Subic Bay

This weekend, we went to Subic Bay. It is just over 100kms north of Manila, and took us about 3 hours to get there on Saturday morning. We stayed at a place called White Rock Beach Resort, which looked fab on it's website! In reality, not quite so fab. But it was OK, and we were only there for 24 hours, so how bad could it be?

We stayed in one of their "beach bungalows", which rather handily had 3 bedrooms. We took one of our maids - Lydia - because she works weekends, so that she could help with the children (primarily Adam, since he has taken to doing exactly what he wants to do, and stuff anyone else's plans!!), also to babysit while John & I (hopefully) had a nice Saturday evening out together!

We got to the bay area, which incidentally is an old american naval base, now turned into an enterprise zone, and promptly got lost! At this moment, the sky turned from blue to black (literally), and the heavens opened. I didn't think it was going to stop raining, it was so heavy!!

We eventually found our resort, chose our room (the hotel was so quiet, we could practically choose which rooms we wanted!! - no discount though, which was a tad disappointing!), then we hit the beach.

The beach was really nice (once you got over the grey sand). The area isn't far from the foot of Mt. Pinutabo that erupted in 1991, so we wonder if that has anything to do with the grey sand situation!?! The resort was set on it's own private beach, where you could swim out to "floating cabana's". We didn't, but they were platforms with trestle tables and hammocks on them, that floated in the sea.

Needless to say, the boys absolutely loved the beach, and were so happy just to sit and play with the sand. When they got fed up of that, they would run into the sea, and splash about. The sea itself didn't look very nice, but this was only because of the grey sand. Once you got your head around that, you could see that the sea was very clear.

Towards the end of the first day (Saturday), we started to spot a few crabs, and it turned out that Lydia was an ace at catching them!! We ended up with quite a few in the bucket (as well as two tiny fish that were "donated" to the boys' collection by a group of locals who had caught these tiny fish - by hand!! no kidding - we watched them (fascinated!) for ages as they tried to catch these fish that were no longer than an inch!!).

Then Lydia found this huge crab, and we (John & I) wanted to return it to the sea. Lydia had other ideas - not sure what these were, but she wasn't too keen on letting it go again!! Bradley was quite fascinated by it - especially when a group of locals (older teenage boys) took an interest in the crab. I don't know if his interest lay in the crab itself, or in the older boys, but we'll never know!!

That evening, we all had dinner together, then we put the boys to bed in the little beachside bungalow. Adam was in a bed, and I think he was so amused by it, that it took him a while to settle down and go to sleep. Outside their bedroom door, we could hear Bradley saying "Adam, for the last time, will you lie down and go to sleep!" - I wonder where Bradley has heard that before!!). John & I went back out to the hotel main block, but found it so deserted! There wasn't anyone around!! It was really strange. The Filipino schools have all recently started their new school year, so that has a lot to do with it, but at 9pm, there was only John, me, and a couple of toads (literally!) in the bar!! Needless to say, we had an early night!

The following morning was a gloriously sunny one, and Lydia took the boys onto the beach (which was just outside our door) to look for more crabs. After breakfast we took a boat ride on a "banca" - a Filipino boat - for an hour - just to tour around the bay. At first, Bradley was so worried, he didn't want us to go for the boat ride! Once we settled him down, he was OK, and started to enjoy it. Adam (having had no nap the previous day - promptly fell asleep with the lull of the boat!). Then John decided he would have a quick snorkel (which, again, really worried Bradley!). Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see - just some brown rocks, he said, and rather eerily, no fish! The most amusing part was seeing him get back into the boat!! He managed it eventually, though! I don't think "banca's" are made for snorkelling in deep water!! Nothing to give you a foothold to get back in the boat!!

Once we checked out of the hotel on Sunday, we headed south of Subic Bay to "Zoobic Safari". I'd heard quite a lot about this place, and was itching to take the boys there. It turned out to be great fun!!

The whole place is mostly about tigers, and you get so close to the tigers, that it can be quite scary!! At one point, you climb into a Jeepney (Filipino form of public transport based on old american army transportation) that has caged doors. Then you are asked by your guide if you want to buy a chicken (one that is already dead, and dressed - just like we buy in Sainsbury's!!) to feed to the tigers. The "Chicken Feeder" comes in the Jeepney with you, and lures the tigers onto (yes, literally, onto) the vehicle - WITH YOU INSIDE IT!!! The safari itself lasts for about 5 minutes, and was really a memorable experience - as our guide put it "We put the people in a cage, and let the tigers roam around them". I'm not sure how the whole set up would sit with WWFN, but they see it as a huge conservation role that they play! In my personal opinion, it sat (sometimes quite uncomfortably) somewhere between zoo and circus. Still, we went, we enjoyed, and we took lots of photo's!!!

There were also other attractions on the tour like the "hop through Monitor Lizards" attraction, where you hop from sawn off tree trunk to sawn off tree trunk - and if you fall off one of the sawn off tree trunks (not very likely!), you would get eaten by the stone crocodile statues!!

There was also the "Aeta Tribe Trail", where they showcased a couple of the tribal dances and posed for photo's. We chose not to pose for a family photo with them, but Adam was so determined, he ended up posing in someone else's shot - much to the amusement of the rest of the group!!

The Aeta's people helped the American army in jungle survival training in their preparation for Vietnam, and you can still take part in a jungle survival course run by the Aeta's - where you learn skills such as how to collect water in bamboo shoots, and other really useful things!!!! (not sure I'll be going on anything like that, but I know John would love it!!). Also, more poignantly perhaps, is that through the Mt. Pinutabo eruption of 1991, the Aeta's lost everything - their homes, livelihood, way of life. And they have had to engage with the rest of society in order to survive. One way of doing this, is to make handicrafts that are for sale throughout the country (especially Manila), and to get involved with such schemes as Zoobic Safari.

Another attraction at Zoobic, is the "Croco Loco", where for 50p, you can buy a quarter chicken, and dangle it on a rope into the pit of crocodiles below the walkway. We refrained from this, preferring to watch the others, but Adam was quite taken with it all, and given the choice, I'll bet he would have loved to dangle a bit of chicken over those crocs' heads!!! We (lydia!) had quite a job to get him away from the pit of crocs!!

We eventually got back in the car for our drive back to Manila, where the boys (Bradley, Adam, and John!!) amused themselves by watching a Laurel & Hardy DVD on the portable player - followed by Donald Duck!! The drive home took us 4 hours, due to roadworks on the North Luzon Expressway (a bit like our M1). I said to Francis, our driver, "Just like it is in England on a Sunday night!!). He laughed, but I'm not sure he found the humour in it, really!