Being Flexible

As it was Good Friday and the traffic is very good on a Good Friday due to superstitions about Jesus' death, I decided it would be a great day to drive and dive with some friends. However, if there's one thing I have learned living in the Philippines, it's that just as you think you have things figured out you receive a googly (cricket term for a strange bowl). Or you realise that you have to be flexible and go with the flow. I had arranged - I thought - for us to dive at one resort for a very reasonable price but when we arrived (at 8 in the morning, having left home at 5:30) they had no record of us having booked. Furthermore there were all sorts of extra costs we had not accounted for. So, after sitting, relaxing by the sea for a while, we finally decided to get to the bottom of things. We discovered the lady I had emailed was in a Makati office - far from the resort and that was probably why the communication had gone somewhat awry. So the actual price was way over what I had budgeted and, because it was Good Friday, the place was heaving with people so there wasn't enough gear for us to go out anyway. In the end we decided to cut our losses, managed to extricate ourselves without paying an entrance fee and drove further up the coast - via McDonald's for lunch - to a place we have dived at before. The day turned out OK but it reminded me that communication in this country is not always straightforward!