New Years Eve day on the Mekong delta.

Today I booked a bus and boat trip to the mouth of the Mekong River.

As we were waiting for the bus to load this bagel vendor went by balancing a tray on his head and when I got out my camera he took the pan down. I motioned to him to put it up again for the picture and he motioned me to buy a bagel.

It was a 3 hour bus trip to get to the delta near the ocean side. Here is the look of the countryside we passed on the way.

The city is clean and modern with wide streets which are plum full of motorbikes. I like it here.

Here we are at the dock.

This was our main boat from which we transfered in and out of smaller boats for the smaller canals. We went around four islands and were in and out of several places. We saw a few local industries besides the wine and honey. We saw candy making from coconut milk and many wooden carved articles. We were treated to a concert as we nibbled on fresh fruit with tea.

Bridge over the Mekong river makes short work of what used to be a long trip.

Our tour guide holding a rack of honey bees at the honey farm.

Snake wine. Made with rice wine and herbs for medicinal purposes. Then they put a snake in the bottle. We were offered a taste but there were no takers. The larger bottles had a big spider in them too. The concoction was supposed to be good for the health.
Somebodies version of a baby seat for a motorcycle.

This is one of the smaller boats we had. The girl paddling on the front was in a squating position for about 20 minuits while she paddled us to the resturant. There was a male paddling on the back.

We are pulling in to a busy dock at the resturant.
We eventually transferred to a high-speed boat for the trip back to Ho Chi Minh. The sun was just going down as we came close to the city and there were many excellent views. It was a good day.
Later, I went to the bus office to book my bus for up the coast. I paid for the whole thing but I can get off and stay at each of 6 towns and book the next segment when I am ready.
When I got here I took a million dong out of the bank. Its weird to pay 15,000 for a can of pop. I seem to go through it quickly but it was only just over $50.00 in the first place. Today I took out another 2 million.
I am getting on the bus in the morning and going to Mui Ne. It is a short segment, 4 hours.
Enjoy New Years everyone! It is just nuts here. The streets are full of people. The traffic can hardly move anymore. I went out to eat with an Australian family I met here but we came in before 10PM. I will see the new year tomorrow. Need to sleep now.

Leaving the Philippines, Yeah! Now Vietnam.

Finally, I am out of the Philippines. It was hard to tour there because: 1. They weren't into it and tours were mostly non-existent, 2. Poverty was a standard condition except for a few pockets showing wealth, 3. and Tourist attractions seemed relatively few.

I went through the visa on arrival process easily ay Ho Chi Minh airport and was picked up by my hotel and whisked away into the night.

The hotel is a narrow building in a small alleyway and there was a big steel door across the front when we arrived. The driver rang the buzzer and the door raised part way and I was invited in to a dark hotel lobby. Imagine my surprise when the lights came on and I saw everything was made of gleaming marble accented with ebony colored wood furniture.

I was quickly escorted to my room and the young owner went back to bed. It appears that this couple are the owners as well as the 24 hours staff 24/7. They sleep in the lobby and the kitchen.

This room was a little bit more expensive than I am used to and I have a hot shower with an actual shower stall, a/c, plasma TV and free Internet. There is a complementary breakfast also which was omelet with tomato and onion, a small French bread stick, kumquat juice and coffee.

This is the street outside the hotel. It is narrow and there are not many cars or bikes in here.

Ho Chi Minh is the motorbike capital of the world. There must be 40 bikes to every car or truck. After being out all day my eyes were just stinging. It must be the exhaust. It is quite difficult (scary) to cross some of the busier streets.

All the buildings are tall and skinny like this and no windows on the side. This one got its head above the crowd and has a few windows on the side. It is common to have a windowless room like the one I have here. I am only in it basically when it is dark anyhow, just have to wait until I get outside to see what the weather is. It is always the same any way, sunny and hot with 100% chance of smog.

This is the Reunification Palace. It has state rooms of several sizes and the official offices of the President and Vice President.

In the grounds was this fountain. Behind it is the faint image of a large building within walking distance. Smog is the reason you can't see it.

Tank from the Vietnam War.

I stuck my size 10 foot in for a size reference. Biggest leaf I have ever seen.

While I was wandering around looking for my street I came across this neat building. Looks older than most.

