last day in Iligan city...

Hi All,

Well today was our last full day here, it's getting towards the end of the day now, coming up to 5pm local time as I write this...

Iligan, what did I think of it.....

It's changed in a lot of ways from two years ago, more people, more traffic, more of almost everything but there is less shops open in the center of the city then before and there is more PNP (Philippines national police) and army around then two years back, in fact this time I saw 2 APC driving down the street one day, another day i saw some army people go into the mall, there was enough fire power on them to kill a small town!!!!!!!!!!

It still feels safe here and everybody is just getting on with life, the counter outside the shops were you leave your bags now make you open anything you leave so it can be checked before being left.

I love it here but also hate it, the place/country could be so much better if the amount of paper work was cut way back! the people (or at lest the ones we talked to) all seem very nice and down to earth but there is the whole thing of seeing a white person and jacking up the price!

Love it/hate it.... I guess I do both.... having said that I'm sad that tomorrow we leave and it could be 3 or more years till we come back, I'll miss my wife's family, their some of the nicest people you could ever meet, even if we have problems understanding each other! :)

Tomorrow we fly back to Manila, then on Tuesday back to New Zealand, in just over a week it's back to work and the trip will be but a thing of the past... we're learnt a few thing along the way this time and it will make the next trip better, things like we'll put the stop over at the end of the trip not the start, if we fly from Cebu we'll pack lite.... we'll not try to put to much in to too short a time etc etc

It's been a GREAT trip and a GREAT time, 6 weeks+ has just zoomed past! in 5 days time we'll be back in NZ and we'll be re-living the trip as we tell mum & dad about all the highs and lower.....

that's all for now.

boy it's been a long time....

Well my last post was way back on march 22nd.... what happened to all the time from then till now?


I DON"T KNOW!

But it's gone never to be found again.... What have I been up to? a bit of this and that, mostly working and saving for a big holiday oversea! which I must add I'm on right now! this post is coming to you live from Iligan city in the southern Philippines.

The holiday is going good, we're been away for almost 6 weeks with another two to go and so far we have been to: Sydney, Manila, Hong Kong, Cebu, Bacolod and lastly we're in Iligan visiting and spending time with my wifes family.

Iligan is both a great place and a place that's not so good, reason for not so good: heat, dust, dirt to much noise and concrete but it's good because of: heat, the family, the people and just because it's so different to what I'm use too! it's both fun and hard work, guess I'm tiring to say I both love it and hate it at the same time! maybe a bit more love than hate to be truthful!

I love to travel, see new thing and meet new people but I'm also the first to say that if you do that everyday the fun goes from it very very quickly, you have to take a break from your travel in order to enjoy your travels more... say 6 days pushing to see as much as you can and then 2 or 3 days relaxing someplace, then start again, you'll enjoy the trip more, lest that's what I think!

Jeff