Egg Cooking in Ultra-hot Springs (Manito, Albay)

[Bicol Trip Day 4-5]

We finished our whaleshark adventure early in Donsol so we thought of utilizing the remaining hours of the day to take a look at one final spot on the northeastern side of Albay -- Manito. The tourist spot market there is Balubagon Boiling Caves. It's supposed to be an area where you can see geysers shooting up steam from the ground. This is the last leg of our Bicol trip.

We started driving around 4:30pm and it was not so sunny anymore.

For me, this was the most scenic among the routes that we took in the Bicol area. It was the rockiest route for our whole Bicol trip, because plenty of landslides have destroyed some sections of the secondary roads there. About 10kms away from the central area of Manito, there's an excellent view of the mountainside, Poliqui Bay and Mayon Volcano. As we got closer to Manito, the road conditions were still getting worse (we tried to ask a government vehicle there what was going on and they said there was some project ongoing to fix the roads there), we also met a local couple riding a motorcycle on their way home. He told us that it wasn't a good time to go there because it was getting dark already. He was nice enough to guide us back down from the mountains, and offered to take us around the Balubagon area the next morning. This guy also mentioned that the water's heat there is enough to cook eggs, so we passed by some grocery to buy fresh eggs for testing.

We went back to Legaspi to find a place to sleep for the night (Reynaldo's, Washington Drive, Legaspi City). We went up again the next morning through the very rough roads and found our local guide waiting along the road (brothers Teddy/Jimmy Avion, I got their contact details).

After about 7-10 kilometers of driving we pulled in another young boy in the area to guide us to the geysers. It was another short drive, bypassing the Manito seaport (you can go to Romblon from here) and ending in a small spring where a few people washed their clothes and took the kids for a bath (that water was cold). Maybe they brought us to another spot. We didn't see any caves, just a spring, and a lake formation beside it.

On this small lake we could see steam rising from the water. I was expecting something different like steam erupting from the ground, but there was none, except for a few small holes in the ground with either steam rising gently (you can also hear the bubbly sound of water deep from these holes) or water boiling at the surface... anyway, the water was still too hot it burns the skin.

The water formation as we walked further down was wonderful, surrounded by plenty of greens in spite of the extreme heat we felt from both the ground and the sun. There wasn't much to do here so we started our mad-scientist experiment. We brought out a couple of eggs and dipped them into the bubbling waters (they didn't look clean so we wrapped the eggs in cloth and tied them with dry branches). In less than 10 minutes, we got our hard-boiled eggs!

We brought in some more food for our breakfast... ate these geyser-cooked eggs, and nothing more. I know this whole idea of bringing up eggs all the way up to this nasty mountain to cook them is crazy, but we had fun anyway :)

Whalesharks: World's Largest Fish (Donsol, Sorsogon)

[Bicol Trip - Day 3 (and a half of Day 4), Part 3 of 3]

We arrived in the resort areas of Donsol at around 8 in the evening. The one the locals recommended was Woodland resort, but at that time an ambassador was there so it was closed out for security. The place we chose instead was Casa Bianca, one of the few that had cement buildings, good airconditioning and a balcony about the size of a badminton court.

We couldn't get a look at the beach again since it was late, so we just spent the evening arranging our trip to the middle of the sea. DOT had taken some control over the area so we found the prices to be consistent across offers. Luckily we were there way before holy week so we didn't run into a shortage of boats to rent. The local government only allows a limited number of tourist trips per season and there are local coastguards monitoring them, such that the ecosystem impact in that fish area becomes negligible.

Next morning we got up early and got into our boat. The seas were calm, and just about 15 minutes from the shore we could already their so-called Butanding (whaleshark), world's largest fish. I had difficulty taking photos from above the water because the sun's reflection was already too bright. We had to shut off our engines whenever we came close so that we wouldn't disturb or scare away the whalesharks. From above the water, they were superHUGE -- almost the size of our boat, maybe at least 5 meters long and over a meter wide. We saw a few more... and then blablabla it started to feel like watching aquarium channel.

The next part was even better. We rented some flippers, life vests, and snorkel gear earlier. This time we were going to jump into the water to swim with it and have a really close look. Sorry, no great fish photos from here. I couldn't take anything from google images because most are rare shots and copyrighted content (just look there yourself).

We found whaleshark model #1 ... it was moving slowly towards us from one side of the boat... by this time we were already seated at the edge with all the swimming gear on, ready and just waiting for the boatman's signal for us to jump.

