*woot-woot* - that’s the sound of the "Pulis" (well that’s how they spell it here in the Philippines - Police). No, there is no need to be worried - I have not nor have I the intention to be arrested by the coppers. What I have done, on the other hand is a lot, and here is some stories... :)Stayed a few days in Manila with my American friend Keith and did the necessary visa extension at the immigration office (that’s a story by it self). We also managed to do some serious pub-crawling. Got to say that at an age of 44 years old, he can surely party like his 22 (I guess travelling really keeps you young, *haha* Keith, you're the man!). After a day or two too many in the capital we decided to slowly travel down to Boracay (one of the most beautiful islands in South East Asia, for sure). But last leg (day) we started a bit too late and found our self "stranded" in Roxas harbour - had to wait 5 hours for the next boat. This resulted in arriving at Boracay with special chartered boat around 12:30 AM. All of you who have been there before know that the budget options don’t have a night watch and it more or less impossible to check in after 9 PM. We sort of faced our self sleeping in a closed restaurant the first night, and if it wouldn’t be for Eric (a nice Philippine) who offered us bunk beds where he was staying, we probably would have spent the night sleeping on plastic chairs ;)
Boracay is definitive one of my favourites and while hanging out and drinking happy-hour San Miguel beer at Kurtz und Mags (you know the place with the 170kg German owner ;) I met Andreas and Katinka - a really great couple from Sweden and after a week of diving, snorkelling, wine and cheese, good food, playing poker with our home made coral-chip-set we decided to travel south together and *sorry* leave our Norwegian friends behind.A ride consisting of boat, bus, tricycle, boat, jeepeny and bus (you’ve just got to love the way to travel here :) - we arrived at our hotel and look at that: they have a bar, and the bar has Karaoke! (Well almost all of them have, but anyway). After some persuasion from my fellow countrymen (I guess the beer helped a bit to) I grabbed the microphone and did a few dance and song numbers to which I’m glad there is no video evidence. Me and Andreas did some duets against the bargirls and as I remember it we where pretty good *haha* Anyway... :)
A full day travels, just after arriving at Malapuscua Island, north of Cebu Island we signed up for an EARLY morning dive. Up the next morning at 4 AM and with the help/guidance of flashlights made our way down to the divecenter and to the boat. We did an amazing dive seeing the rare Thresher Shark (Google it to see pictures). We were so lucky (!) - seeing it on the first dive. Happy as ever (but the weather was really bad and half storm on the sea) we decided not to stay and packed up and travelled down to Cebu and Bohol. Around Bohol we have been to Chocolate Hills, seen Tarsiers (a small monkey-look-a-like primate), and dived the beautiful Balicasag (diver’s heaven), drinking at Gerry's, freezed our asses of in movie theatre with way to strong air-con and more...Yeah, that s right - got to tell you about this small shopping mall in Tagbilaran. We are down in the basement, in the supermarket and it’s a lot of people, noise, business as usual, and - just out of the blue everything stops and people freezes/sits down and in the speaker system somebody is reading a prayer - surreal for sure - when the prayer is finished there is a collective *amen* and then everything back to "normal" What!?
Yesterday was our last night and we spent it in Cebu enjoying a live-band with an amazing girl singing (aparently she was in the IDOL show here in Ph). It is always hard to say bye-bye to good friends. But, behold the adventure that waits! :-) 10 more days here in the Philippines then a quickie back to Borneo to do a full day diving at Sipadan (again) - hopefully to see the Hammerhead Sharks who is now almost extinction. All because some idiot Japanese/Chinese are fishing/using them for shark-fin-soup :(Got to say it again (did I say it before? ;) I love this life, but as we all know - all good things have to come to an end, or do they? Well, the BIG news is that *da-da-da-da-da* My dear family, friends and other people I know, used to know, want to know (a bit better), talked to once or twice and the rest of you out there... Be “warned” - this tall Swedish have a return-to-Copenhagen-ticket in his possession... SURPRISE!!!! Arrival will be just a few days before Christmas *ho-ho-ho* ;)
