Palawan II

So, we're a little behind on the blog right now. Were actually in Germany and will be home in a few days, which makes us both happy and sad. However, we will still be putting up posts of all the places we've been on the trip and we hope to catch up in a few weeks.

Anyway, back to Palawan. While we were in El Nido, we decided to go scuba diving. It took a little convincing to get Kaycie to do it, but in the end she agreed. She didn't like her first time much, and every time I told her we should get certified and go on diving trips, she'd give me a funny look. This basically sums up her opinion of Scuba http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkxfnrLlNLo . I was really excited to go. Since we have each been once before, our dive master, Barry, took us out for an open water dive instead of going from the shore. Since I was all excited to go, I went in first. After falling backwards off the boat into the water I met Barry around the front of the boat where we decended into the water. I had to come up a couple of times to adjust my mask cause it kept getting water in it (a problem I had throughout the whole dive). When we finally started to go down deep, my left ear would not pop all the way no matter how hard I tried. I could get it to pop enough that it was bearable while I was underwater, but once we got down to about 30 ft, I didn't change depth much because of my ear. I swam with one hand on my nose trying to pop my ear most of the time. It was really fun, and I saw a bunch of fish and rays and huge hard and soft corals. When I came up, I my ear still hurt and I had bruised the tip of my nose from pinching it so hard and had gotten a little bit of a nosebleed. Kaycie saw the blood and looked less than happy about what I had gotten her into. She gamely went over the side and down in the water. I assumed that she would be back in a few minutes and that would be the end of our scuba adventures together. Well, and hour and twenty minutes later she comes up and before she's even on the boat she starts talking really fast about all the neat things she saw; the fish and rays and soft corals and turtles, and we all know how Kaycie feels about turtles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y . Barry told me that he had trouble keeping up with her, every time he looked away she'd be off chasing a fish or looking underneath a rock, or diving down deep to get close up looks at neat corals. Basically, she was like a five year old with a scuba tank. She got onto the boat and told me that we had to get scuba certifited and told me about all the places she wanted to go diving and such for the whole ride back. I spent the ride back trying to get my ear to pop.

I look hot in full body neoprene.

That was our last day in El Nido. The next morning we took the 5am bus back to Puerto Princessa. We'd flown up, but they only had a few flights a week, so we had to take the bus back. You know all those things you think about when you hear "third world bus ride?" The chickens and pigs, people riding all over the bus, someone with the large basket of some not so good smelling fruit, the bus flying around curves on the edge of huge cliffs, the guy carrying a lifetime supply of machetes? It was all that. Ask Kaycie for all the details. She was not happy when she got chicken blood all over her legs.

Back in Puerto, we went to the Sabang Underground River (http://www.new7wonders.com/ ). Or tour guide was named Jasper, and that is another thing to ask Kaycie about. Really. Anyway, we rode in a van with AC and then a boat to the entrance of the cave where we had to sign in and wait for a canoe with a guide to come and take us a few km's up the river. While we waited, we were told to watch out for the monkeys.

Their cuteness belies their devious nature.

These little guy were all over and liked to steal things from people, especially food. While we were waiting, and despite the signs and repeated warnings from the workers, we say one guy lose his hat, another his bag of chips, and a third almost get pooped on twice. (Monkeys don't approve of being teased.)

When it was our turn, they put us in some sexy lifevests and hardhats and took us 1.5km up the river.

Smokin'! That is the entrance to the cave on the right.

There were tons of bats and birds in the cave. Our guide told us that if we got dripped on and it was cold, that was alright because it was just water. If it was hot, it was bat poop. He loved that joke and said it about 5 times. He was also very polite, starting and ending every sentance with "SirMa'am" or "Ma'amSir."

One of the few pictures in the cave that turned out. This is the "heart" of the cave.

The little brown dots are bats. Gotta keep your eye on those buggers.

The exit, which is also the entrance.

We also went to the beach by Puerto Princessa around sunset for fun. We kept noticing that in the twilight the beach in the distance seemed to be squirming. We would walk over there, but when we got there, the beach seemed normal. Then we would see another part of the beach squirming and walk over there and it would be normal. Well, we stood there for a few minutes wondering what was going on when we heard an odd squelching/clicking sound. We looked down and the beach around us seemed to be bubbling. and then we saw the first of thousands of crabs that were coming out of the sand all over the beach. They would feel us walking and bury themselves, but if we stayed still they would come up in swarms. For some reason though, Kaycie couldn't seem to stay still when they would boil out of the sand all around her flip-flops.

This was the best pic I could get in the low light. The ones that showed many more crabs were all too blurry. Just try to imagine the top half of the picture covered in crabs

A close up of the cute little guys.