"Jump!" he yelled, and we got into the water then followed our guide (the current was quite strong) to get closer to the fish. He pointed down at some point, and we started to look face down. I was immediately shocked with what I saw -- the front of the fish with its huge mouth going in my direction. Jaws!!! I recalled, then I totally forgot about my snorkel device and I scrambled up for air! I dipped my head down a second time, now I could see the body of this fish... big black skin with a grid of white dots. Looks good for a blanket design, but this species of fish is endangered, so no hunting of these, hehe. A few seconds later its tail seemed to be approaching my way again, so I tried to stay aside just at the right distance to touch the tail, but my goggle vision didn't seem right (it was farther than I thought) so I missed it.

We got back up after that, and searched around again for another one. This time I was disappointed because my flipper and goggles got out of place when I jumped into the water. I went for the flipper and lost the goggles. Just borrowed another one instead.

We dipped with a third one, and then just went around the area to look for more and take photos from above the water. We got some, but underwater shots would really have been the best ones. Too bad we didn't have any waterproof cases with us.

We had the engine turned off somewhere in the middle of the sea to have some snacks, then looked for about 5 to 10 more of these fishes, and went back to our island.

It was a great and unique experience! We have already driven 900+ kilometers south from Manila to get here, and the encounter with these large fishes was definitely worth it.

For more information and photos about whaleshark and its species conservation please visit www.ecocean.org and www.whaleshark.org

Cute Bread (Donsol, Sorsogon)

[Bicol Trip - Day 3, Part 2 of 3]

After Busay falls, we headed straight to Donsol in Sorsogon where we could get to see their 'largest fish in the world' called Butanding (whaleshark).

We made a quick stop somewhere (less than 5km away from the resorts I think) to ask for directions and saw this little panaderia with bread in interesting shapes...

Crayfish and Alligator

Squid

Turtles

Pigs

Crabs

How to make WinXP look like Vista

Here's a short list of tasks to make your Windows XP look like Windows Vista. This information is for educational purposes only, I won't be responsible for any copyright or intellectual property issues you get into, so do this at your own risk.

1) Patch your uxtheme.dll file (this is the one that prevents Windows from using customized non MS-certified visual styles). You can use google to search for a downloadable copy of the software that modifies it -- UXTheme Multi-Patcher. Get installation instructions online (try Softpedia).

2) Download a Windows Vista wallpaper and set it as your desktop wallpaper. You can find some of them in Google Images.

3) Download the Aero Cursor Pack and apply it as your mouse pointer scheme.

4) Download and install VistaXP (Longhorn 4074) Visual Style from StudioTwentyEight

5) Download and install Windows Vista Icon Pack (try Softpedia). You'll have to assign the icons one by one if you don't have Axialis, but as an alternative, you can also try IconTweaker.

6) If you want the Aero glass effects (transparent window borders), you'll have to spend a bit to get Stardock Windowblinds

Playstation 3

I had the chance to get close to a PS3 unit (somewhere in Megamall's Cyberzone). The console looks ok, but the black glossy finish makes dust and oil very visible on the surface so you have to keep it really clean. It has wireless control pads which can be recharged via cables to the console and the buttons are pretty much the same except for L2/R2 which are slightly slanted now. The graphics are really crisp, but I think some game makers have not done a good job of utilizing the powerful PS3's processor. The 3D objects are more defined because of the higher resolution, but the textures in the racing game I played are still awfully unrealistic that you can achieve the same level of entertainment when played in the good old PS2. I'll have to wait until either this, Nintendo's Wii, or Xbox 360 reaches mainstream.

I want a dSLR Camera...

I was tempted to buy a Canon EOS 400D last Saturday when I saw the billboard at Megamall. I'm glad I didn't bring enough money or a credit card to buy it.

I might not be an aspiring photographer, but the first time I visited Flickr I couldn't stop looking at all those nice photos and wondering how exactly they were done. I want to keep a record of the nice things I see or experience, and I want these images to be very well composed so I can look back or show these while I tell stories behind them. My dad has a point-and-shoot camera so I tried to experiment with the manual settings but it was not flexible enough to give me the images I wanted.

49,000 pesos for this camera? This has got to be a serious hobby... for now I'll have to stick with my 0.3 megapixel Nokia 6600.

Phoneless

I left my phone in Peter's car last Friday. I'm disconnected from the rest of the world for almost 2 days now, and I already forgot almost all of my friends' landline numbers (thanks to phone memory, I have no backup in my head).

For those who plan to buy O2 XDA's -- I'm not sure if they already removed this free inbox auto-clean-up feature (hehe) in the newer models, but the one I'm using loses all the messages stored when the backup batteries run out of power.

Today also marks the first day I worked online wirelessly at home.... sheesh... now I need a longer power cable.