Ready, set, dive

By this time tomorrow, Nicholas will be a certified scuba diver and open water diver. I hope he continues to dive, and improve his learning. I videotaped one of his dives and have posted it on my Facebook...be sure to take a look. At one point you can see him far below me about 6 meters, and then a school of sardines swims between us


The days here in Moalboal, while he has been in classes, have been a bit laid back for me. There is not much to do besides snorkel, which i have enjoyed doing every day. There are some islands, and some waterfalls that i could go see, but my experience has always been that waterfalls considered amazing in Asia, are just trickles compared to waterfalls we see regularly in the Rockey Mountains. Tomorrow I may go snorkel on some neighbouring islands, and then we will leave here the day after to go to Oslob to swim with some whale sharks. Whale sharks are enormous fish...up to 21 tons, and 40 meters long. The local fishermen feed them every morning, to keep them there, so that they can sell the experience to tourists. It is probably not a very ecologically friendly thing to do, likely screws up their natural feeding instincts, etc., but i figure, it is an experience I will likely not ever get to have again. Is that terrible? People are so poor here, I find myself worrying more about the livelihood of the fishermen than the fish....but that's just me.

Today I am in a bit of a stunned mood. I got very strange news from one of my Doctors today, confirming I have tested positive for Lyme Disease. Could it be that after 15 years of specialists, misdiagnoses of MS, Spondlyoarthritis, and numerous other theories/health issues, that somehow, all of those Doctors neglected to test me for Lyme? Anyway, if in fact I have it (Dr. says it is unequivocal)it is in the later stages, and its likely the neurological deficits and joint issues will be permanent. Either way, looks like I will have o undergo a 4-8 week bought of IV antibiotics. (Personally, I am more afraid of that than the symptoms caused by the disease).

Anyway, that aside, I seem to be managing well, and my health seems to be, for the most part, cooperating, with the exception of gallbladder pain. So down days, on occasion, are not always a bad thing, they give me a chance to rest.

Yesterday, while sitting in my favourite eatery, two older men in their sixties came in with two VERY young Filipino girls. I wanted to throw my beer at them. It was pretty obvious what they were up to. It made me feel sad...

We have had some really great storms the last couple of nights...the lightening is beautiful, and the rain absolutely torrential. Kind of fun to watch, and this morning, the ocean was so calm, it looked like a mirror, so I grabbed my fins and snorkel and headed out. While flapping around, I saw a local man free diving with a small spear. He would go down about 7 meters, catch fish, and string them on a rope. It was neat to watch.

New Favorite Fruit

Here in the Philippines there are two very strange fruits that grow,and I have decided they are my new favorite fruit. The first, is called Manggostein. it is the size of a a very large plum or small tomato. It is dark purple - almost black - and the skin is quite hard. When the street seller approached me, I thought he was selling a string of wooden bonker balls. When you crack open the skin, beneath is a thick purple layer of mush. Beneath the mush is a small ball of fleshy white segments - like a miniature orange. The segments are extremely sweet and have the texture of peach. The flavour I cannot describe because I have never tasted anything like it. It was delicious. One of the segments is larger than the others, and contains a large inedible pit.


The other fruit is called Lansones. It is the size, shape and colour of a baby potato.

Inside is also white fleshy segments - very similar to the Manggostein, but these are the texture of persimmon...kind of soft like butter, but they have a flavour that is a cross between grapefruit and grape. Amazing!

Sardines anyone?

Today Nick and I went to start our diving course. Unfortunately they would not let me dive...I flunked the health quiz and they said they would require a Doctor's note to let me dive. Crap!

So, I snorkeled instead...and to my delight, right there, fifty meters from the dive shop, I bump into a few billion sardines. Wow. It was amazing! We had come to Moalboal to catch a boat to a small island nearby where the sardines were supposed to be, but apparently, 9 months ago, they left there for unexplained reasons (why they showed up in the first place was also unexplained ) and they came here. Seriously, I was in the water for five minutes, and literally bumped into them. It was surreal.

Now I am no videographer - so to really see the sardines you should watch the "Live" DVD series, but, to prove I really was there, I posted a video On Facebook. You can actually hear them as they swim around me (You can also hear me exclaiming aloud inside my mask and breathing tube).


Nick spent the day in classes, doing the theory part, and learning about equipment, so he will not see the sardines until tomorrow when he does his first in-water class.

