FINDING THE GENIE'S LAMP
From Purto Princessa we headed north to El Nido the "Aladdin's Cave" of Palawan. We would discover a journey to such a promising destination would be as fraught with peril as the description implied. Two hours down the national highway was no big deal but then the blacktop ended and reality set in. Slogging through the slimy red clay soaked with the rain of recent typhoons we were sliding almost sideways when we finally fell right out of the ruts and buried the front bumper in mud. Our little Filipino boss woman promptly hopped out and tried to dig us out singlehandedly. When this was clearly not going to work the five guys in the van reluctantly shed our shoes and climbed out into the scorching mid day sun to push. No way. Nothing. We stood there for some time as motor bikes with families on board made there way past through the four foot deep ruts and the massive public bus stopped on the top of the last hill to watch us an not come anywhere near. Finally a dude with a 4x4 braved passing us and offered to pull us out. Well after he ripped the bumper of his truck the next guy pulled us free. Suffice to say it didn't stop there. We had to stop no less than six times to pile out and push for freedom. What a red muddy mess. Eight bone jarring hours later we piled out into another beach strewn paradise and were greeted by a deluge of rain that left us soaked to the bone. Safe at last. We hope...
INSIDE THE CAVE
After a day in our beach front hotel that looks out over the South China Sea we set out to discover some of the best snorkeling in the world and maybe get stranded on a fantastic tropical island. This part of the Philippines is the Southeast Asia you see on post cards with rock shooting strait up from the water peaking in tall rounded mountains where the misty clouds get caught at the top. The day before we were swimming in the ocean as a cloud crawled over the mountain to float across the bay weeping a visible curtain of rain into the sea. We watched it sweep towards us and in minutes we were standing in a cascade of water as suddenly lightning flashed over our heads! Lets run!
WE FOUND NEMO
Our first stop snorkeling was at a hidden lagoon we had to get to through a narrow tunnel of crystal blue watter. After an hour we were heading to out the best reefs except our boat decided to stay right where it was. And who could blame it really. Finally the captain swam the boat to that deserted beach we had been hoping for and announced he'd start our lunch of roasted fish while we waited for rescue. The adventure builds. In the mean time we put on our snorkel gear and found the most amazing underwater paradise you could possibly imagine. One word. Biodiversity. Coral in every color and shape you will never dream of. Fish like living rainbows, bright red jellyfish, cloud upon cloud of neon minnows, and there as we were floating along... Nemo! We saw the coral waving like a tree in the storm and there weaving in and out like little bees were the cute little clown fish. And it only got better from there. After we were saved we found two more sites better than this one. I don't think that Aladdin's Cave had treasure to equal the magic we say at El Nido.
ESCAPE FROM THE MYTHICAL CAVE
Too soon it was time to leave the beaches of wonder to reach our final destination , an island surrounded by Japanese WW II ship wrecks. This time it was the midnight ferry for an 8 hour cruise, an 8 hour cruise. Someone said there might even be bunks to sleep in so with our sea sick medicine in hand we when through security to the boat. Well the "ferry" turned out to be a cacophony of humanity with grandparent, families and babies piled on top of each other next to a full cargo of live live seafood, roosters, and a roaring diesel engine. Luckily we were on the top deck where Eileen and I found our seats in 24 inch wide cots at opposite ends of the room which you crossed by carefully stepping between sleeping people and ducking the hanging laundry. We negotiated a place together next to the family in two bunks with two gorgeous toddlers, who wanted to climb to see out through the open walls or windows and maybe fall overboard. Finally we settled in to enjoy our open air voyage into the darkness.
At first light the next morning we woke up to the roosters crowing below us as a surprise rice and egg breakfast was served to all the passengers. I couldn't get through that night without another one of those "ah ha" moments. This is how the most people in the world take a ferry. And for just a few hours I was a part of that world majority just doing what they do to live life in the 21st century.
UNDER THE SEA
On Coron Island we had our most interesting accommodations yet. The market and most of the hotels jut out into the harbour on stilts and piers while our toilet dumped strait into the water. Nothing we could do about that but watch the adorable little kids jumping from the piers and having a great time swimming in it.
Further out in the more crystal sea waters a different kind of disaster lurked. During WWII a Japanese supply convoy was spotted and attacked by the American fleet of helldiver planes. Surrounding the island are the wrecks and we decided to get serious about our explorations and go scuba.
