Told you I took lots of photos.  These are the unglamorous backside of White Beach.

  You leave the beach and then take the scenic path back to the main road to catch a trike.

  The back side of the beach.  Hopefully they are looking for finds and not food.

  There were jeepneys but we walked to the main street to catch a trike.  The man on the left remind me of Marino, our wonderful computer guru at the Roanoke County Public library except Marino’s hair is way shorter.

  I call this blue sea and red truck.  You can see the maps on the wall one building over.

  Randal and this smiling boy were discussing who should give some money to whom. 

Everyone went on empty handed.  Kids are always asking for money, often it seems like a game.  I don’t give them any.  I do pay the kids who offer to carry bags at the public market though I carry my own anyway. 

  Here we are back in Puerto Galera.  Randal stayed in the trike to be driven to the barber for a shave.  You can see how squished in he is. 

  You can see how Randal fills the seat himself.  Picture both of us in it!  Picture us in it going over bumpy roads like the one to Sabang. 

  We picked a little place along the beach to eat lunch.  We sat to the left of the photo on the beach side.  This side opened to the little alley that paralleled the beach.

  Randal had chicken curry and French fries and I had an eggplant omelet and steamed veggies.  It was all quite good. 

  The top of the eggplant is visible on my omelet.  Yummy, mostly eggplant.  The banca model on the table is the one Randal bought from the beach vendor.

  Sitting on the beach side or open sides of any restaurant makes you prospective customers.  We don’t normally, but his boat were neat.

  They are made so that you can take down the sails.  Wonder how they get them inside those bottles?

  He was a good salesman with a unique (to us) product. 

After lunch we walked along the beach.  Remember Bob Marley?    Lots of little shops along the beach.

Part of the Philippines is Oriental and part is Muslim

  Massage anyone?  Lots of people offering to give massages, White Beach, Sabang, and even the streets of Olongapo. 

  Or you can get a temporary or permanent tattoo.

  A view of the landscape. 

Guess I’ll need a part 3

Randal and I went to visit White Beach.  We took a trike for 100 pesos about 15 minutes down the road from Puerto Galera.  It was a lovely ride that looked at times like the parkway to Yorktown, VA.  This map was painted on a wall near the walk to the beach from the road. 

  This was our ride home, but the ride to White Beach was in the same kind of contraption.

  Randal and I both squeeezzzzzeeeed inside. 

  This is typical of the waterfront.  Lots of bancas offering trips to places or just back to Puerto Galera.  I like the white umbrellas with the white boat and white clouds.  Might have to try to paint it.

Kids were surfing along the water’s edge. 

Watching their feet fly out from under them was funny since no one was hurt and they laughed too.

  These were attached by rope to fast boats or jet skis and you would go racing through the water until a sharp turn dumped everyone off.  It looked like fun.  We didn’t do it.

  This was the Hotel at the end of the beach.  It was less “fancy” but more interesting than the others.  The “jungle” covers lots of the landscape just behind the beach.

  The end of this part of the beach and this email.  I’ll send part 2 next.

ps……….

  The other half of the  map shows the other direction from PG to Sabang.  Maybe I’ll take some of those side roads near Sabang if we return to Puerto Galera.  You can see Big and Small La Laguna. 

Hi Everyone,

  Randal and I made a trip to the floating book ship anchored at Subic Bay for a few weeks.  The web site is www.mvdulos.org

The following is from their web site but there is lots more info and their perspective on the children of Subic Bay and Olongapo.

Gute Bücher für Alle e.V. (Good Books for All)

Doulos was purchased in 1977 by Gute Bücher für Alle e.V. (Good Books for All), a private, non-profit, charitable organization registered in Germany.

Over 20 million visitors have been welcomed on board for tours, programmes and visits to the floating book fair. With stops in over 500 ports of call, this unique ship has visited more than 100 countries in including Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and many island nations.

Doulos is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest active ocean-going passenger ship.

Here is the ship docked at the Subic Bay pier on Waterfront Road.

Sitting here in our pilot house typing this I can actually see the lights of the ship across the way.  But to walk there we have to go out of the yacht club, down Rizal Highway, turn left on Burgos Ave. and then walk to Waterfront Rd.  Unfortunately it is too far away to get a good photo of the ship’s lights at night.

