mabuhay!

Spent the last week in the Philippines with my sister, Liz. We didn’t a whole lot of time in Manila and instead went south to Lake Taal straight away. There we climbed the world’s smallest active volcano for a peek inside. Not only is it the worlds smalled volcano, but its basically a lake within an island within a lake within an island... Unfortunately there's not much going on volcano-wise besides the small inner lake and a bit of stinky sulfur steam. We only spent a night in the nearby town of Talisay, since there wasn’t much of anything going on - it was actually somewhere between empty and deserted. So we continued south via tricycles (the local variation of the tuk-tuk, though even more rickety and dangerous), jeepneys (extended jeeps that serve as defacto jitneys/buses around the country – also not particularly comfortable), a bus, and a ferry. Eventually we got to White Beach near Puerto Galera, located on the northern end of Mindoro island. There we mostly relaxed, doing a bit of kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, and taking a drive out to see some waterfalls on a scooter. The island is very quiet with most of the activity revolving around scuba diving. Overall the food was pretty mediocre as the island was pretty isolated, so we didn’t really eat anything that was worth writing home about – actually I don’t think we ate veggies for three straight days. Yum! Overall, we only got a brief taste of the Philippines and had a good bit of fun – but it sure seemed disorganized! Now Liz is on her way home and I’m back in Bangkok about to head up to Katchanaburi – of Bridge on the River Kwai fame - for the weekend, before school starts on Monday.