Heading home

Yet another lovely morning walk before breakfast on the beach. Great location with a big bowl of porridge and a tall mango smoothie for Hamish 

and a fairly basic coffee for me.

A final paddle in the water and a swim in the pool, before it was time to pack our bags and check out.

A pleasant 1 hour fight to Manila, ready to enjoy 7 hours at the airport before our flight home. 
We're all feeling sad that this wonderful time is coming to an end, but we're all excited to be heading home.

Our final full day

Beautiful morning walk again along Alona Beach,

...followed by breakfast at Gavroche again, this time with Hamish.

Then back for a swim in the pool and some downtime out of the heat. For our last night we have had to move from our large room to a smaller room, but looking out on the pool. I think we'll cope!

For the third time we headed to Dumaluan Beach for the afternoon and early evening. A beautiful long, white-sand beach with some lovely resorts, but also access for everyone for a small fee - and so a popular spot with locals.

We played volleyball until the heat defeated us, then took a dip in the shallow water before walking up the beach.
Another wedding celebration...

and another beautiful sunset.

Then dinner again at the local's 'street food' stall. Our white skin and ignorance make us stand out so much that the woman didn't just remember us, she told us which vegetables dish we ordered the other night. And it was ribs again for the boys - their newly acquired taste.

A delicious meal chatting about our highlights of the trip. Everyone voted for the visit with the sponsored children, especially in Tagbilaran where we got to interact with them for longer; plus Hamish voted for the zipline.
I have loved the whole thing - experiencing our compassion partnership and meeting our sponsored children, seeing some extraordinary sights and creatures, and slowing down for the rhythm of our final relaxing days. Most of all I have loved doing it all with Hamish and Elijah. So very thankful to our generous God.   

a day of contrasts

Beautiful morning walk along Alona Beach in sparkling sunshine, complete with Pokemons and dogs for Elijah to enjoy.

Breakfast at a cool French bakery/cafe called Gavroche - named after the street kid in Les Miserables

- complete with a matching wifi password (look closely at the napkin holder)

Owned by a Frenchman who has trained local chefs, the pastries were just as good as in France. Elijah particularly liked his choco roll!

Beautiful photos on the wall taken in Bohol and Cebu by someone related to the owner.

Hamish enjoyed a sleep in and missed the cafe - which gives us a good excuse to go back there!
Back to the accommodation for an ad hoc chat about ethics by the pool, a lovely swim and some inside chill time.

Since we were heading into town for church tonight, we spent the afternoon in there as well. We weren't able to wander around St Joseph the worker Catholic cathedral as much as I would have liked, as we arrived part way through one of the 7 or 8 Sunday services, but we did get to see some of its magnificence and experience some of the service.

Then to the small but well presented National Museum of Bohol in the old Capitol building (1860), beautifully repaired after the 2013 earthquake.

Then to a very unique cafe experience, thanks to the Lonely Planet guide. The Garden Cafe is an Old West themed American diner with all sorts of memorabilia, and for some reason telephones at each table which you can use to phone through your order (not sure how that fits with the Old West theme?).

Even Starbucks coffee (albeit pod coffee with the ubiquitous powered milk!).

Its all quite a contrast to downtown Tagbilaran and there's no sign of a garden anywhere!

More significantly, the cafe is run by and for the benefit of local deaf people. The cook and wait staff are mostly deaf, and the menu even includes sign language to help you order - or you can simply write it down.

Who would have thought 'Garden Cafe', the Old West and deaf people would make such a great combination for a good cause? 

Then some 'window shopping' at the mall, where the department store even includes musical instruments, sound desks and karaoke machines. More interestingly, there's an Adoration Room, where, thanks to the priest's turning of bread and wine into Jesus' body and blood, you are 'most welcome to visit our Lord Jesus' and 'pray before the (his) true presence.'

Just down the road you can take part in 'the holy sacrifice of the Latin mass' (didn't Vatican 2 reject using Latin in favour of local languages back in the 60s?).

As we wandered around vainly looking for somewhere for dinner down near the waterfront, we came across this warning ...

Needless to say we stopped holding hands.

