When we woke up in our tent on the beach, we went for a quick underwear dip, packed up and caught a bus back to town, where we hung around at the guesthouse for a few hours. We caught a much needed breakfast, surfed the Internet, and found the time to shower ourselves. We did some wandering through the town and market, I saw cooked rats for sale, we chewed some betel (because I wanted to show Alan how), and then just kinda lazed around til we got a ride to the port for a night ferry to Koh Tao island. [View Full Entry]

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After picking up my bags in the Bangkok airport, I walked towards the exit to hunt for my trusty comrade, Alan. A split second was all I needed to lock my eyes on the lanky arab-looking dude with a sign that read "Rail 'n' Jail." It was Alan, wearing a galliveyah and a matching headdress, all which he brought from his time in Egypt. And only Alan would do this for me. I of course couldn't stop laughing, and it truly made my night. He also had a beard as per my request a few weeks earlier. Like a 3-hour fantastical [View Full Entry]

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Metro Manila! I've noticed that using the word metro makes any place sound like a cool place to be. Metropolis sounds like a bunch of boring cities, but metro brings to find hip-ly high-styled youth with well-fit clothing and whimsically-original shoes, riding atop a high speed train that darts to and fro within the millions of ultra-cool stores. Whatever the case, Manila was a good experience for entirely different reasons. It was probably 2AM when I took the taxi to Friendly's guest house, one of the few backpacker-friendly places in the metro. I slept there in Malate for literally on [View Full Entry]

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After I exited the Visayas, I bused to Baguio for a day. The city is often praise by Filipinos for being a place to excape the heat. It's elevation and lower temperature made it feel like home, and it's dirty old buildings made it feel like Winnipeg. But many people also say thhe city is a victim of a bad city planning, and it too congested. As a pedestrian of the city, you don't really notice to much. You can just walk in between the cars anyway. Anyway, Filipinos here like country music and often dress like cowboys. My bus driver [View Full Entry]

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Cebu was a surprise. I had my first couchsurf, and I my host was a lawyer who isn't as stiff as you'd expect him to be. He's very easy going and very flexible with who he could hang out and we had many great conversations. The second day I was there, we met with two more couchsurfers and went to a beach 2 hours from the city for a night. Moalboal beach, it was. We also went to a waterfall which was very developed for touritsts, with stone-walled swimming area, etc. It was still a lot of fun. It's nice to [View Full Entry]

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this is either the update you have all been waiting for, not the update you have been waiting for, or an update you have not at all been waiting for. foremost, as blogger, i ask your apology for my lack of punctuation and grammar. trust me, i usually use it consistently, but today i'm lazy. losing a 35 minute email in a split second doesn't help things any either. i'll make this short and summarize a bit. the conference in thailand was good. i was challenged and met a few international people to call my friends, from parts of philippines and [View Full Entry]

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So yesterday I finished writing about my experience in Vietnam. Today I write to you a bit about Cambodia. The place was dry. As far as I'm concerned, Cambodia borders on the definition of desert, at least within the boundaries of Indochina. We were lucky to be in a nice bus where we had AC instead of having to open our windows. I was happy to see the return of beef on the side of the road, sometimes wandering in the ditches or even accross the national highways. Cows are like chickens in the Philippines; given their freedom because they always [View Full Entry]

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So here's a little something I can tell you about my experience in Ho Chi Minh city (formerly Saigon). I have never seen more motorbikes than I did here. I thought the Philippines had pretty much converted to two wheels, but this was a whole new level of motorbike obsession. Apparently the government raised standard vehicle taxes in order to push citizens toward more space-conscious transportation like motorbikes. Taxis are most often motorbikes, and sometimes bicycles with a cart on front peddled by a local family-man on the back. He peddles, while you do the steering. Just looking at [View Full Entry]

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This last week or so in Batangas has been nice. One highlight was that we were teaching kids at a Chinese elementary school about identity, dreams, character and unity. I taught the identity portion and I think they really took it to heart. This place is nice and relaxing, but pretty suburban, which is not necessarily my style. I think I prefer metropolises and nature. I don't know, I think I probably like it all, I just don't really think the comforts of suburbia are really helpful to the problems of the world. I leave in a few hours for Vietnam. [View Full Entry]

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Last week, we went for another 6-hour bus ride to Bataraza, a town in southern Palawan. We took a walk into some bushes to visit lowlander tribes, as opposed to the highlander mountain tribes we visited last time. The culture is very similar to those tribes in the moutains, except that these people are mroe civilized. Clothes are normal, most of them can speak Tagalog and are either attending school or finished high school. It's mostly the customs and the values that are tribal, and the family system. Throughout our 3-day stay, us guys hauled logs down the hillside. These were [View Full Entry]

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