Big Island........Hawaii

   The second time I went to Hawaii I flew with my companion from Vancouver to Seattle and then boarded an air Canada flight to Honolulu; the view overlooking Seattle was very nice. Once we landed in Honolulu we bought a reduced return ticket for Hilo on the Big Island which stopped on Molokai and Maui; these stops were great for us because we got such excellent views from the window of the airplane.

                        

    It was dark by the time we got our luggage so we ended up walking with our heavy packs until we found a $45 a night room on a busy road, our idea originally was to stay in hostels. In the morning we took a 3 hr bus ride the 160 kms over to the Kona Coast on the west side of the island; the scenery was very nice.  We found a hostel which had campsites for $14 per night; our intention was to back-pack around and camp, but there were very few places on the island to camp. We found a place where we could rent a car for a few days; the beach was about 10 kms from the hostel; so we started to walk the supposed 4 kms to get the little Chevette. We had a near miss while walking when a woman was looking at us while the car in front of her was stopped waiting to turn; she slammed on her brakes and cut the wheels, eventually hitting the guardrail about 3 metres in front of us. After that near miss we asked a guy where the car rental place was and it turned out to be another 8 kms up the road, he give us a ride. I could not believe how many small children walk on the side of the busy highway.

  There were stories from people hanging around the hostel of robberies, beatings, and vandalism by Hawaii'n locals; we did notice that park entrances had many guys standing around drinking so we were careful. We drove down to Ka Lae (South Point) which is the most southern point in the US territory, it was nice down there. We then proceeded to Volcanoes National Park just to get familiar with that area before we headed to Black Sand Beach, Kailua, Kona.

                                       

This beach was extraordinary and a must see; since most all of the "Big Island" is lava (basalt), you can find this black sand. There were plenty of mongoose spotted on this day.

                           


  The next day we drove 40 kms to Hapuna Beach and it was beautiful there; the temperature was a bit high but I guess sitting on a beach in Hawaii one would expect for the temperature to be hot. There was some good snorkeling with many types of fish to be viewed; the waves got a little too big later on. The next few days we mixed the beaches up a bit and found some great places to hang out and snorkel. We took the rental car back and hitch-hiked to the beach the next couple of days.

  I was snorkeling around swarms of different fish when I got stung, I got out immediately. The stinging lasted about 30 minutes and then I started to feel dozy and my eyes became a little blurry. When I walked up the sand towards the road I got chest pains for about 10 minutes but that ended. I felt dozy for another hour and then the condition seemed to improve, thank goodness. Another day we walked and hitched to Honaunau Bay (City of Refuge) and the Napoopoo Beach on Kealakekua Bay; so much good snorkeling from these nice beaches.

                                      

 There are less people at Hapuna so we ended up going there several more days; the fish swim away from you rather than swarm you like at Napoopoo Beach.

  We rented another car and had an amazing day at the Halemaumau Crater in Volcanoes National Park. We drove around the crater rim road and walked a bit until the sulfur dioxide from the crater was too strong to handle. The sunsets are not as good as they could be

                         


because of the ash in the air; the volcano has been active for several years, every day spewing ash and lava. The crater was a great experience and walking around up there give us a different perspective of the Big Island.

                                          

     Without a car again we used our thumbs to get back and fourth to the beaches. Down at Napoopoo Beach I snorkeled around the coast further than usual and was rewarded with sights of larger fish, eel's and turtles, just an awesome experience. The next day we got picked up by an experienced guy who filled us with a lot of local information, AND the typical warnings about the locals, we heard that a lot.

  Next day we were in search of falls to view so we headed towards Waimea. The scenery was nice but we did make the foolish mistake of getting into the back of a truck where the young driver was reckless. After getting out alive we walked about 2 kms until we were picked up by Karen who was an incredibly kind lady.

She drove us to Akaka Falls which was very nice, we walked around there while she meditated.

                                                  

There were other nice falls like this Rainbow Falls

                           

  Karen offered her little cottage for us to stay in for the night and the next day she asked us if we would stay one more day so she could show us around on a tour.

We saw about 4 more waterfalls as well as some caves before taking Saddle Road which runs along the base of Mauna Kea, that trip was nice.

                                            

 We passed through some of the Parker Ranch which is the USA's largest single family owned ranch


                          

   We took a look at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, as much as we could see without being one of the patron's, it was so extravagant. Our 2 days with Karen were magnificent, she was an awesome lady. In the end the Big Island ended up to be a positive experience, there was so much nice scenery...one can only imagine being there when the volcano is dormant.

Stockholm and Area.........Sweden

  I left Amsterdam to fly to Stockholm, Sweden and arrived at the Arlanda Airport about 11pm. For some reason I could not get my ears to pop after the flight, I had never experienced this prolonged build up of pressure. The airport is about 40 kms from the capital so I used the credit card (money exchanges were closed) to get a train ticket to the center of Stockholm. Lucky for me I had left a friend in the Netherlands to meet another friend in Sweden, there are so many advantages to staying with a friend besides bonding, and accurate travel advice. From Stockholm my friend Sophie picked me up at 12:15 am and drove me to Trangsund which would be my home base; her and her family had a very nice home. Poor Sophie got to bed around 1am and had to get up for work at 5:30 am.

