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After a 13 hr flight and a 2 hr swine flu inspection in Japan we finally arrived in Manila late in the evening. The plans were to drop my mom off to her province of Pangasinan, a small fishing town 4hrs north of Manila.
My stay @ Traders hotel was great,especially waking up to the sunrise view of Manila Bay. I found the staff at Trader's to be very accomodating and friendly, everyone from the security guard with his cool german shepard to the personal trainer at the gym.
Please, also consider the Philippines is a developing country,
so this being said it would be unfair to compare this hotel to those of the US or Europe. Its my observation that most locals are doing the best with what they have and what they know.
The following day i left for the province of Pangasinan, and stayed at the El Puerto Marina Resort for two days. El Puerto was a sedate atmosphere compared to Manilas Chaotic traffic and dense populace. Situated minutes from the beach El Puerto is a resort catered for locals, accomodations were humble to say the least but again, the staff and management
were friendly and helpful.
The beach has very few hotels and mostly consist of locals who fish for a living and after seeing the amount of fish caught, its not much of a living. However,The beach sunrise is awesome!
with high mountains to the east, the sun peaks over them shines over the peninsula making for a picturesque view as banka boats head towards the fishing grounds.
Subic: Blue Rock Resort
My stay at Blue Rock was one the high lights of the trip, owned by Aussies and operated by locals. The food here was really good considering you could get local and foreign style cuisine, the night outdoor grill was killer! Aussie beef with traditional side dishes with a very tentative staff. Kudos to Francis the bartender! after my brother flooded his cell phone Francis hooked us up with his father who knew how and where to get the cell phone repaired/replaced.
I made great friends here at blue rock's dive center; Christian from Germany, Jeff the environmental Aussie, Martin the filipino from New Jersey and Ken from Arkansas. Diving in Subic is far from the best of what the Philippines has to offer,
but it does have alot of history to the dives sites there and if by chance you get a day where the algae is low and visability high you've got the
makings for a great dive.
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