Volcano Tour

Last weekend I was visiting the Philippines again. I somehow lost my heart to that country and to the people. Last march I was already spending a few days in Manila visiting business partners. Out of this, a friendship has evolved and of course friendships have to be maintained. So I met my friend Jomel for a day trip to the Taal Volcano in Tagaytay. Taal Volcano is an active volcano, however it has been quiet since 1977.
This was an unforgetable day! Jomel and I met in the early morning and drove from Manila to Tagaytay to have breakfast. From there we picked up a guide who took us to the village from where the boats ship you to the volcano island.

As mentioned in my post of my first trip to the Philippines, Jomel is a professional Photographer. So of course he tought me some new tricks and we made many photos. We were shooting with my 3 cameras: DSLR Canon EOS 60D, Mirror-less Fuji X-M1 and iPhone 6. Even with the iPhone you can make sensational photos, that's why I will mention each camera type under each picture.

On the way to Taal Lake - Fuji

View on the island from the shore - Fuji

The Marina :) - Fuji

We then took one of the boats to the island:

Our Skipper aka race driver - Fuji

Jomel and I really had a good time together:

Bromance - iPhone

 Strangely all passengers on other boats got life vests. We just got hats.

On the way to the island - iPhone

After arriving on the island or surviving the boat trip:

"We made it"- Fuji

Well, we didn't expect an even bumpier ride (literally) to the top of the volcano. Fortunately there are no photos of us horseback riding. I still think I would have sweated less, when hiking up to the top. Horseback riding will never become my favourite activity. Here our horse guides on their friends:

Horse guides - iPhone

But fortunately we were not the only tourists taking the horse option:

Another foolish tourist - Fuji

After arriving on the top, we could see the crater.

Crater - Canon

Crater - Canon

Crater - Canon

There is a little "village" on the top, where you can buy drinks, T-Shirts and other souvenirs.

Village - Canon

Furthermore, they have a few golf clubs up there, and you can buy golf balls and tee off into the crater:

Reusable Tee - Fuji

Of course I had to try this:

300 yards tee off - Canon

But there was some time to enjoy the view:

Jomel enjoying... - Canon

Crater - Canon

Selfie sticks are ruining everything - Canon

View on Taal Lake - Canon

Crater and red lava - iPhone

King of the world - iPhone

After we enjoyed the scenery and atmosphere on the volcano, we decided to hike down and not to mistreat the horses again.

Hike downhill through cooled down lava - iPhone

Our horse guide - iPhone

A lot of traffic! - iPhone

And after roughly 30 minutes we were down again at the bottom of the volcano, where we took back our boat to the main land.

Landing stage - iPhone

After returning to the main land, we had lunch which was simple, but delicious:

Some fish, some rice, some veggies, not much more needed - iPhone (of course)

Bye bye Taal Lake - iPhone

After that we continued to the Peoples Park in the sky, an unfinished mansion, which was built by Imelda Marcos.

The "park" itself is very touristic and crowded. However, the view is stunning, both towards Taal lake and towards southern Manila.

Panoramic view from Peoples Park - iPhone

Taal lake - iPhone

View on the southern tail of Metro Manila - Fuji

Inside People's Park - Fuji

After the visit to the people's park, we headed back to Manila.

Back to reality - iPhone

There we picked up Jomel's wife, Nanette, and spend a beautiful evening together.

Once again, thank you, Jomel and Nanette for such a beautiful day. Was really unforgetable!

Monsoon...

This week we have experienced heavy rain. Even heavy for Vietnam. I've been stuck in traffic for quite a while due to flooded streets. It was pouring down for hours, especially yesterday. Basically impossible to drive or to get taxis.
One wall in our office now is soaking wet, since the paint on the outside of the building is cracking up and rain gets into the walls directly. I've found an article about the trafiic situation with a lot of picures (click link): HCMC traffic turns exhaustingly crazy as roads become rivers

Currently it doesn't look that the weather will improve soon. Here some impressions how the rain looks from my apartment:

Snapshots...

Well, the times here are not too eventful sometimes. However, there are still opportunities for nice pictures. Especially during raining season you can catch exceptional situations:

This picture was made with the iPhone 6 and not photoshopped. It looked exactly like that.

As well there are amazing sunsets, which we can see from our office:

Or amazing cloud formations:

Or the sunrises can be very beautiful, too:

Sometimes, when I'm on the way to customers, then I stop at the street and get some coconuts for the office. It's always delicious and refreshing to have fresh coconuts in the fridge and to drink the coconut water. This is how they sell it on the streets:

And here some random nightshots which I took recently:

Dong Khoi

View from Sheraton Hotel

Nguyen Hue

Opera

My parents were visiting me in HCMC for 4 days recently. So of course I showed them around. And we went to the Cu Chi tunnels. This time, the guide somehow forced me to walk through the tunnels, which I actually wanted to avoid.

Well, I will have some more visitors coming this year. I will them all advise to go through the tunnels. This is a really good work out. Even though I just did something like 50m down there, I could feel my legs still after 3 days. Interesting experience.

Back to Europe (again)!

Almost one month without an update here. I'll try to update more frequently in the coming weeks.

Well, for my birthday I try to be at home every year. Fortunately I could take one week off and went back home to Germany. In terms of temperature, it was basically no difference compared to Vietnam. We had up to 36 degress centigrade. However, it still feels a bit more fresh, since the humidity is much less.
I took some little drives with my motorbike in the area. It was really nice, driving with a bit more power and a bit less chaos...

In order to cool down a bit we made a little trip to Switzerland, to Samnaun, to be precise. I always somehow wanted to go there. First of all, due to the landscape and secondly due to the shopping possibilities. Fortunately there were not many tourists and it was really quiet and peaceful. Exactly what you need after some time in chaotic and hot Vietnam.

Samnaun is a duty free area, where you can shop alcohol, cigarettes, perfume, jewelery and other stuff pretty cheap. You just have to watch how much you bring back into the EU, as there could be customs checks at the border to Austria.

Samnaun belongs to the Silvretta Skiing area, which is a huge skiing area in the alps and to which Ischgl, Austria belongs as well.

We went for a beautiful hike in around 2500m height:

Unfortunately as usual, holidays are over way too fast. Before leaving I had a little birthday party. During the party I stepped into a little piece of glas with my barefoot heel. However, I didn't feel anything until the next day. Just a little pinch, and I tried to remove it by myself. Didn't work out. So I flew back to Vietnam with the souvenir in my heel. Nevertheless I wanted to get rid of it and I dicided to go to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City as soon as I arrived back. Fortunately I immediately could go, and they removed the glas from my heel. Even though the equipment was rather old, evertyhing was clean and all needles and instruments sterile, as far as I could tell.

There is still a little wound in my heel, but everything is healing without complications. Of course I had to pay immediately at the hospital. The bill was around 21USD. I think that's fair.

So, next weekend my parents will be here in HCMC and I'm really looking forward to welcoming them here!