As we plunged below the surface the dark shadows of the wreck loomed up in front of us I felt a little spooked. I had this caught in a graveyard at midnight kind of feeling. But when I turned around to see a tiger fish in all it's poisonous spiky glory, hovering just over the bow of the wreck, I knew I'd been carried to a different world. I spent one of the most mysterious, astounding and frightening days of my life exploring this different world.
Not as frightening as Eileen's day though. We were beginning our second dive and the guides hadn't really discussed who would go with who. So under water already, one of them points at me and says to follow him and the two more experienced divers. No problem except the other guide was off with the two other beginners who panicked with 6 inches of water over their heads. So, that left Eileen, 12 feet down trying to equalize her ears, first day of her life doing scuba mind you when suddenly she turns to see she's all alone. Panic set in, however if you know Eileen you know that once she sets her mind to something it's as good as done. So alone and fighting to keep her stomach where it belongs she desends to 30 feet and explores this sunken Japanese war ship on her own. Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. When our guide finally brought us back to the boat she was a little miffed at being abandoned under the sea, however this was offset by the wonder of the world we had just traveled to beneath our feet.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
EYES WIDE OPEN
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Day one in the land of 10 billion islands, or something like that, we were off to the longest underground river in the world. The book called the road "butt smacking" but as with everything here the Filipinos just go for it with what they've got.
We should have learned from the night of our arrival that nothing is what it seems here. The guy who grabbed our bag and loaded us on his tricycle at the airport seemed like the consummate rip off sales person trying to milk the white people for all they had. A tricycle, by the way, is a motorbike with an elaborate side car attached which carries between two and twelve people at a time if most of them are under the age of six. So as we were making our way into town our driver tried to sell us everything from private tours to the top accommodations in town. Of course he knows all these guys personally.
We were going for budget accommodation of course but the first place we found from the book left us scared. It's raining and dark by this time. We've been weaving in and out of clouds of these tricycles, which are standard transportation in the Philippines, the hostel is dark, has a closed and broken bamboo gate while the building looks more like salvage from a slum than an accommodation for tourists. So where did we turn for help but to our con artist tricycle driver. At this point he surprised us by performing as a class act chauffeur who took us is circles to find a clean, tidy place to sleep. All for one low price. By the time we went into the place he had convinced us of the legitimacy of his tour out to the underground river. He left us with his cell number and a heartfelt plea to book through him and not the hostel owner because he would get an extra kilo of rice for his hungry family.
THE SECRET RIVER
Thus we found ourselves making our way down the surprisingly possible road to the hidden river. As we went we watched life in the Philippines happening around us. Buses were loaded to bursting with pigs riding on top. (That however was nothing compared to the roosters that flew as carry on luggage on a modern jet plane ). We drove past the long horned oxen right there just like National Geographic, plowing the rice paddies, while next to them the single modern machine was paving the road in a hundred small concrete sections. The contrast of seeing agriculture done the same way it has been for thousands of years while riding in an air conditioned van was almost too strange to comprehend. It still took us two hours to travel about 50 km.
The underground river park was everything we were promised and more: Beautiful vistas, palm tree covered beaches, round mountains riddled with caves, monkeys and monitor lizards along the path and four exceptionally effeminate Filipino boys with us in the van. The lizards and monkeys almost made me poop myself. It's not every day that you're happily strolling down a forest path and see something from the corner of your eye only to realize it's a five foot long lizard. "Oh my stars!" I wanted to get down and play with the little cuties in the worst way but something about losing my hand held me back. The river was an incredible 2 km trip into the heart of a mountain and by the time we made it back to the van I was so tired that I fell sound asleep on the butt smacking road back home.
WHAT IS REAL?
After our return from tropical paradise we decided it was time to explore real life in the Philippines so we set out on foot to see how 200,000 something Filipinos live everyday in our city of Purto Princessa. From the roof of our hostel we had a striking view of the harbor and the ramshackle homes built one on top of another while stretching way out out over the water on stilts and piers. That's where we headed first. As we wove down roads and back streets we saw families living with less than we could imagine owning yet not miserable, sad or destitute in the way one might expect. They were just living with what they had but surprisingly... they appeared to be happy! They were pointing at us and laughing, every little kid shouting hello while playing games in the street. People were running their shops and talking with their neighbors. We came across a basketball game on a tiny outdoor court jammed between buildings with only one hoop. But there was the ref, two teams, one in uniform, and the whole community cheering them on just like a school ball game back home. As we stopped to take in the entertainment it dawned on me that this, right in front of me, was real life. They were living life trying to reach the same kinds of goals that we reach for. Just without all the window dressing and wealth that makes our Western lifestyles such an unusual existence. Standing there right in front of me was what most of the world sees as normal life. This is what most of the people in the world do. This is how they live. Without their comfortable bungalow in the suburbs. And for the most part they find a way to be happy.
