Boracay

I first went to Boracay in 1989 – at that time, there was no electricity on the island, and only a few very basic resorts (forget hot water!) and restaurants. Alasdair and I have been back to the island at least six times since then - the latter three with the children in tow. The past nineteen years have made such a difference to what is sometimes known as the ‘Best Beach in the World’ – from starting off as an island paradise where you could escape the stresses of daily living, Boracay is now a heaving, happening place. You can do every imaginable water sport here, you can eat whatever your heart desires as there are restaurants everywhere along the 4 kilometre beach and you can go dancing in one of the beach’s numerous bars. You can also buy almost everything at D’Mall, the island’s retail hub – at one point, I felt I was back at the Chatuchak Market in Bangkok. Which is not a good thing when you’re not really supposed to be there…

Although Boracay is more like Ibiza now, and has completely lost its rustic appeal, I am still drawn to it. The very clear turquoise waters and the beautiful and very fine white sand are really quite spectacular. Although it can be very busy, you can still find your quiet spot, especially if you stay in one of the quieter resorts towards the ends of the island.

We stayed at a lovely resort called Waling-Waling. We have attempted to stay here countless times, but it was always booked.

I’m glad we kept trying – the accommodation was very good and their little cabañas with hammocks with a view to the ocean was just gorgeous.

We met our cabana ‘neighbours’ – a lovely couple called Trish and Ricardo. Trish had two of her three boys with her, and they played quite a lot with our four. Four because we took Sam, our niece, to Boracay with us for a graduation present. A cute little love affair developed between Sam and Matteo, Trish’s second. They’re both thirteen and it was really sweet! Trish and I exchanged numbers and I promised that I would see her next week, as she had invited the children to her youngest son Luca’s birthday party.

As you can imagine, most of our time was spent lounging around the beach, although we did go snorkelling one day and Alasdair and the children took a banana boat ride, which apparently was not as fun as they thought it would be. The snorkelling was enjoyable, although it was also slightly scary as we stopped at Crocodile Island, and the waves very very strong. Every single time I lifted my head to find out how far we were from our boat, I’d find myself miles out. When I tired, it took me forever to get back into the boat, as the waves kept hitting me and moving me away.

The children had a fantastic time on the beach, and they all got henna tattoos, but sadly, Euan developed an allergic reaction to it. Poor thing. It got quite bad we had to see a doctor as soon as we arrived back in Manila – a henna tattoo is one thing, but a permanent scorpion scar is an altogether different affair! Nikki had her hair done in cornrows, and she looked absolutely lovely! She’s so desperate to keep it until school starts, but I doubt it will last that long.

The rest of our time was spent lounging in our lovely cabaña, getting massages and drinking fresh fruit shakes. Boracay may not be what it used to be, but it will always remain an island paradise to me.

Bangkok, Oriental City

Spent the weekend on a shopping/bonding trip with my sisters Mayet and Tech. As this is their umpteenth trip to this city, they were not interested in doing any sightseeing whatsoever - they were there for a goal - to bag some really good bargains.

After our Business Class fare trip (care of Dad) and our 5-star hotel accommodation (care of Alasdair) we were armed and ready with shopping bags, credit cards and Thai baht to do some serious shopping. We visited the famous Chatuchak market (or Chateau Jacques, as my sisters insisted on calling it) - supposedly one of the places to see before you die. If you're a serious shopper, that is. Or on a bonding trip with your sisters. It is massive, it is packed with people, and it is extremely hot, hot, hot. But if you've got patience, you can pick up quite a few good things.

We also visited shopping malls such as the Gaysorn and the Siam Paragon. We went to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar. We basically did not do anything but shop and eat. Thai food is gorgeous.

I did not visit any temples, nor see the floating market. I did however, shop, laugh a lot, and have an absolutely tremendous time with my sisters. We had so much fun, we've decided to do this every year. Next stop, Las Vegas...

Pagsanjan River

This is my third visit to ride the rapids at Pagsanjan Falls, and Alasdair’s fourth. Pagsanjan River is normally good for visitors, as it’s just an hour away from Manila and it can be quite fun. This time, admittedly, we had no visitors but we thought it might be enjoyable for the children – and also, we needed another river for Euan’s school project.

