Christmas Greetings

---

Merry Christmas!

my highlights of the past few weeks in Leyte.

Typhoon Utor Sat 9th dec
When Typhoon Utor hit Leyte, the eye of the storm passed only 20 km north of the city I live in (Tacloban). At first there was an unusual amount of rain, we knew about a typhoon was coming but nobody seemed too worried. I decided not to venture the 1 km to the orphanage though. The power went off at around 1pm and Kei and I decided we would rendevous at 3ish to go into town, which we were told was safe to do, thinking it would pass in a few hours. So I went back to my homestay as the wind started to pick up and I didn’t leave again till night time. At first it was very windy and raining which got stronger and heavier as time passed. I watched the whole thing from the porch of my homestay which was pretty treacherous as it is made from wood and corrugated iron! I watched with my family; it was a bonding experience. As the storm got closer, the water level was rising fast and soon it was at least a foot deep. The rain persisted and I then saw people throwing water out from their houses as they started to flood, they soon gave up as the rain got heavier still. I felt terrible for them. Most of the houses in the community were flooded but we were lucky as my house is slightly higher and water didn’t get in. However, the porch was flooded and the chair I was sitting in was in about a foot of water (unfortunately my camera woman didn’t get this in the photo!). During this time I didn’t know where Kei was so when the rain eased off I waded through the water to find her. She was fine and we had a few drinks and silly chats with another home stay family as the brown out (power out) continued.
The next day I went into town to see the damage. The water ran away quickly so nowhere in Bliss was still flooded. However, there were lots of uprooted trees and many power lines down.
The experience was actually very exciting, luckily no one was hurt and there wasn’t too much damage. However, I can safely say that I wouldn’t want to be caught in a super typhoon.

Southern Leyte with Kei
Kei and I took a trip to southern Leyte the Monday after the storm. After a usual long, cramped journey we made it to Peter’s dive resort. A beautiful place with a house reef, crystal blue waters, coral beach and a brand new pool (we got to christen it!). My camera had run out of battery and the brown out meant I couldn’t charge it so no photos from here if afraid.
This area hadn’t really been affected by the typhoon so the weather was fabulous we took advantage of this and lazed around on the beach for an afternoon. The reef is right off the beach so I went snorkelling. It was extremely good for being so close to the shore, I even saw a turtle. The next day we lazed in the morning again and I got Kei to go snorkelling which she enjoyed. In the avo I went for a dive, I haven’t been diving for about 3 years so took an easy shore dive to the house reef. The corals are in such good condition here, the soft corals are especially nice. I saw Arthur the turtle again and also lot’s of different varieties of parrot, angel and clown fish. I was also pointed out a few micro coral fish which were interesting. We then took a trip along to Maasin were we stayed for the night. I went back to Tacloban and Kei carried on to Bohol for a week.

Dad’s arrival and Southern Leyte.
My dad arrived in Tacloban after his trip in the Camotes islands. We had dinner in the evening with Kei, Al and Ethel and then said bon voyage to Kei as she leaves the Philippines now, boo hoo I will miss her.
I stayed in dad’s hotel which was a nice bit of luxury for a night and we left early for Southern Leyte. After waiting around for a van, the journey and then going to the bank to book flights we eventually made it to where we were staying in the late afternoon. We had a nice cottage to stay in and lovely food here. All the other guests were German, as the proprietor was German, which was an interesting experience. I wished I could have spoken German to hear what they were saying.
My first day at the resort was very eventful, in the morning I discovered the loss of my digital camera (aargh) which I suspect was stolen in maasin. A horrible start to the day but I then had two great dives, both of which had incredible coral and lots of small colourful fish. I saw a turtle, some yellow fin tuna and flout fish to name only a few highlights. I then returned to the resort to see that the pet monkey had escaped. I was then warned that it was aggressive to females, as it was a female monkey, 1 min later it attacked me!! It ran through the men and straight for me, I was bitten on my ankle but managed to escape any more bites. After hiding in a shower room for 15 mins I ran to safety and discovered that all the other females on the resort had been locked up when I got back. So off to the hospital I went to get tetnus jags which also hurt a lot. The bite isn’t too bad and luckily the monkey has had rabies jags but I think I now have a phobia of female monkeys!
The second day was a much better one as my luck changed. We had a gorgeous weather and took a day long boat trip to a nearby island to go diving and try and spot whale sharks. Whilst the others were getting kitted up I spotted a fin, I pointed it out to the others and told them I thought I could see a whale shark, they brushed me off and said it wasn’t one. Eventually after my repeated pointing and shouting ‘whale shark’ they also spotted it!! We jumped in with our snorkels and got to swim along side two 5-6m sharks, a pretty amazing experience. The others started their first dive then dad and I spotted them again and I jumped in by myself, one of the sharks swam straight towards me which made me swim straight back to the boat as fast as I could, I wasn’t risking any more bites on this trip!
After lunch I also went on a dive which was probably the best dive I have ever done. An amazing wall with coves, colourful coral, fish, seahorses, snakes and much more. Then another night with the Germans were I was congratulated on my spotting and told I could have a job doing it, we also started to realise just how lucky we were to see them after only 2 days here.

Christmas time
Back in Tacloban the Christmas parties commenced. Firstly the charity’s party which mainly involved eating and dancing. On Christmas eve we had ethel’s mum’s party which mainly involved eating and singing then straight to my home stay which mainly involved eating, one common theme here! Christmas day was spent eating left overs for breakfast then dad and I went to the beach, it mainly rained here though. At night we went to another party which mainly involved eating. I was also told here that I had put on weight since my arrival but I think you can understand why this is happening, my god, I have never eaten so much food in my life. They really force it upon you here and it doesn’t help that it all tastes so good!!
Oh the other thing that happened in the past few days was that I had my purse stolen with my bank card and UK sim card, karma is against me at the moment. The joys of losing your cards at Christmas time, whilst travelling, is somewhat unpleasant.

Sorry that was a long one, congratulations to those of you who made it to the end.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that you have a fun new year too.

Much love

Ary xxx

Ps sorry for the lack of photos but i no longer have a camera! I made a video of the typhoon which you can see on my bebo site. I will try and upload it here too

---

Photos

me with my homestay kids
watching the typhoon

Painting in tagpuro
Kei leaves her mark before she leaves