Going home :(

So my time at Malapascua is over. Duane and i left the island on Sunday (making sure to get three dives in first) and caught a car back to Cebu. We had met an Aussie named Cam who had arrived in Malapascua just the day before who was also leaving Sunday so we shared our car with him. It was helpful because Duane and i didn't know where we were headed in Cebu and Cam seemed to know the area well enough to get us to a decent place to stay the night.

Now Duane and i had discussed how to spend our remaining time here (my journey home starts on Tuesday night) and we had heard that you can swim with whale sharks in a place called Oslob, three hours south of Cebu. Sounds like fun! Cam was also going to come with us but changed his plan at the last minute because a friend was going to be in Cebu that night and he wanted to meet up with her.

Before leaving for Oslob, we did some interneting to figure out a place to stay overnight in Oslob as we heard the best time to swim with the sharks is early in the morning. Turns out Oslob is a VERY tiny town and the only places that we could find online were nearby resorts charging $200+ US per night. No thanks. So we decided to just go and see what happens. Best decision ever!

Well we hopped on a bus and found our way to Oslob. When we got off, there was no obvious places to stay so we just started to wander. The town was really quite nice and the people were all very friendly, everyone would smile. I don't think they're used to having many long-noses (white folks)  around. The first place that we saw that "might" be a boarding house announced itself with the distinct smell of weed. We were also not really sure that it was a boarding house so we kept walking.

When we got down by the water a couple of guys standing in the street called us over. They asked us if we were looking for a place to stay and told us they could take us to one. They were quite friendly (as was everyone in town) and they took us to a place that we had actually just walked by without noticing. We ended up paying 600p instead of $200 so we were quite pleased.

To thank them (their names were Iti and Dennis) for being so helpful we asked them if we could buy them a beer, so we walked down the street and sat at a little shop/stand and chatted. We learned a lot about the area and how we should go about getting to Tanawan (where the whale sharks are) and about life in Oslob. Iti is the warden of a marine sanctuary and Dennis is a retired nurse. Anyways, we had some laughs and then Iti's daughter came by to tell him there were fishermen in the sanctuary so he had to go. We walked over to his house and waited on the shore while he paddled out to talk to the fishermen. I was really surprised when I saw the area near his house, beautiful park land right on the ocean with a couple of old Spanish ruins in it. Amazing!

I should note that it seemed like both Iti and Dennis were pretty drunk after the two beers we bought them. I was really surprised when Iti got in his little canoe to paddle out on the ocean in the dark.l, bit he made it back ok. When Iti got back, he took us over to the main street and recommended a place to eat. He and Dennis both had to get home then and they left.

Now I should mention I had a questionable meal when I was on Malapascua that basically made for a uncomfortable afternoon. I have been trying to be a little more careful about what I put in my mouth since then, but this meal was going to test that decision. Duane ended up ordering some whole baby squids that he basically had to gut before eating. I chose not to partake in that mess but I did have a plate full of tiny whole pickled fish that were quite nice. Duane did end up regretting the squid later, especially since they don't seem to have toilet paper anywhere in town. I pulled some leaves of a plant for him and wished him luck.

Well when we left the restaurant we walked down the main street a bit and were drawn by the sound of karaoke. Here's where things got interesting. Duane really seemed to want to sing, so we went in for a beer and looked at the songbook. He wrote down a number but i didn't see what it was, I assumed from what i saw on the page that he was going to do some Sabbath and I wasn't really sure how that would go over with the locals. Well when they punched in the number Eminem started playing... Huh? They must have gotten the wrong number... Then Duane started rapping! Huh? Do i know you? Well the bar loved it! Not only that but it was like half the town showed up at the door to watch and cheer. It was awesome! When he was done they wanted more but since Duane didn't know any other songs they just got him to do the same one again. Following Duane's performance I ended up doing a couple of country tunes that cleared out the croud that Duane had built, but it was a good time.

Today we woke up to the sound of roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing... at 3am. That's a serious downside to a town who's primary entertainment is cockfighting. The whole town is full of roosters, they're everywhere, and the half dozen that were roosted outside our rooming house were really loud.