  In the morning Sophie's husband give me a ride into downtown Stockholm and I got a chance to see this magnificent capital in the daylight. The scenery was tremendous, it seemed no matter where I sat there was a nice view. My first journal entry was from Riddarholmen, one of the small islands of Stockholm. This Scandinavian capital is built on 14 islands and is surrounded by Lake Malaran and Saltsjon Inlet, a bay of the Baltic Sea. The city itself is over 750 years old so there are many structures that are worthy of a photo.

  I ventured up the tower at the city hall which is the highest outlook in the city and I took many photo's, the view was just beautiful.

                        

  Riddarholmen

                        

There were no big crowds, which is nice compared to other popular cities, and the local people were very friendly. I walked so many kms around the city, taking time to sit down once in awhile to take it all in before I took the train back to Trangsund.

  In the morning Sophie dropped me off in the city and I walked around in all directions until 12 noon when I watched the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace; there have been guards protecting the Royal Family since 1523.

                       

                                        


    I am not a fan of cities but I have to admit that cities like Stockholm should not be missed; I felt lucky that I was not rushed so that I could examine so much architecture. From the island of Skepps Holmen the view of Old Stockholm is just beautiful; I wrote several times in my journal, "very nice scenery"; perhaps I took too many photo's.

  Stockholm has so many nice buildings

                        

  The small public square in Gamla Stan (old town in Stockholm)

                         

                                         

 Wherever I looked the architecture was unique

                         

                                                  

 This Royal Army Museum has been around since 1879...one of the newer buildings

                            

  The next morning I took a boat to Sandhamn, the life in Sweden is very much integrated with water. There are so many nice boats that the locals use to access the many waterways that surround Stockholm.

                           


   So much of the scenery looks like the coast of British Columbia, Canada; there are hundreds of tree covered islands that looked nice....no photo was necessary though. After Sandhamn we stopped at Vaxholm which had both nice old buildings and cottages. The island of Finnhamn was not so special but I stopped there anyway. Boats run like a ferry to these islands, I learned two things the hard way; the boat named Cinderella that I took had Cinderella in Swedish on the opposite side of the boat; I did not recognize later that it was the same boat when it stopped. I then had to learn that if I wanted a boat to stop at the dock I had to raise a flag so the captain knew that someone wanted to be picked up.

  Sweden as a country has been at war so many times in the country's history, they used to possess Finland, some of Denmark, and parts of Germany. One only has to look on-line to see the long list of conflicts this nation has had with world powers such as Russia. Sweden has many famous military academies and there are also many castles and palaces scattered around the country as well.

  There are also many churches

                      

I put so many kms on my legs in the last couple of days, I just do not want to miss anything. I really noticed how many pregnant women were around, most often with a toddler in tow. There are many beautiful boats either sailing by or docked.

  Another morning I took the train to Marsta and then took a bus from there to Sigtuna. This oldest town in Sweden was founded in 980 and has a significant history; Swedens first coins were minted from here.

                                          

                                          


  I wanted to venture to my next historic site so I boarded a bus that had Steningebadet posted on the window, my intention was to go to Steninge Slott and this bus was supposed to go to within 2 kms of my destination. It turned out that Steningebadet was a place for swimming which meant that I had at least a 7 km return walk to get to where I wanted to go. Steninge Slott is a palace that was built in 1705, it was very nice and well worth the effort to get there.

 
   I can suggest to people not to miss experiencing the beauty of Stockholm and the surrounding area; I can say that you would probably find it hard not to take so many photo's (I took 300); I can suggest to give yourself enough time to relax and take it all in if you plan to go. What I can highly recommend is wear good shoes if you are going to walk more than 100 kms, AND make sure that if your flight itinerary reads July 1st, that you show up on that day. I missed my flight and had to spend 3,376 Kroner ($350 US) to get a new 2 hour flight to Amsterdam. Despite that brain malfunction, Stockholm was amazing.

Angeles To Batangas ......Philippines

  On this morning we road in a jeepney west to Carmen before loading on a sweat bus and heading south to Angeles. There were good views of the mountains from the bus as we passed through Tarlac, Tarlac; a very busy city.

                           

                           


 About 50 kms south of Tarlac we entered Angeles; the old home to the Americans Clark Air Force Base. Very quickly we could see that prostitution thrives in this city; we learned that many a pregnant Philippine had waited at the airport after the war to spot the military officer that impregnated her. The prostitution is apparent in all of the cities so one gets used to seeing the foreigner with an Asian local.

  After making our plan for the next days adventure we settled in for the night in a hotel that had a lousy bed. Our reason for not bypassing Angeles was that we wanted to check out Mt Pinatubo which is an active volcano best known for it's 1991 eruption in which the forested mountain spewed particulates high into the stratosphere. This volcanic eruption was such a major event that the earth's weather pattern changed after it occurred (second largest eruption in the 20th century). There were many facts to be learned from visiting this site; such as information about the Aetas indigenous people that used to inhabit the land around the volcano.

