hanging coffins and mobile phones

saw these eerie coffins today, they are pinned to the cliff face - we actually found a load of bones near by too from a coffin that had broken or decayed

also, we have a text only phone here - but we cant do much with it - we havent managed to text yet and we cant charge it so its only on sporadically, but if you want to say hello the number is

+63 9204121034 (i think) apols in advance if we cant reply, but we will try :-)

quickfire update

i would put loads more details up but aint got much time, so hear goes

we are now in segada near the lovely rice terraces shown here,









Coke floats:
in macdonalds here, you got em at home yet?? gorge, and a snip at 20 pesos

The halsema highway:
is the scariest road ive been on i think, 6 hours of hairpin bends with 1000M drops either side! had to close my eyes a few times

Manilla Thunder storm -
was awesome, we saw some buildings take a direct hit - amazing, and even slightly scary

Bagio
had a nice night there, it feels quite european there, and we some entertainging clooege bands and some old hippies doing led zep numbers

My foot
has some strange creature living in it i think - it started out a bite and then has crafted a nice map-like shape in my foot - the doctor didn't have a clue but we reckon could be a tick - time for the swiss army knife i think!!

two suitcases, and two bags??

how much stuff did you take to the bahamas claire?? taking after mum there

have to mention a juicy boles classic here - juz was explaining the mobile phone $49 and $79 packages that you can get in australia to me - it went something like this

'the $49 one gives you unlimted text and talk'
'so what does the $79 one give you then??'
'oh, that ones gives you more'

wonderful :-)

back in manilla

kind-of remember the go betweens, but cant remember a single song at the moment for some reason

we are back in the phillipines now, and had a kind of biggish night last night in some of manillas trendy funky bars - and we had to return to the chilli garlic mushroom place again, they are just too nice!

but its far too hot here - you know if you leave your car parked in the sun and then get in? well, thats what our hotel room was like this morning - add a hangover and you have severe pain that a 10 minute cold shower couldn't fix

so we are trying to get to the other side of town in small hops now - cafe, 7-11 (air con), internet cafe - anywhere thats chilled

AND - ive lost another bloody camera ! gutted - not sure what happened, it was in the bag pocket, then it was gone - more likely lost than stolen, but there you go - at least i managed to burn a CD before hand

ignore the spammers

some auto spammers below have been adding loads of comments below,

why?????

this is not on zoom or anything

49150030
Originally uploaded by jusboles.

promise, we where this close to loads of these turtles, it was beautiful

you can defo see the turtle on this one

49150021
Originally uploaded by jusboles.

had to hold ma breath for this one while juz 'did the settings' on the fully automatic camera - im sure she did it on purpose :-)

me snorkelling,

49150020
Originally uploaded by jusboles.

there is a turtle near by but not sure you can see it, it should be just below me

just to brighten the website up a touch

we saw the da vinci code last night which was surprisingly quite good - its mostly fiction, and defo stretches the consipracy theories quite strongly but to a simpleton like me its quite a good story, and a bit of food for thought

everyone knows there some curruption in the church, you just wonder how much














some lovely penguins - i was told i walked like a penguin this morning, which i assume was a reference to my mountain legs rather than me dragging my bum on the ground !

some library pics

big nev, who was at our hotel - do i need to say that this is an archive shot??







mount kinabalu - 4095 meters















this is palawan where we are neading to next

blah, blah, blah

cant upload photos here, so i'll just waffle a bit

got a great film of a leech too, not sure how to show that though - they are so scary, and quite intriguing

off to see the da vinchi code tonight, dont know why as sounds awful - at least we get to sit down for two hours

Holland for the world cup anyone??

oooh, and just found this story too

http://www.evertonfc.com/news/index.php?page_id=10094

what a good man!

mountains, knee aches, near tragedies, and ex everton football stars!!

THE MOUNTAIN
we both climbed the bugger - all 4095 meters of it, and boy was it tough
we started off at 8am from 1880 meters heading up to the basecamp at about 3300 meters, this was quite tough at first but once we got the rhythm going, we mananged to do it in just under 4 hours which was pretty good
then after a cold night in our little tin shack and some super noodles for brekky we headed off at 3AM (yes, 3 AM!!) to try and get to the summit for sunrise. After a tough start we got caught up behind a slow group which actually was a real blessing cos we slowed our pace right down, and it actually meant we got all the way to the top without stopping really. Once past the intitial steps you are on pure rock face, some of it at 45 degress - you have to pull youself up with ropes - and we made it the summit to see the sunrise over the hills which then exposed all the massive rock faces we had just walked over - absolutely stunning!!

