Sohoton Caves and Natural Bridge National Park

A few hours up river from the small town of Basey, on Samar, are the Sohoton Caves and Natural Bridge Natural Park. I recently took a trip there with some friends. It’s a lovely day trip and a great way to see something of the rural Philippines and get a glimpse of what the forests that once covered much of the country would once had looked like.

A new friend

A praying mantis adopted me while waiting for a minivan, and couldn’t be persuaded to leave! S/he kept climbing up my arm and into my hair, to the horror of everyone else around me, who thought I should kill it. Cue a long conversation about me being a conservationist and how praying mantids are “aggressive feminists”. Eventually I relocated her to a bush across the road.

If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am…

is there any hope for us?

This is the question I was asked by the polite young man at the check-in desk of the minivan company when I checked in for the van to Tacloban at 7:40 in the morning.

He might as well have asked me the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.

It was not a question I was ready for. Not three weeks into living here. Not at 07:40 in the morning. And not after the comedy of errors that was my journey to the minivan company,

Where does all the sh*t go?

The next time you’re relaxing in a posh hotel or an ‘eco-resort’, the question you need to ask yourself is “where does all the shit go?”. This is inevitably the hurdle where all but the truly cleanest and greenest fall.

I don’t just mean what you flush down the toilet, but all the waste from the kitchen, the leftover packaging, the little bottles of half-used shampoo and soap wrappers, the cigarette ends and chewing gum and bottle caps. Where does it all go?

Ode to a pedicab

To the tune of “Smelly Cat” (with apologies to Phoebe Buffet).

Pedicab, pedicab,

I really hate using you

Pedicab, pedicab,

It’s not your fault.

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