Well, that was yesterday. Now that there is something to do again I am a little behind.

The river is near here and it is all set up for a New Year celebration. I me a family from Australia who I am going out to eat with and walk over there a bit. Then I have to figure out how I am leaving from here tomorrow.

Facebook is blocked here, the whole country I guess, so that should save some time.

Happy New Year everyone!

Just roll with it ..............I'm trying.

So......today is the day I come across the TUBBY store, and that's how it starts.
Yes, the Tubby store, for overweight people and they say, "come in, we have clothes to fit you". There is even a Tubby brand name.

I was at the mall looking around, actually killing time until my plane. I had my book and my puter with me and was looking for a great place to sit and watch the world go by when I discovered there was a Cebu Pacific office there so I decided I might as well check in for the flight. Guess what. I had no flight. The travel agent I had used had booked several things for me that day and the others were all fine. This one had a booking number and a confirmation number and yet it was not confirmed. The flight office said there never was a flight tonight and that the confirmation number wasn't right. So I bought another ticket on the spot and I am leaving tomorrow night.

If I had known that, I would have left here 3 days ago. I was just waiting around for this flight because I had booked the Visa people and the hotel pickup to coincide with it. I got it all sorted and now just going with the flow...... sort of. Grrrrr!!!

Here's a flower. Found it at the Chinese temple, also in my neighbourhood.

The temple gate wasn't usually open when I passed so I took the chance to look within. The fence was too close to get far enough away to shoot the whole building from the courtyard.

Still at the Mall there was this model of a house. This is the main floor with a tiny bedroom each for the maid and the driver. There were three bedrooms on the second floor for the family. It was something like 40 million pesos which would be a million in US funds.

I also saw the show suite in a new condo building. It was one bedroom, no laundry and about 300 sq. feet and for 4 million pesos.

The place I am staying at is costing me $5 US per night. It just makes no sense. This place is old but in fair condition. It is in a yucky looking neighbourhood but so was the new condo, even yuckier than this street. If there weren't these types of accommodations there wouldn't be all the back packers and the added income they bring. There would also be no place for the low income locals to stay.

The new buildings I am seeing are not well designed and I have no idea who is paying the big bucks for them but it seems like the split between rich and poor is getting wider by the minuet.

So, I am here, back in the same guest house, for one more night. I plan to go to Ho Chi Minh tomorrow if it goes well.

I Went to the Zoo, "Sigh!" and it Didn't Take Long.

Zoo's aren't my favorite thing but since it is just down the street from my guest house I thought I would give it a go.

This man may be a well-known character, I don't know. He stands just outside the zoo.

Sadly, the zoo is all concrete and trees. I don't think grass would have a chance though with so many people on it.

People bring picnics and spread out on the concrete to eat. I only saw a couple of seats in the whole place.

There were 20 alligators in this cage. It appears they like to cuddle.


Soon the zoo was wall-to-wall people. I looked at a few rows of cages but the conditions for the animals were not great so I decided to leave.

I will show you my neighbourhood today as I didn't venture off my street.

This is a kind of traffic round-about with a kids playground in the center. (Yah, I know!) Again, there is no grass but they do have some playground equipment in the concrete. There is no fence around it either.

A restaurant with a big banner promising to provide great neighbourhood entertainment when they open again.

Past my guest house and a few blocks farther is the Robertson Shopping Center. After walking past many people who don't look like they even have a home it is surprising to find the neighbourhood mall looks like this.

There were eight cinemas in this one and I chose to see a Filipino movie called "Rosario". It was a poignant story of several generations of a Filipino family.

Walking back to my abode I saw the lights come on on the front of this glitzy hotel.

If you look closely at the sidewalk across the street in front of the 7-11 you can see a woman with a child in her arms sitting on the sidewalk begging.

A beautiful panning shot of a jeepney cruising round the corner.



A nice looking local restaurant.

I don't have a plan for tomorrow. I will probably try to sleep in because my flight is 11:30PM.

What to do on Boxing Day in Manila?

There is an area of Manila known as Intramuros which contains what is left of the original Spanish town after the bombings. First stop, the Manila Cathedral where it seemed OK to crash a wedding.

