9th September - Puerto Princesa (Palawan, Philippines)

Tuesday 9^th September

Beautiful Palawan Island

The beautiful little blue coffeepot lasted for nearly three drinks. It did NOT like the heat and gave up the ghost very swiftly. It obviously is only for decoration…maybe designed as a wedding present for people who will never want to make coffee on their stove…Pete, of course, has busily MacGuyvered the inners of this pot and he hopes that Pot #1 is now resurrected, rejuvenated and ready to make beautiful morning coffee!

HEAVY rain!

It has been raining nearly all day.  We went to town in the nearest tricycle, belonging to kind Roland, and he patiently took us from office to office, with brief interludes in photocopy shops because we didn’t have quite enough copies of this and that to please officialdom.  Everyone was very pleasant and helpful but this process always takes a lot of time, a lot of paper.

Streetscape, through wires, from the Immigration Office building

I was tickled by this sign in the Customs Office.

The message was further reinforced upstairs. 

NO bribery or corruption, thank you very much!

Yesterday we bought a Philippines flag in one of the big supermarket complexes, and Pete, with great reluctance and many sighs, bought three more clean bright cotton t-shirts.  He has ripped up his old ones to be used as rags  - this is a big deal!  When we arrived on the second floor, every one of the shop assistants - and there are hundreds – were doing aerobics at their stations.  What a great idea!  I think they do this every hour on the hour, to beak up the tedium of the day and get a bit of energy back on the floor.

Schoolgirls here wear very cute uniforms – knee length pleated skirts, and cotton blouses with a sailor collar.  I am fascinated by the glorious colour combinations – emerald green and orange, magenta and pink.  But so far the only one I have in a photo is a small girl in standard navy and white…

We caught a tricycle to town with Pegie yesterday.  She works at the yacht club and was a bit worried about us all on our own in the big city… Be VERY careful, she said, as she let us disappear from her sight into the maws of the CCN shopping centre.  When we asked if she would like to share our tricycle, she said yes, three passengers would be fine, and that often six could fit in at a time.  “But,” she said, dispassionately looking at Pete, and at me, “They are not as big as you.”   Well, no…

John Leader’s workers at the yacht club have been trying very hard to fix the dinghy.  This morning he called out to us as we were passing through, and said to Pete, “How high did your blood pressure go when you were trying to fix your inflatable?”  I gather it is just a bit…difficult, if not impossible.

John Leader (Abanico Yacht Club)

We are leaving tomorrow, going north, to Flat Island, which is, according to our travel guides, NOT to be missed.

A few more hills, a few more clouds