saturday clubbing at Embassy at the Fort and then Sunday the ex-pat sports club Nomads for the Manila 10s Rugby tournament. Great way to spend Sunday not least because the kids can play in the pool while the adults drink beer and watch sports! The trick ( it took us a year to work out) is to take our Ate (nanny) to look after the kids for guilt free enjoyment!

I'm anxiously watching the world recession - is it offical yet? Unfortunately my fixed rate runs out in 6 weeks time and have to remortgage to get better deal than base rate! Apparently Mr Bown says he will cut rates next week which will be good for me although house prices dropped which of course is bad! Will feel better once this is all settled!

Gianna got her end of year results and has done well - considering how difficult the start the year was for all of us....she has passed all her subjets with flying colours and will go into grade 5 in June. Both kids are now off school and driving me mad! They have about 10 weeks before school starts again and I HAVE to get some summer schools started . Ate's sister has started work with us to help out now Marc is working and she has moved in. Marc and the kids and I are off to north Mindanao at weekend - to a surfing spot called lanuza- I am going for work so Marc and kids coming too - was booked ages ago and Marks boss cool with the few days off.

Its now over a year since we arrived. We really do love Manila - We could not have predicted how well thing have gone how many good friends we have made, how much we would love the country and most of all how much we love the people. WE still of course miss all our friends at home but increasingly do not miss the UK itself. If the next 12 months are half as good as our first 12 months it will be very hard to leave the Philippines full stop!

Here comes the summer! (in Philippines that is)

Its been a busy month! Angelica's 4th birthday party was great fun. We had a magician who entertained children and adults alike. He was also useful for helping to explain the rules of the English party games to some of the local girls (pic) from the park Angelica plays with as they don't speak such good English. Mario did us proud as usual with a fantastic lasagna for the adults whilst Marc made bolognese for the kids - traditional; party food here is spaghetti and hot dogs! Angelica got more toys than she knew what t do with but the magician was the biggest hit. He made birds appear (very unPC) which she absolutely loved! She also "graduated" from pre nursery to nursery with all the pomp and ceremony of a high school graduation!

I have been to Calicoan island in Samar. Wonderful place - Pacific coast and very different from elsewhere in the Philippines. It was great to see waves again. Stayed at Surfcamp a lovely resort there. (Pic)Went for workshop so only 1 night - a little pricey at P6000 for a family trip. They hope to reopen an old US military airport down there which will make whole area more accessible. Samar has been experiencing terrible weather and there have been landslides and flooding. We were lucky and had a small window of dryer weather. There summer is July August so definitely a possible location for visitors who arrive in the Manila rains. Finished off a Leyte Park hotel on way back where I took my lovely San Miguel pic.

Meanwhile molly Mario and Marc had a few days in Hong Kong. Marc had to leave to renew his visa. Mario and Marc then went off to the rice terraces (pic) they did it over 3 nights and managed to also get to Bontoc.I must get there with a future guest as too far (and probably too boring) for the kids! Its overnight buses in each direction.

We all went off to Mayamaya beach resort overnight last weekend and recharged the batteries. (Pic)Summer seems to have arrived suddenly with the temperatures shooting up to 32 degrees. The kids have broken up from school for 2.5 months so the next challenge is to keep them occupied. I thought 6 weeks in the UK was bad enough.

Gianna has made here commercial debut with a TV ad for Jolibee.She managed to earn more in 6 hours than I do with 3 weeks! They have very strict child labour laws here (although u might not know it from kids on streets selling stuff) I had to go to the employment of labour to have all the rules explained including that she must get at least a third of the money and it has to be put in bank account with her name!

Work is busy - been learning how to edit and make films for my new KM tools! Frustrating at first but easy once you know how! Also introduced the new In country training programme which aims to integrate a learning approach from day one as volunteers arrive. Also new itinerary for our Manila tour which includes a boat trip down the Pasig river. Great way to see a different side of Manila away from the pollution. Theres the slums and kids fishing for rubbish as well as wealthy riverside dwellings. Masses of old industrial land - who knows one day if they clean up the river could be worth a fortune - look at Liverpool and Glasgow in UK! The ferries are clean and airconned and the waiting stations modern and new. At P45 for a 50 min trip from Guadalupe to Intramuros its another great day out!

As usual some great night out - after party of maroon five ( wasn't sure who they were but party was Ok)- BIG plans afoot for the main event next weekend - Will keep u posted