We arrived at Pagsanjan around 10am, having been harassed along the way by keen boatmen, eager to take us along the river. At one point, we were actually chased by two men in a motorbike, and all the while they were shouting, “Boat! Boat!” (This is what happens when you have a white man in a car with you.) Luckily, we had done our research so we went straight for the Department of Tourism accredited boat rides – which looked quite forlorn and very shut. There were, of course, eager boatmen to take us on the ride on the rapids so we were then divided into two groups: Alasdair, Euan and Nikki on one boat, with myself and Callum on the other.

The ride was pleasant enough. We saw a monkey along the way and some beautiful dragonflies. The rapids are fun and the children really enjoyed themselves. However, halfway along the rapids our boatmen suddenly stopped the boat and made this spiel about how none of the money we paid for each boat actually goes to the boatmen, and could we please give them a very generous tip. We were going to tip the boatmen anyway, but feeling like we were being held ransom got me very cross. I lied and told him that I had left the money in the car, as I did not want the rest of the trip unpleasant because we had not tipped enough.

Got to the end of the rapids for the impressive waterfalls. Alasdair and the children road on a bamboo raft to go underneath the waterfalls, while I amused myself by taking photographs of Korean tourists dressed in suits and the most ridiculous outfits. Thank goodness they were there to amuse me – it got rid of my bad mood from the 'heist'.

Pagsanjan Falls could be so much better. I wish the government would organise themselves (?) and actually do something about it. But the fact that it isn’t regulated – apart from the cost of the boat – means that there are all these touters out to make a quick buck. It can truly ruin a trip. Thank goodness for the Koreans.

Manila

After more than two weeks traipsing around the country, I’m glad to find myself back at our temporary home in Rockwell. Alasdair, obviously, does not feel the same as he hauled himself out of bed very early Monday morning to play golf in Canlubang. Where does he get his energy??? I, however, chose to lounge in bed...

Caught up with a few people this week. It hasn’t been easy as although this has been our longest sojourn to the Philippines, we’ve been out of Manila most of the time. Had dinner with Christine, who I last saw in 1989. Christine is now a travel writer and also continues to be very active with the family’s jewellery business. It was great to see her; however, it’s very difficult to catch up on nineteen years via one dinner. So we’ve vowed to keep in touch. I definitely will, as Christine has a very positive energy around her and she makes me laugh. I’m so happy we’ve managed to see each other again.

Met up with Lizzie and Margarita, two very inspirational women. They head a charitable organization called Sa Aklat Sisikat (In books we prosper, my literal translation, so don't quote), which aims to improve the quality of state education in the Philippines. I’ve always known that there is a problem – however, I had no idea of the extent. The problem is very deep-rooted and I can only compare their work to carving Mt. Apo (the Philippines tallest mountain) with a bent spoon. How these two women don’t fall into a state of despair is something I cannot fathom. Hopefully I can pick up something from them and help them improve education in this country in any way that I can.

Also managed to get dragged by Mayet to see a dermatologist who managed to bring out all my insecurities. Just when you think that your skin isn’t so bad, here comes an expert who starts to talk about how terrible it actually is, then proceeds to poke and prod it with a very tiny instrument of torture. I am now convinced that all dermatologists are sadists. After all, I have never come out of their clinics feeling relaxed – really quite the contrary.

Went to see a fashion show of Lesley Mobo, a Filipino designer based in London. His designs are sold in Harrods. His work is really really nice, but I did wonder how they would be worn in Manila as he showed his Autumn-Winter collection. Sad to say though, it wouldn’t really surprise me to find some desperate fashionista wearing one of his heavy woollen creations in the 30-degree heat.

After the fashion show, we headed off to Zuni for dinner and drinks. Great restaurant and with a great group of people. Fun night.

San Pablo, Easter weekend

Left for my parent’s weekend house almost immediately after arriving back in Manila from Donsol. Because we’ve moved around so much, we haven’t really had the chance to see them a lot. Mayet and her family will also be there. Alan and his were supposed to come, but Andie’s not very well so they’ve had to spend it at home. Pity.

