Christmas on Mactan Island

Filipinos do most of their celebrating of Christmas on 24th December, Christmas Eve, at midnight. Lyndal and I started the day late and then went to the pool. We had a few quiet white wines in the afternoon then Kyle collected us to take us to his family home.

The streets were lined with lterally hundreds of tiny stalls selling a bewildering array of fireworks in all shapes and sizes. The photo shows Kyle about to start haggling at one of the shops. Note the size of the fountains on the right. Massive!

We then went to Kyle's house where there seemed to be hundreds of cousins, aunts and uncles all packed into a tiny space. They made room for us and we joined in a form of karaoke. There was a guy with a guitar who played songs, while others took it in turn to sing the words from a printed song sheet. Sort of low-tech karaoke I guess. We were offered a lot of food,including lechon (spit-roasted pig), which is a Cebu specialty. There was an array of fish bits, and Gino tried to persuade Lyndal and I to try balut. This is a Filipino delicacy - an 18-day-old duck embryo in its egg, complete with feathers, beak and wide-staring (dead) eyes. No thanks. I sipped a little of the liquid and nibbled at the cooked yolk entwined with blood vessels, but I just couldn't eat the dead duckling. Luckily for us, Gino ate it.


At midnight we let off our fireworks, along with half of Cebu, it seems. The next day the papers said that 67 people had been injured by fireworks in Manila alone. We staggered home in the wee hours and had a well-deserved rest, having spent several hours fending off marriage proposals for Lyndal. :-)



Christmas Day was more like an ordinary work day in Cebu. All the shops and restaurants were open and it seemed to be business as usual. We went up into the mountains behind Cebu City to visit Kyle’s grandmother and see the place where he was raised. It was on the side of an enormous mountain, with a drop of perhaps a 100m from the backdoor to the valley floor. Perched on the mountain side was the family’s piggery, where we saw the siblings of the pig we had eaten the night before at the Christmas Eve party.

We visited a hillside park with statues of various real and imaginary animals and people. Lyndal and I were delighted to see a kangaroo statue next to one of a dancing pig.



We went zip-lining too. A cable of 400m was strung between two peaks and we were harnessed to the cable with a pulley and sent flying. It was a great experience. It was a bit of a thrill to fly over the valley floor, but not terrifying like bungy-jumping and the 37th floor roller coaster.



Finally, we went back to Mactan and I bought Lyndal a handmade guitar for a Christmas present. Mactan Island is famous for its handmade guitars and Lyndal had been inspired by the ‘karaoke unplugged’ of the night before. She spent the last hours of Christmas Day learning chords, while I spent the time learning how to use Facebook. I have finally been converted to Facebook by the multitude of friends that I have met on my travels who use Facebook to follow each other’s travels and swap photos. So Lyndal’s Christmas present to me was a Facebook account.
So our Christmas was very different from that at home, but was a great experience. Who knows where we will spend it next year?

Cebu City

On 23rd December we headed back to our resort on Macatan Island, and Kyle again collected us in the afternoon for more Filipino fun. We went to Cebu City, which is apparently the second largest city in the Philippines. First we went 'malling', as the Filipinos say. We visited an unbelievably huge shopping mall, which had everything from shops, restaurants and hotels to massage parlours and kids' parks. I bought some new clothes, since most of mine had started to fall apart after six months of travelling and being subjected to Asian washing practices like being bashed against rocks.


We then visited Projectile's Pit, which is a muay thai gym that Kyle and Gino are creating. The photo shows Kyle working out in the gym, which has its name painted on the wall in 'urban art' style.

Lyndal, Kyle, Gino and I all then headed off to Crown Regency Towers to do another stupid thing. One of the towers has a sort of roller-coaster running around the outside of the 37th Floor. Riders are strapped in to a little car, then tilted 50 degrees forward, so that they are essentially facing the ground 37 floors below them. The ride is not very fast, but the sensation of being almost about to plunge to one's death is absolutely terrifying. I'm not sure that I would say that I enjoyed this experience, but at least we all lived through it. Our absolute terror prevented Lyndal and I from admiring the views, but the boys just gaffed off the experience, saying it wasn't bad. Boys and their pride. :-)

Kawasan Falls

On 21st December we went to Mactan Island, Cebu as were going to spend Christmas with Kyle's family. The photo shows the pool at our resort, which was always a welcome relief at the end of the day.


Kyle took us to Kawasan Falls, which is a four-hour drive from Mactan Island. These consist of a series of three falls, with crystal-clear warm water and fascinating rock outcrops and jungle overgrowth. Although developed for tourism, this has been done in a sensitive and non-obtrusive way with grass and bamboo structures along with other local material. We walked for about half an hour along a rocky path to the first waterfall, pictured on the right. Here we ate local squid and a Filipino sour soup, along with the ubiquitous rice.

