TBK at the Blue House- photo by TJ
Can you believe I have already been in the Philippines 68 days! I have lost 6 kg in weight (several weeks without a cooker, very hot and humid so sweating a lot and worrying about the delay in transferring my money from the UK ). I have spent 8 weeks chasing my bank and savings house so far due to the UK’s strict money laundering regulations.
Alvin enjoys the sun in my "Front room"
Enough of the bad stuff! Every day when I
wake up to the sound of the cockerels at 4.45 am, then later when I look out of
the window and see the sun rise over the mountains in the distance, I know I
made the right decision to retire in Palawan. One day The UK Money laundering regulations and Bahrain will be a distant memory!
I have now achieved Mastery with the Tornado mop
TJ asked me to buy it ( 5000 pesos) but has never used it)
I have now settled into a routine- cleaning upstairs
around 5 am (sweep, mop and polish the two bedrooms and then have a shower and
clean the bathroom and CR). Then downstairs to open all the windows and make
coffee (first purchase was a Kettle, Nescafe and an airtight container to keep
it in). Next, I wash up and put everything away, and sweep and mop downstairs
and clean the two downstairs CR! Yes, I have 3 CR and 2 bedrooms! By then it’s
time for breakfast and as I only just got a cooker yet I have been working my way
through my cold breakfast repertoire. So far I have tried Berry Parfait, Cereal and banana, Fresh
Pineapple, fruit salad, bread and peanut butter or Jam, fresh orange juice,
chilled water, orange juice and lemonade, mango shake etc. Sadly my Pinoy guests do not like any of these so they make their own rice or go out and buy Tuna.
High on our "Action list" for last week was to sort out all the scrap books
After breakfast I list all the things I want to
achieve (borrow money, go to the shops for a duvet, sort out the scrapbooks, get a faster Fiber
connection, food shopping, pay the car hire, send out change of address etc.).
I plan the following weeks menu once a week and list all the ingredients I
need. My friend Gracie has been a great help supplying me with Leche Flan,
Homemade yogurt, and advising me where and how to buy Blueberries, Mixed fruits
(Robinsons supermarket, frozen!), Jack fruit (The Market), Strawberries (fresh
from her supplier etc.).
Serving lunch to my guests on my new magnificent dining table and chairs- hand made by Rodel
2 days a week I take a rest from preparing food (I am
retired after all!) and order food delivery from Gracie at Poochies kitchen –
such as her Taiwanese and Pinoy food, Spaghetti Bolognaise and Middle Eastern
Favourites like Falafel! We also go out for Lugaw and Itlog or to Kinabuch, KaJoel, Senordamla etc.
TBK on his second bowl of Lugaw ( rice porridge) with Itlog ( hard boiled egg)
On a weekly basis I clean all my shoes (just like
Patrick and Corleen taught me with a toothbrush and shampoo) and wash my car. Having bought all my recycling bins with me I learnt last week that there is no recycling facility in Puerto Princessa! The dustbin men ( as we
called them in UK, Trash collectors according to the American influenced
Pinoys) come once a week so I ensure all the rubbish is outside the gates and
wash the bins afterwards. It just goes on a lorry which drives down the street
to the sea and then reverses back up as there is nowhere to turn around. Sometimes
the rubbish goes before the bin men arrive ( just like in Awali there are
always people looking for items to “ Repurpose” like the school teacher who
lives nearby and politely asked if she could have the wooden packing cases for
the big frames!)
Rhoda tries Parmesan cheese on my Potato and Sweetcorn Salad!
One of the reasons I moved to Puerto was my many friends here so I have been out for lunch with Luis and Arjen and Jay and of course my Anak’s ( TJ, Jhe and Kit ) before they went home to vote. Tee Joy found me a laundry in Santa Monica so I take the washing there once a week. They charge by the Kilo and its usually 200 or 300 pesos (much cheaper than the Microtel or Lio which were charging 2000 pesos a week!). Finally I bought a washing machine and Maggie gave us the number of a plumber who spent all day plumbing it in. I am hopeful that Alvin works out how to use it soon! Most of the time it’s hot and sunny here and I have a big back yard with a clothes airer. All my shoes, tea towels, cleaning cloths, bins etc. dry quickly in the sun. For when it rains we have covered area at the side of the house where Rhoda had been busy hanging her swimwear and Matilda's clothes to dry in the rain.