Finally we went to the evening English service at the church that runs the Compassion project we visited. There were about 100 of God's people, most of them under 30. The Pastor asked the three of us to stand and warmly welcomed us as partners to their work amongst the sponsored children.
Some things were very much the same as our church:

• a Bible reading and Bible talk
• songs about our wonderful God, with words projected on a screen
• an opportunity to confess our sins together
• remembering Jesus' death with the symbols that Jesus gave us to use - bread and wine
• and of course, almost no one sat in the first 7 rows

But some things were different:

• the ministers and the choir wore robes
• all the men wore pants 
• almost all the music was played by an organ and was written before 1980
• the congregation sang responses to the words of the leaders
• we sang a birthday and a wedding anniversary song for all those celebrating this week
• we greeted one another whilst we sang a song about unity

Some of these things seemed strange to us for a service intended for young people, but no doubt we don't know Filipino culture well enough.

Most of all we felt glad to have gathered with our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially with a church with whom we are partnering in 'releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name.' And given what we have seen of the great contrast between poverty and wealth here, and given that we are looking forward to returning to the privileges of living in Australia, the Bible teaching from Philippians 4:9-12 was a timely reminder for all of us about the secret of contentment - not having enough money but valuing knowing Jesus above everything else.

Mixed experiences and emotions

Not a great night for Elijah thanks to his ear infection.

Today's tourist excursion?  Hinagdanan Cave. Discovered many years ago by a farmer clearing his land and named after the way in – ‘laddered’ in the local dialect.

Down the ladder we went into the cave and discovered the large pool with stalactites and a couple of natural sunlights. 

Hamish and I explored the cave on foot and discovered a local who seemed to be enjoying the artificial lighting.

Then the two of us enjoyed our first ever swim in an enclosed cave. The water was beautifully clear and the temperature was more refreshing than the ocean or the pools here. Unfortunately Elijah isn't able to swim for the next 6 days; not that he really feels like it.

On the way back we were able to clarify something we'd been wondering about - the price of cars. We've noticed that while there are far more motorbikes than cars here, the cars that people do own are mostly new. A billboard advertised a small SUV for 28k - 28 000 pesos - which is less than $1000. Could this really be right? Could this be Hamish's first car? Even paying for extra luggage on our flight it might still be worth it! We asked the driver. Turns out that even though there is no indication of any other amount on the sign, 28k is just the 5% down payment. The actual price is the 560 000 pesos - almost $20 000. Keep saving Hamish.

Then some chill time back in the room planning and selecting footage for a video about our Compassion visit for church. Wonderful memories to look back on.

Lunch was yet again a variety of bread rolls from the local bakery, where I've become a temporary regular. 

Late afternoon and dinner at Dumaluan Beach again. Lots of tourists and locals enjoying a beautiful beach on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. We particularly enjoyed watching boyfriend taking pictures of their girlfriends posing with sultry looks. Elijah was in a good space in his pain relief cycle and made sand castles while Hamish and I chatted over the end of dinner.

Together we walked to the other end of the beach and admired the high end resorts – brought back happy memories of ‘the Warwick’ in Fiji many years ago.

Yet another cultural experience as we watched the wedding reception on the beach of the resort, resplendent with lavishly decorated tables and a back-lit slideshow of the happy couple. 

Tributes were given to a myriad of family members, as well as those with important roles like ring bearer and Bible bearer, as well as ‘the sponsors of the wedding’ – these didn’t seem to be local businesses but family members – presumably the ones who paid for the wedding – though they weren’t the parents.

We arrived back on the shuttle and Elijah said hello to his new friend 'Beige'  the resort dog. 

Dogs and cats are everywhere here - and very few have a collar. They just wander around and presumably eat scraps.

Yet another wonderful time with my boys.

We’ve been sharing what we’re looking forward to about being back home – seeing Danielle and the rest of our family, seeing friends, drinking real coffee, driving on good roads with overtaking lanes; familiar shopping, reasonable queues at supermarkets, easy open spots on plastic sachet packets, pharmacy shop assistants who know what paracetamol is.

But as always at this point in a holiday, my feelings are very mixed. After so much planning and looking forward, this special time is coming to an end and won’t happen again. And what a special time it has been to share this with these two special boys.  

