Our weeklong trip to the Philippines was fantastic. We hung out in Manila for a day, just to get a sense of the place. We had delicious food in Chinatown, checked out their pretty decent aquarium, watched the sunset over Manila Bay, rode around in a tiny tricycle taxi, and sampled the ubiquitous junk food in one of the malls. While interesting, Manila wasn't necessarily our thing and we were happy to escape south to the Bicol region to a place called Donsol. This is the place to see whale sharks, which show up pretty regularly in March and April (they are fairly rare elsewhere in the world). Here's the (WWF-approved) process: you jump on a tri-maran boat with your snorkel and wait for the spotters to see a whale shark before you roll off navy-seal style and swim as fast as you can to keep up – no touching the animals, but you are so close you could pet them if you wanted to. I was able to gaze into the eye of one of these big gentle guys for several minutes while cruising along next to him. The area also has decent diving, despite widespread use of cyanide and dynamite fishing (we even heard charges going off while in the water). I don't know if we have ever seen so many different types of nudibranchs and invertebrates, though there weren't a ton of bigger fish.
Content with our primary mission accomplished, we jumped on a bus for the hour-long drive back to the airport. Though our flight was canceled due to bad weather, and the original forecast for getting on another flight was grim, some combination of luck/persistence/bossiness landed us on another airplane the next morning, followed by a boat, tricycle ride, and walk along the beach to our cute hotel in Boracay. We spent the next few days relaxing on the white-sand beach, diving, parasailing, kite-surfing, zorbing, ziplining, and generally enjoying the food and nightlife along the sandy pedestrian beachwalk. Considering the small size of the island, there was plenty to do, and we were sad to have to head back home after a few days.
We were back home only two days before taking another plane to Singapore for the weekend to see a concert featuring John Legend and one of our new favorite bands, Trombone Shorty (this is our second concert since seeing the Backstreet Boys in HCMC last month). We traveled with our friends Alex, Liz, and Sam and thoroughly enjoyed the outdoor performances beside Marina Bay. The next day we had a few hours to explore the city and were impressed by how clean and orderly everything was! The architecture was super interesting too. Given how close/easy it is to get to Singapore, we will definitely be heading back for a return visit.
Back in Vietnam, we've been keeping in pretty good shape with yoga, running, soccer, and several exercise classes (sounds lame, but they're pretty good!). I've even had a chance to check out a local rock climbing wall. We are thinking of doing a triathlon together in a few weeks and next month is the big soccer game between the Embassy Hanoi and Consulate HCMC. The consulate team has been practicing like crazy and I've been enjoying hanging out with all my buddies while we prepare for the big match.
In other news, I started a new project helping to develop Vietnam's National Program of Action for addressing land-based marine pollution – it's great work funded through the UN Environment Program and I'm enjoying a slightly different focus than I've had in the past. Of course, I'm still involved in MPA work here and helping with an IUCN-run MPA meeting next month. Nikki is also enjoying her work, though it's been pretty busy. She was lucky enough the help host a VIP visitor last week and hopefully will have some similar opportunities in the future. In addition, we have been busy sponsoring a newly arrived couple (Eric and Danielle) – introducing them to folks, showing them around the city, etc. They are tons of fun and it's been great getting to show them all our favorite things about Ho Chi Minh City.
So that's the news. We are heading to Laos at the end of the week to check out temples, monks, and beautiful scenery. After that, Nikki's work will be picking up, so we will probably have to travel less, but if the past few weeks are any indication, I'm sure that we'll find plenty to do!