We then walked along another, rockier path, passing innumerable rapids and small waterfalls, like the one on the left. I thought about my rafting experience on the Bhote Kosi and how impossible it would be to raft this river.

We reached the second falls and again went for a delightful swin. The photo shows Kyle in front of part of the falls. Kyle and Lyndal attempted to climb up one of the falls - it was great fun to watch, and they eventually made it with some assistance from the locals.


We then walked to the third set of falls and Kyle caught a baby goat for Lyndal, which she was thrilled about. I think that Kyle may have been planning to eat it, but Lyndal just wanted to cuddle it.


We finally made it to the third set of falls, which have a so-called 'natural jacuzzi', which is pictured. We swam, drank coconut milk from freshly-cut coconuts and then headed on the long walk back to the road.


On the way back down, as we passed the river which flows from the falls, we found local children doing their own form of white-water rafting, in large rubber inner-tubes. They were having a lot of fun!


We eventually made it back down, and then went to a local 'wet market', where raw fish and meat are sold. Kyle's friend Gino, who was with us, politely asked Lyndal and I not to stand near him, since it reduced his ability to haggle over the price. As soon as they saw he was associated with foreigners, the fish sellers automatically assumed that he must have access to a lot money, and they offered him very high prices. So we wandered away and listened to a tin-drum band of sorts, playing an instrument made of metal and accepting donations as they went. Shopping in the Philippines is different from Canberra! :-)

That night Gino cooked us a great meal of, you guessed it, fish and rice. It was all prepared over two small fires made from coconut and bamboo we had collected. We slept in an abandoned resort, in the best rooms - the ones that had a roof and four walls. As there was no glass in the windows, we were lulled to sleep by the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Bliss.

The next day we headed back to Mactan Island to prepare for Christmas.

Scuba Diving off Coron

The next day we went scuba diving with Sea Dive Resort, which we would highly recommend. We had two dives on the coral reef around Coron Island, as well as another great lunch of fish, rice and salad. The photo shows Lyndal on the left and me on the right - it's hard to tell with masks on! The other photos are some of the fish and coral we saw, and moonrise over Coron.

Coron, Palawan

We arrived in Manila and met up with Lyndal's ADFA classmate and friend, Kyle, who is in the Philippines Navy, along with nine other Filipino friends from ADFA. We all travelled to Coron, on Busuanga Island, in Palawan Province. We stayed at a beaut little 'resort', which consisted of a series of grass and bamboo huts set in a large, shady garden.


We explored Coron town a bit, then the next day Lyndal and I hired a bangka, or canoe with outriggers (see photo above). We spent the day 'island hopping'. It was magical.


Our first stop was Twin Lagoons, which are two crystal-clear lagoons joined by a partially-submerged natural tunnel through which one can swim. The temperature was brilliant and we swam and snorkelled while exploring the lagoons. Lyndal's grandparents had recently given her a waterproof camera for a birthday-graduation-Christmas present, and she put it to very good use throughout our time in Palawan.


Our next stop was Skeleton Wreck, which is a shipwreck in shallow water, so it has been well-plundered and is now just a skeleton. The fish life was amazing and we spent quite a while snorkelling there. We then went to a secluded beach with beautiful white sand, overhanging trees and a couple of grass huts (see photo right). This is where our boatman cooked us a mouthwatering meal of yellowfin tuna and salad. The fish came just grilled with a bit of salt - it was fantastic. We explored the little beach, saw some starfish and little crabs, then went to Kawasan Lake.

Kawasan Lake is billed as the cleanest lake in the Philippines and the water clarity is amazing. The only problem is that there is not much to see underwater - just a lot of stalacmites. The photo shows me diving into the lake - you can see how clear the water is, and some of the structures below the surface.


Finally, we went snorkelling where the hot springs on Busuanga discharge into the sea. The fishlife and coral were incredible, but sadly the battery of Lyndal's brilliant underwater camera ran out, so we only got a few shots. Here is one of them, which shows a spotted eel freaking out the little coral fish as they swin by.

Kuala Lumpur

Sadly, Michaela had to return to the real world of work, university and football training, while Lyndal and I continued our travels. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur for a brief stopover. We stayed at the Grand Seasons Hotel, apparently the tallest hotel in Kuala Lumpur. We both had hair cuts (sadly I had to take my braids and beads out) and ate a lot of Indian food, which I was now missing badly. We had time to take in two tours of Kuala Lumpur in our two days there.

