Photos: 1,308, 3.5 gigabytes
Days: 25
Trains: 25 hours
Buses: 16 hours
Planes: 8 hours, 7 airports
Ferries: 6 hours, 7 boats
Islands: 9
Waterfalls: 3
Backpack: 9 kilos [20 pounds]
Types of Beer: 6
Cockfights: 1
Taxis, Jeepney's, Tricycles, Motorcycles, and Tuk-Tuk's: It would take an hour to count
My trip is over. Pictures and more to follow, but I've been launched straight into the classroom. It feels good to be back in China. It almost feels like home.
The rocks were the size of apples first. As we got higher they became the size of potatoes. They got bigger and bigger. Twice the rear wheel of the motorcycle lost traction and slipped and Tata and my feet raced down to prevent a fall. But the views were stunning. Behind us was the straight separating Mindanao from Camiguin Island. To the left was the cinder cone of Mt. Mambajao, we were climbing Mt. Timpoong, and a treeless older volcano was to the right. Above us clouds would come and engulf, curl, or slide down the cinder cones. Every now and then the white baby blue blue beaches wrapping small Mantique Island would flash out. We were mountain climbing with a 125cc motor.
I'd get off and walk and let Tata, my driver, go up a steep cliff, we'd drive together for another minute, and separate again until he wouldn't take his bike anymore. And then we walked. My 25 cent hotel map was bad. Real bad. It showed the falls being behind us, but we hadn't even crossed a river. We could hear water streaming below us though. We walked up a path for ten minutes before abandoning it, assuming it was only a path to the top of the mountain. Later I found it began an hour hike going to our cloud-forest falls. He knew another waterfall so we went there.
The road was easier getting there, the hike scarier. At one point the trail drops about 20 feet. The trekker holds on to a metal pipe running away from the cliff while using stones to descend. Boulder hopping across the river was also a bit tricker than I'm used to and at least twice my right foot landed in the water. Two local children acted as our tour guides, taking us through the trail to the falls.
Tomorrow: Cock fighting.
I left Bantayan after two days. I'll confess it had the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, but the reefs were all blown up. Dynamite fishing is a national specialty. Reefs grow back, right? So KABOOOOM! They also like cyanide fishing. It temporarily paralyzes the fish so they can catch it alive. It has the minor side affect of killing the coral. Snorkeling is one of my favorite leisurely activities and it was very disheartening to boat out to the "best" spot in the area and find that 80% of the reef life was bleached out and any fish over 2 inches was already on someone's lunch plate. There was also the lack of other tourist our age [with two notable exceptions] and an underlying creepiness to the "Old Man's Paradise" you encounter going into town for meals or drinks. It was also very, very annoying having tricycle drivers pester and follow you every time we left the resort. That they somehow remembered our names and would call out for us when we approached was bad, that they were calling me Hera was worse.
My plan was to go to a nearby small island after Hera went back home. Malapascua was supposed to have great snorkeling but my instincts told me to get out of the area. Things couldn't be too different 30 miles away, though the inaccessibility of the island made it appealing. No ferries, no paved roads, and one diesel generator powering the entire island.
So I gambled, spent a bit more cash than I wanted, and took a very small turboprop to a small island with seven volcanoes perched off the troubled island of Mindanao. Camiguin might be the most beautiful and enchanting place I've ever been.
Most of the Philippines has an odd vibe about it. I can't put my finger on it, but it's neither welcoming nor hostile. You're a walking dollar bill and, excepting Hera's hometown, that sums up my contact with most Filipino's thus far. There's none of the curiosity that accompanies that like in China. Filipino's know Americans a little too well.
Camiguin is much different. In my short five hours here I've been astounded by the general kindness around me. My guesthouse picked me up at the airport, I got picked up and dropped off for free by a private bus and I don't know why, I spent 30 minutes chatting with a young family running a souvenir stand while waiting for a Jeepney [picture at the bottom], I made fast friends with the people on the Jeepney who helped me find the lone ATM in town. People smile here. I haven't seen a lot of smiling since Thailand. Kids waved at me from the side of road as I passed by in the Jeepney. Even motorcyclist were waving at me as they passed by [and no, not a "get out of the way!!" wave]. Even the heavily armed bank guards seemed honored to be able to tell me that my Chinese debit card won't work on this small piece of paradise.
Here are some photos. Most are from a church destroyed by an earthquake 150+ years ago. There's also an underwater graveyard that slid into the ocean at the same time that I plan to snorkel over tomorrow.
Part of a three-tiered waterfall in Pai, northern Thailand.
Calapan, Mindoro Island, Philippines. Hera's hometown.
Chiang Mai, Thailand. Forgot the name of the wat, but it's
somewhere near 700 years old.
The Jeepney. This is who you get around short distances
in Manilla.
Shot through the window-tint of a car. This is one of the
squatter fishing villages outside Calapan
Small church in Calapan
Our resort in Bantayan Island, Cebu, Philippines.