The other great thing that happened today was I found - quite by accident - a GREAT restaurant run by a foodie from London. He and I chatted food most of the afternoon. He has a sophisticated menu that includes French cuisine, Spanish, and even some Thai and Indian. He goes to great lengths to source his ingredients, and imports fresh spices from Thailand, grinds them on site, grow his own herbs, etc...and get this, his pizza was the best I have tasted on this trip so far! He even made decent cup of cappuccino (though a bit hot).

So all in all, it was a great day. I can hardly wait to get back out there tomorrow!

Cebu and beyond

Well, I just read Nick's post - seems he gets more excited about fancy hotels and food than most anything else we have seen/done.

The Radisson was nice, and for me, a much needed good bed/sleep. The food was so-so in my opinion. Buffets are not really my thing. Since I have a gallbladder attack every time I eat something only slightly fatty, I could hardly find a thing to eat. So sushi for me for supper for the three nights we were there. I was very happy though to finally enjoy a decent glass of wine.

Not really much to see or do in Cebu City, so we took a taxi up the mountain to a place that had a rope adventure. A series of rope obstacles...I figured, hey, we need some activity, so lets do it! OMG! No one warned me these rope obstacles were hanging from cables high up in the trees! It was terrifying - and difficult. Even Nick struggled on some of the challenges, and at one point, as the challenges got higher and higher, I started to shake so bad I thought I would throw up. I was standing on a small round platform, hanging (hugging for dear life) onto the pole in the middle, afraid to let go and take another step. I ended up having to zip line through two of the obstacles cause i just couldn't bring myself to try them. Anyway, all in all, I was proud at myself for completing all but two of them.

Today, we left the comforts of our executive suite and find ourselves back in a very mediocre, low end beach resort that leaves much to be desired. I must say, I am not at all impressed with the low end resorts here...compared to hotels for the same money in Thailand or Vietnam, these paces are horrible. I was really expecting better. For $50-$90/night here, you get dirty, run down, bad beach, hot noisy places. In Vietnam, the same money buys you a palace. Even in Thailand, the $25 a night place Steph and I stayed at was far better that anything we have seen here. I think the best deals here are in the higher end resorts. Spend a $100 - $150 a night, and you get what you would get in Mexico for $300. But spend less than that and not so good.

There was one exception, one of the best places we have stayed at was in Puerto Princesa for $30!

Anyway, I have not had good luck picking out great places to stay. I usually rely on trip advisor to direct me - but have found the reviews for places here have not exactly been accurate. The place we are at right now is a good example. It is NOTHING like what the description and reviews say. We are stuck out in the middle of nowhere, no beach, no pool, bad, overpriced food, a room full of mosquitoes, and a VERY NOISY air conditioner...on the plus side, there are no roosters...only bleating goats.

I think it is possible I am just too old to enjoy roughing it anymore. This is my third trip around the world, and I have always enjoyed staying at locally run establishments, so either, I have changed, or the experience here is just not like it was in all those other countries I visited....not sure which it is.

Anyway, since there is nothing to do here at this place, and nowhere we can go, we have booked ourselves into two days of diving lessons...we are being picked up at 8:30 tomorrow. I am quite scared to do this, but really want to overcome my fear. We are close by to several marine reserves and some of the best diving in the world. I want to be able to see the beautiful things under the water with my own eyes. I bought an underwater camera yesterday, and hope to film the millions of sardines that swim near here. We also plan on diving with the whale sharks...so hopefully I will have some good pics to post in a few days.

Cebu

So after missing our first flight, we caught another 2 hours later and arrived without issue in Cebu. Pronounced See-Boo not

Our driver, sent by the hotel, was kind enough to wait the extra 2 hours for our new flight to arrive. After a 30 minute ride we arrive at the Radisson Blu. Now the room we booked was the business class suite, about 30% more expensive than the cheapest room in the hotel we had planned on booking before reading reviews saying that the upgrade was worth it. The room cost us 13,000 pesos for 3 nights (plus tax), a little over 100$ a night. For comparison, our room at the Golden Monkey in El Nido cost us around 90$ a night. That room was 2 beds, ac, a deck with a view, but no amenities at all, and though water front, offered no beach... overall pretty dismal.