Day one in the land of 10 billion islands, or something like that, we were off to the longest underground river in the world. The book called the road "butt smacking" but as with everything here the Filipinos just go for it with what they've got.
We should have learned from the night of our arrival that nothing is what it seems here. The guy who grabbed our bag and loaded us on his tricycle at the airport seemed like the consummate rip off sales person trying to milk the white people for all they had. A tricycle, by the way, is a motorbike with an elaborate side car attached which carries between two and twelve people at a time if most of them are under the age of six. So as we were making our way into town our driver tried to sell us everything from private tours to the top accommodations in town. Of course he knows all these guys personally.
We were going for budget accommodation of course but the first place we found from the book left us scared. It's raining and dark by this time. We've been weaving in and out of clouds of these tricycles, which are standard transportation in the Philippines, the hostel is dark, has a closed and broken bamboo gate while the building looks more like salvage from a slum than an accommodation for tourists. So where did we turn for help but to our con artist tricycle driver. At this point he surprised us by performing as a class act chauffeur who took us is circles to find a clean, tidy place to sleep. All for one low price. By the time we went into the place he had convinced us of the legitimacy of his tour out to the underground river. He left us with his cell number and a heartfelt plea to book through him and not the hostel owner because he would get an extra kilo of rice for his hungry family.
THE SECRET RIVER
Thus we found ourselves making our way down the surprisingly possible road to the hidden river. As we went we watched life in the Philippines happening around us. Buses were loaded to bursting with pigs riding on top. (That however was nothing compared to the roosters that flew as carry on luggage on a modern jet plane ). We drove past the long horned oxen right there just like National Geographic, plowing the rice paddies, while next to them the single modern machine was paving the road in a hundred small concrete sections. The contrast of seeing agriculture done the same way it has been for thousands of years while riding in an air conditioned van was almost too strange to comprehend. It still took us two hours to travel about 50 km.
The underground river park was everything we were promised and more: Beautiful vistas, palm tree covered beaches, round mountains riddled with caves, monkeys and monitor lizards along the path and four exceptionally effeminate Filipino boys with us in the van. The lizards and monkeys almost made me poop myself. It's not every day that you're happily strolling down a forest path and see something from the corner of your eye only to realize it's a five foot long lizard. "Oh my stars!" I wanted to get down and play with the little cuties in the worst way but something about losing my hand held me back. The river was an incredible 2 km trip into the heart of a mountain and by the time we made it back to the van I was so tired that I fell sound asleep on the butt smacking road back home.
WHAT IS REAL?
After our return from tropical paradise we decided it was time to explore real life in the Philippines so we set out on foot to see how 200,000 something Filipinos live everyday in our city of Purto Princessa. From the roof of our hostel we had a striking view of the harbor and the ramshackle homes built one on top of another while stretching way out out over the water on stilts and piers. That's where we headed first. As we wove down roads and back streets we saw families living with less than we could imagine owning yet not miserable, sad or destitute in the way one might expect. They were just living with what they had but surprisingly... they appeared to be happy! They were pointing at us and laughing, every little kid shouting hello while playing games in the street. People were running their shops and talking with their neighbors. We came across a basketball game on a tiny outdoor court jammed between buildings with only one hoop. But there was the ref, two teams, one in uniform, and the whole community cheering them on just like a school ball game back home. As we stopped to take in the entertainment it dawned on me that this, right in front of me, was real life. They were living life trying to reach the same kinds of goals that we reach for. Just without all the window dressing and wealth that makes our Western lifestyles such an unusual existence. Standing there right in front of me was what most of the world sees as normal life. This is what most of the people in the world do. This is how they live. Without their comfortable bungalow in the suburbs. And for the most part they find a way to be happy.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
GETTING WARMED UP
A CHANGE OF SCENERY
One day out of class with the little kiddies yelping at your heals "teacher, teacher" all day we hit the streets of Hong Kong! Fantastic! Right? I mean if you don't mind waiting two hours in line to take a tram up the side of the mountain. Not a big deal because we knew that we were in the middle of a big Asian holiday. What we didn't expect was that the line must have been full of the Koreans we thought we had left behind. When the timid Chinese guard opened the gate to line up in front of the trolley you would have thought we were in a mosh pit at a Grateful Dead concert rather than going for a scenic ride up a mountain to see the city. The crowd surged forward in a mass like they were running from the Bolshavik Commies. I was amazed no one got trampled. However after our bone crushing wait in line was over we got to ride this tram train car almost vertically up the side of the mountain. Great views! There we watched the sun slide below the horizon on one of the most famous skylines in the world. Peace, serenity and what an amazing view. I'm gonna love Hong Kong.