It’s funny – every time I arrive here I immediately put on my swimsuit and a kurta, but more often than not, I end up not going anywhere near the pool. So I didn’t deviate from the usual and spent Friday chatting to my family and eating. Made bit more of an effort on Saturday and actually went for a quick dip as it was quite warm. Then went back inside the house to have dinner and ended up on the karaoke till one am! Thank goodness the neighbours are quite far, if not we would’ve kept them up too!

It’s Easter Sunday today and the children have had their Easter egg hunt, quickly followed by a dip in the pool. It’s quite hot today, and very humid. We leave for Manila after lunch today as the traffic will be quite bad, with everyone coming back from their Holy Week breaks. Then I’ll need to rush to the supermarket as the cupboards are bare as we haven’t been in Manila for over two weeks now! Oh joy…

Donsol

When Alasdair and I were debating on whether or not we were going to do this trip, we received an invitation from my sister-in-law Ditas to join them for a week snorkelling with whale sharks in Donsol on Holy Week. This was the catalyst to our 8-week holiday, as that very day Alasdair booked the flights to Legaspi, near Donsol – and we were committed.

We arrived in Legaspi City, south of the Luzon on Monday and were shown the ropes by Omar, our very capable Butanding Interaction Officer, or BIO. (Butanding is the local word for a whale shark.) Omar helped to build up tourism in Donsol, organising the whale spotting trips, and other attractions within the area. There almost seems to be some sort of hero-worship for him from local Donsol people – they feel that their province would not have attracted visitors without him. The plan was to go whale spotting Tuesday and Wednesday, and island hopping and snorkelling on Thursday.

We headed off very early Tuesday morning to meet up with Omar and the rest of the boat crew. We had Florante, Omar’s right-hand man, Randy and a couple of boatmen. The routine was simple – the spotter would shout out if there was a whale shark in the vicinity, and we would have to very quickly put on our fins, masks and snorkels and be ready to jump from the boat. Omar had warned us the night before that the first experience with a whale shark can be quite daunting – to find yourself very close to a creature between 10 to 18 metres long can be quite a shock. It’s very easy to forget that they are very gentle creatures – whale sharks only eat plankton, which is why they come to this side of the world.

Our first encounter lasted about 15 minutes. We jumped from the boat, and Randy, my guide, grabbed my hand and led me towards the shark. I was adjusting my mask when Randy suddenly told me to look down – and I saw this absolutely beautiful butanding, around ten metres long, swimming a couple of feet below me. Admittedly, I let out a shriek! After a few seconds though, I got used to (sort of) to the breathtaking sight and we followed the whale shark around for around fifteen minutes. It had a few fish swimming around it – a combination of pampano (a local flat fish) and remora – parasite fish that feed off the butanding and in turn keep the shark clean.

The next jump was done by the children: Mica, Callum, Euan, Nikki, Sevi and Gio. We could not do a jump together as you need a guide to show you where to go. It was actually quite amazing at how the guides spot these mammals. Sometimes I felt as if Randy was just pointing at empty water when a few seconds later my eyes would adjust and lo and behold! A whale shark!


We spent the next three hours jumping from and getting back into our boat for an opportunity to see the butandings. We saw around three in total – at one point, when Randy told me to look down, I found a whale shark’s mouth barely a foot away from me. It swam right underneath me and I pulled my feet up because I was so nervous that I was going to touch him. This made the entire trip worthwhile and in fact, I would’ve stayed in the boat for another six hours for that opportunity…

Later that afternoon, we went on another boat ride - this time to check out the fireflies, or alitaptap (what a lovely word). We left at sunset and went on a very leisurely ride along the river waiting for it to get dark. Since it was such a clear night, we also went stargazing - and trying to find out how many shooting stars we could spot. On our way back, we stopped at a few trees that looked like they had been lit up with Christmas lights – they were just covered with fireflies.