We saw the iconic Petronas Towers (photo above), which were once the tallest buildings on the planet but have now slipped to second place after Taipei 101. We then visited a batik factory (photo right). I found this particularly interesting as my father Rod and stepmother Crina used to make batik in their house in the 1970s, after returning from living in Bali for several years. I was pleased to see that the tools and techniques had not changed at all, with the little wax-filled device called a canting looking identical to that used by Rod and Crina.
We also visited a chocolate factory, the king's palace (photo of Lyndal and a palace guard on the left)and a national monument which commemorates the crushing of a communist insurgency during the 1950s and 1960s. Again, I was interested in this because Rod, Crina and I, along with my six-month-old half-sister Gina, had stayed in Kuala Lumpur for several months in 1976.

At that time, the newspaper articles seemed to be full of former communists recanting their past beliefs. Page Two of the newspaper always carried a half-page testimony from either a former drug addict or former communist, as the Malaysian government clearly viewed them all in the same light.


In the afternoon we visited the Royal Selangor Pewter factory, which was fascinating. Although the basic shape of the pewter items is machine-made, many of the intricate designs are hand-made. We tried our hands at beating patterns into the pewter in the same way as the skilled workers, but sadly no-one would have paid for our feeble efforts. I particularly liked these glass-and-pewter goblets, which were 'Lord of the Rings' themed.


The highlight for us was the last stop, which was the Batu Caves. These are amazing rock formations caused by millions of years of water dripping down through limestone. It is simultaneously a place of natural beauty, and a Hindu shrine. There is an enormous gold-clad statue of the Hindu god Murugan outside the caves, then 272 concrete steps ascend to the first cave.
Every year, millions of Hindus from Malaysia and nearby countries descend on this place to worship during Thaipusam. We spent several happy hours in this place, and finished off by enjoying Indian street food yet again. Bliss.



The next day we headed off to the Philippines and we knew that this would be our last spicy food for a while.

The Day of Living Dangerously

Lyndal arrived in Phuket and for the frist day we did pretty much what we'd done before (except the part about getting tattoos, which we did only once). We lay on the beach, had massages, ate lots of food and so on.


Then we had a sort of crazy day on 15th December. We started off by hiring elephants to do a jungle walk, which was good fun, despite it being the third elephant ride I'd had in three weeks. The photo shows me inelegantly seated on my elephant, Mario. Moments after this photo was taken, Mario inexplicably went berserk. He flung his trunk in the air and trumpeted wildly. He then started running at breakneck speed downhill! He was trumpeting, shrieking and crashing downhill in a terrifying way, and all the time the mahoot was yelling at him to stop (I assume) and thumping in on the head. I clung on for dear life, only being held in place by a tiny piece of rope and my hands grimly grasping the bar of the seat. Happily, I lived, as you would expect from the fact that I am writing this blog, but I received a very nasty bruise on the back of my left calf, to rival the one received during white-water rafting in Nepal.


Our next not-relaxing activity was parasailing, which involved being hoisted up in the air by a rope attached to a boat, and then being dragged around the bay while gliding at sickening heights above the surface of the water. The photo shows me up in the air about to come in for a spectacular landing, which was sadly not captured on camera as my daughters were too busy being chatted up by handsome some young Englishmen on the beach, quite a common occurence for them. :-)


Having defied death twice in one day we then went bungy-jumping. The photo shows me being prepared for the jump. The smile on my face hides sheer, naked terror. I was determined to go first so that I could get it over with and not dwell on the thought of how stupid it was to throw oneself off a 60m-high tower with just a few rubber bands around one's ankles. The crane took me to the top and I looked down at the pond 60m below me. All my instincts told me that I couldn't possibly jump off that tower, even though the logical part of me said that hundreds of people had jumped and survived. So I just did what I do when faced with really unpleasant tasks: concentrated on following orders. I asked the jumpmaster, a very friendly Canadian chap, to count to three, and I just focussed on listening to his voice. When he got to 'three' I immediately jumped. I must say that I then immediately regreted my obediance as I plunged towards the pond at 9.86 metres per second per second. I screamed like a little girl - it was the scariest few seconds of my life. No amount of rational thinking could overcome the sheer visceral terror of plunging face-forward towards the ground.

When I watched the video afterwards, I was very pleased that I had been unable to hear the helpful commentary from my daughters on the ground, like 'don't do it!' and 'she's gonna hit that pole!'. Thanks Lyndal and Michaela. :-)

The girls also jumped, although the soon-to-be Army Officer Lyndal actually had to be pushed off the platform by the jumpmaster. Perhaps there isn't a career in parachute corps for Lyndal. :-)

Tattoo Me

Between Steve leaving and Lyndal arriving, Michaela and I were without responsbile adult supervision, so we did the usual thing for Aussie girls on holiday in Phuket: got tattoos!

