North to Laoag

I went to Laoag in North Luzon with Kit one of the counsellors at CIIP. This is the town where she is from so she takes whoever comes from Canada to visit with her to get a sense of a rural area in the Philippines and a chance for her to visit friends and extended family. Laoag is situated on the South China Sea about an hour flight north of Manila. We flew up on Friday evening where Rhoda, her friend who is a professor at the local college, picked us up. I was dropped off at the Fort Illocandia Resort where most of the people there were Korean or Taiwanese. The Taiwanese come for the gambling casino. Many Koreans come to the Philippines because it is inexpensive and they can practice their English. The grounds were beautiful as you can see from the picture and the food was okay but the price was right for less than $50.00 a night including a buffet breakfast.
To put the trip in perspective there was good news and bad news. The beauty contest judging did not happen and Kit did not exactly explain why but some other people I met who were aware of "The Fiesta" in Laoag said the only beauty contestants left to be judged by the weekend were the transvetites which they said were pretty good and you may not detect they were men dressed as women. Despite its pervasive Catholicism they seem to be okay with the men dressing like women. The good news is I got to play tennis, go snorkeling with a marine biologist, go body surfing on another beautiful beach, and see some interesting places along the way. I was picked up on Saturday morning by Kit's brother-in -law who proceeded to take me to the Ferdinand Marcos museum where Marcos' preserved body is supposedly lying in state ( I think it is wax) in an air conditioned mausoleum like a shrine to his political exploits despite the fact he was overthrown and it is generally accepted he stole a small fortune from the country. He was dictator for 15 years from 1972-1987. There was no eerie music which I told was normally played. There were quite a few young students wandering around. He is from this area and his son is the governor of the province here. We saw an old church then eventually made our way to Saud beach where I went swimming and body surfing. The waves were strong and crashed a little too close to the beach as I was getting dragged along the sand by the waves at the end of the ride. Afterwards we went to visit Kit's ancestral home and her 88 year old aunt who lives there with her maid. She was very frail but could speak English still despite it being her second language. The day was beautiful and I also got a chance to play tennis later with 3 other Filipinos which was arranged by Kit's friend Jaime. We played on a public court and I had fun. 2 of them were in their 20's and one was an adolescent. My partner played well except he had on flip flops and at the end of the game I found out it was all he could afford. Before I left on Sunday I ended up giving him my racket and tennis shoes which I was thinking I was going to give them away because I didn't want to carry them all over China. He was happy to receive them and I was happy to give them to him.
The next day we went to Currimao where we met some other friends Kit had made at the college.Willy had taught at the college for the last 26 years and agreed to go snorkeling with me because the diving group he was leading had been delayed until the afternoon as it was too windy where they were going to dive. So I got to follow him around in about 15-20 ft of water where there was some pretty interesting coral reef and exotic fish. We stopped a few times and he would talk about what is happening to the reef as a result of climate change. The reef is deteriorating because the sea is becoming warmer and due to the pollution of additional shipping in the area. He said he had actually trained some local politicans in diving so they could experience the underwater world and as a result they are willing to act to take steps to reduce the pollution in the sensitive areas. I burned my back again as I did in Boracay because I forget my back is exposed while my head is facing down in the water viewing all the sea life. Afterwards we went on a 3 hour ride into the mountains to visit a priest friend of Kit's who lives in an area where there is no bridge so we had to take a little boat to cross the river. The picture I am showing is upstairs in his rectory. We had a very filling lunch and you can see the driver, his friends, two friends of Kit's who also wanted to see the priest, Kit and Father Gil. The church and grounds were well maintained although the area was not very well off due to the isolation of having to take a ferry to get there. It was an interesting trip.