The Radisson Blu is a huge 21 story building with a courtyard, fountain, huge lobby hall with a large bar, a restaurant that seats 250+, and full of beautifully dressed people greeting us with smiles and English. In booking we had asked for the highest/quietest room (due to mom's 3 days and 9 hours of sleep). Well we got it. 20 stories up, we go to the business lounge for our personal check-in counter for executive class rooms, we get our key and go to the top floor corner room where the elevator requires the key to go. We get to a large spacious room with a king size bed, 3+ feather pillows each, down filled blanket, wired and wireless internet at human speeds, welcome desserts, our own espresso machine...

Golden monkey had sheets for blankets and 1 thick pillow each, no safe, hardly any water pressure in the luke-warm shower...

We unpacked and changed and headed to the restaurant, a multi-themed buffet, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, deserts, Mediterranean, and more. So we had our fill of sushi and roasted duck... We had a great night's sleep, and went down today for the free breakfast buffet in the morning, same thing, huge, expansive, busy. Afterwards we walked across the street to the biggest mall in the Philippines to browse. Not as cool as the mall in Dubai at all, mostly everything you would see at home for the same prices. Mom bought a book and some laxative tea.

Then we went to the Crown Regency hotel which has a few activities for me. Walking on a narrow path outside of the 38th floor while strapped in, a tilted face down rollercoaster ride off of the 39th floor, and a zip line between 2 buildings off the room of the top floor. Pretty cool, pictures to come probably.

Then we spent the afternoon laying by the pool reading, then in the business lounge reading, then in the business lounge it hit 6pm. For business and executive class patrons there is a happy hour from 6-8, basically a mini buffet of sushi, meats, cheeses, salads, hors d'vours, with a self serve wine and cocktail bar. They also come around offering fresh hot small dishes to everyone, grilled tuna over vegetables and sauce, and a sweet fried large chicken wing. Soooooo I'm happy here... gaining weight, mom is too after a few weeks of overpriced roughing it. It's now basically all inclusive. Woot woot.

Misadventure Two

Well, we certainly had an exciting day yesterday.

We left El Nido at 1pm on a charter flight to Manila. Manila airport has 4 terminals. We landed at one, and had to transfer to another to catch our next flight to Cebu City. Being one who is always prepared for the worst, I gave us 3 hours between flights to change terminals. Unfortunately, in Manila, that is not enough time.

Mistake number one: When we booked the flight, we received a confirmation/info email, which we never read.

Mistake two: When we arrived in Manila, instead of referring to the email, we asked a stewardess which terminal Cebu Pacific flew domestic flights from. She said Terminal three., which they did. What we did not know, because we did not read the email, was that we were flying on their partner airline, Tiger Air.

Mistake three: When we arrived at Terminal three, we were told we needed to go to Terminal four where Tiger Air was, and our two choices for getting there were a taxi or the free shuttle. We took the shuttle, which took over an hour to arrive, and when it did, the driver was insistent that we not leave until the last three seats were full. So I bought the empty seats. That was at 4:05 pm and our flight was to leave at 5:00 pm.

How long can it take to get from one terminal to another you ask? You cannot imagine...

Apparently they are building a sky train - get this - to take people from one terminal to another - and the traffic congestion was unfathomable! Our shuttle took 40 minutes to go about 1 kilometer. By the time the driver dropped us at the side of the road,across from Terminal 4, we had only minutes to cut off time. We had to run across five or six lanes of traffic with no time to spare, so Nick bravely walked out with his hand in the air and brought 6 lanes of traffic to a halt.

Mistake number four: As most people do in the developed world, we had an e-ticket. When we got to the airport entrance, we were stopped by one of two security checks - BEFORE getting to security. There, he asked for our tickets, which of course we did not have because they were on my email, and there was no internet to prove it. After convincing the guard to let us through anyway, we went through the next security check where our bags were scanned.

Grabbing bags and sweaters and money belt, etc off the conveyor belt, we ran to get to the counter in time to get our boarding passes. The line-up was long - too long to stand in, so we marched up to the front, hastily explained the situation to a girl, and she seemed like she was going to help us. She asked for our passports. That's when I discovered I DID NOT HAVE MY PASSPORT!!!!

At that point, I moved from anxious to a state of absolute panic. I dropped my suitcase and ran back to the baggage scanner where I thought I had left it, and began yelling at the guards - and everyone is sight - that my passport was gone.

No one cared.

I ran back to the counter in tears, where Nicholas sheepishly handed me my passport holder, which in my haste, I had left on the conveyor belt, and he had picked up, and promptly forgot he had. It mattered not, because by then the flight had left, and we were sent to the ticket office to buy yet another ticket at five times the cost of the original!

