At the beach

It seems strange to think I've been here less than a week, as I'm getting so used to it.

The best thing has definitely been the zipline over the sea but I also did several tours of the nearby islands and lagoon.
Tour C involved snorkelingand two hidden beaches. One in a narrow inlet and one I actually had to swim through a small cave to get to. On the way out from that I found out just how strong the currents are and had to be dragged back on course.
After a day on land when I did the zipline I went out on tour A where we got to kayak in two lagoons and camp overnight on a beach. Then in the morning, tour B including beaches, caves and a viewpoint on top of an island that was maybe 50m up.

Doing two tours with a night camping on the beach was great fun, though I very quickly missed being able to wash in water that wasn't salty.

The weather is far more overcast than you'd expect for a tropical beach resort and I was actually cold in the rain yesterday. I don't mind that at all as it's helping me adjust to the heat.

To Palawan

Internet is a bit slow here so updates may be sporadic but here goes.

Wednesday I flew from Manila to Puerto Princessa on Palawan. We boarded the plane early in order to have more time on board when take off was delayed and flew away from the city to a genuine tropical island. 

Landing it was instantly clear this is a much less rushed place and so it turned out. I got a minibus who started by driving round Puerto to find more passengers then stopped for petrol before starting the long haul north, with an hour break so the driver could have dinner. 

Arrived in El Nido in the dark and met up with my old workmate Holly.

On Thursday, Holly showed me a beach along the coast with even better views,  especially of the sunset. Then today I did a boat tour, including a beach you can only get to through a cave.

Manila

The first thing to say is that Manila is not a city, it's several cities jammed together. So far I've made out four distinct types.

The first is the private subdivisions, like the one my hostel is in. These have guarded security gates, new range rovers with tinted windows and big houses. Next comes what I think of as the in between, which is basically a giant gridlock scattered with buildings made of breeze blocks.

The most interesting part is definitely Intramuros, the old walled area with Spanish architecture and museums. Which is where I spent most of the day. The fourth type of city I saw only from a distance but unlike the others it has skyscrapers. 

Getting in and out of Intramuros is an endurance challenge due to the gridlock and the fact no one knows where anywhere is resulting in taxis and buses doing U turns across the traffic, which really helps the traffic. 

I first looked at the cathedral, which seemed disappointingly modern. This turned out to be true since it is the 7th on the site and was only built in the 1950s. After that I decided the best way to see the sites and minimise hassle was to pick one guide to protect me from the others. So I got a three and a half hour tour in a kind of bicycle sidecar. This included the Augustinian monastery, which was much more what you expect from an old Catholic Church, Casa Manila - a replica of a 19th century house, and several parts of the old fortifications. 

Afterwards I ate at a road side café and chose the first thing on the menu. This turned out to be a pork bone with some meat and a lot of skin left on it, but it was authentic.

Next came the challenge of getting back. I started the journey in a motorcycle version of the sidecar taxi. Driven by an entire family complete with baby and able weave through the traffic. This would probably have been terrifying if it wasn't for the limited view. After 20 minutes or so they gave up and handed me over to an actual taxi. He of course didn't know the address and spent a couple of hours asking everyone if they recognised the card with it on. I'm back now and don't think I'll risk going anywhere for the evening. 

Too much awake

So here's my first attempt at a proper blog post for this trip. It started easily enough with a train and bus, followed by a very comfortable nights sleep in the Ibis Heathrow.
In the morning I was taken to the airport by a Turkish  (?) taxi driver who seemed to keep forgetting he had brakes, usually as he was approaching a bus and had to veer round it at high speed with inches to spare. Check in was mthen made interesting by a computer that couldn't cope with my flight number but then I was on my way. The plane to Singapore was half empty leaving with four seats to lie down on,  though I still didn't seem to actually sleep and spent a lot of time playing with the on board wifi and the tv. Incidentally how can they have a programme like Game of thrones on a plane?  The tvs would be easily visible by a child in the row behind or a couple of seats along. I did check and there wasn't but still surprised they get away with it.
Singapore was cooler than I expected and raining, not that I got wet of course, Changing as ever is like a commercial version of the starship Enterprise. I had to get a shuttle bus and walkway to my gate then find coffee to allow me to function.