We eventually got up at around 6am and made our way to Tanawan for the whale sharks. They are really beautiful animals. We both went out and snorkled with them, but Duane went back and did a dive with them as well. I couldn't because I'm flying tonight, but I think I got some great pics.

Anyways, I'm on a bus on my way back to Cebu now and sadly I'll be starting my long journey home tonight. This has been a fantastic trip and I'm really glad that Duane was able to join me.

Goodbye Philippines, goodbye warm weather, goodbye beaches, goodbye hammocks, goodbye palm trees, goodbye mangos, goodbye scuba, goodbye sharks, goodbye $1 beers, goodbye amazing seafood. I will miss you all.

Diving makes me tired

It's not all fun and games you know... diving is hard work. I've been getting up on a daily basis a full 2 hours earlier than I would at home! It's been rewarding though and I've done a ton of great dives, today's were no exception. We went out to dive on the wreck of the Dona Marilyn, a ferry that sunk back in 1988. The wreck is down about 30m laying on it's side and is basically covered in black coral. We went inside to do a little exploration (this was my first time inside a wreck) and I loved it. Lots of tight spaces and rusty metal to squeeze through, I'm kind of glad my tetnus booster is up to date because I cut my knee and there was a piece of rusty metal in my leg that I had to dig out later.

As we were passing through the wreck, I saw some of the others head up a shaft towards an exit and I guess Duane didn't see that eveyone else had left. I was bringing up the rear and saw some of the others leave and then Duane turned back around and headed further into the wreck. I assumed he had seen our dive master go that way and was following him. Either way I wasn't about to let him go deeper on his own so I followed. It soon became clear to me though that he wasn't following anyone and we were on our own. I let him go a little further and was about to bang my tank to get his attention to say that we should turn back when I heard someone behind us banging for attention. It was our DM trying to let us know we were going the wrong way. We turned back and left with no trouble, but it was awesome exploring the wreck.

Our second dive was back at the cave at Gato island and it was even better than the first time we dove that site. I took a lot of video as we were going through the cave and as we were nearing the exit I got some great footage of a white tip reef shark guarding the exit! It was a perfect dive!

I've come to the sad realization today that I've only got two days of diving left here before I have to start making my way back home :( It's been so relaxing here, I really don't want to leave. Unfortunately vacations have to come to an end and in about a week I'll be home again.

Well I should get to bed, I've got a 5am wake-up for the thresher shark dive.

My New Home

Yup, I think i want to live here forever. When you use the term "island paradise" this is the place to which you are referring. I got to Malapascua two days ago after my hectic trip from Manila. By the time I had even gotten to the boat to cross to the island the sun was nearly down so I arrived at the island in the dark. Even still I could tell I was going to love it already!

As I jumped down from the boat to the sandy beach I took it all in. The palms draped with hammocks, the little open air bar with great music piping out of it, the little beachfront cabanas that I could only assume would be where I was going to stay; I had been here for a matter of seconds and I already loved it!

I could hardly sleep that first night. I felt like a kid at Christmas! All night I kept waking up wondering when it would be ok for me to get up so I could go diving. When i did get up this place got even better; watching the sun coming up over the water through the palms on the quiet beach. So amazing!

My first dive came a couple hours later, and although I had some trouble balancing my ears (and the fact that the dive itself wasn't exactly a stellar spot) it was amazing. I was just so happy to be in the water again. I got two dives in that first day and then settled in to the bar to wait for Duane to arrive.

Duane showed up at about the same time of day as i had the night before. It was good to see him again... it's probably been about 4 years. We did a lot of catching up but still managed to get to bed before too late as we were going to go on the early morning shark dive at 530am the next day.

Day 2 of diving was spectacular! We did spot a couple of threshers at Monad Shoal on the early dive and while it could have been better, I was just really excited to see these fish. They are really beautiful! I wish I could post pictures but I don't have the right computing equipment with me so they'll have to wait until I get home. I'm told that on a good day you can get half a dozen or more threshers circling you on the reef. We'll be going back tomorrow so I've got my fingers crossed.

My second and third dives of the day were great too. The divemasters are quite good (some of them anyways) and that will generally lead to a good dive. I got some pretty nice pics today and i look forward to seeing how they turned out once I get them home on the computer.

