Sabrina 2009 Palau – mit Nautilus
Today we hardly did anything. Yesterday we met a bunch of english wreckdivers and the night turned to be very long and we had some beers. There were also some americans who are volunteering as teachers here. It was a very fun night and already after 3am when we went to bed.
That’s why we cancelled the island tour as well as the picnic tour, which we were actually planning to do.
The day turned to be very lazy. We were watching movies and went to the hairdresser.
At 11pm we got transfered to the airport and now we are lying here and waiting for the plane. Which is at 2.30am. So we have to wait for a looooooong time.
First we went from Yap to Guam. I had to fill out U.S. immigration forms for each of us and when we arrived in Guam the waiting started. First passport control, which was pretty fast, then flightticket control, and then long long queue for handluggage control. I, wisely, put the big underwater lamp seperatly before letting the lugage through. So I didn’t have to let my luggage be checked twice. And again I had to take off my flipflops.
The airport was totally crowded with U.S. soldiers from Micronesia. We even saw a girl. And on the walls were pictures of there fallen soldiers, or as they call it “fallen heroes”. It’s a really sad sight. All the pictures of smiling young men, some of them more boys than men.
Then, when we were finally “in” we went to the foodcourt. There was a shop, called Wienerschnitzel, they sold all styles of hot dogs and corndogs, and no schnitzel. And next to it was a Burger King. A double whopper (large), french fries and a coke and we even tried a corn dog…yummy yummy…we were stuffed and went to the gate.
Theflight, I was stucked between dad and a pretty chobby asain guy, was not very special. I could even nap a little bit. The breakfast was uneatable and then we arrived in chuuk. It was 8.30am local time.
Our bags were the first ones that arrived and then we went to Blue Lagoon Hotel. With us an aisan guy and an australian couple. The men is pilot for the military and right now on vacation from afganisthan.
After checking in and getting our room, second floor seaside, we went to the diveshop to sign the papers. Daddy, of course, wanted to do a dive that day, but I denyed. So I arranged a dive for him at half past two, which he overslept. Well, I could have told him that before.
The dinner, I had a Japanese scrambeld egg with pork and rice – sounded complete different on the menu – was “interesting”. Erwin didn’t like it. We had a “Betthupferl”-cocktail at the bar – we were the only guests and went to bed again.
I got really very lazy with writing. Acuatlly I wanted to write an entry about each single day, however, days have passed by with no single word been written….I wonder if that was a correct sentence….
Anyhow, let’s start with my impressions about the capital city of the philippines. Mostly, it’s crowded. Around 19 million people are living there, more than the half of them is poor. They live in houses, which look like they are self-made. For us unliving conditions.
In the heart of the town are heaps of malls and hotels. We stayed, as you know from the entries before, in the shang ri la. I felt like paris hilton. Honeslty. I think that explains the look of th room and the other facilities the best. Unfortunately, they served shark fin soup in one of the restaurants. It’s such a shame. We had our christmas dinner at the redrestaurant. The only bad thing I can think about is that it was freezing! We felt like in a frige and the waiters even offerd scarves. I#m wondering why they don’t turn the air conditioning a bit higher. What is the sense behind giving the guests scarves in the size of plankets? Nevertheless, the food was incredibly. And so much. My stomach and my appetite had a hard and cruel battle. In the end the appetite won, which made my stomach really angry at night, so it didn’t let me sleep.
And now to the girls-heaven: when you left the hotel shopping malls in each direction. The closest one was maybe 10 steps away. We crossed some during the search for tabes for our camera, which was already more broken than working. But the only one where we spent some time was greenbelt. This was huge. You could live in the mall for a week and still don’t know every place. Incredible. There was greenbelt 1-9, I think. The numbers discribed differnent houses. The houses again had maybe 5 levels. And so great shops. Mümü and I felt like in a wonderland. After wandering around for hours, without buying anything….big mistake….huge mistake….we went back to our palast. Daddy totally exhausted, Mum was already home- mean jetlag, and I was still amazed and angry about the sudden wonderland-ending.
The last day in Manila we did a city tour. 60 bucks per person, absolutely too expensive. We learned a bit about the history, esspecially about the national hero, who got executed- unfortunately, I forgot the name already. We spent the time wandering in parks, the museums were all closet. The strange thing was, our guide explained that the tour costs that much, because it includes all the entries, she made a discout of 5 dollar because of ONE museum that was closed, so why did we have to pay for the other ones, of which she also knew that they would be closed? Do you get me? That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?
At the end of the trip we went to the red light district, where my father had lived for a couple of days when he was here the first time, 1979. His eyes had the momories-of-the-good-old-time glance when we went to the hobbit house. It’s a nice place with saids-so good live music.When we were there, it was actually closed. However, our luck was that the driver was an expert in negotiating. So, we got beers and coke and daddy a suitable place for his memories.
After finishing the drinks, changing some dollar to pesos and buying a hobbit house t-shirt and, of course, making some pictures, we headed to the airport.
There I got my diving-bracelet for the right food. (Each country, where I was diving- one bracelet) We had some wierd palauan style burger with sweet bread- the taste is indiscribable (place for memories again)
After 4 checkings (bags as well as shoes and body) we were allowed to take a seat at the gate
Hallo Sarah!
Wir – der Rest – der Divingfamily – möchten uns für die Gestaltung unserer Homepage DANKE sagen.
Frohe Weihnachten aus Manila.