The Philippines

Wow, here we are in The Philippines. I was freezing in Hong Kong (-well, it was about 15 degrees at night,) and even colder on the plane. It was a low-cost company, so no blankets I'm afraid madam.. I was wrapped in a big beach sarong and still cold, but when we stepped off the plane....hot hot hot! Mmmmmm!!!- I love that.. when the heat warms you to the bone instantly! Delicious!

It's not just the weather which is warm; the people are also very warm-hearted and friendly here.  It's like a curious mix between South America and South East Asia! In fact, as it used to be a Spanish colony, the Philipino language has alot of Spanish words and the food is also similar to Spanish dishes like Adobo and Puchero. When you ask anyone for directions, they tend you look at you as if they don't have a clue what you're talking about, and then suddenly launch into almost perfect English with a heavy American accent. (- It was also an American colony.)

The Philippines is an archepalaego (I love that word) of more than 7000 islands.  It's almost all Catholic apart from a Muslim minority and some indigenous tribes.

When we arrived, we took another flight to the capital of Negros Island, Dumaguete, then we found our way to the bus station, had some really good local food - Adobo and rice - like a Spanish stew with pork, garlic, onion and potato.  ...And all pleased with ourselves at finding great value delicious food and not another foreigner in site, we plonked down on the first local bus we saw to Sipalay. It wasn't until after 20 minutes or so that we asked the ticket collector how long the journey would take and he said 5 hours! It was literally stopping every 5 minutes to pick up and drop off- and then, about 3 hours in when we stopped, the conductor told us we would be having a 1.40 minute break! We decided to go and use the Internet as I had to send an application. When we got back, the bus was jam packed! People were even standing all squashed in. We went back to our seat and there was a woman with her 6 or 7 year old son on our seat and a man next to him, sitting on top of our stuff. Angel politely ejected him from our seat and we squashed on, but the man started falling asleep standing - curling around the pole and Angel took pity on him and stood up. Angel was actually happy about standing because he felt like a giant compared with all the Philipinos! It was Ok until the same man then started falling asleep on me!A bit longer into the trip, which was already 5 hours and nowhere near over, the kid next to me started puking.. Great! Then the kid behind me also started puking! Even better! And then.. I realized that there were live chickens under my seat (of course there were - how could there not be on this bus journey?) and it seemed like they'd just woken up and wanted to get off.

We finally arrived in Sipalay and took a tricycle (- which is what they call a motorbike with kind of a metal frame sidecar attached) to Sugar Beach. We've only got 3 weeks on the visa and apparently there's far too much to see in only 3 weeks, so we'll probably just visit 3 or 4 places this time.  A middle-aged German couple we met on Ko Chang (really sweet and funny when they were trying to remember places to tell us, they kept making high-pitched exclamations and then whispering excitedly to each other in English, like they were in a library and didn't want to disturb people! Ha ha.. )Anyway, they were the ones who recommended Sipalay in Negros to us, and Sulu Sunset Resort on Sugar Beach in particular.This place is run by one German bloke and about 12 Philipino girls... A bit dubious considering there is more prostitution here than in Thailand.. But the girls are very sweet and go everywhere smiling and singing (Everybody sings here constantly.) In the morning it's like being on the set of Annie, the musical, as they all do the cleaning, washing, brushing etc. while singing in American accents at the tops of their voices in that kind of nasal Annie-esque way.  They don't seem to be trapped in some dark underworld - even when warbling along to 'Please release me...'.

Angel was playing volleyball with them and another bloke today and some of them wanted him to go on the opposite team, so they could get a better look at him! They even all screamed groupie-stylee when he took his t.shirt off! Ha ha.. I think he was feeling all smug - and tall coz they have the net positioned really low as they're all about 5 ft. He was jumping up and smashing the ball down over the net like Gulliver playing with the Lilliputians!;)

One bad thing about the resorts here is that the food is really overpriced. It's about 4 times as much as the same thing in the town and not even as good. We've taken to persuading the local fisherman's wife at the end of the beach to cook for us. She makes really nice food and charges us local prices -and even teaches us a bit of Philipino thrown in.