IT'S VEGAS BABY
So if Asians like to gamble there are not a lot of places to do it. The only casino in Seoul is only open to foreigners. Then there's Macau island, where gambling is not only allowed but it makes their world turn. After an hour on the ferry from Hong Kong I was expecting a shabby little island town but was I in for a surprise. It's Vegas Baby! Lights shows and sparking lights everywhere. But you're gonna pay cause it's expensive. Having said that before plunging into the hedonistic strip we went to see the colonial past and that was were the real magic was. Plazas and piazzas, castles and churches, chaos and serenity all built on top of each other. We thought we were in Europe taken over by Asia. Great architecture and history everywhere. We even stopped to catch the end of Mass from the square behind the cathedral.
IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD
From Hong Kong we flew across the sea of China to the Philippines. Welcome to Paradise...and sunburns for us pink skinned people. As our plane flew into Porta Princessa from the Capital of Manila we knew our standard of living was about to change. I mean we arrived on a 373 and there was a terminal off the runway but after we walked down the stairs from the plane we were pointed to a lean to attached to the side of the building. There was an outdoor luggage rack which sort of worked. Most of us walked over t0 the baggage handlers cart and grabbed our own bags before it rained on them Then as we were checking in with the passport guy who used a flashlight to read our documents a little toad ran for cover from the impending downpour under our feet. At this point we realized we were not in Kansas, or Korea for that matter, anymore.
One day out of class with the little kiddies yelping at your heals "teacher, teacher" all day we hit the streets of Hong Kong! Fantastic! Right? I mean if you don't mind waiting two hours in line to take a tram up the side of the mountain. Not a big deal because we knew that we were in the middle of a big Asian holiday. What we didn't expect was that the line must have been full of the Koreans we thought we had left behind. When the timid Chinese guard opened the gate to line up in front of the trolley you would have thought we were in a mosh pit at a Grateful Dead concert rather than going for a scenic ride up a mountain to see the city. The crowd surged forward in a mass like they were running from the Bolshavik Commies. I was amazed no one got trampled. However after our bone crushing wait in line was over we got to ride this tram train car almost vertically up the side of the mountain. Great views! There we watched the sun slide below the horizon on one of the most famous skylines in the world. Peace, serenity and what an amazing view. I'm gonna love Hong Kong.
IT'S VEGAS BABY
So if Asians like to gamble there are not a lot of places to do it. The only casino in Seoul is only open to foreigners. Then there's Macau island, where gambling is not only allowed but it makes their world turn. After an hour on the ferry from Hong Kong I was expecting a shabby little island town but was I in for a surprise. It's Vegas Baby! Lights shows and sparking lights everywhere. But you're gonna pay cause it's expensive. Having said that before plunging into the hedonistic strip we went to see the colonial past and that was were the real magic was. Plazas and piazzas, castles and churches, chaos and serenity all built on top of each other. We thought we were in Europe taken over by Asia. Great architecture and history everywhere. We even stopped to catch the end of Mass from the square behind the cathedral.
IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD
From Hong Kong we flew across the sea of China to the Philippines. Welcome to Paradise...and sunburns for us pink skinned people. As our plane flew into Porta Princessa from the Capital of Manila we knew our standard of living was about to change. I mean we arrived on a 373 and there was a terminal off the runway but after we walked down the stairs from the plane we were pointed to a lean to attached to the side of the building. There was an outdoor luggage rack which sort of worked. Most of us walked over t0 the baggage handlers cart and grabbed our own bags before it rained on them Then as we were checking in with the passport guy who used a flashlight to read our documents a little toad ran for cover from the impending downpour under our feet. At this point we realized we were not in Kansas, or Korea for that matter, anymore.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)