Duane and I both decided to take our nitrox certification today which will allow us to dive deeper, longer with enriched oxygen gas mixtures. I figured it would be worth it since our shark dive this morning ended up being cut short due to nitrogen saturation. The nitrox will reduce the amount of  nitrogen that will get absorbed into our systems which will also reduce fatigue from repetitive diving. Tomorrow we will be doing the shark dive again with nitrox and hopefully we'll get a better show.

I was talking to Matt, the owner of the dive shop, and we got talking about Borneo and Scuba Junkie (where I took my dive training) and he mentioned that Rowen (my former instructor) would be arriving later this week to do a tech course. Awesome! And how random. Rowen was a great instructor and it will be good to see him again.

Well it's getting late and i need to be up at 5am tomorrow. Can't wait to get another shot at the sharks, I think I'll do a night dive tomorrow night too... It will be a long day. I know what you're thinking right now... Poor Nick :-)

ps. As a final note I just thought I should mention that other than my dive fins, I haven't worn footwear of any sort since I got here.

An island in a lake in an island in...

I took a trip out to Taal volcano yesterday because I didn't really feel like spending another day in Manila. Taal is the area's most active volcano (I think) but it hasn't erupted since 1911. It's located to the south of Manila in the center of a crater lake. The volcano itself is an island and it's cone is a lake as well. In the cone lake there is another island. So it's an island in a lake in an island in a lake in an island.

I took a boat out to the volcano and was asked if i wanted to walk up or if i wanted to take a horse. I'm not sure even if i had wanted to take a horse if i would have fit on one. The horses they have here are pony sized at best, their heads only come up to about my chest. I could just imagine getting on one and being able to drag my feet on the ground.

Anyways I walked up and saw the island in the crater, there was a great view from the rim of the volcano and you could see that the water in the lake was boiling at its edge. Not so good for swimming I guess.

It wasn't a hugely eventful day, but i did enjoy the trip. On the drive back into Manila as i was watching out the window there were a ton of little roadside shops, one in particular was selling lawn ornaments. Well in the rows of gnomes and birds and fountains and such there stood an 8 foot tall (at least) Incredible Hulk statue flexing and looking very angry. I really wish i had my camera ready. Can you picture that sitting in someone's yard in Kanata? Are you even allowed to have lawn ornaments in Kanata?

Scamming... Yer doin' it wrong

So I've got a story from last night and I don't really know what to make of it. Because I'm only in Manila for a couple days I decided it would be worth taking a tour of some sort to be able to learn as much about the city as I can while I'm here. I found a guy that was recommended by the lonely planet and was told to be at a specific spot at 3pm for the tour. As it turns out, because of the iglesias de cristo thing going on (that's kind of another story but I have never seen traffic this bad before in my life) he cancelled the tour.

Well that kind of sucks, I really did want to do this tour. Now there was another guy there, an Aussie named Jack, that was also looking for a tour. Through some other random guy we ended up meeting Lance, a local who works at the national library who offered to take us on a tour for free. Well ok, that seems like a reasonable price.
So we set out and he really did know a lot of history about the country and was giving quite a good tour. I think both Jack and i were quite happy to have randomly met this guy. We ended up wandering around for a couple of hours before Lance suggested that we head to the bay to see the sunset and have a beer, so we caught a cab and went to a bar at the Mall of Asia.

Now because of all the people and traffic, the cab ride probably took close to an hour and we missed the sunset, but we were at a bar with beer and that's all that really mattered. So we ordered some beer and some kind of amazing food platter and started chowing.

At some point Lance mentioned that he has colon cancer and the doctors gave him 5 years to live. That was very unfortunate I said and I was sorry to hear it but he said that he's come to accept it and its not how long you live, but how you live that matters. I thought that was a really good way to look at life.

Well at some point a couple of beers later in the evening Lance was obviously not feeling well. He seemed to be uncomfortable and in a bit of pain. He mentioned that he gets like this every few months and he needed to get some medicine. There was a drug store nearby and he asked if we would mind paying for the medicine which he said would be about 1250 pesos. Jack and i didn't have a problem with that and we ended up giving him 1500 pesos as we didn't have change.