The photo above shows me having mine done in the tattoo parlour. We opted to have them done by bamboo, rather than machine, as this was the traditional Thai method and it also meant that we could go swimming straight away if we chose. We both had temporary tattoos made on our right feet on the beach the week before, and decided to make them permanent. Now this might seem strange to some readers, especially English ones for whom tattooing is not common. However, it was the third time I had been tattooed and the fifth for Michaela. Lyndal has two tattoos and their father Geoff has one. Both my brother and father had tattoos. For me, each tattoo marks a significant point in my life. In this case, it marked the transition between my old life in Australia and my work towards the PhD, and my new life, wherever that may be, but it will certainly be without any more university study! :-)


The bamboo tattoo process hurt about as much as you would imagine, with someone repeatedly jabbing a very sharp needle into your foot over and over again. Nevertheless, it was all over in about 45 minutes and we headed back to the hotel.


We sat on our beds, reading, texting, emailing and watching TV for an hour or so. As our feet had begun to swell up by this time, we thought it best just to eat in the hotel restaurant, so that we didn't have to walk too far. So we stood up, literally took 3 steps and were in excruciating pain! We turned to each other and simultaneously said something like, 'how about room service?' and hobbled back to our beds. So we spent the night with very sore feet, but very good room service. We watched one of my Hindi DVDs, in fact my all-time favourie Hindi film: Dhoom 2. A not-very-wild night!

The next day Lyndal arrived to help us be a bit more responsbile, or so we thought ...

Patong Beach

I farewelled Elke and left Kathmandu on 4th December. I then spent 8 hours in the New Delhi airport chatting with a Brazilian couple who thought that I should try yoga and some variant of the hallucinogenic herb peyote. I’m not sure I’m up for either.



I arrived in Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand on 5th December where I was joined by my daughter Michaela and her friend Steve. To be honest, I never thought I’d enjoy a holiday that involved lying in a beach chair all day, being brought drinks and fruit, only rising to swim in the warm Andaman Sea and to obtain massages. Thai culture? We saw none of it. It was wonderfully self-indulgent and totally different to all the other places I have visited in the past six months.

After lying on the beach almost immobile for several days, we actually got out of our beach chairs and took some tours. Michaela and I visited Phi Phi Island, and hopefully I’ll have some photos to put here soon. The scenery was absolutely stunning, but everywhere was heaving with tourists. There were probably as many tourists per square metre as there were at the Taj Mahal, and that’s saying something.
Sadly, Steve missed Phi Phi Island as he was ill, but he was able to join us for a day of elephant and buffalo riding, canoeing, monkey dancing and a whole range of things that Thais believe will entertain tourists. The photo on the left shows Steve, Michaela and I having our feet nibbled by fish in a 'fish spa'. Weird and very ticklish, but I must confess to being entertained.

At one point, there were two dancing baby elephants giving a show and the announcer asked for a volunteer to have an elephant massage. I foolishly agreed. I lay face down on a massage mat while the elephant gently tapped me on the back with its incredibly soft foot. That was not unpleasant. Then it decided to stick its hairy, slimy trunk into my ear – not so pleasant!

We saw muay thai boxing – not really my cup of tea. It’s the second time I’ve watched a live match and I can’t say I get a thrill out of seeing thin, wiry young men kick and knee each other in the chest. I’m sure it’s very skilful and I’m sure I couldn’t do it, but I don’t think I’ll watch it again.


And so it was back to the beach for more lying around. We went jet-skiiing and then laid down again. Got our hair braided, then laid down. Did some shopping, and laid down again. It was all very well for someone with a still-sore left foot. Sadly, I had to say farewell to my trusty Teva sandals, which had seen service with me as a peacekeeper in Bougainville, been repaired on railway stations in India, and I’d fought to save when I was being swept down the Bhote Kosi in Nepal. All the parts that hadn’t been repaired finally started to disintegrate. I never thought I’d be attached to a pair of sandals, but I was. Now I guess I’m not, as they have gone to the great sandal home in the sky.

Michaela and I then farewelled Steve, who I think we must have worn out. Then my daughter Lyndal arrived on 13th December, newly graduated with a B.A. from the Australian Defence Force Academy through the University of New South Wales. With Lyndal's arrival came a change of pace.....

Bhote Kosi

Somehow I was talked into whitewater rafting down the Bhote Kosi, one of the toughest rafting courses available in the world, by the slightly-crazy Elke. My own craziness is shown by the fact that I agreed to do it.