So that was most of Palawan, next up is Europe. We will probably be in Virginia when we write that one.

Palawan

So after seeing everybody in Manila, we went on to the island of Palawan. Palawan, with its high limestone mountains, beautiful beaches, karst topography, steamy jungles and small villages is often called the Philippines last frontier. There is a website where people can vote on the new seven wonders of the natural world, http://www.new7wonders.com/, and out of the 300 or so places that are listed, 2 of them are on Palawan. One is the Sabang Underground River, a river that goes through on fo the limestone mountains and is the longest navagible underground river in the world at 8.3km long. We'll be going there later. The other is Tubbataha Reef. An isolated pair of atols in the Sulu Sea that has been completely untouched and has over a thousand species of reef dwellers. Out of all 300 places, both of these are in the top 7. We were unable to make it to Tubbataha, but we're already planning our trip to go dive there. We spent a few days in Puerto Princessa making our plans for the days that we have on Palawan and then we headed up to El Nido.







This is a picture of El Nido. It is a small town on the northern end of the island. It only has power for about half the day and no places to stay that have either hot water or AC, but it is the best place to be to see the Bacuit Archipeigo and some of the best snorkling and diving in the Philippines. Every day we would rent a boat and guide to take us to different places around the archipeligo to snorkel and swim and explore the islands and caves that are all around. This was by far the best snokeling on our trip. We saw so many new things; sting rays, tube worms whose feeders were about 6 inches across, others that looked like 2 inch high christmas trees that were all different colors, soft corals that were 5 feet across, hard corals that looked like giant mushrooms that were a good 6 feet across and 4 feet high, lobsters, a baby squid that was about 6 inches long, 7 foot long sea cucumbers, and a baby white tipped reef shark that was probably 4 or 5 feet long. We didn't get a very good look at the shark because he was afraid of us and didn't stick around.






This is the view we had every morning from our room. Well, its the view we would've every morning if it hadn't been raining most of the days we were there. The rain wasn't that big of a deal because it was still warm, and the ocean was even warmer. We spent hours snorking in the ocean while it was raining and never got cold.

This is Secret Beach. Those spiky limestone cliffs almost completely surround the beach, with only a small inlet form the ocean to the lagoon. Actually its probably one of many beaches named Secret or Hidden. For some reason, there are many beaches, lagoons and caves that are surrounded by huge cliffs except for one small inlet, or are only accessable through a hole or cave through the cliffs. I saw my first ray close up here while we were snokeling, it was bright lime green with blue spots.

Plants grow everywhere here.

There were so many beaches like this. We had lunch here one day. Our guides grilled us up some fresh tuna that was caught that morning. It was really good.

First Days in Manila

We spent the first few days in the Philippines in Manila visiting all my friends from my mission. It was great to see them after 5 years. I didn't realize how much I missed the Philippines and the people until we were there again. The pic above is us with Pres Cangas and his family and the Bautista family. It pretty much explains our first days in Manila. It was so much fun to be with everbody again. And everywhere we went, they just had to feed us. We probably ate more in there than in all the other countries we've visited combined. Plus the food was absolutley delicious.

Everbody loved Kaycie and she made friends will all the women in the ward. She chats with them on facebook all the time and they gave her beautiful jewelry as rememberences. They also taught her how to do reflexology massages, which is definitely my favorite gift.




This is Sis. Nancy Magbanua's house. She's the one standing. We baptized their family right before I finished my mission. Her husband, Marlon, was in Korea working when we were there, but I was able to chat with him for a couple of hours on the internet. Nancy always had lots of really good food for us. Sometimes though, we went to their house at the end of the night and I couldn't eat as much as I would've liked, because I was so full from eating everywhere else. It was so great to see them again. Their kids have gotten so big, and they've even had another since I was there last. That makes six. Analyn Sabio is the one seated on the left. She met us and took us around to everones' houses (much has changed in the last 5 years, so many more houses and people). She came with us everywhere. She is also a great cook and made sure that we were full before going out to see people everyday. We love Analyn and her husband Edward. Edward was in Mindanao on business, but we decided to spend less time on Palawan so that we can see him and spend a few more days with everyone in Manila. The woman seated on the right is Riza. She also had to feed us when we came and made some of the best adobong baboy (Pork with potatoes cooked in soy sauce and vinegar with black pepper) I think I've ever had. So a quick explination on the whole food thing. Filipnos are very generous with what they have. They are some of the nicest people in the world. And feeding people is how they show how much they love them.