Tatay hanging out his towel to dry after cleaning his shoes and having a shower
I have a hose and water the plants daily which is very relaxing. Eventually I will buy some more plants and set up a compost. There are several properties to rent on the site, I am the first tenant of American Retiree, Mick, and his lovely Pinoy wife Maggie. Like me they support younger poorer students and have lots of cats, dogs and kids who clean up the back yard weekly. They have been very flexible, allowing me to put all my 100 framed pictures up around the house. They are getting me an extra AC unit for the Office and Lounge/ Dining room area and lent me a fridge until the money arrived to buy a new one. Mick also had a problem fixed in the upstairs shower area which flooded quickly. He also took the water heater away for repair and had it reinstalled .However at the weekend it blew up and fused all the electrics in the house apart from in my bedroom. Hopefully one day I will be able to have a hot shower ! Mick made me a beautiful wooden island for all my Kitchen appliances ( Blender, Juicer, Microwave, grill and toastie maker!). He is a great woodworker making chairs, beds, tables etc. in his workshop which is a short walk from my house.
My new kitchen Island on the right with my new Microwave- Thanks Mikey
By then its usually around 10 am which is Meryenda (snack) time, so I have some fruit, or cheese and biscuits, my favourite orange juice and lemonade and a second coffee. My regular readers and friends will know I rule my life through a series of spreadsheets (Jowa, Weight loss, Steps, BMI, Blood Sugar level, expenditure, cash flow, Birthdays, Menus, teeth cleaning, bank accounts (UK, Bahrain and one day, when I get my ID, the Philippines) and credit cards. My special thanks to Chester for creating all the spreadsheets and formulas to keep life as simple as possible and put a smile on my face!
14 kg lost in 23 weeks- next target from Bazz in Dubai is 105 kg!
So, I spend an hour a day updating the spreadsheets before going shopping or having lunch. Lunch consists of cold soup (Potage A Mme Sainsbury or Gazpacho) and a bread roll, or salad with Manok or Leimpo (chicken or pork cooked on a rotisserie just down the road for a few hundred pesos and each will last for about 3 or 4 meals unless I have guests) or canned tuna and salad.
In the afternoons I work on some of my long outstanding projects like polishing my silver, building a fan for the office, research for a blog or vacation (Mark and I went south to Quezon, Espanola, Brookes Point and in August we will go to the Balabac Islands – a 6-hour car journey and then 4 hours on a boat for a few days. Another trip is planned to Cuyo with some Cuyunon friends in August. Cuyo was the setting for the award winning film , The Ploning, and you can read about and hear Analiza sing the title track in my most read blog:
https://thebritishkabayan.blogspot.com/2021/07/ploning.html
This year I plan to explore the whole of Palawan and Coron before finally deciding where I want to buy land and build my dream home. I have already been to Port Barton, Alimanguan, El Nido, Lio, Sibaltan, Nacpan, Taytay and Roxas in the last 68 days but there is still much to see! I chat a lot on line (when the Wi-Fi is strong enough) to meet new friends and keep in touch with old ones.
Matilda and I beside my hire car at SM Mall, Puerto Princessa ( Photo by Rhoda)
Special thanks to Beth and Paul, Gracie and Tony, Maggie and Mick, Nitin, Agnes, Alvin, Jhoanna, Grecil, Kit and TJ who have been an invaluable source of information for the new boy on everything from how to renew my visa, to where to buy various food items and getting rates for a car hire. Beth also contacted the owner when I got a nail in the tyre, could not find the jack and the spare tyre was low on air! Nitin suggested it would be good customer service to replace the car rather than tell me to fix it myself!
Looking back, I really do not know why I thought life would get easier when I moved to Palawan!
Special thanks to Phil Gregory for his financial support
I am so lucky to have a great support network in the UK (My brother Richard has done an amazing job investing my earnings from Bahrain for 11 years, arranging my early pension (June, inshallah!), guiding me through the complex tax situation of a retiree with a pension who has not paid tax in the UK for 12 years, and the money laundering regulations. While Richard was on a months vacation my old friend Phil Gregory kindly resolved the cash flow crisis by transferring a large sum of money to Corleen in Bahrain. Corleen then withdrew the cash from Phil and sent it to Jhoanna so we could eat again! When the digital banking app for Bahrain failed to work Corleen also paid the minimum amount on my credit card, for two months running. Sadly I had messages from my bank in Bahrain saying there were “insufficient funds” to pay the 2000 bd (4000 GBP) credit card bill after my month touring Palawan and hosting two Birthday dinners for Grecil! Phil also went to see Lloyds Bank on my behalf and paid off my overdraft there. I now owe a lot of people a lot of money!
