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Published: January 19th 2007
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Heaven
one of the beaches on coron island My last day in the Philippines and I am very sad to be leaving this wonderful place. The only thing that is keeping me going is the prospect of meeting Ruth in Singapore for the rest of our travels.
I have had another great few weeks. My last week in tacloban was spent teaching the local youth club swimming. Although most of you will know my long swimming and lifeguarding past, teaching is very difficult. It requires patience! I think that is one of the things I have learned the most here. It was really fun teaching them and actually very rewarding too. Some of the better ones can even swim butterfly now.
I also had the celebration of Nw year. This started fairly calmly with some drinking, dancing with my awesome partner Ton ton (follow the leader!) and then a meal and drinks with my family at 12 midnight. Al joined me and my family at 1am ish. I was supposed to go back to his and meet our friends but he convinced me to stay at his with my homestay mum and dad. Here al and I weighed each other and found that we had both put on 10lbs
lake kayangan
the island lake of coron so had little babies in our stomachs. After lots more drink Al, susan (my homestay mum) and I went to his (4am) but everyone was in bed. So instead we went to another house for karoke and more drinking. By about 6am we left after I have fallen asleep in the toilet and this is where the memory stops. The next day Al and I were informed of our actions. Apparently I left his for more karoke but went and fell asleep in the wrong house then was escorted home at about 9ish! Whilst Al was chasing some of the community kids around the plaza with his flip flops and shouting ‘Gay’ at everyone!! So we were the talk of the town the next day.
On my last night I had a leaving meal which was really fun. My homestay mum had cooked all my philippino favourites but unfortunately I had been sick the day before (stress related!) and couldn’t really eat much. Probably a good thing because of all the weight I have put on! We had more karoke and dancing to work off the food.
Palawan
After a night in Manila (where I got
a new digital camera, yeah) we arrived in Busunga, Palawan. Our first day was spent on a boat trip to a near by island were we went to 2 island lakes which were beautiful and also this gorgeous beach. As you can see from the photos it was pretty spectacular.
The next few days I spent diving. I was taking my Adventure (or advanced) padi diving course. This included 5 dives and lots of reading. I had my first night dive which was pretty exhilarating. The visibility and coral was not great but the experience was fun and I am looking forward to doing another one. The highlight though was the wreck dives. The area is famous for it wrecks, I think it has about 10 wrecks here from the 2nd world war. It was a navi base for the japenese that experienced an American air strike in 1944. We got to go inside the wrecks, anyone who knows about diving will know that this isn’t actually allowed. It was so exciting and really dangerous. Anyway the dive master seems to think I have a real talent for diving so thinks I should be an instructor, so when I get
Alona Beach
My last beach in the Philippines bored of accounting (probably quite soon then) I have another career option!
My dad then left for El nido on palawan and I had a few relaxed days on the island of bohol. Again I stayed at a gorgeous beach. This was the most touristy place I have stayed in but still very nice. I decided to give the diving a rest for a while and snorkeled instead. I am now back in Cebu, where the ASEAN summit going on so the city is buzzing. I am just about to leave for the airport 4 hrs before my flight as the traffic is so crazy. Off to Singapore and meet ruth after a night here, woo hoo.
So long to the Philippines and I really hope that I will be back soon, there are so many amazing places to visit here and the people are the friendliest I have ever met so I really recommend it. Also I haven’t met any other Scottish people here so we need to get some more of us out here to let them know about our great country too.
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mikel
non-member comment
au revoir..come back again soon. so glad you had a good time in the country.