You have to pay 10 pesos ( 25 cents) per person to go on.  You  walk up the steep blue gangway to get on and off and it is a climb!

This woman had made her purchases and was going home loaded up.

You walk up one side and then down the other when you leave.  Flip flops or heels would have been treacherous. There were “speed bumps” about every foot along the way making it harder, though probably safer if it had been a wet day.

  Here is a close up of the going down side which was exactly like the going up side.

You were only allowed access to the book deck, but for 50 pesos more you could go on a tour and hear about the boat, but we didn’t. 

  This was one of the many life boats.  Each held 87 people.

Just about there.  You can see the end of the deck and the entrance to the book store with the sloping white  roof.

  Here we are.  There were lots of kids materials and religious materials, but no popular fiction and little non-religious, nonfiction. 

  I bought some art how to books and a night sky star book and (a 2004 World Almanac for $2 for when the Internet is down or not available.)

Like every bookstore they sold cards and pens and notebooks and a few educational toys.

  Time to pay up.

It is nice that this is available.  They are a non-profit so sell books at a discounted price.  I just wish the library could buy some of these books and make them available to kids with no money. 

Lots of these photos were taken by either Kevin, Audrey or Bob.  I’ll just put my name by mine and the others are ones they took.

A view of the beach and the Bataan Peninsular

So here I am! 

I know Kevin took this photo because he was kind enough to go out with me.  I didn’t want to go alone and no one else seemed to really want to go.  Both Bob and Audrey have done lots of diving so this is not such a big deal to them.  I am wearing my flour sack shorts and also my keene walking shoes because I was too lazy to get my booties and Randal’s flippers.  But it made swimming harder and when we got really far out I got a bit scared when I started to have a hard time getting back in.  Even though the current was going towards the beach somehow because of the channel I was in the waves were going back out.  Kevin was with me so I wasn’t really worried, or at least not panic stricken.  Next time I’ll wear flippers.  When Bob and Audrey saw the photos they decided to go in, but both swam out much further than I would have felt comfortable.  I liked seeing the fish, but the shrubbery made me think of snakes and hidden stuff.  There were some spiky sea urchins, but you could see them so could avoid stepping on them.  I also saw sea cucumber, interesting but not so colorful. 

  This was out fairly far.  I did see lots of tiny brightly colored fish.  Audrey and Bob say that there are only small young fish because of over fishing and dynamite fishing where they blow everything out of the water and destroy way too much.  It is outlawed but still done illegally.

Ruel  Reminds me of those glasses with the fuzzy eyebrows and nose and mustache attached!

  Ruel and Christina ( I think)  Mariel and Carmela (I think)

Agnes!

Maria, Ruth, Mariel, Agnes, Christina and Carmela

This was a floating pavilion that was actually in the water by the time we left. The woman in the orange suit is Maria’s mom who is 2 years younger than I am!  My photo.

This past Sunday we were taken to White Corals Beach Resort in Morong,  a 45 minute drive south of Subic on the Bataan Peninsular by our friends Audrey, Bob, Kevin and Toby the dog.  Their friends Maria and Svend were there with their kids and Maria’s mom.  It was a fun day and I did some real beginner snorkeling.  Took lots of photos.  http://www.bataanwhitecorals.com/  is the web site for the resort.  Bob and Audrey sent some of their photos; they have an underwater camera.  I try to give them credit though I don’t know if Audrey, Bob or Kevin took the photo.

  About half way there we saw a man walking his waterbuffalo. 

Bob stopped the van, I jumped out and ran after them.  They kindly stopped so I could take my photo.  I made the mistake of shooting off the camera first and then trying to pat the buffalo which snorted in a less than inviting way.  I made a second attempt, but her owner looked a bit wary so I just said thanks and went back to the van. 

She (I guess) looks a bit wary and close up the horns look too scary to mess with.  Probably gentle as a lamb and followed her owner with no hesitation.

  It is very lovely countryside with a small population.  It is becoming more of a tourist destination because of its beaches. 

  We were greeted by the site of Maria, her mom and kids

coming in from exploring the exposed coral reef.

