We had to transfer from our glamping hotel to a new one. The downside of booking everything last minute is that it’s hard to find a decent place for longer than a couple of nights. We slept in, had breakfast, and packed up. Millie struggled with helping and whined / demanded we take her swimming. Finally we were packed up and had an hour to kill. We brought her to the pool but forgot her goggles, and this turned into a full fit. We had to carry her kicking and screaming to the beach so as to not disrupt the other vacationers trying to relax at the pool. Tantrums are always hard on us, but tantrums with witnesses are the worst. This set the tone for the day: one battle after another.

We took a short van to our new hotel and checked in. Millie fell asleep and I looked out of the window. There is a lot more poverty in the Philippines than I expected. It felt strange to be shuttled from one hotel to another while driving past shacks built on top of rice paddies. Centuries of different colonizations and natural disasters will do that.

After some play time at our new hotel we went out on a sunscreen finding mission. We walked along the main road for a while. There is a nearby hotel named “Stunning Boutique” but before I noticed that, this signage made me laugh.

We walked past some rooster in cages. I’ve seen these a lot here and wondered if they were for cockfighting. Two blocks later we saw two of them fighting and a group of guys cheering them on.

We turned down an alley that looked like it might have sunscreen and found ourselves at the beach. We stopped for a late lunch break.

We continued down the beach. There were very few people swimming and big signs warning of jellyfish. Ugh. We will investigate more tomorrow.

The beaches in Thailand have ruined all other beaches for us. I’m not sure how to articulate it yet but one of the unexpected downsides of this trip is that it has made us immune to spectacular things. I am horrified to even share that, but it is something I’ve been thinking about.

We had seen a pharmacy on our way into town called Drugman Drughouse. Possibly the best pharmacy name ever. We figured they must have sunscreen so we headed there, but they didn’t have anything about spf 20.

Eventually we did find some. We stopped at a market for fruit. And then we rode a “tricycle” back to our hotel.

Tricycles are the Philippine version of a tuk-tuk, where the passengers ride in a side car instead of in the back. I love the design of them because they are made to look like little cars built up around the motorcycle. It’s been interesting to see how each southeast Asian country has had their own style of a tuk-tuk.

Back at our hotel we hung out and Millie got to swim in the little pool. We ate a quick dinner at the restaurant and then went back to the room for Sunday family movie night.

Despite the beautiful scenery we had another battle. The details are boring but the end of the story is that after a lot of refusing to listen and bad behavior, Sunday movie night was cancelled. Millie was in bed by 7:15.

We are tired. We have decided to head to Australia sooner than planned. We all need a change of scenery and to stay put in a city that feels easy to navigate. We will deal with the logistics tomorrow.