By the time I landed I estimate it was 28 hours since I'd actually slept. There was no sign of my pickup so I risked a taxi,  who ripped me off outrageously and stopped about ten times to ask directions.
He also gave me an introduction to what passes for taxi driver banter here. Telling me that President Duerte is a great man, very humble, who only kills bad people. There was a bit of interest Asian racism, which I hadn't expected, when he told me 'bad people' means mostly Chinese.

On arrival they were not pleased and wanted to know why I had not gone to the pick up point they told me about by email. Because  I hadn't even turned my phone on assuming that if it worked at all it would be extortionate! Still on checking via the hostel wifi,  there it was.  Sent of course while the phone was off.

I managed to get a free upgrade to an ensuite room and sleep for a couple of hours.
The location is fine, very close to the airport, not that the taxi driver knew, and in some sort of private estate where you have to pass numerous security guards to get in.
Tomorrow it actually gets interesting. 

Postjona Caves

I have to be honest that thanks to poor transport connections it feels like a lot of the last two days has been wasted and with better connections I could have seen as much and flown out on Sunday. Anyway in between long waits and train rides...

Postojna caves were discovered in 1818, the first tours were run the following year and they have run every day since including through both world wars (or so they claim). Unfortunately photography isn't allowed except in the last part of the caves by the gift shop so you will have to take my word for it on the mini raliway, the huge multicoloured formations of stalactites and stalagmites and the cave salamanders.

Also not reproduceable the unbeatable attempt of a German to explain the English word echo to a Slovenian "The sound he walks at the wall"

Plitvice Lakes

Due to the lack of transport I ended up going to Plitvice via Zagreb. The entrance car park was surrounded by closed up buildings that might have been gift shops, guest houses, cafes or almost anything from what I could tell.

Eventually I found an open restaurant (at least I think it was a restaurant, it had tables but no sign of food, drink or customers) and asked about ahotel. The answer was that there was one down the road five something, possibly kilometers, possibly inches the language gap meant there was no way to tell. Luckily it turned out to be 500m.

The hotel was a huge complex, I don't know everything that was in there as I gave up my exploration of the building somewhere after the second conference hall and before the tennis courts but it was big.

My ticket allowed me to explore the lakes for one afternoon and the following morning, though I never got to see it all as in places the waterfalls were gushing over the ice covered path. Anyway it is a place best shown rather than described so here goes.

Back in Zagreb for one night I went looking for a toy shop for Christmas presents. The market sold beautiful wooden toys but unfortunately held together with bits of metal that looked designed to pop out and injure a bay so I decided to take the safe option and buy from a proper shop. The first place I got an address for didn't exist, I mean not just it wasn't a toyshop but there was no building there. The address was given as number 12 but when I got there the 12 was over an arch leading to an open yard with a few bins in it. I did eventually find somewhere but can say no more in cvase certain people have learnt to read really quickly.

Zadar

I am now really annoyed that I lost my camera as Zadar had by far the best views of anywhere I've visited with turquoise sea, green islands and a line of snow capped mountains along the horizon.

Unfortunately views is all it had as the tour to Plitvice lakes national park that I had hoped to join only run in summer so I ended up with a day and a half to try and fill. I did discover the unique selling points of Zadar, something called the sea organ, a series of pipes that make noises a bit like whale song as the waves wash in and out of them and the salute to the sun, a set of lights set in the sea front that flash in random patterns.

In the morning I visited the two small museums in town, which to be fair did have an impressive collection of stone carvings and even gold ornaments dating from the iron age. Then I took a ferry over to the nearest island, determined to say I had visited at least part of the huge archipelago that runs along the Croatian coast and wandered around the island for a bit.

Unfortunately I am coming to the conclusion that the Croatian coast can only be done properly in summer thanks to the habit of shutting everything when there are less than a bajillion tourists. Still it was a shame to leave the sun and get a bus back to Zagreb, which is cold but on the plus side is now probably  the first place that seems Christmassy with lots of lights and Christmas markets.