Beautiful beaches and a bit more on China

I'm so happy that I decided to join the group going to Puerto Galera, as it was amazing! It took us three hours on bus and two hours on a boat to reach our destination, White Beach. Our group of 22 consisted of mainly Chinese and Indian people, and we met a German girl, Bianca, on the boat who decided to join our group for the two days. Me and her automatically teamed up and decided to share a hotel room with two Chinese girls. After getting a room from the hotel and having lunch, it was obviously time to swim.

Having spent over a month now in hot countries without being able to swim at all has been difficult. I was excited to get into the water, and it definitely didn't disappoint me! The water was warm and the waves were gentle, the saltiness of the water made floating easy and I felt I could stay there for days. However, it soon clouded over and we saw the rain front approaching us like a wall of water. The rain drops reached us and it was one of the prettiest things I have ever seen. The heavy drops hitting the sea and splashing the sea water up into tiny little fountains. It was like swimming in a sea of dancing pearls which waved gently. The warm sea water and cool rain brought a beautiful contrast. Regardless of the beauty of the rain, we started swimming back to the beach s we were quite far out and didn't feel safe. Some of the distance I had to swim my eyes squeezed tightly shut as the beautiful little splashing drops were salt water and they were getting into my eyes.

After the swim and just only one beer (San Miguel Brand is what they've got here) Bianca wanted to get a henna tattoo, a gecko on her back. Somehow her spontaneity was contagious, and I ended up taking a tribal henna tattoo on my leg. I quite like it, but it is quite big and obvious and looks scaringly like a real tattoo. This made me realize that I would never want to take a real tattoo, and I'm a bit worried about this one lasting too long or leaving a tan line.

The beach restaurants offered all the same menu, grilled fish, meat or vegetables with rice, and the same entertainments. First on line was a fire show with pois and some of the performers were amazingly skilled, and some of us also appreciated the way how the fire reflected from sweaty muscular upper bodies of the performers! The rest of the entertainment was a variety show by drag queens, but it was not-so-exciting and not always very skilled. I have to say that I got so bored that I went to early bed.

For Saturday, we had booked a snorkeling trip to nearby coral reef. We were taken to the location on traditional style Philippine boats (handmade by the captain) and me and Bianca were the first ones in the water. It turned out that a lot of our Chinese friends couldn't swim too well, so they had life jackets on whilst swimming and didn't go far from the boats at all, hence missing out a lot of the corals. The corals were beautiful and there were a lot of sea urchins scattered throughout, making me slightly nervous. After getting used to the idea of breathing through the mouth and just taking it easy, even the sea urchins looked beautiful rather than scary! There were big schools of brightly colored fish, and swimming calmly you could get so close that you could catch them! We also fed the fish with stale bread, and they seemed to love it they'd flock towards the bread and eat it from your hand! After catching a couple of fish this way we also had a go on fishing, and in the end we got to take our catch with us and we had it grilled at the beach restaurant for lunch!

We also made a quick stop at an isolated and empty beach. The trip organizer, a local 22-year old boy, told us that the beach was owned by the government, but the land right next to it belongs to a politician. This same man owns three quarters of the Mindoro island. The gap between the rich and the poor is big, he said. However, he was from a family of 16 sons ("14 sons and two gays") and they had always had enough to eat. He obviously didn't consider himself rich, but he was currently studying for a bachelor's degree in management and seemed happy with his life. We spoke about families. I had one brother, coming from a Western highly-educated family. The Han Chinese would have only one child and the minority Chinese could have two. The Ugandan man was surprised at all this; government-imposed family planning, effect of the education, someone coming from a family of 16 sons. He had nine siblings himself, and all of them were well-educated - I was surprised by this.

The journey back went with some rough seas and Philippine-style slow traffic. I was tired and unfortunately slightly burned from the snorkeling, and all too happy to go to bed by nine pm!

Then some more about China - things that they do well!

The urban planning. The cities are boringly built in a logical arrangement. Streets go north to south and east to west. The subway runs logically into main directions, and at the subway stations there are clearly labeled exits with the directions (e.g. North-West exit), maps and lists of buildings one will find from each exit. You will never lose your sense of direction. I was able to find my way to subway stations, sights and always back without a map, as everything made sense. Must be like being one of those Australian aboriginals who learn from a young age where each direction is.

Hot water. Every single train, waiting room or public place has a boiler for hot water. Your own tea Tupperware pot is essential, and you keep topping it up whenever you want. Also, forget about buying a sandwich at the train station - you buy potnoodles instead and just add hot water! It must be difficult for the Chinese to get by anywhere else in the world without their reliable supply of boiling water!