It vaguely reminded me of a hasty sprint through the Barcelona airport after Joel and I had been locked on an out or service train!

At the time, of course, the experience was not pleasant, but I am always reminded that it is these experiences that teach us lessons, and become the great stories we share years later. The scary moments are the ones that produce belly laughs in the future - and are in fact, one of the reasons I take my kids on these trips.

Pictures of El Nido

There pics are of the two beaches here. One is the beach on which el nido sits, the other is on the other side of the mountain, about 4 kilometers from here. We avoided swimming in the harbour due to the dirty water, but the other beach was lovely. White sand, not crowded, shallow entry, warm water.


As you know, I LOVE chickens...especially backyard chickens. Here, people put leashes around the foot of their chickens.


Nick and I played Anagrams at the Art cafe on night while listening to live music. The cafe is a popular hangout for tourists, as they have the only truly good food in town. Last night I had some vegetarian pizza, and it was amazing.


These two are of the path we walk to get to our hotel. We had to hike in with our packs as the tricycles do not fit on the road.


This is the view overlooking the bay where the good beach is

Nick the burned

I fixed the laptop after about a week of it being unusable. Hurray.

We spent 2 relatively uneventful days in Manilla. 9 hour daytime flight leads to arrival in the airport, met with a big crowd of people, many holding signs, and none with our names. After more than an hour and several attempts to contact our host we eventually found him and got driven to our bnb. What I saw of Manilla was different that what I've yet experienced, definitely a mix of very poor and wealth, but with a twist of wartime leftovers thrown in. We were there for 2 days but we never really got out and did anything. Our first night we slept through breakfast, the curse of jetlag I guess. We went to the mall, bought some groceries and some clothes, made ourselves dinner, made plans for our next nights stay, tried to fix the laptop, failed, went to bed, back to the airport... 2 nights 1 day with flights on both ends and timezone changes makes getting anything productive done pretty impossible.

We arrive in Puerto Princessa and things start to settle down a bit. Our hotel is pretty cheap, food is cheap, beer is cheap, lots of things close by. After the hustle of Italy and a few days of flights it's nice to finally be able to settle down a bit. We did a tour through the underground river system which was pretty incredible. It's a bit diminished by being crammed in a boat, with dozens of other boats going through, but still cool. Kilometers of cave covered in flowstone, stalagmites/tites, and full of bats. The boat tour guide telling us what all of the stones look like... Basically all of them were mother marry, jesus, last supper, angel, a little weird but you could see the resemblance... sort of. The spotlight we used to see was being operated by the tourist sitting in front, being directed by the tour guide, it would have been nice if half of what was said wasn't "forwards, down, up up up, now down...

Now we are 5 days in El Nido, a bit of a tourist spot, but very lovely. Good weather and view. We did a Kayaking trip yesterday, Mom wasn't planning to go due to her lacking of sleep, and joint issues preventing hero from being able to paddle. So while signing me up our guide asked if I wanted tandem or separate kayaks. I wanted tandem, I don't have great upper body strength and hours and hours of paddling seemed like a deathwish. However, learning there was a tandem option mom decided to come, so I was pushed to following by myself. After 40 minutes of nonstop paddling my arms were burning and we got to rest for a little while at a secluded beach. Well, we were far from done, after another stop then rowing home I barely made it. I could hardly lift my arms, and I was sunburned head to toe. Well, my toes aren't burnt but the tops of my feet, my ankles, my shins and knees, my belly my back my shoulders my arms my face my neck... All horribly burnt. I don't think my lower shins or ankles have ever really seen much sun so being badly burnt is awful. I did use sunscreen, spf 35 it said, waterproof it said, I put it on twice... I'm pretty sure this was some sort of knockoff Chinese sunscreen or something, we did buy it from a shack along a dirt road...

I'm spending today inside, I went out the door for about 5 seconds earlier but the moment the sun hit my legs I had to run back inside. My arms are sore, but no longer hurt but my burns are worse. Tomorrow I have a mountain biking trip planed, I don't know if I will be able though. We still have 2 weeks in the Philippines and I'm looking forward to it, well, at least to these burns going away. I'm not sure if it's the burns, or my poor sleep, but my mind is in the clouds today... Hard to make thoughts, mom was able to do currency conversions before me and I got them wrong, pretty embarrassing.

I seem to say this every weekly post, but I will try to make these daily/bidaily posts in the future, too hard to write about a whole week.

