Mabuhay !!!

---

12/3 Taal Volcanoe & Hacienda Isabella
Still monitoring the situation in Thailand. Looks like we may have to skip that trip due to the unrest in the area. Sometimes you can't plan for certain circumstances on a trip... rain delays, flight cancellations, coup d'etats. Ya know, the usual.

Anyways, a little later start today Tara and I hit the road with Izzy and Cesca to Tagaytay where we plan on hiking up Taal Volcanoe. The two hour drive down south of Manila was rather quick. Soon we are gretted by tons of boat guides looking for business since the volcanoe is only accessible by bancas. It doesn't take long to realize that the price goes way up with whitey in the car. So the girls decide to hide me with some sweaters and pillows in order to haggle the price down... I didn't know whether to feel like a celebrity or an illegal alien. Either way we ended up paying 1,000 Php ( $20) as opposed to 4,500 Php .

All us g irls climb into our banca, which i slike a bigger sized canoe with a motor and bamboo rods on either side to keep balance. The water is really choppy and a down pour of showers set in halfway to our destination. The banca guides think the yare funny and speed through the waves getting us drenched! In no time we reach the island of Taal, sign the "guest book" for another 50 Php and dash o ur way through the caballo (horse) guides that tell us it's too difficult of a hike pfffft! (On a side note, the internet stinks right now so let's get through this together). As i was saying, Izzy is not an outdoorsperson by any means and the idea of having a horse was highly appealing. The locals must have caught on to her reluctance because one woman guide followed us the whole time taunting her and sayin ghow tired she looked. The cool part about the hike is that we were originally told it was a dormant volcanoe but after passing several sulfer vents that could burn your hand we concluded it was ver y much still an active volcanoe.

Our brief stint at the top included some great pics of the crater which was filled with a massive lake. Everyone agreed they were getting hungry and we only had an hour to make it back to our driver. So off we went.

Upon reaching our banca, the guides tell us we owe them more money. We argue for a little then succumb to the cold , exhaustion and hunger. Regret follows about 1/4 of the way into our ride when I hear the lovely sound of "put put put plowww " and there goes the engine. The crew manages to get the banca goin 4 more times before realizing it's not the engine that 's the problem but rather... we ran out of gas!!! So this was funney for the first hour. By the second, us girls start bustin out Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer " (goose). Unhappy campers at this point, another banca comes to tow us to the mainland, which was a contraption in and of itself. Thankfully, we make it back to Izzy's driver in one piece and make our way to her "farm."

Okay, so scratch the farm part. This place is literally a resort called "Hacienda Isabella." The online site does not do this place any justice but check it out at www.haciendaisabella.com.

After freshening up and getting a little tour we realize there is no one else here but us girls and about 20 staff. Dinner was a-m-a-z-i-n-g . We decided to take our filipino dessert, turon (fried bananas) down to the pool (olympic size by the way). The rest of the evening consisted of an impromptu photo shoot, games of pool, wine and "Legends of the Fall" on a huge projector screen. Tara and I were just going to stay for dinner b ut we couldn't resist feeling like a celeb for the night.

12/4 Ruins, Wang Wangs and Sing -a- longs
Day 47 in the jungle... This morning I caught up on some e-mails and took my first tricycle ride to "The Ruins" for some haggle shopping. I can't believe how cheap things are here...brand new dvd's for $1! It's hard to resist buying everything and even harder to doge al lthe merchants/vendors. We then went to the local mall in which Tara pointed out tha tit had been bombed 3 times in the past two years by terrorists ...yes, very comforting. Once we had our fill of shopping for the day Tara and I kick off happy hour with old high school friends of hers, Luigi and Weigi.

We then head to another pub in the area where a bout 7 other suspets arrive on the scene. I am introduced to a filipino drink called a "Wang Wang." Kind of like a fruity long island. And from there on out I decided to speak nothing but Tagalog in hopes to finalize my full filipino transformation for the week.

I was ready to call it a night until Luigi insisted we find a karaoke bar. Pull my arm I guess. Well, no such luck with karaoke but we did come across a live guitarist singing the best of 70's, 90's and today! And yes, you know where this is going. Tara and I up on stage singing to the bar with our guitar guy. Now for some reason I was entrusted with his guitar an dthe microphone for a bit playing to an audience of 6 at this point. Hey, an artist has to start somewhere. The bars out here close when the last person wants to leave (crazy) so by 4am we all bring it home with "Piano Man." A big thank you to Luigi for getting us home safely. (Thumbs up)

12/5 Ballroom Dancing and Shootouts
Recovery from last night 's shenanigans was a bit of a slow painful process. I saw daylight at around 2pm. Relaxed most of the day in order to prepare for our big night of BALLROOM DANCING ...with Tara's mom, Wilma and her friends. Wilma was pumped for us to go by the way. We walk in and all I could think of is an 80's prom but with the average age being 60 years old. Let the good times roll!! Apparently ballroom dancing is a big hit out here. Tara and I did one dance with WIlma 's dance instructor, Edward before submitting to the fact that we were way out of our element.

So we headed to Fiama again one last time to say goodbye to Tara's friends. However, what should have been a 15 minute ride into M akati ended up being 2hours and 15 minutes. Traffic congestion? car accident? Come on folks, we're in Asia! Try a military shootout with a notorious gang of robbers tha tleft 16 dead on the streets... For once I was glad not to be on time.

Oh yeah, so by the time we reach the club it's already 1:30pm, which is fine because the night life here doesn't start till about 12am. But we have a flight to catch at 5 :30 am so being the geniouses that we are, Tara and I pull another all nighter before rushing home to pack for our trip to the island of Boracay!

---