"Vista Marina", tagged as an "unfussy hotel"!
I don't know what an "unfussy" hotel is, but my spidey senses say, not staying there!
Then you'd be missing out.
We've stayed there loads of times. Rooms are large and clean, foods okay for a Philippine hotel, good big pool and super helpful staff. The one next door, the Lighthouse is twice the price and, in my opinion, so far up it's own backside, it has all the ambience of a large public library.
Anyway, time for a long overdue ramble.
Whilst my own motoring experience is currently curtailed to the early hours of weekends only, in the meantime, I’ve had the opportunity to study Philippine driving skills(?) first hand and over an extended period. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a bad driver, not by local standards anyway, but he does have two issues. One is that he’s an inveterate gear changer. I think he was the reason they invented the auto-box.
He can’t leave the bloody gear lever alone and, as a consequence, is never in the right one for the circumstances. I’m not sure which will give out first; the clutch, the gear linkage or his wrist. Any bets?
And two, he finds it impossible to be in the correct lane for any given manoeuvre or hazard. If turning right, he’ll inevitably be in the furthest left hand lane and vice-versa. If a jeepney is stopping ahead, he could just move over into the next lane behind that car ahead, but no, he races up alongside it, then realises he can’t get past before the jeepney, so has to slow right down to let the car past again before pulling out behind it. Which it what he could have done in the first place, but without any drama. Of course, this will entail ten or fifteen completely pointless gear changes, leaving us in fifth, at 5kph.
Anyway, apparently I’ve got a new one from tonight.
A few weeks ago, I received this...
Or at least something similar!
Naturally, I ticked the ‘No’ box.
And guess what, the Philippine government suspended the programme and is considering suing for a refund of all the unused doses when it was admitted, by the manufacturer, after the programme started, that if administered to anyone who’d never had dengue before, there was a damn good chance they will now. Oops!
I’m just glad I’m one of life’s “No” box tickers!
Last night we were stuck in traffic (fancy that) and an ambulance was behind us trying to muscle through. Now apart from the fact there was nowhere to go, the other issue is that ambulances, and emergency vehicles in general, regularly make use of lights and sirens even just cruising down the street, so you don’t know which ones to get out of the way of, and which can stew a while.
An idea occurred. Instead of sirens, hook a speaker up to the heart monitor. This would have the following benefits.
1. Normal beeping; not too urgent, we’ll move out of the way when we can.
2. Very fast beeping; hmm the patient may be a little bit poorly, let’s see if we can shift a millimetre or so.
3. Very slow beeping; ditto.
4. Irregular beeping; ditto
5. Steady beep; patient has flatlined, emergency over. Let ‘em wait.
6. No beeping whatsoever; the ambulance is empty. Same, same really.
Top tip; don’t get ill during Manila rush hours (Monday – Sunday; 06:00 – 22:00), or you’ll have gone from 2, 3 or 4 to 5 long before you even get a sniff of a nurse’s apron.
At Christmas, my driver gave me a present. He’d wet his new baby’s head and had some commemorative mugs struck to celebrate the occasion. Nice thought.
You read the guff on it to find that the ceremony took place on December 9, 2017 at Our Lady of Fatima Church, followed by a knees-up at the world renowned Bossing’s Buffet.
Then you come to the name of the poor child; Achilles Zachary R. Legaspi. The first thing you think is that if the parents will cheerfully admit to Achilles and Zachary without embarrassment, what the hell is hiding behind the R, that they’re so ashamed of?
Have a good weekend!
Edit to add:
And another thing. I'm being bombarded with house rental e-mails at the moment, not complaining, it's what I want. However I opened one up and, out of a boasted 25 photographs, 19 were of toilets. Now I admit the house had 4 bathrooms, but 19 pictures of them? None of outside, but loos a-plenty. Methinks someone has an unhealthy WC fetish!
) Cue lots of emails from estate agents "It's just been decorated - it's lovely, you should buy it" Errm ... No 
