Some important improvements during this period. One massive drag of the mountain internet café was that it took half an hour before I would cool down enough and sweat stopped dripping down my arms so that I could begin working on the computer. There was almost no wind, flies would tickle their way relentlessly along my skin, and I couldn’t find a very comfortable position – but the view was nice. One day it occurred to me that it would be worthwhile to walk the extra half hour to the other side of the island, sit in the shade under a humungous tree, and dip into the ocean any time…

Shot of the entire island as I was exploring all the paths I could find. The kitesurfing resort is at the end of the red trail on the far right. The town of San Miguel is visible on the island of Linapacan to the left. Hash House Harriers are welcome to join me for a jog around the island or other sports activity at our growing resort, such as volleyball, basketball, badminton, kite/windsurfing or a bamboo gymnastics workout. You can check out a big interhash I organised a while ago in Bohemian Paradise in the Czech Republic. You can click the two pics below to connect to the GPS maps of…

[letter to mom] Just got a $95 job to translate a 13 minute intro to a Czech reality TV show where some people will be chosen to live for two months like our predecessors, under Hitler I think – uncertainty if there will be food on the dinner table, no internet, no hot water or comfortable home. When I found out what it was about I burst out laughing and thought I’d share it with you, and mention an update at the same time. Could say that I have been in a reality show myself, no hot water, getting drinking water from a hose winding its way down the mountain,…

I ordered a cab to take me the next morning to the bus terminal, because I imagined I had too much stuff to fit into the single motorized tricycles they mostly use as taxis here. The dispatcher suggested renting a van all the way, but that was too costly for my liking. In the evening I received a message that my friends cannot pick me up for the last leg of the journey at the usual price, because they have no guests at their resort that day. In that case the van seemed more feasible, as it would be quite a hassle to use three vehicles as I had planned,…

The community development was a nice idea, but after spending a year dreaming about starting, I decided I didn’t want to wait for others and just start building. If the kiting beach will not work out, I have other options, although they will be more difficult – mostly because there is no mobile signal for internet, or water on those islands. I crossed my fingers, hired a boat and went out to check if there was a mobile signal for internet. The last time I was there I forgot to check, until the owner reminded me on the way back. By then there was no signal at all, and he…

My step mother once asked me how I plan my travels, whether it is from A to B or what, and I explained that I prefer to float like a leaf and let the opportunities present themselves. Synchronicity has greater freedom that way, while the variety of opportunities ends up so much greater. And thus it may be the same with my overall resort dreams. What started out as simple shock when watching how a hotel owner in Borneo completely blunders her operations, eventually metamorphosed into a major community-involved development project – that is if events continue to unfold as they are. [Just so you know, “a change of tack”…

A few days later the owner of the 75 million pesos island arrived to his hotel and announced he will be staying for a week. We became quick friends and, although he did not seem so interested in developing his 75 million pesos island, he did mention he also owned property on the other side of Putoyo, and that it faced the open ocean and could be good for the kiting activities I had mentioned. View northwards from the property. A few days later we took the boat to scope it out, but the waves being too big to safely dock onto shore, I convinced him to go back to…

About a year before I made this page, when helping a woman with her resort in Borneo, Malaysia and having seen how she mismanaged her operations, the first seeds of thought were planted that I could run my own resort. My quest for the perfect beach island thus began. My first prospect appeared about half a year later on the beautiful Perhentian Islands off the coast of northeast Malaysia. Getting tired of expensive beer and other matters in Muslim Asia, I soon found myself in the Philippines, where I instantly fell in love with the people, the more than 7,000 paradise beach islands, and abundant and inexpensive beer. Have done…