Another journey through the Philippines...

Morning all,

Another late update. This time I've been away to the Philippines. I spent time in Manila, Davao, Batangas and Norzagaray in Bulacan. This time the work was a nightmare. All of the jobs had something go tits-up on them. I did do my best to get it all sorted but in some cases it was bloody impossible to do a good job. Never mind, might get me out there again.

This piccie above is at Fortune Cement in Batangas in South Luzon. The company did not have a bus service to get to the site so they told me just to take a taxi in the morning. This is all well and good but for the fact that there were no taxis in the whole of Batangas. So I ended up going to the plant on a moped tricycle. This thing did about 20 km an hour and the site was a good 10 km away. It was a right laugh though... Who gets to go to work on a moped tricycle?

After Batangas I flew to Mindonao Island in the south of the Philippines. I flew on the day that Manny Paquiao, the Philipino superstar boxer, was fighting . This meant that everything was slow or closed. This guy is so popular that the rebels in the south that are fighting the government had an official ceasefire while the bout was on... The picture above is the view over Davao City from the Marco Polo hotel. I only stayed one day here as this job went up the swanny too....
When I went to Norzagaray I stayed in Manila as that is within commuting distance. This is the view from the Makati Suite Hotel in Makati. If you need a good hotel for a reasonable price right in the night life centre of Manila this is the place. Good service, a good restaurant and friendly staff...
This is another view from my suite in the Makati hotel. All in all I had a good trip if it weren't for the fact that the customers had not prepared the jobs properly... So I left Manila on Thursday when it was about 35 degrees. 24 hours later I was standing outside terminal 1 at Heathrow freezing my nuts off as it was around zero. (It didn't help I lost my coat on the flight from Manila to Hong Kong...)

OK, don't know yet where I'm off to next. I need some de-stress time, it has been a long trip...

Cheerio, Alex.