I have been a suki ( regular customer) of Palawan's ATM's!
I have now used all the cash from my bank accounts in Bahrain and the UK!. I can no longer transfer money from the UK to Bahrain as Lloyds Bank need a signed letter from me by post to change my phone number from a Bahrain one to my new Phillipino one. So I have no access to internet banking until they get my letter and change my number! When I went to the Post office in Roxas, they told me there is no post from Palawan to the UK so I am spent time trying to find a long-distance Pidgeon to take the letter for me. Eventually Gracie recommended a DHL office in Puerto and on 11.5.22 I sent my letter. They said it will take two weeks and it cost 3024 Pesos (24 bd, 48 GBP!) Sadly, this meant I could not pay off my Bahrain Credit card as planned so now am incurring high interest charges and late payment fees on the outstanding balance . In addition every time I withdrew cash from an ATM here, I had to pay a fee. DHL messaged me to say they could not deliver the letter as the address Lloyds Bank gave me did not exist. They threatened to return the letter to the Philippines and texted me daily to see if I had got the correct address for them to deliver to. I emailed a friend in the UK after spending 700 pesos and several hours on hold with the Lloyds Call centre in the UK . However he was on vacation so I had no reply for two weeks and sent my request to Phil instead. DHL then suggested I give them Phil's address and then he could forward it to Lloyds when he found the correct address. Having got the letter from the Philippines to the UK ( 11,090 km)in a record 9 days DHL has now spent 4 days and still has not managed to get the letter 51 km from Moor Hall to Churchover!
Having texted me daily to get the right address, then lost my letter, DHL have now stopped responding to my texts- 3024 pesos wasted to get a letter to my bank!
One night I went with TJ to the Microtel to use their land line to call Lloyds Bank. However, as their phone system was faulty, I ran up a huge bill on my mobile phone! We ended up having dinner there and uploaded a couple of Blogs and sent some videos to Chester in Marikina to make into vlogs. The Globe prepaid Wi- fi I purchased for my house is so slow you would take an hour just to upload one picture. If you sit in the right place at the Microtel (near reception! ) it only takes 30 mins!
TJ dining at the Microtel and adding load to my phone
Special thanks to TJ for constantly topping up my load
for me. I had to call the Lloyds Bank Call Centre in Edinburgh. No matter what
day or time I called I was held in a queue due to “Unusually high call volumes
and I should only hold on if my case was extremely urgent”. However, the
recorded voice told me “I was very important as a Lloyds customer and they
would take my call in 20- 30 mins”. Yes 30 mins on hold on a mobile from the
Philippines to the United Kingdom! On the third day I got through in 15 mins of
recorded messages to be told the department I wanted was now closed! Finally on
day 4 I got through, explained the problem (The bank was dialing a Bahrain
Mobile I no longer have to give me an OTP to access my account). He told me he
did not have the authrority to change the number and I should download the
Digital Banking App then I could change the number myself.
My new Lloyds Bank Personal Banking App- which needs a OTP to access!
The next day I got IT whiz kid, TJ, to download the
app and accessed my account. Sadly, and frustratingly, I got the same message “we
cannot contact your number in Bahrain to authorize your use of this account”. I
was given 3 options- use Internet banking (dialing a number in Bahrain), use
digital banking (same), visit your branch in the UK. The Masochist in me made
just one more call to the call centre to be told (after the usual recording
explaining they were experiencing “Unusually high call volumes and I should
only hold on if my case was extremely urgent”) that the only way to get the
number changed was to send a letter by post signed by me to my UK Branch (As I
had no contact with my UK bank since 2010, she even looked up the address for me!).
I thought that at last I had found Lloyds one competent knowledgeable helpful employee. However DHL later informed me that the address she gave me to send my letter to does not exist! I politely suggest that as they seem to have unusually high call volumes 24/7/ 365 they should use some of their excessive annual profits to employ some more staff. They should also update their branch address database.
