Hungry Rats

Welcome to my blog. I have been in the Philippines for nearly 2 weeks now and already have a few stories to tell. We had a public holiday here on Monday and Tuesday so friends Jikta, Xiao Wai and I headed out of Manila to stay at a retreat house near some mountains (hills really) in the Batangas area. Depending on the weather we planned to do some walking in the hills or just relax in away from the smog and business of the city. It was an adventure just to get to the retreat house. It involved a 1 1/2 hour bus trip to Los Banos and then a jeepney (kind of an extended jeep) ride to the university there. (It is a agricultural university) After being dropped at the Animal Husbandry department we then had to catch a tricycle (local public transport for 2 - 3 people) to our retreat house in a small rural community near the university.
On first glance the retreat house was basic but clean, close to the jungle. We dropped off our bags and headed up the main hill for a walk. The walk was great although I'm not a fearless jungle walker but we did not see any spiders, snakes or other nasty wild animals so I was fairly happy. We did hear one 'insect' which sounded like a very loud chainsaw - creepy.
The end of our walk was a bubbling mud pool similar to what you would find in Rotorua in NZ. It was a relief to get to the end as it was getting late in the afternoon. We headed back as it began to rain. Walking in the jungle in tropical rain (big, wet, heavy) with a dilapidated umbrella was a highlight for me. My umbrella (although springing several leeks) held up and I made it back to the start nearly dry.
The three of us travelled back to the retreat house in jeepney and tricycle. Much fun was had in the open tricycle. Jitka received a shower from below as the wheel was not covered.
We thought that would be the end of our adventures for the day but it was just the start. When we entered our room we found that rats had had their own adventures with our bags and shoes. A rat had eaten through 2 layers of Jitka's backpack in it's search for food. One of my shoes had lost half a leather strap - rendering it useless and one of my flip-flops/jandals had disappeared.
Needless to say we did not feel comfortable sleeping in that room and after I saw a rat run along part of the ceiling beam we asked for a change of accomodation. We moved a space near the dining room which had less holes for rats but the came with the company of a flea ridden, hairball(?) coughing-up dog. We had a tough choice - flea ridden, hairball coughing dog or rats running over us in the night. The dog won by a hair - it hopefully would keep out the rats we thought and it didn't seem that interested in coming near us - a bonus under the circumstances.
That night we slept with the light on and with constant interuptions of scratching and hairball coughing but at least no rats to be seen.
After a restless night we headed out for more walking the next day - the botanical gardens were interesting but as we had to take our backpacks with us I began to feel like a soldier in full kit walking through the jungle.
So - an interesting time had by all. Thank you God for keeping us safe. We arrived back in Manila about 6pm - back to the smog and craziness.