Busuanga

The typhoon has passed us in the Philippines it seems. Phew! Though it's not very sunny.

I wonder every day whether to stop the Larium as I am, I think, more than usually preoccupied with irrational thoughts, OCD, call it what I may. Can't seem to get them out of my system. The more I try the less sucessful I am, naturally. I panic. This is not good for me or for Ric. Being busy is good and it might not be the drugs at all of course.

So, after an early morning flight on a tiny no-frills (to put it very lightly) plane out of a domestic airport in Manila (crikey what a mad place to be at 6am this morning!) and a very bumpy ride along red clay roads in a jeepney, we're here in the town of Coron on the island of Busuanga in Palawan where we've already been swimming, kayaking round the islands and laughed at by apparently all the kids in the village as we walked up to the highest view point, a massive cross over looking the town. It's got a nice atmosphere this place. Kids everywhere of course (do they have schools here?!) but not begging or running after us.

We're staying right on the water, at a resort called SeaDive and here Ric (and maybe I) will do his Advanced Diving courses. The wrecks here are world renown, some are HUGE and there are loads of them. My reluctance is down to money mainly, which is being sucked quite rapidly from my bank accounts, as anticipated, but I think I'm going to do it anyway since I don't want Ric to have one up on me and it will prove useful in Oz and it's far more fun to dive with each other AND I'll regret not doing it.


Our instructor is a warm and laid-back chap, originally from Surrey of all places (he spent years diving in the UK and reckons it's great- you wouldn't think it!) who has already instilled enormous confidence in me after I raised the subject of my problem ears. He thinks he can teach me how to prevent it pretty easily. He seems very good and the beauty of this place is that we'd be the only two in the group so it is much more personal.

We particularly like the fact that here we can walk around town rather than remain confined to the resort as we were at Mabul in Borneo. It's important to us that we're able to see the whole picture of a place, or at least get a more rounded view. It's striking how much Catholicism there is here in the Philippines especially after being in more Muslim, or at least multi-faith countries, like Malaysia and Japan. There are loads of churches, the taxis are festooned with rosaries and other garb and the jeepneys are often decorated with religious plaques and paintings. You can tell a lot about a country by the crap the taxi drivers attach to their rear view mirrors, well its religions, superstitions, sporting preferences and sense of humour at least. The Malaysians win the prize for the most amount of ornaments per mirror though, including waving cats, air fresheners, beads, charms, crucifixes, plus all sorts of random nick-knacks. The Filipinos are a very superstitious people apparently and a lot of that derives from their old 'folk religion'.

Of all the places we've been recently, the Philippines has been the trickiest for finding meat-free food (Ric has no idea why I persist) but the quality of cooking at this resort is great and the menu very varied (perhaps because this place is American owned they do fantastic onion rings with garlic sauce and the best bacon in Asia according to Ric). Even if it weren't so good you can't beat eating al fresco on a balcony with crickets chirping around you, a backdrop of pink sky, lush mountains and blue sea, with the sound of terrible local karaoke (or videoke as they tend to call it here) blasting out in the not-quite-far-enough-away-but-tolerable distance.

Ah me. It'll be good to dive again. I honestly wish I could have a holiday from myself a lot of the time. Need to focus my brain and body on something other than fantastical, intangible, unprovable, unchangeable, unpleasant thoughts and fears again.

I hear my mum is looking in to Labrador puppies back home. I couldn't bear to miss out on another Andrex pup entering the Crawford household. Maybe I should get my own in Oz.