Locals were coming in to use the church for prayers and tourists were busy snapping pictures so I snapped a couple myself.

I must say that dropping your camera in the toilet causes it to behave oddly at times. Sometimes my pictures won't go right-side-up.

Today was one of those days when most of my pictures of Fort Santiago wouldn't go right-side-up.
Here is one of the top of the outer wall.


From the wall a view of the Pasig River.

This is a beautiful courtyard in another building outside the fort.

In the afternoon, being tired of ruins, and having only seen the poor neighbourhoods (Because that's where I live) I decided to go see the corporate city center, an area known as the Greenbelt. Wow! High rises and parks, museums and galleries and restaurants of every cuisine you can imagine. The "green belt" indeed!

Even the older buildings are in pristine condition. By the way, I love these windows.

There was a park running through the middle of it all with restaurants all along offering both indoor and outdoor seating complete with trees with plastic flowers.

For some reason I feel the separation between the poor and the wealthy more strongly here than anywhere else I have been to date.

What's up for tomorrow? Possibly the zoo. I am just killing time until I fly out on the 28th.

Christmas Day in Manila

Today is boxing day morning and I am sitting in the ruins of Fort Santiago in Manila writing this post. Yesterday I went to Resort World for Christmas lunch and a show. Resort World is an addition to the Airport Harriott Hotel which contains movies, a theater, shopping and a casino. It just screams money while standing in the middle of crumbling houses and poverty.

The tree below was inside Resort World. There is a small choir on the tree.

I had lunch at the buffet in the casino because I thought it would be cheap, but they actually base the meal price on how much you gamble so mine was expensive.

Then I saw Kaos, billed as a Broadway/Las Vegas show. It was unusual and full of talented people but Kaos is the right name for it. The cast was from all over the world including acrobats, break dancers, magicians, dare-devil bike drivers, stunt guys, lions and tigers and of course the cast of the actual story line trying to perform amidst all the other stuff going on. The costumes were great, the music by the Philippine Philharmonic orchestra was wonderful, the set was nice but the whole thing just fell apart in the middle of a bad idea.

Went to bed early to prepare for my 3AM phone call to the kids.

Manila Dec 23 and 24

The flight from Tuguegarao yesterday was uneventful. By the time I got through the taxi line and got to my accommodation it was dark so I grabbed a bite at the Starbucks next door and stayed in for the evening. I am at the Malate Pensionne. Here is a shot of our festive reception area. I was in an 8-bed dorm by myself the first night and tonight I have two room mates from Korea and France.

Today I got out on the water on a ferry to Corregidor Island. It is in the center of the opening between Manila Bay and the Great Sea of China. Below is the skyline as we leave Manila.

I was afraid for a while because this ferry has seat belts. In a country which doesn't use seat belts in cars this could mean trouble. The sea was calm however and we had a pleasant crossing, at 23 knots, in just over an hour.

Just one view of a beautiful Island.

Standing on the head of the island looking at the tail.

The island of Corregidor played a major role in WWII. Here is a statue of their beloved General MacArthur.

We traveled around the island on these buses which are modeled after the tram cars that were used by the forces who inhabited the island before and during the war.

The US established a base here in the early 1900's to protect their investment in the Philippines. There is nothing else here now except one hotel which caters to tourists. The island can easily be done as a day trip so not everyone stays.

There are many guns left behind as well as ruins of buildings and ammunition batteries.

As well as Filipinos and Americans there were many Japanese died here. There is a burial ground area with monuments to honour each. Here is a Japanese tomb.

In honour of the unknown Filipino women who supported their men.

The Malinta tunnel was the center of operations during the bombing. There is a hospital with hundreds of beds in there too. A train track runs through it for supplies.

One of the operations centers in a side tunnel off the main one.

Ruins of a huge barrack building. There was accommodation for thousands of men.

The officers had houses. Not any point of the island remained untouched by bombing which started here the day after Pearl Harbour.

Me inside an ammunition battery.

Light house and communications tower possibly rebuilt after the war.

One of the four Pacific War Memorials is here. Behind it you can see the statue of the peace flame.

Flowers are few and far between here. This one was on Corregidor.

Walking back to my hostel I used the promenade along the water and caught this view at the yacht club.

It was a nice day and I feel much better now!