Considering I've never been much of an animal person, I've done my fair share of saving the little creatures on this trip - with dog day in Sikkim and Apu in Kerala.. and now... We were having dinner at the house of the fisherman on the beach and as well as 5 dogs, they've also got a piglet sniffing around. The poor thing doesn't stop rubbing its back up against trees and rocks. I convinced Angel to give it something, so the next day we went back with some medicine to kill the mites, stop the itching and reduce the inflammation. We put it into a bit of rice and fed it to him. Ten minutes later it was asleep.. Oops, hope we didn't give him an overdose!  We didn't tell the woman what we'd done just in case!

After four nights of guiltily sneaking off to the other end of the beach for dinner and rum instead of spending money in our resort, we've decided to move to the town. I needed to use the internet anyway.- I spent literally three hours writing a cover letter the other day in town and just after I'd finally completed it, the computers all shut down. It wasn't until they started again that I realised that they have a desktop wiping programme and the finished letter was wiped. So p***ed off! So I'm going to go back today and tomorrow and try again.

We asked the tricycle riders if there were any homestays around, and one of them immediately said 'you can stay at my house!'. He's a young jolly guy called Noy and he lives with his very quiet (about 15 year old) wife and child and his schoolgirl sister in law.

We spent last night with our new family. They are really sweet. The wife is actually 24, and not 15 and waits on her husband hand and foot. So glad I'm not Philippino! All the women were really shocked this morning when Angel came outside with a big tub of our washing that he'd just finished handwashing and started hanging it on the line... They must think I've got him very well trained!

Noy took us to see his flighting cocks today. Negros is famous nation-wide for the cocks (or should I say roosters) they produce! He showed us a species of cockerill which looks like a hen. Apparently they win alot of fights because they confuse the more masculine-looking cocks into thinking they're going to mate instead of fight! Noy has a gay friend who has a pink house and a pink car and owns alot of these kind of fighters. They are all really into their cock fighting and gambling here, but it seems to be a men only sport - the same goes for drinking alcohol. We sat around watching Spartacus and drinking rum last night. The women just watched...

On the bus, we made a snap decision to go to Maya - the jumping off point for Malapascua Island. We arrived off the bus finally into a little town with one place to stay 'Abba Lodge' ...what can I say except it wasn't superdupa, no dancing queens etc etc. In fact, the guy wanted 500 pisos for a dingy twin room with no bathroom. We didn't even bother trying to negotiate, but his granddaughter persuaded him to accept us for 400. It was still far too much for the type of room so we went looking around with our rucksacks in the dark. It was at this point that we realised that literally everyone around the town was drunk - even the police on duty with their lethal weapons hanging off their waist bands. One old (drunk) guy told us we could sleep in a hall for free but that there were no beds. We went to have a look anyway, and though there were some sturdy-looking tables, without any kind if matress, we didn't think we didn't think we'd sleep much and anyway, he quickly changed his mind for some reason - we must look like unsavoury characters, though he was the one who stank like a brewery. We went round the village and came across a big party of people in the street drinking beer by the crate. They offered us some Balut which is boiled egg with a twist - the twist being that the chick is almost fully formed inside! They make a little hole in the top if the egg, suck the 'juices' out and then peel the egg and crunch the rest. Noi, who we stayed with in Sipalay said his little daughter loves them. Funny how in some cultures, kids think baby animals are cute and in others they eat them as snacks! We had to crawl back to the Abba Lodge in the end and take his room. After that we thought that if you can't beat them, join them, and bought a litre of beer. We arrived on Malapascua the next morning after a really rough boat ride. Since the tsunami in Japan, the weather's been pretty bad here. It rains every day and the sea's been alot rougher than usual and it's not even rainy season. In fairness though we've been really lucky with the weather on the trip as a whole - so we can't complain.We found a nice room in the village on the middle of the island but still only a couple of minutes wall from the beach. The owner, Rex (like almost everybody in the Philipinnes) breeds fighting cocks.We were invited to the weekly cock fighting extravaganza. We stayed to see Rex's birds win and then escaped. Later on, Rex invited us to dinner with a his nephew, a friend, and, as is traditional, the owner of the cock that lost, which we would be eating for dinner. The weather had been terrible since the tsunami hit Japan. It had uncharctacteristically been raining every day all around Asia. When it finally cleared up, Malapascua was like a completely different place. The sea was suddenly turquoise and clear and the beaches were bright and white. We were so glad to see the difference and it really made us want to come back here and bring friends and family who cone to visit us in Asia later. It's only a very quick cheap flight away from HK.