Made of fire
nick the burned

Philippines - unique

I have been to a dozen developing nations, and must say, there are a great many things about them all that are similar. I guess that is not too surprising. While the cultures and food vary, as does language and geography, what remains the same is how people in poverty live. The shacks in Ghana look just like the shacks in Honduras. The cooking pots in Nepal, look just like the cooking pots in Kenya. People all over wear flip flops and wash their clothes in a large metal bowl with a wash board - just like our great grandparents used. And they all hang their laundry to dry (it takes days in the humidity) on bushes and fences. Garbage piles in India smell just as bad as garbage piles in Nicaragua. OK, no they don't. They smell worse in India.

But here is where things are a little different in Palawan Province in the Philippines. It is clean. Huts are made of bamboo and thatch, but they all have tidy little fences, and planted flowers. I see pride in these small hovels, unlike anything I have seen anywhere in the developing world. They recycle, and put garbage in bins or burn it. It help that the government has made very strict littering laws...third offence is jail time! Huge fines. Along the highway - which is paved and in pretty good shape, we passed lots of little villages...all tidy, with plants and lights lining the highway you pas through the collection of one room huts. I was so impressed.

Filipinos eat with a spoon and fork - no knife. Spoon in the right hand for putting food in your mouth, and the fork in the left hand to scoop and push food onto the spoon. Foos is rather bland here - nothing like the great food in India, Thailand and Vietnam. Here in El Nido, I found a restaurant that is excellent. It is clearly run by a westerner, and is overpriced, but I have eaten several meals there as it is the only place on the island to get a decent cup of coffee and actually very good food. Tonight I had the best ceviche I have ever eaten, and a great bowl of Thai soup. Nick had pizza.

Another odd thing here is how many dogs there are. Now I have seen mutts all over the globe, and they all look alike in these countries, but here, there are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many. Millions of them. ll skinny nd starving, and the freaking things bark ALL NIGHT LONG. Between the dogs barking, the feral cats fighting and the roosters crowing (ALL NIGHT), I have not gotten a wink of sleep. I am so miserable. Every three days I have to take a sleeping pill just to catch up and keep from collapsing. I am running on 2-3 hours a night, and my health is suffering for lack of sleep. Today, after kayaking all morning, I laid down for a nap to try to get a wink after being up ,most of the night, and just as a drifted into a deep sleep, workers started banging on the ceiling in the room below us...woke me up and I burst into tears. I am so tired. I have NEVER been anywhere so noisy - not even india. Everywhere there is building going on (a good thing) but that means saws and jackhammers and drills. And it all together and the sleepy peaceful remote village I thought I was coming to has given me a big headache. I cannot wait to leave so i can get some sleep.

It WAS peaceful kayaking today. The water is a beautiful colour, warm and clear. We enjoyed the scenery, and several good swimming spots in lovely lagoons.


Nick, however, is severely sunburned, and his arm muscles are spasming so bad he was almost in tears tonight. I gave him a muscle relaxant and rubbed him down with aloe vera, and put him to bed. He ha no trouble sleeping through the chorus of sounds. Oh, and did I mention the bugs? They are loudest of all.

I am starting to nod off....better grab a few winks before the dogs and roosters start. More pics later.

pics

Odd things and thoughts

There are a few things I have found interesting, odd and noteworthy...

Of all the countries I have visited, I have yet to stay where bathrooms are places of luxury as opposed to places of function.

The only place I have seen a bathtub as nice as mine was in the Vatican museum where the Romans used ancient marble coffins as bathtubs. On the other hand, in Italy, they have foot pedals to turn on the sink tap... now THAT is a good idea. With germ warfare rampant, the whole idea of turning on the tap, washing your hands, and then having to use a paper towel to turn off the tap seems stupid. A foot pedal is brilliant!

In the bathroom in our hotel in Palawan our shower has two shower heads... One for hot and one for cold. So if you want a warm shower you are kinda screwed unless you want to run around in circles.

In Dubai, coffee is more than a drink...it is part of the language. Coffee is offered to welcome you, so when you enter a hotel, they poor you a coffee. What you do with your cup communicates different things: shake it back and forth and it means you are done.

Nicholas has been a tough customer... Hard to get him to smile or respond to much... Until last night when we took a public tricycle (tuk yuk in Thailand) to get to the restaurant... Basically it is a scooter with an attached cage to carry passengers in. The grin on his face was priceless as we dangerously wove in and out of traffic. So from this point forward I guess we will look for a little more adrenalin producing activities.