CLOSE SCRAPE
on the way down we witnessed a near tragedy , a lad behind us had tripped on one of the convex hills and took a fall for about 20 meters - these hills get steeper and steeper and he was so lucky not to go all the way down, i think he hit a rock or a shrub and that probabally saved his life. His head was all bashed and his leg a bit battered but it looked like he didn;t break anything. Anyway he had to get stretched all the way down by the guides, who in my opinion should enter the worlds strongest man comptetition - someof them carry 40K gas canisters up the mountain, crazy!

ARGGGGGGGHHHHH
we though the decent would be easy, but 2000m down in one day was too much for our poor little legs - we could hardly walk at the bottom - justine was walking like she had had 10 pints, and each step i took resulted with a large groan - painful!

GUESS WHO WE SAW???
bloody Neville southall! at our hotel. He was climbing the mountain for charity, with Alan Kennedy and a few other footballers. Couldn't believe it - i was just reading the Borneo Daily Express about the world cup, looked up and thought - i recognise that bloke! couldn;t believe it. I spoke to another guy there who was with him, but i was far too shy to do the photograph thing

my actual plan was to go the bar and mingle (there was no one else there), but we couldn't afford a drink cos we only had our bus fare back to KK - how gutting was that! and if we'd left semporna 2 days later, we could have climed the mountain with big Nev! gutted, that would have been class
i did suggest to Justine that we could do the mountian again.............

quite exciting really

just booked out manilla to singapore flights, and now booking our singapore to darwin flights -

just got to sqeeze in a trip to palawan now before all that, and we got quite a month ahead of us

also worked out that the England game with sweden will actually be on my birthday here cos of time difference - juz looked scared when we worked that out - but i think a 6am castlemaine XXXX will be just the perfect start to our oz trip! wouldn't have it any other way :-)

quite exciting really

just booked out manilla to singapore flights, and now booking our singapore to darwin flights -

just got to sqeeze in a trip to palawan now before all that, and we got quite a month ahead of us

also worked out that the England gmae with sweden will actually be on my birthday here cos of time difference - juz looked scared when we worked that out - but i think i 6am castlemaine XXXX will be just the perfect start to our oz trip! wouldn't have it any other way :-)

oops

we opted not to get the overnight bus last night as it would get us to the mountain at 2:30am - not very good - so we stayed over instead, only to miss the bus this morning

so we are on the overnight bus tonight now, and have 10 ours to kill in this internet cafe

also, not sure what happened to the Sweet lips picture below, i'll try and do another one now -

oh its worked, but i think it is a painting, oh well - very pretty though heh!

what a glorious 3 days

well, i think we've just had the loveliest 3 days of our trip there -

we booked a snorkel trip to sipodan and planned to camp on the nearby island of Mabul (pictured) for one night -

so the first day we rocked over to the island of sipodan and went snorkelling with the lovely turtles - sorry, gonna haver to repeat that - Swimming with turtles!!!! and massive ones too - they where everywhere around us, it was totally amazing, the coral was gorgeous and we surrounded by thousands of lovely bright coloured fishys - just amazing

and the island of mabul, was so pretty - we managed to cxamp for free and we could use the nearby facilities of uncle changs place - eg shower, toilet, and hang out on the pier

there was about 10 people staying there, and they where all lovely which makes such a difference and both evening where spent just sitting on the pier over the water, drinking the phillipino rum and talking the type of rubbish that you usually do after half a bottle of spirits

just perfect, and we where all so sad to leave - it was short but we felt like we had been there for ages - and i would absolutely love to go back there - if anyones in this area then this trip just cant be missed - 100% delightful

some nice pics of things we have seen in the ocean recently

oriental sweetlips, this is one of my favey fish, how lovely are the colours








and a lovely turtle swimming through the water - so graceful!