  Carrying in the prizes

Maria, Audrey and one of the girls

The kids had found a star fish, but put it back into the water so not to kill it.

  Lunch of traditional Filipino soup, rice, veggies and crispy pata which is a pork dish with the skins fried crispy.  You just pull it from the bones and enjoy. 

San Mig light and crispy pata remains.

  Some for everyone.  Toby, the dog’s father lived at the resort.  A very sweet dog I wanted to take home.

Bob washing the salt water off Toby.  Toby is a puppy that Audrey adopted on a previous visit here.  Audrey or Kevin took this photo

  This was the resort pool filled from the ocean so it is a salt water pool.  Shared by B, A or K

  The kids all really like Bob and Audrey and have a good time together.

  Sunset! 

This is Agnes the youngest girl. 

She and I went for a walk along the beach and collected so many shells I had to carry them in my hat. 

Nest set are the water photos

Hi Everyone,

  Here are some photos of the flour sack clothes.  Left to right, the scratchier shorts with the almost too short drawstring and no pocket. I wear them for swimming; the good shorts with the back pocket and the long enough drawstring, for wearing around and even into town; last the top which I am wearing right now!

“Good shorts”

The top, front and back.  I look like an employee of NBC!  I am wearing my thread necklace too.  The shorts and top cost 350 pesos; about $8.  I ordered them one morning and they were ready the next afternoon.

  The tread necklace with the Red Sox hat charm and the charm my niece Jess brought me back from Hawaii.  t think of it as my “America charms”  one from back east and one from as far west as you can get. The necklace cost 150 pesos, about $3.50 and took an hour to make.   I tried taking a close up of it on my neck, but that was not an appealing photo.  I looked like a distant relative of the bird on the shirt!

Our Roanoke neighbor Lucy Nace had sack clothes stories and so does Randal.  My mom made our clothes, and I remember remnant stores we would hunt through for material, but no sack clothes.  Too bad, they are really fun. 

So I’m now on the way out of town and back to Puerto Galera.  The road is 6 kilometers.  5 kilometers is  3 miles.  From Sabang to the La Laguna to get my thread necklace is about a mile, and then a mile back. 

An interesting display along the road just after I left Sabang. 

Abandon all seriousness you who enter here!

  I have to admit I take lots of laundry photos too.

  It looks the middle of nowhere, but there was enough road traffic that I never felt isolated or scared to be walking along the road.  You could see the sea through the trees on the photo’s right.

A jeepney from Puerto Galera to Sabang.  Crammed to overflowing.

  On going forever, apparently.

  I had to time it to make sure I was out of the way of the traffic and not having to jump into the muck to get out of the way!

Randal arranged to get a ride back from Sabang to PG and thought it was in a trike.  But the man led him to a motorcycle.  Randal told him that he’d better not get them stuck in the mud!  This is not Randal, but it is what he must have looked like, only bigger!

There were very small “towns” and resorts along the road.  This one is about 1/2 mile from PG.

Just about back in Puerto Galera. 

With stopping to take photos, the walk took about an hour. 

  The End

I really did take lots of photos!

  I am sitting at the small restaurant just out of the photo.  The men you see walking in the distance in the black and white shirts are off to attend the Classic Club!  There are club shirts members must wear, but there are a variety of styles and either black or white.  This is the swimming beach on the other side of the point. 

  My little table.  I had an onion, tomato, cheese omelet and toast with mango jam!  I had brought a book, but never opened it.  I was actually filling in time while the thread lady wove my necklace.  I can’t believe I have no photo of her!

  Following these guys was a family of 4.  These guys were hired to carry their stuff from the banca that had delivered them probably from Puerto Galera or from the ferry from Batangas.  The only road into town is back at the end of Sabang.  Nick has to park his car there and walk half the beach to his condo at Portofino. 

I made the mistake of telling the fruit seller in white, “maybe later,” when she had asked me to buy some fruit.  Well this was later and she said, it was later, and that I had said I would buy fruit later.  So….I bought bananas.  She said, “what about buying some fruit from my friend?”  I said, ” I didn’t even want the bananas!”  But I did use them to make really good banana, mango, walnut bread that Chris from Romblon especially loved. 

  Leaving Sabang.  A resort built to look like a castle.