We spent the next day on the boat again looking for more whale sharks and this time we saw more than ten. At one point we had one shark go underneath our boat. Egad. Because of the sheer size of these animals it’s very easy to forget that they are harmless… Admittedly, at one point I was quite sneaky and actually held on to the fin of the shark, but immediately let go as the thought of it suddenly going deeper and taking me with it occurred to me. We also saw a shark swimming very near the surface with both its fins above water (all we needed was the ‘Jaws’ theme tune) and Alasdair couldn’t wait for the guide’s shout of “Go!” and he immediately jumped in. Thank goodness they only eat plankton!


That afternoon Alasdair and Lito decided to borrow a couple of small motorbikes to ride the 45 kms to Legaspi City – we had run out of money and we had to get to a bank. Donsol is still a small fishing village and thus the hotels do not accept credit cards and there are no banks anywhere in the vicinity. They came back four hours later, having had quite an adventure. On approaching the first corner after leaving the hotel, Lito found out that his motorbike had no brakes whatsoever, so they had to stop and have these done. After a few minutes, he had a tyre puncture. So they had this fixed. Then Alasdair’s rear brakes went. So they had these fixed as well. By the time they got back, it was dark and they did not feel the need for dinner, as they had eaten so many bugs and flies on their way back. At dusk in the Philippines, especially in the provinces, all these little creatures suddenly come out, so no, they did not eat them intentionally. And they were obviously exaggerating. But gross, still.



Legaspi City is home to Mayon Volcano, the most active volcano in the Philippines and also considered to have the world's most perfect cone. There is always smoke coming out of it; but according to Florante, they only worry when the smoke starts to turn red. Its last eruption was in July 2006, and like most volcanoes in the Philippines, it comes with its own story:

There once lived a very beautiful native princess who had an uncle named Magayon. He was so possessive of his niece that no man dared to challenge his wrath by courting the favors of the young maiden. One day, however, a brave and virile warrior was so smitten by the princess that he threw all cares to the wind, clambered up through the window of the royal chamber and enticed the girl to elope with him. With Magayon at their heels, the couple prayed to the gods for assistance. Suddenly from out of nowhere, a landslide buried the raging uncle alive. Local folks now claim that it is Magayon's anger bursting forth in the form of eruptions.

On Thursday we went on a bigger boat to go island hopping. We left the island of Sorsogon and made our way around the islands of Masbate. Ten minutes into our trip we saw a school of dolphins - what a lovely site! And you'll just have to trust me on this as my pictures were obviously not very good...


We first went snorkelling on an island near a very


small fishing village. Our boat was immediately approached by smiling local children who had makeshift boats of Styrofoam and clear plastic bags. We then headed off to the second island for our lunch. While the fish which had been caught that morning was being grilled by our guide Florante, Alasdair, Lito, Ditas and I decided to go snorkelling. (The children were playing on the boat’s outriggers, jumping off from them and playing with them like monkey bars.) We spotted a poisonous sea snake and while Alasdair and Lito took photographs of it, Ditas and I hovered behind. Alasdair and Lito though suddenly made a start and started swimming away very very quickly – Ditas and I of course followed. As it turns out, the sea snake suddenly looked up and made very quickly for them. We decided to give snorkelling up at that point…

We moved onto two more islands to look at some fantastic waterfalls. We alit from our boat to visit the first one and drink its very fresh water. Alasdair made a valiant attempt to climb up it, but only made it halfway as the stones were extremely slippery.

Donsol is a fantastic place to visit – the experience of snorkelling with whale sharks is truly magical. Omar said on the first day that so many people go back to Donsol for the whale shark experience. I found this quite odd as I thought that this was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. However, after swimming with the butandings, I can now see how this can be very addictive. I cannot wait to go back.

The only thing that almost ruined this week was our choice of resort: Amor Farm Resort. Although the accommodations were alright, the service was extremely poor – it took an average of one hour every time for our food, which wasn’t that great, to arrive. Then on Wednesday they said that we had to move from our four rooms to three rooms without airconditioning – I got so cross that we ended up checking out the very next day and moving to a hotel in Legaspi after island hopping. It turned out to be a good decision as our flight was leaving very early on Friday. Still though – the proprietor was much too concerned about her profit, which was too short-sighted I think. As a consequence we will not be recommending her resort – on the contrary, in fact.

Alasdair has made a little montage of our stay in Donsol. Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhGh07PFLbE