His looked and acted like an old seaman. Deep wrinkles, permanently tanned skin, and a horrible mouth. He was already smashed when he left the poker table and came and sat with me.
"Wow. I haven't met anyone over here who's even heard of Louise ville, Kentucky."
He was one of about fifteen minute playing some late afternoon poker. All of them lived on Bantayan Island. I assume all of them had local wives too. They were all easily over 50, most had beer guts, and all were exceptionally drunk.
"I'm 65. I've got a 33 year old fiance with and she has a six year old kid I love more than anything. It's an old man's paradise out here..."
He had fixed up there shack in a village on the north end of the island with 90% unemployment and was sending her daughter to private school off his small pension. He was an old charter boat captain and was living off social security.
And there I was, with own Filipino girlfriend next to me, as we spoke. Hera and I both felt like we were being being put into the same category as the other couples. It really forced the question of how I felt about these men and their women. The reality is that we couldn't be more different. Hera comes from an educated upper-middle class family. She was making over twice as much money as I was at her last job. Still, it feels a bit weird.
Being also by far the youngest couple vacationing out here, we've decided to tactfully handle the situation by fitting in as best as possible. Our story is that I'm a 37 year old school teacher from Manila and Hera is my 17 year old just-graduated student. We'll see if anyone bites.
It's ironic... when I got to Shenzhen I made a long-running joke of wanting to find a peasent girl who speaks fluent English who'd be more than happy just to have running water and maybe, just maybe, hot water twice a week. I didn't know there was actually an island out there where men could go to find just that...
I'll lay it on the table as it is: I hate Manila. It's a rough, violent, ugly, city with horrible traffic and overpriced hotels. I've never looked at any other city and thought, "man, this place could really use a strong military dictatorship for a year or two." The only other place I've been that has as much edge is Juarez, Mexico. You know, that place where they've found 200 or so mutilated female corpses in the desert over the past decade. Manila was a step, a small step, below Juarez.
I fled Manila to Hera's hometown of Calaban after less than 24 hours in Manila. Three hours of bus rides and 45 minutes of ferry delivered us [and the Canadian ambassador] to this dreamscape of a city. City might not be the right word, but her father tells me there are 2700 tricycles, the modified motorbike taxi's that rule this town with an iron fist of justice. That's enough to break it out of "town" category, but there's hardly a building over two stories and none that tower over the giant coconut tree's.
I can't describe why, but I've never seen anywhere like this. Crystal clear water with huge mountains islands on the horizon. Gasoline sold by the liter in old coke bottles. Everything is colorful. The weather is straight of of Key West. The people stare at me yet I wake up with Led Zeppelin playing in the living room
Everything is modified and improvised here. Hera's father is a high ranking government official and thus gets a car from the city. "It's a 'vehicle', not a car," Hera corrected me. The front grill says Nissan, the steering wheel says Honda, but it looks like a Land Rover. The city government gave him a car of completely indigenous design.
Yesterday we drove to a small fishing village to visit an unnamed island beach not too far away. I don't think I've ever seen poverty so bad as in the fishing village. It was one of those moments where my own relative wealth and fortune stood like an albatross on my neck. Everyone lived in shanty's, the same you'd see in the hills of Rio de Janario or in Lagos. Tin metal and unfinished timber loosely defining roofs, walls, and frames. About fifteen children swarmed our 'vehicle' to stare when we finally came to a stop. A tall girl stared through the window opposite of me even as I rolled it up. I don't think she's ever seen the inside of a car, er 'vehicle', before.
Though obviously most of Calaban isn't like this, it makes me uncomfortable when I see it. In China, I don't stand out too much from those around me except for the occasional transient just in from the countryside. Economically, I feel like I blend in until I invite people to my house. In that village there was no hiding it.
We leave tomorrow for Coron. I'll be offline for a bit.
My schedule looks like this: tomorrow I finish my application to Hong Kong University and Lyndsey arrives from Tianjin. Friday I pack and throw a dinner party and cook food in this apartment for the first time. Saturday morning I go to Hong Kong University for an information session on the program, then Lyndsey and I take the ferry to Macau and fly to Bangkok that night. Sunday morning we take a train to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Monday morning we take a boat to Luang Prabang. Then we relax and explore. Crazy, yet delightfully awesome if I do say so myself. On the 12th I fly to Manilla and visit Hera's hometown, which she lets me call her home village because I demand that she pretends to be the Peasant Girl© archetype I hoped her to be. I'll then spend nearly two weeks in Palawan, a remote archipelago curving west when the rest of the Philippines wants to curve right. I'll spend most of my time on Coron, the northernmost island.
So this will be my last blog for awhile unless I find internet cafes and means of uploading in the jungles of Laos or island of the Philippines.
Happy Chinese New Year friends, family, and random readers!
