Friday 15 July, 2005 - Beach Bound!!

Well - this blog is no longer a one-hit-wonder - I am posting again!! I have just been looking at my sister's website pictures from her travels through the US/Canada/Sth America and am feeling very sad that I haven't seen her in so long - she went and got this cute little blonde bob haircut and looks adorable...made me quite homesick. *blowing BFSK to Alex* Unfortunately Alex arrived home from her year overseas one week after I left for mine, so I haven't seen her in quite a while!

Anyway - it is Friday afternoon and I am going away for a three day weekend...*yipee*

I am going to the island of Mindoro, which is Southwest of Luzon (the main island, where Manila is located). There is a big beach/diving area there that generally goes by the name of Puerta Galera. However, PG is just the main sort of town and this encompasses about thirty smaller beaches and getaway areas. It is one of those getaway areas that we are going to. It is actually closer to Sabang (where we went last weekend) and is absolutely divine. Some of you heard me rave about this place when Ange and I went there about a month ago. It is sort of by itself in a jungle and right on the water - the water comes up to the resort and as soon as you get in, the coral is RIGHT THERE. For those who don't know, the Philippines has some of the best coral and diving in the world (although I have yet to see anything that rivals the Great Barrier Reef - but I actually haven't seen a great variety yet so probably shouldn't judge). (The SOSers amongst you will understand this gripe - I miss smileys!! It is so much easier to get your message across when you can put a little smiley at the end of your sentence...)

Anyway - there are all these cabins in the trees and it is so peaceful - you just wander over to the main restaurant/bar/gathering area and have a drink and chat to whoever is there (last time we were there, I sadly spent a lot of time sitting up there and working) and it has a great restaurant with a massive variety of food - including a whole page of vegetarian dishes (that are actually vegetarian! normally vegetarian here means that you get some vegetables with your meat!! I spend a lot of time when ordering saying NO meat and NO fish and NO seafood!) And you are looking out over blue ocean and mountains covered in trees. And the air is soooo clean there - you can take a deep breath, it is beautiful. This is where I am going:

http://www.coral-cove.com

How jealous are you now, hey?!?!

It is a bit of a trek to get there - a 2-3 hour drive from Manila (depending a lot upon the traffic) and then a one hour boat ride on a 'bungka' to get from Batangas over to Sabang. Then we catch the jeepney for ten minutes to Coral Cove. Catching the bungka is always interesting as the timetable is somewhat variable - if there aren't enough people they will just scrap a boat and you may have to wait for three hours, through three scheduled departures, before they will decide a boat has enough people on it to leave. And by then it is pretty cosy. The maximum number of people per boat is 'room for one more'!

The bus rides are often fun as well - you are crammed in like sardines (especially us - the seats are designed for Philippino bottoms and when you try to put a Western behind on to one, it becomes quite snug) and they have TV or old movies blaring. It became a game to guess which washed up B-movie star we were going to get on the trip back from Sabang last time - there was a suggestion of Dolf Lundgren (do I have that right?) I have already seen Arnie and Sly! Last time we got a TV show that made me think of nothing so much as an adult Young Talent Time!! (that will mean NOTHING to the non-Aussies!) Nat was the only one watching and kept turning around to comment to one or the other of us - eventually realised that we had no idea what she was talking about because we weren't watching! The buses are often really freezing as well - you are in a jumper, shivering away, while it is boiling outside.

So anyway - that is what I am up to this weekend. There are three of us going. Myself, Ange (another AYAD who I hang out with a lot and who will be my flatmate when I eventually move into my proper home!) and Debs, who is British and moving to Singapore (thus vacating the room I will be moving in to in a few weeks!) Debs recently got her open water diving licence so is going to dive (as was another friend, Achelle, a Philippino from work who sadly had to pull out just yesterday) and Ange and I are going to do the Discover Scuba where you go out for a few hours and try the basics and dive down to about twelve metres. Basically it is a chance to see if you like it... Pretty exciting - I am psyched!lol Another AYAD is going over as well and will be staying nearby and we will probably play with her a bit. So I am going to be lazy and soak up the heat (it is extremely hot down there) and play in the water and generally be decadent for the next three days. And still try to convince myself that I wouldn't rather be in the snow, nice and cold, toasting marshmallows!! We had a spectacular rainstorm earlier today (just as I wanted to go and get lunch!) that I think is the very tip of the typhoon that is heading to China, but apart from that, it is still hot here...

On the political front, it is quiet and has been for a couple of days. They got about 30,000 people to the marches on Wednesday (they were hoping for 40,000) which is a lot short of the several hundred thousand who marched against Marcos and Estrada. There were the usual rent-a-crowd (literally - they give them some money and food to come!) and a bunch of students. But there weren't the middle class and professionals that have come out in past mass demonstrations to really give it a cross-society mix. I have a feeling GMA is going to survive - the movement doesn't seem to be gaining traction - at this stage anyway.

Okay - I will go and finish my work for today and try to out of here before seven o'clock tonight!! Really need to get to the gym today.

Thanks to all those who emailed me after my first post - quite encouraging to see how many people actually read it! (even if my mother was disparaging about something called a 'blog'!!) Helps keep the momentum going. I will endeavour to reply to them all. And Emily told me how to make my blog more pretty, so I will work on that as well!

Hope you all have a splendiferous weekend.

Toodlepip
Kate