Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

Time goes fast and a life as well. In January 2000, I took an early retirement after 41 years work including 30 years in the same company. It was a new freedom and I finally would be able to do things I had always dreamed of, in particular traveling.

Beforehand I thought it was necessary to improve my English and for that I took up three months of intensive English courses at the Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia.

My sister-in-law Leth and her husband Jeff now owned a house there. Although Jeff was still working in Singapore making there more money than Down under, Leth and my nephew Joel were residing in Churchlands in the suburbs of Perth. She had settled down there in order to give Joel a training worthy of his talents as a swimmer and to enroll him in a good school to continue his studies. Had he stayed in the very elitist Singapore, as a result of his weak aptitude for the Chinese language, he would have been doomed to ordinary schools.

What a pleasure at 55 years old to attend classes during the European winter with young people come from all over the World, improving their English in the austral summer. I lived three months of happiness in Western Australia and graduated in advanced general English but perhaps my great age was of some help. Smile!

I remained in France until June 2001 and took advantage of this free time to change my photo equipment, to get familiar with Internet and my first PC, to become the treasurer of an association and to visit New York City for a few days.

I had also my `crisis'. My wife was working and my children going to school thus I spent my days alone with the strange feeling to have become useless. I was told later that this depressive state was lived by many new retired men.

On June 2, 2001 with my new and heavy photo kit, I finally departed to Manila. My family would join me there in July to attend the ordination of my sister-in law Leng now a Pastor. Meanwhile I had decided to visit a great part of the Philippines and to take as many pictures as possible in doing so.

The first stop was Palawan where had just taken place a tourists abduction by Moslem rebels from Mindanao. This following the kidnapping of 3 French divers on the Malayan island of Sipadan and held hostages for several months in Jolo by the group Abu Sayaaf, had kept the visitors at bay and particularly from Palawan. I thus remained a few days in Puerto Princesa, the provincial capital, and then I joined a group of Filipinos tourists from Manila going to Sabang on the West coast. Once there I was planning to carry on to the northern El Nido resorts, well known for the beauty of its landscapes.

Alas we were in the rainy season, the boats to go there were cancelled until October and I was prisoner in Sabang not being able to return to Puerto Princes as our vehicle was to await the tourists before setting out again there. Rather than to remain on the place, I thus asked the group if I could accompany them where they had envisaged spending two days. The place where we went was really a little paradise. The owners were a young German woman and her Filipino husband and as for the tourists group, it was in fact a complete family from Parañaque in Metro Manila.

Then it was the return towards Puerto Princesa and the flight to Manila. The following day I took again a plane for Caticlan on the Panay Island to visit Boracay, the most touristic spot of the Philippines. The place was magnificent and I booked a room in a hotel of White beach, the beach of white sand 6 km long, where the majority of the hotels, bungalows,and restaurants of Boracay were concentrated. However this kind of tourism was not any more of my taste and then it was the rainy season thus after two nights I took the bus for Iloilo where my wife and I had already spent a few days in 1987.

The following day, I was on the fast boat bound for Bacolod on the island of Negros, both the provincial capital of Negros Occidental and the sugar cane industry.

Two days later, I was again riding a bus to Dumaguete, capital of the Negros Oriental province.

One morning while seated at a restaurant terrace on the boulevard, a man went towards me. What a surprise, that was Charly of whom I had been without any news for six years and who finally had settled down there and bought a house in Bacong 6 km south of Dumaguete.

We resumed again our friendly bonds and I promised him to return to see him once my family had left to France.

Then I went to Bohol and its famous chocolate hills and its little ` Boracay', which is Panglao Island and its three kilometers of white sand.

Finally after having been in Cebu city, the second largest city of the Philippines archipelago, it was time for me to fly back to Manila in order to await my wife and my children.

July 1981 thus started with the ordination of Leng as a Pastor and followed by three wonderful weeks spent in company of my family and for a few days, of Leng and a friends couple, Edith and Jean-Paul, in Puerto Galera at only a half-day trip from Manila.  Perhaps you may remembers that in 1983 we had spent one night there before the 'hospitality' of our friend Jeff had made us give up and leave for better shores.

Once my family had left to France, I returned to Dumaguete. where Charly introduced me to the small French community that met every Tuesday for coffee and lunch. Afterwards it was for me the beginning of a new dream.