Alona

Breakfast was included in our room price. Today we enjoyed a sausage, fried egg, rice and coffee on a cute little table just outside our room. As everyone else started to stir, a couple from Chile headed upstairs to have their breakfast. We overheard them speaking to the owner as they passed. It appears the hotel sent the girls laundry to be done and it never came back! She now has no clothes. Apparently someone must have picked up the wrong washing.

We spent some time planning our next stop before lunch and stopped en route at a local stall to eat. Mungo was our choice, cheap and tasty. We imagine it is made with mung beans but we found other things too like potato.

To get to the beach we followed a long, thin lane and at the end a small little beach with a few locals. The main Alona beach is packed with tourists but the one we found had only a few couples. There was lots of boats coming back to the main beach so snorkelling was a little hairy sometimes. There was a coral wall quite a way out past most of the boats. The water was warm and clear once past the shore break.

We chatted to a couple from Belgium on their 8 month travelling honeymoon and compared notes on places we'd both been. It seemed to get dark quite early but when we looked at the time it was 6pm!

Instead of returning to the hotel we walked to the centre and on the way filled out boots with rice and BBQ pork. Next we discovered a small bakery and 4 x 5 pesos cakes were eaten for dessert. We chatted to a friendly lady in the travel agents who gave us some tips before looking for live music. We sat on the main beach and listened for a while before someone fell asleep.

On the way home we sat and watched part of a world cup game.