Funniest moments thus far

1) Corrie brushing her teeth with Benadryl (the small travel tube looks remarkably like sensodyne)
2) Corrie trying to pay for drinks with a sugar packette (looked remarkably like a credit card when suffering from jet lag delirium)
3) Corrie spending HOURS researching which train to take, then booking the wrong one (leaving exactly five minutes to take a one and a half hour ferry ride)
4) Nicholas opening a sanitary napkin on the plane, (thinking it was a sanitizing towelettes), so he could blow his nose with it, and not understanding why I was have fits of hysterical laughter).

Subterranean river

We arrived in Palawan on a 1hour flight from Manila. Palawan province is a series of islands SW of Luzon Island where Manila is located. We a came here to check off yet another World Heritage site (I want to see as many of these as I can before I die). The subteranean river system we went to is also the newest "seven natural wonders", voted in online in 2012. It was pretty cool. We had to take a bus about an hour and half north west of Puerto Princesa, then take a 45 minute ride on a small boat. We then went into the cave system in another boat, paddled by a guide who insisted on pointing out all the stalagtite and stalagmites that looked like Jesus, mother Mary, garlic, giraffes, etc etc. The caves were marvellous, all on there own....not need to look for anything mortal in these supernatural rock formations.

The geography here is much like Vietnam and Thailand: tropical and mountainous limestone formations-weathered by water, beautiful clear clean water...that is the difference. The water here is clean. in fact, so is the island. I am so impressed with Palawan. The government here is committed to ecologically sound and sustainable tourism, tourism that involved the local communities, who run the tourist sites, creating jobs. After the caves, we went to another spot where Nick claimed through some caves and then zip lined down. The zip line was a little too tame for me...having done much higher, longer ones in Costa Rica...so I took a snooze and drank some coffee.

Going out to dinner tonight to a traditional Filipino Feast, so more later.

PS forgive the spelling...have not figured out how to spell check on this iPad.

Philippines - part one

We arrived in Manila at 10 pm, expecting to see our ride with our name on a sign. Our B and B host was to pick us. We'll, no sign. My computer batter was dead, and the phone number he gave us did not work when we called. We wandered for awhile, hoping to see him, and then I got a police man to send him at text. Eventually we found each other, and we headed to his house. I was so tired because I hardly slept a wink on the plane, yet could not sleep for the howling of dogs and crowing of the roosters...which started incessantly around 1 am.

Our room there was large, in a traditional Filipino home, with a traditional bathroom...full of ants. I hate ants! I hate ants more than diarrhea. I hate ants more than spiders and rats combined. Not only were there lots of ants, but the little f.x@&&$ things bit! My first pee and I got bit on the big toe!

Anyway, the next day we walked to a close by mall to by Nick some shirts, and me some shorts (I left mine in Sorrento), and our host had his houseboy do our laundry. poor kid....our socks and undies were SOOOOOOO smelly. In fact, WE were SOOOOO smelly. We had been wearing the same clothes for days! That was all we did in Manila...that and nap, and try to figure out where to go next. Next stop....Palawan.

Dubai

We'll, today I am trying to type on a mini iPad as opposed to my phone...not much better but at least I can see the keyboard. I had already written a long post on the food tour we did in Dubai, but that was lost when my computer went kapootz.

The tour was great fun...walking through Deira, the old part of Dubai, where, as our tour guide says, "the real people live." Beyond the glitz that is Dubai, is the part where 90% of the population lives, migrant workers doing the work that is beneath the Emirates.

We walked from food stall, to roadside storefront, to sweet shops and a restaurant...from Palestinian falafel a, to Jordanian and Egyptian sweets, to a tradition Emirate meal sitting on the floor, eating with our hand from a shared plate...it was all delicious.

One of the deserts was a type of very thin dough, thrown in the air to enlarge-much like a pizza-then filled with cheese and honey. It was sinfully good. I think I have gained weight on this trip. After leaving Italy, I was sure I would be fine, but who knew, pizza type food would be found in the Middle East?

It just goes to show you how food, while a huge part of a culture, defies certain ethnic boundaries and is more defined by what grows in a region, trade routes and other factors beyond culture. Our tour guide, a young Indian heritage woman born there, and passionate about food, said something I really liked. "Eating with utensils is like making love through an interpreter". I understand that as I often feel I have an intimate relationship with food. I mean, have you not ever wanted to just squish butter through your fingers? maybe that is why people, around the globe, love pizza so much....because you can eat it with your hands!

and the winner is...