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There is always a long queue for an ATM in Palawan
Ironically, in desperation, I found my old Lloyds Bank ATM and tried it at Robinsons Mall. Guess what- It gave me 10,000 pesos of my money! Whilst the ATM shows 10,000 pesos as the maximum you can take my landlady later told me I can take 20,000 or 30,000 a day. So in 156 days I will have my £5000 from Lloyds! There is another £5000 with my Savings House, which my brother tried to move to Lloyds for me before his vacation but got an error message. He suggested I messaged them which I did on 1 May and when they did not reply I emailed them on 3 May. They then replied on 5 May saying they needed proof of my new address (water bill for example) before they could allow me to transfer my savings to my bank account. So I went to see my landlady who gave me an authorisation letter to set up my water account. I took that to the water company office on 2 May and now, on 31 May, they are promising to come and measure up for a new connection to my house! Hopefully I will have the necessary evidence that I live here in another month and then will be able to access my money in the UK. Alvin has also promised to take me to the office of the Fiber Wi-Fi provider, PLDT, to arrange my fiber upgrade (memories of when I tried to do this in Bahrain and Batelco cut me off for 3 weeks before BNET connected the fire router send a shudder down my spine).
The new home of TBK Blog at the Blue House!
So, life in Palawan is just as stressful as Bahrain! However the weather is great -30 degrees. It is cooler than Bahrain which is 35, but the humidity is a lot higher at 93%. The scenery is beautiful, they have wonderful free beaches ( Lio and Nacpan) and of course the people are amazingly friendly and helpful. So far, I have been lent a refrigerator and promised a microwave and was given a bed for the night in Barutaan after my friend forgot to book me accommodation when I attended her cousins wedding!
My wonderful hand made dining/ office table
Once my pension money arrives from the UK, I can get the rest of the
furniture I ordered (2 bedside tables, 2 bookcases, 2 desks, 2 office chairs, stereo, etc.). I have already had guests stay from Manila, Roxas and Nacpan with more on the way. I am looking forward to cooking Pinoy food for them and acting as a tour guide. Adam is trying to find me a puppy dog and I have already been
adopted by 5 cats and kittens. We have named them Chalsee 1 and 2 (black
hair) , Kit (brown hair) , Ginger ( work that one out yourself ) and white hair ( Tatay!)
Some things have not changed by moving continent so after my afternoon snack (Leche flan, Fruit or Halo Halo) and a cup of Earl Grey tea I have a nap and then make dinner (usually the Rotisserie chicken or Pork from down the road, or something from Gracie) and then go to bed early. It took me 4 weeks to find Earl Grey tea here - I eventually found it in a Deli in El Nido, a 7-hr drive from here and bought 3 boxes!
My hopeless GLOBE prepaid wi-fi- now I know why it was half price!
Ironically the best Wi-Fi signal is in my beautifully cool air-conditioned
bedroom and it gets stronger as the night goes on. I often wake up at 2 am to a
host of emails or Facebook messages that have been waiting to get through all
day. Then I doze off at 3 am until the Cockerels start their noise again at 4.45
am. I guess it makes a change from waking up to a call to prayer from the
Mosque, back in Bahrain.
Another thing I have had to get used to in Palawan is the Rain!
I hope that gives you a little picture of my life as a
retiree in Palawan. Chester will be uploading the final videos of my journey
too and around Palawan over the coming Monday’s. If you have not already done so,
please like and subscribe to our You tube channel and if you click on the bell,
you will be notified of the coming uploads.
That’s all for now. Blog writing gives me a chance to sit down and rest between cooking and cleaning, shopping and going to the ATM. As usual we have lots more blogs for you in draft and once, we get the Wi-fi sorted will be uploading them weekly for you. I hope you will “stay tuned” and continue to join me in my retirement adventure in the Philippines. You will see me and my little white car driving all over Palawan as I tell my famous stories about the Island!
Our latest venture- TBK Tours!
I will end with a “shout out” as they say here in the
Philippines , to some new TBK fans that TJ and I met when we were calling
Lloyds bank and uploading blogs at the Microtel recently. The young ladies are
studying Hotel Management at Palawan State University (PSU ) and are doing
their on job training (OJT) at the Microtel. The receptionist, when I asked for
a wi-fi code asked if they could have a picture with me!
Thanks to TJ for taking the pics – I gave them all a signed card!
Left to right: Kate Villanueva, Nicole Perono, Jonnameld Aga, Ellamae Manguiat
Now the election is over here I can say no more PINK ( Lenni), No more Green (BBM) , its just going to be one united Philippines- Brown- that's BROWN OUT ( power cut for those of you outside the Philippines!)
All that remains is for me to say:
Ingat Palagi, and Kita Kits everyone at the Blue House!
Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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