Philippines

This is a country of 7107 islands. We have anchored in 98 diffent places and visited 30 different island. We have seen four actual 'cruising' yachts, the number of european women we have met can be counted on one hand. I can not buy fresh coriander, eta peanut butter or marmite.......but we are not complaining...this place is fabulous.

WE HAVE EATEN IN (or at):
5 star restaurants, markets,street stalls,private homes,restaurants over the water,over mangrove swamps,over drains,with expat Europeans,Filipino families.

WE HAVE BEEN IN:
buildings made of coral blocks two metres thick,or made of roofing iron,or bamboo and banana tree leaf or concrete blocks and tiles

WE HAVE SEEN:
churches with the most incredible stained windows, full of treasure- sliver or gold jewellery/tiaras for the statues to wear,clergy vestments embroidered in gold and silver, churches with no walls and only termite eaten benches and a fwe flowers for decorations and churches that are so 'special' that they are fenced in and the gate is locked!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE RIDDEN ON (or in):
air conditioned buses, jeepneys, hubal hubal,trycyle,taxis,horse and cart,chauffer driven private cars, diplomatic vehicle, motor bike and of course our own pushbikes.

WE HAVE SEEN:
anchovy drying 'factories',jellyfish processing 'plants', marble factories (with child labour and no safety equipment)rubbish recylcling done by the people scavenging at the dump site,schools over flowing with children, but lacking resources and maintainence.
men in small canoes having to go miles from land trying to find fish in an ocean that has been overfished, outrigger ferrys, licensed to carry 50 people, crammed to the edges with well over that number,oil tankers, barges, tugs,jet skis,rafts,container ships. Actually if it floats...we have seen it!!!
Water buffalo working the rice fields and the people doing the backbreaking planting,
harvested rice spread on tarpulines on the side of the road to dry

WE HAVE SEEN:
giraffes,zebras,wildebeest,tasir,crocodile,boa constrictor, a USA Bald Eagle, Philippine Eagle,Swallows,a few dolphins, mangy dogs, pampered dogs,mangy cats, water buffalo, Asian cows, ducks being herded through the traffic,buttlerflies of assorted colours and sizes,gheko's,emus,turkeys.

WE HAVE PURCHASED:
meat and poultry from upmarket supermarkets, from markets where someone fans the flies away!!!!!!, where yesterdays meat is todays sausages,vegetables that are familiar and those that are not.

WE HAVE BEEN IN:
supermarkets that make the ones at home look old fashioned and dowdy and supermarkets where you can not move because the stock is all over the place..in department stores with as many mezzanine floors as regular floors, in malls the size of small towns, in local markets where the owner is so proud if you chose to buy there produce

WE HAVE BEEN IN:
places where they have night time curfews, where electricity is available only if there is diesel for the generator, and places where lights are left on 24x7.

This is a country of beauty,poverty,riches and friendly people. If you get the chance to come here, grab it with both hands