  At 6:50 am we took two different jeepney rides to Sapang Bato in order to arrive at the registration office for entry into the Mt. Pinatubo area; we since learned that it would have been better to enter from the north at Capas, Tarlac. We were required to hire a guide; once a guy showed up at the office my wife and I looked at each other and I said, "this couldn't be the guy." Turned out that this rather overweight mid-30's guy in flip flops was indeed our guy. We then hired a jeepney for the short drive to the village of Target where some people from the Aeta tribe still exist (they moved back after the eruption). These peoples were very different looking than a usual local Philippina, they are short and have more of an appearance of  a Samoan than a Philippine. We were to give a donation in that village and then we headed out for our hike.

  After about one hour of walking the views became incredible.

                     

We walked through a dried valley with cliffs of lahar (sand, gravel, mud, and rocks) that reached about 80-100 metres. It was easy to see how fragile these cliffs were since such fine particulates were holding rocks in place. The views were so nice that is was hard to capture the true experience in a photo.
                                       

                                       

                                        

   It seemed that heavy rains had caused a collapse of some cliffs and a blockage on the 6 hour hike from Target to the crater so we had to turn back without completing our task. The previous day on the bus we had seen a big dike making project going on just south of Tarlac and now it was evident that the material had came from the eruption.

   Many locals who cannot move from the immediate area of the mountain have recurring health issues. With a big flood in the 70's, a bad typhoon prior to the eruption in 1991 and a bad flood in 1995 this area is not ideal for habitation. Although we did not get to the crater; again, perhaps trying from Capas would have been better, we still witnessed some magnificent scenery and got familiar with a catastrophic event that really affected the local population, even to this day.

  The next morning we headed south on a jeepney, only to load onto our worst conditioned sweat bus to venture into San, Fernando, Pampanga. We passed another huge diking project west of this capital of Pampanga; as well as a dead body laying on the road. From San Fernando we hopped a bus to Olongapo then boarded yet another bus to Iba. Our main goal was to cover new territory and if we saw something inviting out of the bus window we would stop. The scenery of the Zambales Mountains on the way to Iba was very nice, Iba has some nice beaches.

                                      


We headed back south and got off the bus at San Antonio where we took a jeepney to San Miguel. Our plan was to stay on the beach for the night but San Miguel ended up to be right on the highway, so again we loaded a jeepney and made our way to Barrio Barretto at Subic Bay. We ended up to find Lita's Compound for lodging and were happy with our accommodation.

  On the bus the previous day I noticed a communications tower atop a pointed mountain close to Alongapo, that was to be our destination on this day. Our hope was to get high enough to get some good photo's but we soon found out from two forest rangers that people could not go up this mountain without written permission from the navy base. When we turned around to walk away when the guys told us to jump in the back of their truck to go up. Turned out that these guys were the supervisors in charge of operations so we were able to get a tour of the building plus see the excellent view from the top.

                           


 Heading out in the extreme heat on this day was definitely worth it; plus we met a couple of nice guys.

   In the morning we left before 7am on a jeepney to the bus station in Alongapo and then boarded a bus for Manila.

                              


The loaded bus left the station only to pull into a work yard about 3 kms down the road. I watched out the window as the driver, conductor, and workers chased each other around having fun. We sat there in the bus for about 20 minutes in the heat before the driver got back on the bus and we headed out. Our bus was actually for Pasay, which is a city south of Manila; like Metro Manila, so we were able to pass through the hustle and bustle of this city of 1.6 million. Manila seemed to have a mixture of high rise office towers and dense tin nipa huts. By mid-day we had made it the 240 kms from Subic Bay to Batangas, after changing buses in Pasay. We experienced some terrible behaviour that we would fully understand the next day.

  Our bus from Pasay was the Batangas Pier bus, so it was to take us right to the ferry dock (pier) which is where people catch a ferry for the some of the Visayan Islands. Our plan was to go to the pier so we knew exactly where to go the next day, then go by jeepney back to Batangas proper. We witnessed some locals calling Mindoro, Mindoro ( a large north -western Visayan Island) to us foreigner passengers, but we were not interested. There were 5 unknowing tourists (4 Germans and a Brit) who got on that jeepney, seemingly going to a ferry. I met the British guy a few days later on the island of Mindoro and he told me that this jeepney driver drove him and the Germans to a small dock with an outrigger boat that was to take them to Mindoro. When they tried to insist that they wanted to take the ferry these guys said oh no,no the last ferry is gone. When they refused to pay the 4,000 pesos for the ride the guys refused to drive them back to the Batangas Pier. In the end they got cheated big time and it left them angered at the locals here.

   When we made it back to the town of Batangas proper we could see that the locals were not very friendly. We guessed that very few foreigners even stop here on their way to the islands. After walking around briefly we decided to make our way to Lemery where we would stay for the night, before starting our island hopping portion of our trip. The people were very friendly in Lemery, sure makes a traveler feel welcome.