Here we are with Nanay Chagas and her daughter Butchai. Butchai, pronounced boo-chai, is not here real name, it is just her nickname. Her real name is Maria Teresa Anghela Salazar Chagas. Hence the nickname. Nanay means mom in tagalog, and considering how much she worked with me as a missionary and how much she fed me, Nanay is pretty fitting.





This is most of the Alegrea Family. The parents have moved to the province to farm, but the kids and their spouses still live in the branch. They are so much fun to be with, and Riza and Jun just had their first child, Daniella, and have a second on the way. I was very sorry to hear that their pet monkey had died.






Mario Velaquez and his wife Joy and their daughter Jam are on the left. They are another of my favorite families in the branch. (I know, it seems like all the families are my favorite. And pretty much they all are.) Mario helped the branch do some of its best service/huumanitarian work when I was there. Pres Cangas and his wife and youngest daughter are on the right. Pres. Cangas was the best Branch President I ever worked with on my mission. He has since been moved up into the District Presidency.


We're going to Palawan next to see the beautiful sights of the Philippines. We're coming back to Manila for a few days again though before we leave to Germany.

Hong Kong!

So at the very end of June, we stopped over in Hong Kong on the way to the Philippines. Hong Kong is an amazing city! It's like New York squished down into half the space. Just a few blocks from our city hotel, the mountains surrounding the city (aka Victoria Peak and such) gave us a challenging hour long hike, with waterfalls along the way. There is a tram up to the top of the peak, but we decided to hike it in the rain for fun. This meant lots of water, near vertical concrete slopes, and tons of mosquitoes! An hour later and drenched from head to toe, we reached the top of the peak only to find it contained a small mall and was totally fogged in. I could only say, "All this way for a mall! Are you kidding me?!? But after an hour, the fog cleared out, giving us an incredible view of the city.

This is the view of Hong Kong at night from our hotel. Jon, did you know they filmed the Dark Knight here? Yeeeaaaahh....

The city is so tightly packed that roads seem to come out of nowhere and snake all over each other. Also, our hotel was up the hill a bit, close to the commuter escalator. The escalator system is a train of about ten (or more... we rode on at least ten... Merrill thinks it might be more like twenty) or so free escalators that take you down (in the morning) or up (in the evening) the hill. We've never seen anything like it.

Our last afternoon in HK, we made the hour-long train and walking trip to the LDS Temple. The Temple is tiny and totally vertical. The small structure you see is both the temple and the mission office. Tiny!! But every inch of it was exquisite. We expected to see mostly foreigners in the temple, British ex pats, etc. but to our delight and surprise, we were the only westerners there that day, except for a couple serving a mission. The temple in Hong Kong is an incredible place. There's a really busy road just out front of it (It took us forever to get a pic of it without cars in the way), but you cannot hear any of the traffic of the city from within it. We felt very lucky to be there!

This gross pic is of me eating noodles in a fast food place in the train station. Yeah... I've got some work to do on learning chop sticks. Thank goodness they use spoons and forks in the Philippines!

We're in the Philippines and having a great time! We love it here, and don't want to leave it any time soon. But we will in just three days. We'll write and post about it after we arrive in Europe.

Let us know how you are doing!

Kaycie and Merrill

P.S. Merrill loves this picture below. The coasts at Coromandel in New Zealand were all covered in a thick foam at both high and low tide. I called it "Sea Barf." Enjoy!

Hiking in New Zealand

Each day in New Zealand, we strapped on our boots (Merrill) and Chacos (Kaycie: who hates boots) and went on a nice long hike through the volcano mountain ranges surrounding Lake Taupo. Lake Taupo is a huge crater lake, said to be what's left of one of the biggest volcanic eruption in history! The Lake is HUGE and is said to have no bottom...

Our first day out, we hiked Mt. Tuahara. The face of the volcano was a dense rain forest that consisted of pine trees, ferns, and tropical palms. Definitely one of the strangest but most beautiful mixes of plants we've ever seen. It seemed like it wouldn't be surprising to see a dinosaur go walking across the trail.



The next day, we set out on the Tongariro Crossing, one of New Zealand's Great Walks. The walk took us about 9 hours. At the mid point, we reached the Red Crater (below) and Emerald Lakes. It was gorgeous!! The travel center at Lake Taupo advised us not to hike the crossing without ice axes and crampons (both of which we didn't have...) but we decided to set out anyway and see how bad things were. We met a school teacher on the way up who said that this was the least amount of snowfall he's seen on the Crossing in ten years. We shouldn't have been able to make the crossing, but thanks to little snow fall early in their winter, we could do it! It was amazing. I did wish, though, that Chacos had a front on them when we reached the snow packs at the top of the crater. Next year, I'm buying Keens!