(again, these are not my pics, but we have seen these whilst snorkelling in sipodan )

Guimeras again

and me swimming in the lovely outdoor pool, set in the jungle valley!

our place in Guimeras (twice for some reason)

a storm coming in thick and fast in Tambunan in Sabah

hot to point to something, Phillipino style!

few more animal pics (not my pics, just archive)

the lovely hornbill - have seen many types of these, but buggered if i can remember the names - justine can though! much more the naturalist than i am
how cool is this bearded pig - we had a few running through the jungle camp, they where great

some more pics

a monitor lizard
Mount kinabulu, our next challenge, yikes!!

some pics of what we have seen (not my pics, these are archive photos)

a hungry tiger leech, much bigger than the ones we have previously seen - and these ones always go for the upper body, scary!
small crocs, big enough to take yer arm off though, so no swimming in the river for us
Proboscis moneky, with his crazy big rubber nose - apprently it attracts the ladies! Sounds crazy, but Barry Manilow gets away with it so why not!
yey! the orangutann, we where so lucky to see these in the wild, he was just sat up a big thin tree munching away on leaves - they are so delightful to watch - we went to a rehab cnetre for them the previous day and saw them being fed and they are such posers

crazy little tree frog, saw lots of these on the night trek, some the size of a thumbnail

sipadan

snorkelling tomorrow here, should be lovely - hopefully this pic will work

sipadan

Uncle Tans jungle camp

we just spent 3 days, 2 nights in ungle tans jungle camp which actually is 2 nights, and one full day! but you pay 3 days - bit of a rip off i felt for 280 ringits, but was really good, we did4 boat safaris, and 2 trekiing safaris - we also had a nice mellow group with us which was cool as that always makes a difference

anyways, i'll try and stick up some up photos, but here is a list courtesy of justine of what we saw - these are all wild by the way - no cages, no reserves, just doing there thang in the jungle - they got it going awwwwwwwn guuuurlfriend!!!

Orangutans
Crocodiles
Bearded pigs
Stork billed kingfisher
Small eared kingfisher
Horbills (oriental, black spied, asian)
Monitor lizards
Flying fox
Longtailed macaque
Pig tailed macaque
Proboscis Moneky
Least narrow mouthed frob
Silver leaf monkey
Snake bird
Millipede
Centipede (female smells of marzipan, amazing)
tiger leech (grrrrrr)
Night heron
Crested serpent eagle

the night trek was a bit scary as it had just rained and the group hadf had two tiger leeches (one on Justine again!!!) and they are big
during the trek we had to wade through swamps and the like, so it was a tense moment taking off the boats - but priase the lord we where lucky!! woo bloody hoo :-)

Borocay by night, Puerto Galera by day!

the train journey to Tenom - riding open air, lovely!

ok the pic didn't work - but i'll try again in moment

so after the lovely train journey we arrived in a scorching town called Tenom. we found a cheap bed that actually had Air con, and cable TV - so when i went to get some cola water from the shop and discovered some ultra cheap beers the rest of the day was history - we spent the next 3 hours supping ice cold beers watching some films, and some trash TV - perfect! we actually got out later on for some food, but there wasn't muh else to see in town

so the next day we headed to Tembunan - and a dodgy ear infection i had forced me to the doctors cos the pain was quite bad - think i picked it up in the sea some weeks ago (you hear stories about cockroaches laying eggs in peoples ears and stuff) - anyway it cost me two quid to see a doctor, and that included the antibiotics, ear drops, and some actifeds! what a bargain

after we foubd a lovely resort which let us camp by the river, and we met up with these locals who invited us back to there house for some ricve wine

they had about 10 gallons of the stuff , and we where told we couldn't leave untill we couldn't walk (not sure that makes sense) - but we did oursleves proud and managed to walk to their car ok for the lift back - which was good news for me, cos thats where my memory stops - i woke up fully clothed in the tent with my neck at right angles lying on my rucsac

so now we are back in KK - we went to rafflasia on the way back but the guide wouldn;t take us round the park cos it was raining and he didn;t want any more leeches on him - fair enough i say!

righty, gonna try and put a few pics up

Marc Wilkinson

funny signs part 2

ok, i can only remembr two more,

firstly - a tee shirt with
"Grovy house music love' which justine almost bought, - we only spotted the typo at the last minute

secondly, not sure i recomend bringing your own wine to this restaraunt , the sign says -
'bringing own wine? - Cockage fee of 6R'

what a lovely few days we have had

absolutely bloody soaked

well we've had a funny few days - we decided to check out and take our stuff to the Tunku Abdul Rahman national park which is a group of five islands in the bay of KK - well it started off ok, but we realised it was gonna loads to get there, loads to stay, and there was a surcharge to take us back the following day - Basically, they are set up for day trips ! bugger

anyways, not one to avoid and adventure we pitched our tent - went for a swim - and watched the thunder clouds roll on in ! couldn;t believe it - its still rainy season here!!!!! bugger

so it rained for about 5 hours, but the evening was ok cos we played scrabble and ate crackers! (the bar shut at 6pm) -

the next morning was lovely though - for about 2 hours, this time the rain REALLY came, and with it wind too! didn;t realise at the time but the tent had swallowed a little and my rucsac was sopping wet, and half of the stuff inside was too!

so we back on the mainland now - we checked into a nice hotel (lucys homestay) and hung everything on the line to dry! hope the rain holds off

so there you have - its wet wet wet !!

sapi

where jus lost her bikini!!!

this is the island

So was that Zinger comment for me then...? ; -)

(Well, I won't disappoint you by not rising to the bate. Not sure I can get away with blatantly slagging off a particularly large 'finger lickin' chicken company on here. But I will say that (if I ate chicken) I wouldn't buy it from somewhere that overfeeds the chickens so much they can't stand up!!)