Post plans

Overview of all coffees

Cofffffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! With long days, unfortunate bedding, usual ~6 hours a night to sleep, and frequent flights and timezone changes, we have been drinking coffee all day every day. Now I know mom has drank coffee every morning for many decades, but I have mostly only drank morning coffee at work. I am not looking forward to developing a caffeine addiction... Tomorrow we'll be in the Philippines for our first day of 3.5 weeks and I'm told the quality of coffee will be much worse :(

So now that my European tour has come to an end, I can do an overview I think. Best coffees? Ischia, Italy had our best coffee to date, a couple different lattes, and they were just perfect. Perfect temperature, good taste, nice foam. A weird thing I've noticed is not one place we have gone to has done or tried any sort of latte foam art, I guess maybe that's just something done in North America. Most Cappuccinos seem to be 1 shot espresso with 4-6oz milk(foam) and it seems about 30% of the time they put chocolate on it. Lattes are almost always served in clear glasses, with cappuccinos its not as common to be in glass, but has happened. I've tried a couple straight espressos as well, though I'm not much of a fan. Overall I don't think I've experienced any bad espresso in Europe. Most of the difference in quality is coming from temperature and milk/foam quality.

Worst coffees? My unfortunate cappuccino in Sorrento was the worst by FAR, the last two lattes we had in London were way, way too hot, and today in Dubai we got 2 medium lattes from Seattle Best Coffee. They were 16oz and one was perfectly fine, the other was not much more than lukewarm... disappointing. Prices swing wildly from block to block almost everywhere we've been. It's understandable I suppose, the cafe across the street from the Vatican had 4 Euro espresso and the cafe 2 blocks away had .90 Euro espresso...all the way down to .70 at Burger King.

Final words? You are more likely to get consistently good coffee in Europe than back home, but getting a perfect coffee isn't something that happens any more often than at home. Compared to the whole of Italy, Francesco's is doing just fine.

The servers and waiters of Italy were an interesting variety of people. They ranged from some very funny, decent English speaking waiters, especially in Capri, to nice and enthusiastic waiters at our hotel in Sorrento with limited English ability, to indifferent waiters who take an eternity to bring the bill and speak no English. In Italy, outside every restaurant, there is a waiter who tries to seat everyone who walks by, showing menus, talking about good quality food, using flattery, or just being pushy and trying to bully you into stopping and sitting. I hadn't really experienced that before and it was pretty neat. I also noticed quite a few suits and uniforms on waiters that simply did not fit, suits with big Xs across the front from being too tight, or too big and baggy and extremely wrinkly.

Mom is the worst person to go grocery shopping with back at home; she constantly leaves her cart in the middle of aisles to check things out instead of aligning it along the side. She walks in front of moving carts, she stops to read signs and things as soon as she sees them rather than getting herself to a convenient position,and just in general doesn't maintain a great sphere of observation. From this experience I knew what to expect when it came to traveling and I am constantly having to move her out of the way of people, cars, and other things. She also has a lot of trouble with reading, understanding, and finding the right signage. I've decided to take control of most public transit(mostly subways/LRT).

Waiting for our tour group I decided to go to burger king, I got a double bacon cheese burger XL combo for 8.30 Euro, expensive, but not much more than any place we've been in Europe for food. Once we got farther away from tourists in Ischia we could get a pretty cheap meal, but the quality wasn't great.

Path of the Gods hike was pretty amazing, the path itself was really fun and the view incredible. Some time in the future I wouldn't mind doing it again and either doing the full hike, or even the 2000 step staircase at the end.

Our last night in Sorrento we ran into the same couple at our BnB that was at our first night BnB in Naples 6 days earlier. We had cursed them for being so loud late into the night, but on our 2nd meeting I stayed up with them til 1.30 am drinking and telling stories. It was nice to finally be able to talk to some people that weren't old (or mom):D

I'm mostly over my sickness - finally. I still have the occasional cough, but it is very minor and infrequent. Hurray 13 days of that is over, now lets not catch something else!

We've been walking for hours and hours a day, every day, often with many hills and steps. Yesterday in Rome was the worst,4-5 hours of walking around Rome, then 4 hours of standing and walking on marble floors through the Vatican. The floors in the Vatican are really killer and today my heels hurt a ton.

