Beery Walls

On a recent trip to Singapore this ad for a special offer in a local bar caught my eye:

This got me thinking about making a comparison with the price of beer in the Philippines.

So, at current rates Singapore $49 is 1,594.12 Philippine Pesos.

In the bar where we drink in Subic Bay you can get a bucket with 3 beers for Php 105 so each beer costs 35p.  So Php 1,594.12 will buy you 45.54 bottles of beer!

I'll drink to that!

Gonyosoma Oxycephalum

Having been here in the Philippines for going on 6 years I struggle to find things to get excited about or to stimulate the interest.  However, every so often when you're least expecting it, something will crop up.

This is exactly what happened last weekend.  Out for a drive for no particular reason than to get out of the house, I went down a side road that is fairly remote and out of the way. On my way back to the main road. I saw this beauty crossing the road:

Click to enlarge the image

It's a Red-Tailed Green Ratsnake (Gonyosoma Oxycephalum), which is an odd name as according to the Wikipedia page it eats mostly birds and bats.

This one was moving quite slowly across the road and probably at least 6 ft in length.  Had I known at the time that it was non-venomous I might have grabbed it by the tail and taken some better photos but without that information I was staying in the the safety of the vehicle to watch it.

You Can but Can't

I recently stayed in a hotel in the Philippines (Davao) that wasn't exactly a budget type.  They provided a kettle so you could make yourself a cup of coffee or tea.

Spot the deliberate mistake . . .

Attention to detail?  I suppose that's one way to save electricity.

New Additions to the Family

This is a (friendly) feral cat we call Four Eyes on account of the two dark patches by her ears on the top of her head.

She's only just weaned her last litter and now she's given birth to a litter of four in a dustbin (where else to put a litter?) that we use for collecting leaves in the garden.

Poor Choice of Words

Seen in Raffles Hotel arcade in Singapore.

Perhaps someone should tell them that the word 'stool' has more than one meaning!

Typhoon Matmo (Henry)

Back in July we we hit by Typhoon Matmo (or Henry in western parlance).  We were expecting it overnight but in the morning it was a case of "Well that wasn't as bad as everyone made out it was going to be" and so went to the supermarket.

In the hour it took to stock up on a few essentials and a couple of goodies all hell seemed to have broken loose whilst we were in the store.

Trees were down, roads were blocked and power lines down.

Here are some photos:

Three days without power certainly concentrates your mind about how dependant you are on electricity.  No internet, no computers, no TV, no lights and when it gets dark at 6 pm the evenings suddenly seem so long.

I bought some battery powered LED lanterns from the local hardware store to provide some light in the evenings.  These things were Php 120, a whopping £1.71 each.  The batteries to put in them were more expensive (the girl on the till suggested rechargeable batteries - er, hello, there's no power, how am I going to charge them?!).  

The lanterns were made in China (of course) but when you think about the actual raw materials, which was mostly plastic, but with the array of LED lights, a bit of wiring and battery terminals and then add to that the assembly and wages, transportation to the port, shipping to the Philippines, customs and duty and then distribution to the store, how on earth can they only cost £1.71? And, AND still be sold for a profit?

And you know what?  They may have been cheap in both cost and quality but there was nothing wrong with the amount of light they produced and being LEDs the batteries last for ages.

Mind Your Head . . .

Why would you have a "Mind Your Head" sign on a shelf beside the toilet??