Getting around in the Philippines

Getting around the Philippines can be fun, a lot of fun.  You’ll see plenty of two, three and four wheeled vehicles everywhere.  Some of my favorites were the Jeepneys.  The Jeepneys are used to carry everything from produce, see the banana load below, to people to pigs.  The owners take great pride in the outer appearance of their vehicles and each one has a special name proudly displayed on the front.  My favorite, which I didn’t have time to get a photo of was My Lady.  Others have more religious names.  The Jeepneys were everywhere and running in every direction.  They would make very sudden stops to pick up/drop off passengers anywhere on the road.

I imagine with a load like this the mileage isn’t great and frequent stops for gas are required.

Bananas for sale!

Like the trip to Thailand with Morgan, I had to go out and rent a quad again.   Although this one looked more like a dune buggy it was just as much fun.  It’s fun to take these up into the mountains where it’s normally too hard to access by car.  Of course I could probably walk straight up the mountain too, but no thanks.

Morgan, you should have been here.

 

Diving at a place called Cathedral right in front of our hotel was a little hokey.  They had a small cement castle for everyone to pose around and then opened up a small bag of bread to feed the fish.  You can call it an underwater Disneyland if you like.  I guess it didn’t stop me from posting a photo.

A Quick Trip to the Philippines

We had two days off last week so I packed up my dive gear and headed south to the Philippines.  We made a quick connection in Hong Kong and were in Manila by 11AM the same morning.  Even going through HK it’s a very quick trip from Taipei.  After arriving in Manila we met our driver, loaded up our gear and headed about three hours southwest of Manila.  We were in the water by 4pm for our first dive on the house reef.   Water temperatures were around 29C/85F and visibility was 8-10 meters.

 

After our first dive we dried off and headed to dinner and a little surprise.  When dinner was finished the group completely surprised me with a cake and a few goodies.  They really made this a birthday I won’t forget.

At the end of our third dive each day we headed back to the hotel with this as our backdrop.

Between dives we headed to the resort’s private beach on Sepok Island.  It looked like something you’d see in some exotic travel magazine.  Hanging out and resting on this beach was one of the best parts of the trip.  Just behind me were hammocks to rock yourself to sleep in the shade of palm trees.  It seemed surreal.

All my dive buddies on Sepok Island.

On the way back into the resort after the second dive.  I’m fairly tired at this point from diving in moderately strong currents.

These clown-fish are very territorial and do not hesitate to go after anything that gets near their home.

One of my favorite underwater creatures, the Nudibranch comes in countless varieties of colors, shapes and sizes.

McGill hard at work getting a photo of a small, fast fish.