Red Crater



Emerald Lakes

Where's Waldo??

The last big hike we made was back at the Crossing, hiking to Taranaki Falls. The falls were beautiful, but even more spectacular was the view of Mt. Ruapehu, all covered in snow.

Any way you walk around the Crossing, you're bound to see the infamous "Mt. Doom" used in the movie "Lord of the Rings."

We're in the Philippines now, and everything is wonderful! We really can't see any damage from the Typhoon where we are at. It's HOT and humid, but seeing our friends here is wonderful! Pics from Hong Kong coming soon....

Kaycie and Merrill

New Zealand Update

Hi Family and Friends!!

Sorry that there still aren't many new pictures. Did you know that Internet in Fiji and New Zealand costs more than an average meal? Neither did we! Now you do, and so do we. ;) We're waiting until we can find cheaper service in Hong Kong and the Philippines to post more of our photos, but we want everyone to know how we're doing.

New Zealand has been absolutely beautiful! The weather stayed cold and rainy since our last post, but each day has given us a few minutes of sunshine (during which we run to the beach as fast as we can!) The past week we have been staying up in the Coromandel Peninsula along the north-eastern coast of New Zealand. The coastline is breathtaking! There are miles of sheer white cliffs that drop into crystal clear blue ocean. The horizon is filled with dozens of little islands and dramatic sea stacks (we're south of the Barrier Islands). Along the hillsides you can find more sheep than you can shake a stick at! My favorite thing to do on our hikes has been to chase them. Not in a mean way, but in a "Hey little sheepie!!! Come see!" sort of way. No luck yet. I think I intimidate them with my towering height. :) It really is an amazing place.

Today we drove up from the peninsula to Auckland, and spent the day at the Auckland Domain, which is their version of Central Park. We found a gorgeous botanical garden to tour, and oddly enough, also the hot house's groundskeeper. He highly suggested we listen to music by Black Labor Party (Ozzie Osborne's guitar player's band...) and let us help feed the fish after hours. He also showed us the bottom side of their 4 ft Brazilian lilly pads that can hold up to 60 kg!! He ended our visit by saying "It's beer o'clock and my liver's been naughty." He was hilarious, and fun to meet!

After the botanical gardens, we briefly toured the Auckland museum. It houses more Maori cultural art than we've seen our entire trip! It is absolutely incredible, and we wish we had more time to do a more extensive tour.

The evening found us at Sky City, Auckland's 1075 ft tower! It was an amazing experience, and the city was gorgeous to see at night from so high up above. I fought vertigo the entire hour we were up there, but standing on their glass floor was worth it! After the tower, we enjoyed our first (and only) fine dinner out in New Zealand and had lamb shanks (sorry sheepies!) and steak. Yum!!!

We miss everyone and hope everyone's doing well! We're off to the Hong Kong and Philippines next.

Much love, Kaycie and Merrill

P.S. For the moms: Just in case our moms are worrying, we are managing to eat well here! We have been able to find hostels with private kitchen and bathrooms (such luxury!!) and so we've been cooking curries and spaghetti each night. We absolutely cannot afford meat here ($10 per kg for the bad stuff) but we eat lots of grains, fruits, and veggies. We've been gorging on kiwis (only $1 per kg) and gourds, as it's their late harvest here.



The view from Sky City



The view from the glass floor at sky city







The Auckland Domain's 4 ft lilly pads



Cathedral Cove on Coromandel

The cliffs at Coromandel

extras

So we really should be telling you all about Fiji, but we found some pics we thought we should put up. Also, there are no pics from Fiji because we were only there for 36 hours because we missed our flight (stupid international date line and midnight flight, it's a bad combo) and it rained the whole time anyway. But it was warm. Now Kaycie is commenting on my penchant for run on sentences. And now we're moving on.

When we were in Haleakala Crater, it looked like a picture from one of the Mars rovers or something. I thought it was cool.





These are of me and Kaycie at the top.

Maui is known for its beautiful sunsets...

...you just have to watch out for the wierdos who jump in your pictures.

A note from Kaycie:

So we're in New Zealand now! The blog is always a few weeks behind, as we find an internet cafe and get to post pictures and such. We're having a wonderful time in Taupo! Thanks, Clark and Amber!!! For those of you who already know, YES! IT IS COOOOLD HERE! The weather reminds me of late October in Utah, or January in Dallas. ;) We bundle up each day and have hiked several volcanoes (including Mount Doom) and waterfalls. It truly is gorgeous here. This weekend we'll travel up from the middle of the north island to the coast. Hopefully we'll be able to get the cabin on the beach we're calling about tonight.

Hope all is well!