Ok now I’m starting to get a bit sad about my approaching departure. Spent the morning with Jeepney rides to the post office and am now sitting in a mall cafe, killing time. In my previous posts on Manila I’ve mainly shown the poor and shabby parts of the cities. That’s because those are the parts that are new, strange and interesting to me. Yet there are other parts to the metro as well.

Sitting at the airport in Puerto Princesa, waiting for my flight to Manila. Scheduled to leave the country tomorrow in the afternoon. My life back home seems really far at the moment, not only geographically. From the moment I left FRA, it felt like I was traveling again and time was of lesser concern. Right now I’m ready for some rest. My back is stiff like a brick from too many hours of sitting in too small vehicles on bumpy roads.

Something a lot of people recommend as a Manila activity is a visit to Chinatown. It is supposed to be an interesting sight and a feast for the palate. The latter was my main motivation for going. Getting there took a while but in the end was quite easy, thanks to good directions by the hostel staff. Trains were a bit on the crowded site. Being at least a head taller than anybody else, I was the only one with fresh air in there.

I’m too tall for public transportation in Asia. For most of the five hour ride from El Nido, my knees were stored at weird angles against the seatback in front of me. The driver did his best to make the ride a short one and piloted the vehicle across gravel and tarmac in a way that would have put Colin McRae to shame and seemed to defy the laws of physics.

There is countless things to do in El Nido. Island hopping, diving, climbing - but why all the stress. I rented a motorbike (aka a 125cc scooter) and went with Efren, a local couchsurfer, to a beach about 45 minutes out of town. The place isn’t very far but the “roads” (Feldweg in German) suggest a slow pace. The surf was good and playing in the waves brought up childhood memories of summer vacations on a Danish island.

Having this view when looking from the balcony makes me almost forget my hangover.

Arrived in town yesterday and checked into what must have been the worst value for money accommodation I ever stayed at. The mediocre location and the small room I could have lived with, but without working fan and shower I really don’t want to pay $30 a night… Found myself something nicer and am now enjoying a relaxing day of doing nothing. The town of El Nido is considerably more touristy than Coron and with its stretch of beach that is packed with everything accommodating to tourists, it reminds me of Koh Tao.

Time for a few words on that five day trip I just came off. To summarize: it was ok. While advertised as an expedition, it was really just an island cruise with all needs catered for. That’s still ok but simply not what I expected. What they delivered (cruising through beautiful tropical islands, camping on their beaches, reef snorkeling, a look at the locals, fresh local food), they delivered well. I think one of the main “issues” for me was that I had done all that before.

Much to my own surprise, I did some more diving today. This time it wasn’t wrecks but reefs instead. Not too bad for a change. Tomorrow I’m leaving on a five day cruise with Tao Philippines. Just had the briefing and it seems to be an interesting group of 14 people on the boat. No updates for the next days, where I go they don’t have reception.

If, from reading this blog, you got the idea that I do little more than diving and eating, then that is not too far from the truth. The occasional hour is spent at a massage or with walking around of course. Other than that it is reading philosophy books and thinking about how simply by chance I ended up being born in a western country and not a dodgy neighborhood in SEA.

Waking up to the sound of Whitney Houston and the smell of frying garlic - could life get any better? My accommodation is located smack in the middle of a Philippino neighborhood. And I mean RIGHT in the middle. When the guy next door farts, I will know about it. Being on vacation and not on a long travel, I could afford to go some place more fancy but this is what I am used to and I also like the intensity of the experience.

Another first! This time it was wreck diving, something I had had on my list for quite a while. As already mentioned, Coron is a great place for this as the surrounding waters feature more than a dozen wrecks, most of them 100+ meter long ships in good condition. Today it took us more than an hour to get to the first dive site. With the sun shining and marvelous scenery around, not really an issue.

It’s been three years, way too long to go without something as amazing as diving. Coron offers some of the best diving in the area, partially due to the fact that half a sunken Japanese fleet provides an abundance of wrecks waiting to be explored. I had checked some of the operators in town and decided to go with Corto Divers, a French run dive shop. Call me racist but when it comes to dive safety I rather trust equipment that is being maintained by westerners.

When it comes to discovering local food, there is nothing better than joining someone local who knows their way around the place. A really big place in case of Manila. The metro Manila area is formed by 16 cities with a total population of I don’t know how many million people. Friday around lunch time I joined Mike, a local food blogger and restaurant owner, to try some dishes at a restaurant specializing on food from the Negros province of the Philippines.

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Heat, humidity, smells, street food and ripped off by an incompetent taxi driver. It’s good to be back in Southeast Asia.