Bees, Ears and Sea Urchins

An early morning walk along Alona Beach for Elijah and me.

Most of the buses, Jeepneys and pedicabs have colourful designs,
but the Finding Nemo bus is my favourite.

Almost all of the shops and restaurants were closed when we arrived at 6:15am so it would have been unusually quiet if it weren't for the hundreds of people waiting to board the 30 or so boats heading out to the islands for diving, snorkelling or sight seeing.

'Tourist police' and a man with a loud hailer were all there on hand to make it work and somehow the boats managed to negotiate their way out. I'm glad we're not staying right on the beach!

There wasn't much open for breakfast but we found something cheap and cheerful, complete with a ocean view and 2 kittens for Elijah to enjoy.

Back at the resort Hamish had breakfast and I had a swim, then we headed out to the Bohol Bee Farm resort - a combination of organic farm, old fashioned handcrafts, restaurants, cafes, a souvenir shop, resort accommodation and a diving business - all right on the water.

We loved the tour - especially the traditional raffia weaving and the hands on bee demonstration.

Yes, those are European bees!

We were brave enough to hold the rack, but no one on the tour was brave enough to take up the invitation of placing our hands on the bees.

As three males, we were interested to learn that males make up only 5% of the bee hive population and are literally only good for one thing, after which they die.

Of course there were samples to try - we all tried 4 different types of honey, I tried the corn coffee, and Hamish and I tried the honey wine - not surprisingly it was very sweet and the tiny sample glass was just the right size.

Bohol Bee Farm make their own ice cream and have cafes and ice cream shops all over the region. The boys weren't too keen about some of the exotic flavours but salted caramel hit the spot.

After many days of instant coffee with powered milk, I enjoyed the real cappuccino at the funky cafe - even though it was still made with long life milk (we haven't seen any sign of fresh milk here).

Thanks to the joys of Spotify, over coffee and ice creams I tried to remedy Hamish's ignorance of U2's greatest hits from the 1980s. Travel is so educational.

We enjoyed the view from the restaurant on the cliff, as well as from the cool platform down at the waters edge.

A terrifically enjoyable morning with great variety - Danielle you would have really liked it.
How to complement this great start to the day? A trip to the doctor of course.

Elijah had woken up with pain in both ears. Past experience with Isaac in Fiji, interpreted by Dr Google diagnosed this as 'swimming ear' - an infection of the outer ear common when you swim a lot.

'Where is the doctor's on Panglao?'
'Not here, sir' (everyone here either calls me Pastor or Sir - something I can't see catching on back home)
'You have to go Tagbilaran.'
I was surprised and saddened that there is not one doctor on this island of tens of thousands of residents and tourists, and Tagbilaran is 30 minutes away if you have a car.
'How long will it take to go and to wait at the doctor?'
'Not long, sir, just half a day.'
Not keen to spend half a day we had decided to wait and see but by midday I changed my mind and decided to get the antibiotic process started.

They had offered to drive and stay with us for no charge, which was very generous. Indeed two staff came with us - one to drive and one to walk us through the process. So the driver dropped Leonil and us at the door of the medical centre, and we walked to the ear, nose and throat centre, spoke to the nurse on duty, waited for about 3 minutes, then saw the doctor. He carefully and gently looked, diagnosed and explained and prescribed the treatment.

The whole process at the medical centre took no more than 20 minutes! And how much would you expect to pay for such a visit? Certainly not the $18 we were charged!

Leonil guided us through the process at the pharmacy, as well as buying some over the ear headphones for Elijah, we bought drinks for everyone and headed back. The whole process actually took no more than 2 hours, half of which was travelling. We were so thankful for the help of the staff and of course gave them a tip.

Finally another walk along Alona Beach enjoying the antics of the tourists - some posing in pretty dresses up to their waist in the water, some flying sophisticated drones, and others gathering around a local man digging the flesh out of the sea urchins he had caught that day.

We were sorely tempted but brave tourist beat us to it and paid him $12 for half a cup of this delicacy.

Finally dinner on the beachfront at a cheap restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet.

Not a bad mix of a day when this time last night I didn't have a plan. Hopefully that works out again for tomorrow!