Snowy79

I'm a relative newbie here. Just over 3 years and still going through the honeymoon period. Sure there's plenty of things to frustrate someone here but rather than fly home I just up sticks and move to a new area. If I can last just over a year in each place I think by the time I'm 80 I'll have seen it and done it all anyway. If you move back to the West so much will have changed and from my perspective for the worst. I couldn't afford to jump from town to town in the West.

Hopefully the cloud will lower the temperature a few degrees in the long term.

This subject raised it's head on my local area Facebook. The Chinese weren't being complemented much by the Filipinos but as luck would have it I was sailing out of Batangas ferry port and witnessed the Philippines finest at work. A used diaper dumped next to the chair and surrounded by rubbish. Mind you it was a good 5 steps to the waste bins. The ones they had to pass to board the boat.

Yes. It's rapidly going down hill. The good news is the local powers who were screwing everyone for their own good are now going to be screwed by the Provincial government which has stepped in to help tourism.

The crazy thing here and I've seen it a lot is a foreigner gave sympathy to the retailers, saying how poorly thought out this rule was and he was pretty much told if he doesn't like it go home. This from locals who are also suffering.

I'm in Puerto Galera. Meant to be tourist heaven with some of the best diving in the World and nice beaches with a few girlie bars. Once settled here it's the brown out capital of the Philippines, poor water supply, expensive and poor wifi, expensive food and rip off tricycles. Added to this the women have wizened up to ripping off inexperienced foreigners. Apart from that it's great here lol.

I walked into the Makati branch armed vith a tourist ACR and a lease for a condo. All they would accept was my passport plus my old UK address that was registered with my UK HSBC account. I thought it strange but who am I to complain?

I had a similar thing with the air. I'd just got hammered with a huge bill of 1,800 peso for water. I figured I had a leak so thought no more of it until I went to use my washing machine and it just beeped which tells me there's no water. I walked down to the supply tank and could hear hissing yet the tank was empty and the meter was flying around. I got the municipality out and they calculated I'd used over 120 cubic metres of water (air). Obviously I told him where to go if he thinks I'm paying for air. All in I was without water for about 4 weeks. Some have been without for over 5 months. Now I check the tank daily.

We keep hearing that the Amazon is the lungs of the Earth and environmentalists telling us how much is getting destroyed yearly but at the same time archeologists are proving using LIDAR (Radar) that the Amazon had massive cities where the jungle now is. Considering cooking was done by burning wood etc they estimate that there actually wouldn't have been the same jungle covering many centuries ago. Just look at the average burning of leaves in the province to get an idea what the atmosphere must have been like. Add to this the trillions of dollars invested in green technology yet temperatures and CO2 is meant to be increasing plus sea levels rising. Even sea levels rising is blamed on the climate, yet volcanic activity is producing new islands and mountains are getting taller. Surely all this new land will displace the seas and naturally make sea levels higher in some areas. For me the jury is still out as to how much we influence the climate. I'm guessing a very small percentage.

Here in sunny Puerto Galera the municipality has just been enforcing another well thought out directive from the powers that be to ensure the public highways remain obstruction free. I think it is Nation wide with serious punishments for the local municipalities if it isn't implemented. In short all roads must be kept completely clear for the passage of traffic. The slight problem we are seeing is every road and side street has been classed as the National Highway. The tricycles, motorcycles and the odd car that would park while you nip into a shop etc are now banned from stopping and enforcers are everywhere. Even 10km out of town where I used to park on the side of the road when visiting a resort has been clamped down on. There's a patch of waste ground about 10ft x 6ft which is now meant to hold jeepneys and motorcycles. In Puerto Galera itself we have one parking space behind a local supermarket. This must be seriously affecting all businesses but as those in charge have been told they will be punished if the rules aren't applied then they are strictly enforcing it. Meanwhile smoking in bars, burning trash and prostitution which is also ilegal is ignored as the powers that be don't get punished. You couldn't make it up.

In Manila I've been informed that one of the main Chinese International schools has been told that if any student openly supports the Hong Kong citizens they will be kicked out of the school.

As a quick example of the Pound to Peso exchange rate, I transfered £1,000 last night into Peso. The rate on the World Exchange was 62.95 Peso to the Pound. The HSBC exchanged it at 63.32 Peso to the Pound. Way better I think than you will get by doing it from most banks.

Sorry. Yes Peso

Yes a minimum of 100k. I set mine up with the HSBC at Enterprise Tower in Makati. Took about 8 days to complete with cards in my hand. Everything once registered can be done on line so no need to ever visit them once set up.

I have an HSBC account in the UK and also the Philippines. I thoroughly recommend it. I registered for an Advance account. This gives you two accounts side by side. A pound Sterling savings account and a Peso account. You can Global link all accounts. I get my Armed Forces pension paid into my UK account and I can transfer it instantly free of charge to my Philippines Sterling account. I watch the exchange rate and when it's beneficial change it to Peso. I lose maybe 1/2 Peso on the day exchange rate. I get two debit cards that allow me to draw up to 50k peso daily free of charge at most ATMs.