Tagaytay

I picked up the van (people carrier) at 7am Tuesday. This was my first time driving in the Phils, at that time in the morning it wasn't too busy, I just took about 30 mins to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road again. We were soon out of Manila which helped, the roads going south are a bit strange but ok to deal with in the daylight.
We arrived in Tagaytay around 9am, visited a hotel where the gardens have a great view over the water and islands, we had lots of pics taken.... I mean lots of pics.... these Filipinos are worse than the Japanese with their cameras, every few yards someone would shout... right photo shoot... again and again !!!!! I know that each of the 4 took 200 photos each.... I took 2 !! but I did take some video which I will put online asap.

Anyway we then visited a very posh country club which was huge... I mean HUGE... it has clubhouses, lots of people own homes there too, it simply has everything, a bus service too that's how big it is... probably best to describe it like a town. Difficult to get into, armed guards stop everyone, the only reason that we were allowed in was because coach William used to live there and managed to obtain a pass for the day for us.
It really was a beautiful place with outside swimming pools, Jacuzzis and whirlpool bath areas, restaurants etc etc etc.
We walked around taking lots of pics. At lunchtime we had to go outside of the resort as only residents and members are allowed to eat there. We found a very good restaurant in the town and had a very nice meal, the bill for 5 of us including drinks was £15.

We returned to the club after lunch, I was a bit tired so I stayed in the van to get 40 winks, the others walked to another part to visit an animal section that they have there. we all had a tour round the sports club which had 2 beautiful badminton courts, an indoor basketball court, table tennis rooms, squash court and more swimming pools. we were then were allowed to play badminton at 4pm til 7pm.... as usual my shirt was drenched. The showering areas were beautifully maintained with everything that you can imagine there for your use.

We left the area afterwards to make our way home, I drove home but it was much more difficult in the dark, some of these roads have 2 lanes going in each direction but the centre 2 lanes are what you use, if someone wants to overtake you then they actually have to undertake you to get past. The main reason is that there are no pavements as such so the inside lane on both sides of the roads are used by pedestrians. For that very reason I never did undertake any vehicle as I was too worried about hitting someone walking along the road. I really had to focus as going through the small towns and villages is worrying, so many people all walking along the road and dogs just sitting in the middle of the road !! So many children too just walking home from wherever.

I stopped to drop off Ging at her home, we went in for a drink of coke, coach William asked me for the keys as he wanted to turn the vehicle around as we were in a very narrow road, I went in for my coke and I heard BANG, William had turned the front wheel into a deep drain gully, it would not drive out of it, luckily Filipinos are helpful so all the neighbours came out to help, I put it into reverse, they lifted the front of the van for a second and I hit the accelerator...it worked, only a little damage to the bumper.

So all in all it was an interesting but tiring day, another thing that I found out is that when you order your favourite food in the restaurant, don't think for a minute that you are going to eat it all... no chance.... Filipinos share food big time.... next time I'm ordering 2 sweet and sour chickens !!!!! :-)

I got home at 11pm and fell off to sleep on the couch as usual.... nothing changes no matter where I am in the world.

Hope you all have a nice day and aren't working too hard..... work.. yes I think I remember what that means !!!!!