Rome was pretty incredible, with no real plan we headed out on my lead to wander the city. Every block is a different huge old ruin, really, really incredible. Churches, ruins, buildings so old it makes the 800 year old buildings next to them seem modern. We did a Vatican tour as well: sculptures, paintings, tapestries, maps, buildings materials were used from all around the world. Many foreign and old works recycled, their old symbolism and meaning tossed away by the church and then given new meaning. Funny to see Egyptian pillars, obelisks, sphinxes, lions, and all sorts of sculptures dating from before Christ - at the Vatican - given a Christian home and meaning. Thousands of works in the museum we saw only briefly - maybe a 1/3rd of what was in the main museum for the public. The Sistine Chapel and S.Peter Basilica as well were amazing. Hard to describe it all, and many many other people on the internet have done so, I won't even try.

I've gotten confirmation of my accommodation and what departments I'll be working in the hospital in Tanzania. Getting closer...

Our flight to Dubai was pretty amazing, we were on an Airbus A380, 10 seats across and 2 stories of seating makes this a massive aircraft. We were seated in the middle, middle section of 4 seats at the emergency exit, so we had a couple feet of leg room ending at the wall of the lavatory. A lot of extra leg room, but the occasional person crossing in front of us, and no place for our bags but atop. A man who got up to go to the bathroom collapsed immediately beside me in the aisle. I didn't notice as I was asleep, but the thud of him landing woke up mom who woke me up as the air attendants dealt with him. It was a neat experience as it felt exactly like a scenario out of school.

I will write more when we get to Manila.

internet issues

We have had incredibly bad luck with internet on this trip. We thought being in Europe we would be fine but it was not to be so. Every where we have gone there have been issues and now my computer is broken. So I am now trying to do this with my smart phone which I am not too good with.

If I can find an internet cafe on Palawan where we ate now headed I will post some photos and remarks on our Dubai food tour.

We so spent two nights on Manila but only left the rpm top buy groceries. We were attempting to get caught up on sleep... Unfortunately for me I had trouble sleep ping through the dog barking and roster crowing that started peevishly at the same moment I went top need... Add to that the crickets and mock annoying and by last night I was a wreck.

Thank God I have a few sleeping pills... I took one and slept soundly.

Today we fly to the town of Puerto princess... boarding now. Hope top be able to post pics and more later.

Path of the Gods pictures

The islands of Capri and Ischia

Capri, in my opinion, is not worth going to IF you have been to Hawaii's fern grotto, Thailand's Phang Gna or Vietnam's Halong Bay. Maybe the tourist trap of queues and overpriced everything is worth it if you have not...maybe...

Capri is a small island toff the coast of the southern tip of the Sorrento peninsula in southern Italy. It is very small (we toured around it by boat in 1 hour with stops at the blue and green grottos). It has two small towns, a cable car to the top of the mountain, and 18,000,000 steps from the port to the town centre

where you can buy overpriced gidgets and gadgets. We did have some VERY good pasta (spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, hot peppers and walnuts - delicious - and some yummy ravioli, however, just walking in the door cost us a 5Euro cover, and a 12% service charge. The lunch (plate of past and a drink) came to $47 Euros. The famed blue grotto - supposedly the private swimming pool of Tiberius, was such a let down....a 45 minute wait, to be CRAMMMED into a canoe, to be jostled and puled through a cave opening about 18" high, to spend exactly 3 minutes looking at kinda cool blue water while a rather rude guy sang a rather stupid song, then hastily pulled the boat back through the hole and asked for a tip. To do that cost 34 Euro to get to the grotto, 26 Euros to get INTO the grotto, and 2 Euros to get the dumb man to stop singing!

The boat tour around the island was OK, and probably worth doing, along with the cable car, if you havenot been to Hawaii or Asia.


Otherwise, save your money - don't go to Capri, instead, go to the delightful island if Ischia where you can explore an amazing castle, walk for hours in a town built flat, see ancient ruins, and splash in natural geo thermal hot streams that run into the sea - making the ocean, in places, hot enough to cook the fish!

We are staying right on the water in the old ponte right across from the castle (amazing location), for $44. There are no crowds, food/drinks are cheaper, and best of all, there are no stairs.
Unfortunately we have to leave tomorrow for Rome where the next day we hope to take a very in depth, 8.5 hour VIP tour of the Vatican museums, and all four Basilicas, the Sistine Chapel, the gardens, etc.