This page continues from synopsis 2002 to 2022.
Sending this out during the Christmas season, so have a great next year everyone!
The year started off rather slow, to the point that I often joked with my wife it felt like we were squatting on the lawn watching the grass grow. Most of our tours are for people who can actually afford them, not backpackers scurrying in a last minute, budget flurry, but well established folks who like to take their time when planning their vacation and book well in advance. And those who are more likely to act trepidly post-covid bs, fearing that the borders might close again and not wanting to take any chances.
But the pace did pick up slowly throughout the year and we did attain some important milestones. The greatest of which is our downpayment for a property. Actually, I made the downpayment, a third of the price, just to get the ball rolling, while Mel agreed to make the monthly payments over a two year period to pay off the rest. She will, after all, own the property, while I will own the house I build on top of it (typical Asian law protecting their population).
The house we moved into and are curently renting is in the middle of the jungle but also in a large, future subdivision, while the property we are buying is a sublot of it. It will be an easy move and a convenient 100m away, helping us check up on the quality of the construction work. And considering we are about 10km from 6 beautiful beaches, cooler in the higher altitude and good neighbours overall, it will be a great purchase.
It was fun filling up our rented house with a mahogany dining table and all sorts of goodies that would fit into the larger space, but with the initial flurry of activity having died down, we felt our son Kaja was too restless in our peaceful setting, so we enrolled him into a local private Catholic nursery for two hours a day, five days a week.
Of course, he hasn’t been learning too much, too busy stirring up a storm of naughtiness amidst the eyes rolling of tired and worn out teachers, but he became the “darling of the crowd”, made lots of friends, and expended plenty of enthusiasm before his noon nap. His best friend is an equal rebel rouser and we made good friends with her parents, who have turned out to be good contacts and should be a source of great advice once we start constructing the house.
For our fourth year anniversary we spent an entire week in Mel’s favourite place, the famous island of Boracay. Very expensive, but fortunately papa here has many contacts and our accommodation and buffet breakfast was for free. We had fun tasting all the foreign and exotic restaurants, while the highlight of our stay was the two day rental of a motorcycle, which we used to explore all the remote beaches on the island.
Drone vid of one of the many remote and beautiful beaches we visited by motorbike.
A second highlight was an invitation to a wedding ceremony in Davao (major island in the south), where I have not been yet, giving us the opportunity to explore some key sites and add valuable content to our pages. Mel was also invited by two male nurse friends of hers, who were making good money in the US and happy to pay for our expensive hotel room next to theirs.
Drone vid of some islands we visited on a private boat tour.
And finally my application for permanent residence was accepted, now that I am married, so I can consider myself a local and not have to constantly worry about renewing a temporary tourist visa. It also enables me to finally open a bank account in my own name, for the first time since I left Czechia almost two decades ago. Makes me feel like a real person and not a temporary traveling hobo always dependent on someone else.
Perhaps the greatest highlight, after months and months of trying, is that a baby girl is now on the horizon. Quite a relief when we found out it will not be another boy, because Kaja with his unlimited energy is certainly a handful.
Because of this we were thinking it would probably be wise to get a car, for safety reasons. Business was slowly picking up and decided to spruce up the trike, repainting it, adding a leather looking seat cover, additional headlights for night driving, but on our last drive back to the island, it started drizzling, so I rearranged our loaded luggage so the waterproof, heavier stuff would be in the back and the dry bags under the roof. Every time I come to the city, within hours I feel a layer of grime developing on my skin as the stink of exhaust permeates through my nostrils. Our bed where we sleep at the parent’s house is hard and small for all three of us, it is in a squatter neighbourhood of sorts with dog shit often left on the sidewalks, and generally the stress of the city makes us look forward to getting back to our island.
In my haste I tried to overtake another vehicle, in a more aggressive manner than I usually would have, while the fresh rain made the road slipperier and the imbalance of weight in the back further reduced the traction of the front tire. The driver and passenger of the vehicle coming towards me later exclaimed my trike was completely out of control, yet they seemed to take their sweet time in slowing down for me. Perhaps they thought the occasion could result in a much wanted fixing of their MG, seeing I’m a foreigner. In any case, the trike was not turning right as I commanded it to but continue straight, while my left, dangling leg served as a rubber stopper sandwiched between the colliding vehicles. It ripped the top layer of skin from my knee, exposing the tendons, and did a nice job on the back of my heel. It was the grossest injury I ever witnessed in my life and my first accident in almost forty years.
I stayed for ten days in the hospital, Mel sleeping on a couch next to me, the medical bills and vehicle repair set us back quite a bit, and it hastened our desire to upgrade to a car. Considering I would probably rarely ride the trike anymore, I went ahead and sold it, even before I managed to test out the new headlights. The new car set us back even further, but fortunately by now business was quite good and the money rolling in.
Speaking of business, we finally managed to get a business license for our operations, after navigating the minefield of endless bureaucratic hoops, hence expanding our scope to include commission from resorts we recommend to our customers. Once we are sufficiently settled, our plan is to travel the country, exploring all the worthwhile sites and adding our experiences to our website, in the process expanding our affiliate offers.
And for this we chose our new car so that it would be useful for camping, with ample storage space in the back, roof rack for solar panels, optionally for my windsurf equipment on top of that. Been a long time and already have a potential stretch of beach on the other end of our island to check out.
As part of our growing business I signed up to a system which uses google to translate all the pages into other languages. For example, simply put cs. fr. or de. before the address of any page to see it in Czech, French or German. About ten languages in total and has already yielded profitable results.
To expand our network on a social level, we set up some facebook groups, Mel a now rather popular Iloilo and Guimaras Expats group, while I started Cooking and Gardening in Guimaras. Once we move onto our new property, I would like to start growing veggies, practicing vertical farming in conjunction with aquaponics, and it would be nice to exchange ideas and produce with others.
Also, in my endless ambition to reduce my alcohol consumption, I have started brewing ginger beer. Quite tasty, almost no alcohol, and a welcome spritzer from the dreadfully boring tasting spring water. Hopefully I will achieve my latest goal of regaining my abs by the age of 60.
But one downside of our peaceful and remote paradise is the weak internet. Seems that from around noon to 8pm it really slows down, the children getting freshly out of school and their noses quickly buried deep into their phones. I mentioned this complaint while meeting with a dinner party of the expats from Mel’s facebook group, where fortunately one of them was an IT guru working for a company back in Australia. He had a solid fiber connection and was kind enough to let me borrow his unused Starlink setup, completely free of charge. Now I got blazing fast satellite internet and am able to work on our website at breakneck speed.
All things considered, I must say we started the year in zero gear, watching the grass grow, but over its course certain milestones kicked us up into progressively higher gears, until now I truly feel that the fourth is on the visible horizon. All that needs to be done is for us to keep working on our expansion and for the borders never to close again!
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We are a family operation managing private custom boat tours in the beautiful Palawan area, and are happy to help travelers with their plans through the Philippines, having traveled a lot of it ourselves and planning to visit it all. These pages in this section cover my various solo travels before meeting my wife.