The Thrilla' in Manila

We had a brief layover in Singapore and then caught our flight over to Manila. Enjoying the business class and lounges, about the only thing that makes so much travel tolerable. We finally got into Manila at ridiculous in the morning (like 5 or 6 or something). The hotel had a car waiting for us which was necessary. Even at that hour in the morning, traffic was heavy and crazy.

The weekend was pretty much a waste. Lots of sleeping, a little sightseeing but mainly just recovering and getting ready for another assignment. One thing about the Makati area (the district we were staying), it is very modern, very western and has all the big shops. The malls are a crazy maze that once you enter, you can come out a few blocks over without really knowing you have left the building you were in. Partly because of the traffic, most the buildings are connected with walkways so you can get around fairly easy, and by that I mean get hopelessly lost.

After a few days working in Manila it was time to go visit our site. The site is on a different island. We had a flight over but because of cloud cover and no visibility, after two aborted landings we ended up on a nearby island, but not the one we needed to be on. We hastily worked with our contacts and arranged for a small plane to fly us to where we needed to be.

We worked until the weekend (sorry not posting many details about work) and then went over to a different island (via ferry) for the

weekend. We stayed at a nice hotel that was normally the home of weddings and conferences.

The weather wasn't the best but I managed to get a couple of dives in and just relaxed. After the weekend it was back to work.

We were staying at the site's village, so at least we had food cooked for us, rides available and laundry. We had a few group dinners but managed to get out and see around the village. I did try a balut... its a local...delicacy but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Google if you are curious but its not for the faint of heart. We went bowling, to a local bar for some very bad karaoke and even got in some target practice (9mm, 45 and an AR - 15). Thursday came around and it was time to head back to Manila.

Unfortunately I had a horrible fever and was sick. We had to endure a 3 hour car ride to the airport. The roads were crazy most of the time. They have bicycles with side cars called putputs, motorcycles with sidecars called tricycles and little combi buses. But it was common to see 4 people on a motorcycle or people hanging off the sidecars or whatever. Overall it is still a very poor country. But you can find good deals on pearls and a few other things. Once we got to the airport we had to wait a few hours then we got back to Manila. We had a brief meeting Friday and then were off on our flight home.

We connected again through Singapore and then hit Zurich. I had booked a flight from Zurich to London to go visit my girlfriend. So I had about 50 minutes to change planes in ZRH and was on the short flight to the Big Smoke.

London was the same as normal but it was great to see Orlaith after so long away. There were protests in town that weekend, some 250,000 people who were unhappy with the government, sounds about normal. After the world's shortest long weekend (didn't help I was sick the whole time), I finally made it back to my flat Monday night...