So anyhoo, i'm off to the Bahamas on Sunday - did I mention that before at all?

Hope you're feeling better. You need some good Heinz tomato soup down your neck - cures everything. Love you lots x from claire

Borneo

forgot to mention we have now arrived in Borneo and very nice it is too - we left the phillipines yesterday morning for a flight here, and we are staying in a nice lodge in Kota Kinabulu - we are hoping to get in shape here so we can have a stab at climbing mount kinabulu - not sure how that will go cos i was ill for over a week recently and it kind of knocked the stuffing out of me - but hopefully the local roti canai's and bombay bryianis will get the strenght back!!

some old shots

anyway, heres an old photo of my looking petrtrified while stuck up treehouse one back in Laos - at 40M, and having not moved for about 20 hours

and a great shot of the local kids on Pamicican hanging out on ma hammock - cheeck them out all trying to pose!

some old photos....

just arriving back in thailand, with Laos in the background - and my last beer Lao in my hand!
xmas day i think, and Becky is on the way to the bar flanked by her 'security'

tasty ...

some lovely foods we've tried recently

Garlic and Chilli sizzlling mushroom on hot platter - good god, these where amazing last night, i have to go back !

Chicken Adobo - national dish here, and it seems to be just marinating your meat with Soy sauce, lots of garlic and some onion (found a lovely recipe here http://members.aol.com/Rgyang/adobo.html) - the flavours are lovely, and the garlic goes really well with the soy

Mango and Shrimp cocktail - Justine almost passed out when she got this, and it was pretty special - similar to prawn cocktail, just with some fresh mango, and tangy mayo on it!

Mango's - had my first mango the other day, and it was seriously special - apparently the mangoes here are amongst the worlds sweetest, and i can imagin they would be hard to beat

think thats it for now ........ off for a zinger!

manilla....

aint all that bad - ok the traffic is bad, and theres loads of fumes - and its a little bit of a dump (politely put) but it does have some nice points

we managed to get a nice room (7 quid , quite pricey) with a lovely courtyard which mentally sheilds us from all the bedlam, pimps and money changers outside! but the bars neeeearby are excellent

there is an area called J Napkil street which apparently goes off big time on friday and saturday night - and if last night was anything to go by (tuesday) then is should be good!

we also checked out the old spanish city of Intramuos this morning which was lovely - most of manilla was flattened after WW2 (after a previous flattening from earthquake in the 19th century), but this part seemed to escape so it was nice to see some old style colonial buildings

anyways, that was enough culture for us plebs so after a half hearted attempt to see the chinese cemetery we made a beeline for the worlds biggest mall (well, prob not, but there are 4 malls here, all linked to together - with another one outside) for some R and R

they are all air con, sell ice creams, and have lovely things i cant afford! they are all the same, but the body can only take so much manilla!

laters

puerto galera

we wherent sure what to expect from this place, but we'd read that white beach was pretty mellow - huts and fish kinda place, but when we got dropped off and walked to the beach we heard this distant drum beat, and then the beach opned up - there must have been 20,000 people there - it was insane, and there was sound systems everywhere playing lovely tunes!!!

all the room prices where bumped right up though cos it was labour day weekend, so we just camped there -

the nights where a bit much though, must have heard that 'dont yer wish yer girlfriend was hot like me' about a thousand times - and this is never gonna be good news!

so there we have it, we wheren't even gonna bother with Borocay, or Poerto Galera - and they have both been bloody brilliant

ooops

not very good at thisa are we- after leaving the lovely beach of Puerto galerra in a big rush, we headed up through manillia to Angeles - when on shuffling through my notes i realised are flight was for 3rd May, and not the first !!! so we could of stayed on the beach after all !!

anyway, to get me back - justine woke up this morning, and her watch said it was 1pm - so we panicked, showered, packed - and checked out - when we saw the clock above reception - 9:30 AM! she hasn't heard the end of this one !! :-)