Rafting in a river a few kilometres from the Tibetan border in winter – what can I say? It was cold. It was bloody cold. The first day we went on an easy run, with only a few Class III rapids and lots of stretches of quiet water in between. We practiced the drills for getting us out of trouble, and rescuing people who’d been thrown out of the raft. We had a good time, but were not prepared for the fury of the river the next day.


After having spent the entire night trying to dry out our wet clothes in the tents, we donned them again in the morning, and off we paddled to a continuous series of rapids from Class III to Class IV+. The maximum is Class V, in case you’re wondering. Rapids are graded on their severity. The photo shows some of our happy crew, pleased that we had done so well at that point.


Things went well for the first hour. There were two rafts, plus two kayaking Frenchmen (Remy and Jean-Paul) and three other kayaks for safety. The other raft lost a member early on, but he was quickly recovered, just in time for the entire raft to capsize. We went to the rescue of the other rafters and thought smugly how clever we were to have made it over the rapid without mishap. Ah hubris.



Then it suddenly became very serious. We crested a rapid to discover Jean-Paul’s kayak upside-down and wedged under a massive rock with a large undercut. When we talked about it later, Jean-Paul was remarkably unconcerned about it all, as he is a very experienced kayaker. He had indeed been wedged under the rock and been unable to right himself. So he released himself from the kayak, but was still under the rock. Each time he tried to surface, he simply hit his head on the rock above him. Eventually the massive current dragged him around the rock and he found air above him. He was able to breathe again.

We knew nothing of Jean-Paul’s progress under the rock of course, and immediately went to the rescue of the upturned kayak. With a huge force we slammed into the same rock and the force of the water pushed our raft vertically up the rockface. Our leader screamed at us ‘all right’ which meant we all clambered onto the right side of the boat in a vain attempt to prevent it capsizing. The six rafters and the leader were all on top of each other on the right side when the inevitable happened – the boat flipped. The photo below was taken seconds before our raft capsized for the second time, later on the same day. You can see how the people on the lower half of the raft are trying hard to scramble up, but it didn't work. I am in the upper half of the raft, at the front. A saftey kayaker is in the foreground.


At first you don’t notice the cold because it is a struggle to work out which way is up and where you will find air. After what seemed like a long time, I surfaced several metres downstream from the boat, along with another rafter, Rachel from England. We had all been instructed that when we surfaced we should immediately swim for the nearest shore. For Rachel and I that meant the left bank and for the others it was the right bank. The problem was that due to the huge current, we swam and swam to the left but never got any closer. We found out later that the others had made it to the right bank in under half a minute and Elke had recovered the raft. But at that moment, Rachel and I were being swept downstream at perhaps 40kph, with rapidly diminishing strength as we fought the water. I was struck by something underwater and my left Teva sandal was knocked off by the violence of the blow. Although I was in no pain at that time, the foot was badly damaged. The adrenalin in trying not to drown, and the very cold water of the Bhote Kosi, meant that while I was being swept downstream, my foot was not my main concern.

Eventually I encountered one of the safety kayaks further downstream, and hung on like grim death. Rachel was nowhere to be seen. The kayaker rowed me to the other raft and I was unceremoniously dragged on board like an enormous tuna and flung on to the floor of the raft. I didn’t mind – I was breathing and I was out of the water. Then Rachel was captured by the kayaker and we were all safe – including Jean-Paul.

After the shock had worn off I realised that I could not feel my left foot, but I put that down to the cold. Later when we were in the bus heading back to Kathmandu the feeling came back to my foot – along with intense pain. I found that I couldn’t walk.

As the pain, swelling and bruising got worse each day, I was persuaded to go to the doctor, who initially thought that it was broken. Xrays were inconclusive and the doctor contacted a specialist who confirmed that there were no bone breakages, just severe bone bruising. So I spent the next several days on crutches, with my foot tightly bandaged and covered in ice, and only leaving my hotel room to hobble to nearby restaurants to eat. I was waited on hand and foot by the wonderful Elke, which was good, and I got to spend time catching up on my blog. The astute reader will note that many of the recent posts have the same or similar dates.


The photo on the left shows me trying to negotiate stairs in Kathmandu whilst on my crutches. It was taken by Elke who was helpfully standing at the top of the stairs laughing.

The photo below shows one of the bruises on my arm.

So the Bhote Kosi was an exhilarating and somewhat painful experience, but crazily, I would still recommend it to anyone. Two weeks later and I can walk without much trouble again. Luckily, my next appointment was with a beach in Thailand.