The Philippines

I went to the Philippines between the 3rd and the 10th of August and spent the first couple of nights in Manila (though I never actually left the hotel). After my brother arrived, we took a car up to a city in the north (about 2 hours drive). I spent a lot of my time drinking San Miguel beer which is a famous product of the Philippines. I have to say that it was an extremely nice beer that never quite got me drunk even though it has a 5% strength. I can understand why so much beer is drunk by foreigners in the Philippines - the place can be very hot and each bottle only costs about 50 pesos i.e about 50p or ¥100.

I visited the airstrip a few times to watch the planes taking off and landing and I even went up once in a Cessna and practiced some takes offs and landings myself. It was a good experience flying the Cessna although I don't think I'd ever consider flying as a serious hobby - it seems far too expensive. I'll stick to mountain biking and skiing, at least until I make my first million. Do you recognise the pilot in the plane taking off? Nevertheless, it was pretty good to fly the plane but also quite scary at times. I think the scariest moment was looking out the thin aircraft door and seeing people walking about on the roads below. All good fun, even when the instructor showed me a power off landing!The airfield can look pretty small when your gliding towards it with no power. Maybe I'll try flying again one day.....

Another thing I did was go to the firing range to use a pistol (Beretta 9mm) which belonged to the Chief of Police. I was trained by their very own SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) trainer. I was pretty nervous to be holding a loaded pistol to be honest but I was with experienced professionals so there was minimal risk. After a firing demonstration by the SWAT trainer, he loaded the pistol with one bullet and let me fire the weapon at a distant target on the firing range. On the target, he stuck a bottle top in the very centre (which he did not manage to hit with his first 3 bullets). I took a shot and hit the bottle top first time - talk about beginners luck!! Needless to say, I did not hit the bottle top again for the rest of the evening. Again, firing the pistol was an interesting experience but not something that I will ever do again. However, the Chief told me that next time he'll arrange for me to fire an M16 Armalite - hmmm.

The Philippines was an extremely interesting place to visit and I have many good memories. Perhaps the most enduring memory was that of the Philippinos themselves - it is rare to meet such friendly and welcoming people. A big thank you to Shirley for the sauerkraut.