Well Lance limped over towards the drug store and that's the last we saw of him. Were we scammed? Did he just take us for 1500 pesos (roughly $40)? What I don't get is why did he take us on a tour and spend 5 hours with us in order to get $40 out of us? Jack and I had showed up to take a tour that was going to cost us 1100 pesos each. I was going to offer him some money at the end of the evening anyways just for his trouble. The beer and food wasn't really an expense, and we weren't going to ask him to pay anyways. I'm just really confused if I got ripped off for an amount that was basically fair compensation for the service he provided us. Shouldn't I feel bad after getting ripped off? 

Eff it's hot here

So after arriving at my hostel yesterday afternoon (which is really quite nice) I was so exhausted from travelling I needed to crash for a bit. I woke up after a couple hours when my roommate came in. Dennis is from South Korea and his English isn't so good but he's quite a nice guy. He encouraged me to get out and take a look around which I knew I should because if I just stayed in bed I would probably wake up at 3am and not be able to sleep again.

I went out and wandered a bit but i didn't have a map so i didn't really have a good sense of where i was going. I headed in the direction of the coconut palace and apparently just missed it by a block or so, I might wander back there today. What i did manage to see was a beautiful sunset over Manila Bay, quite spectacular!

My first real impression of this city is that it's very dirty, very busy, and kind of a dump. I wandered for a couple of hours and got tired again so i grabbed a quick bite and headed back to the hostel. Dennis came back again and he was going to head out to what he called a "sexy bar". I told him I was going to pass, I only really had about 10 hours of sleep in the last three nights combined so i wanted to catch up. I also told him not to bring any ladyboys back to the room.

This morning I got up early to head to the old Spanish fortification of Intramuros. It wasn't far, but it turned out to be a long walk because there is some kind of church event going on. There are thousands and thousands of people in the streets and it's a little difficult to navigate. I feel like a bit of a celebrity though. I've posed for several pictures with various random people and there was one boy of about 12 years old who came up to me and asked me if i was a priest. I said no and he asked what I was doing here. I told him that i was just visiting and he said "please enjoy this place". Kind of warmed my heart.

I'm going to head back to Intramuros later this afternoon to join a tour. I don't really know what else I should try to see. My Lonely Planet has a few ideas, but isn't very enthusiastic about any of them. Most of the good sights to be seen aren't in Manila, but around it. I'll make sure to get down to Taal volcano tomorrow. It will be a little pricy, but I don't think I want to spend another day here.

ps. These people LOVE Superman! I can't count how many people I saw wearing Superman logos today.

Nice try AC, you almost had it

So I knew it was too good to be true. I went to check-in at the Thai Airlines counter this morning as I was instructed to by Air Canada yesterday and they had no record of me for today's flight. Great!

They told me to go see someone at the Thai Airlines help counter so i did. Nope, no help there. They had even just spoken to someone from Air Canada and had been given the name of another passenger to transfer, but nothing about me. Ok, perfect, over to see Air Canada then.

To be fair, they resolved the problem pretty quickly. I just would have been pretty pissed if they had told me that the flight was now full or something like that.

I was a little disappointed at first when they put me on Thai Airlines instead of Singapore Air as was my original booking because I have heard great things about Singapore Air. Well I'm definitely not disappointed anymore, Thai Airlines gets two big thumbs up from me. Great service, roomy seats, awesome food (green curry chicken) and the stewardess keeps coming around and topping off my wine glass (in a real glass). Well done!

On the upside they didn't manage to lose my bag so I'm pretty pleased. I'm in Manila now and I'm really tired and very confused as to what day it is. I hope to spend tomorrow wandering around Intramuros, the old Spanish city in the heart of Manila. Maybe I'll head down to Taal volcano the next day if i can recruit a couple more people to go with me to cut the cost.

So here's a funny story for you. I had just landed in Manila and left the airport. My driver to get me to the hostel (Hector) was telling me about the city. About 5 minutes into the drive he asked me if i was single and wanted to meet some nice Filipinas. I said I was single, but wasn't looking to meet anyone, I just came here to see the city. Well that didn't deter him. He said if i wanted a nice clean girl to talk to him. The ones in the bars are very dirty he said. Ummm... Ok. I didn't really know what to say so I changed the topic. I had been here for less than an hour and I already found a pimp, or rather he found me.