Right, all is good here and we are having an awesome time in the Philippines. After a quick stop in Manila we traveled to a small tropical island in the North where Freya did her research 5 years ago, spend an awesome week there snorkeling over incredible coral reefs, drinking from coconuts and living amongst the locals. That summarizes it. For the ones that have some time to spare a long story about our experiences so far. The very busy ones amongst you, caught up in the rat race or not, don’t worry about reading this all, you can carry on with your life and just know that we are having a good time.
Okay, we checked into our hostel for our first night of honeymoon in Manila (Who had that idea, to check into a dodgy hostel for the first night of honeymoon!!! What an idiot I am sometimes?), and this hostel basically rented some (the crappiest?) rooms in a skyscraper hotel, and sublet these to backpackers. So after entering this skyscraper, where nothing but marble, mirrors, chandeliers and porters in suit seemed very promising, we are brought to the 15th floor were nothing of this marble, mirrors, chandeliers and porters are remotely present… Bummer… She shows us our ‘suite’, consisting of a kitchenette, a bathroom and a bedroom, quite a bit more than we bargained for as it was, after all, a hostel we booked. Off she goes and we have a good look around. The bedroom was Spartan but okay, the kitchen we did not intent to use anyways, but the bathroom looked pre-historic. Not only that, there was hair in the sinks everywhere etc. and the whole thing looked as if it was cleaned longer than a week ago. Some may say I am a snob, and Freya certainly says so, but I ditched my backpacker-attitude 6 years ago, and now just enjoy the comforts in life, as well as ‘good quality of life’. So it comes as no surprise that I took the phone, phoned the reception of our hostel and a few sentences later a cleaner was running (for her life) to come and clean this whole suite. Look, I booked a hostel, so I am not bitching about the looks of the place, but surely I am paying for something clean!
Then, just after we have settled in nicely, the girl from reception is cleaning for her life, and I am about to start walking around naked in our suite (what else are you supposed to do on your honeymoon?), the door opens again and there is Brian. Who the heck is Brian? Well, that is what I thought… Brian turned out to be a friendly Asian-American from California who is also staying in our suite! Yeah I did notice another door in the kitchenette, and assumed it was a cupboard, but apparently it was another bedroom… So much for our honeymoon privacy…
A day later we took a bus to the mainland town closest to the remote Babuyan Islands, where Freya did her research 5 years ago. That bus (with the aircon set to 12 degrees) turned out to be a fridge. Freya came well prepared, with beanie, scarf and the lot, but was still freezing her butt off. I myself, well, I took all her warnings before as ‘an exaggeration’, so didn’t take more than a thin vest with. Gee sometimes I hate my pigheadedness. Luckily the bus only took 12 hours to drive us through the night to our destination.
And there Freya popped the question: Do I love her enough to board a vessel like this for 6 hours to cross 70 km of ocean?
Like once before, some 7 months ago, I said ‘Yes I do’, and off we went. The boat was packed full, the sea was rough, and I got soaking wet. I decided to challenge everything and everyone, so sat right on the stern of the boat. It was here that I could put my power of mind to the test. I had, a little while ago already, decided that I was never going to be seasick no more. Full stop. And the mind was strong. So now I read a book whilst the swell lifts and dumps the boat I am reading on. I even sleep comfortably on a boat, and have no hassle looking through binoculars whilst on a boat. Good mind, thank you mind. But heck I got wet there. My pride disallowed me to retreat amongst all the other people on the boat, as I was already wet anyways. So I decided to take the waves as a man and pretend I ‘enjoyed’ them drenching me. Strong mind, stupid pride…
Kind as always Freya advices me to use sunscreen lotion. But unlike her usual advice, this time she wasn’t specific. Now how on earth am I supposed to know that with ‘Don’t forget your neck!’ she also meant the front side of my neck? And she didn’t even mention feet at all! See here the result of six hours on the stern of a boat.
Having arrived at Camiquin, one the these Babuyan Islands, we settle in at Freya’s old host for a ‘home stay’, although we got appointed a partially finished house for ourselves with a private bedroom and private bathroom (read: cubicle with a huge drum of water). Let it be clear that in Manila already I had decided to retrieve my ditched backpackers-attitude, so I was not even surprised. And it was clean, so all was good. However, our host had forgotten, or had not understood, that Freya was a vegetarian… So as she proudly tells us lunch is ready we find a big bowl of rice, a bottle of banana ketchup, and 2 lobsters for lunch!
Freya and I had a good chuckle about the matter and then politeness dictated that Freya would eat at least half a lobster, while I worked my way through the rest. And in the evening we got rice again, but this time with grilled corned beef… After one bite it was decided that this was too much for Freya, and we quickly formed a master plan. Freya would eat rice, I would have rice and corned beef, and Freya’s portion of the latter I would feed to one of the many street dogs roaming around the island. Not a single dog to be seen though, so after a couple of minutes of me making a fool of myself I chucked all pieces of corned beef in the nearest rice paddy. Problem solved.
The next day our real holiday would start: Finally we got to relax and enjoy ourselves. We boarded an even smaller vessel than the day before, that would bring us to another nearby island for some snorkeling, swimming and sunbathing. What to say? Mindblowing it was! Bounty island, shining sun, crystal clear waters, and an incredible variety of corals and associated life. Pictures say more than words:
We even found a sea snake!
But not only that. Having assumed the backpackers-attitude again, I can once again thoroughly enjoy all new experiences that take me out of my comfort zone. It is amazing to see myself so easily taking on a reactive attitude instead of a pro-active one. I mean, we are completely out of control, with our friendly hosts hardly speaking any English, so they basically decide when we eat, what we eat, what we do in a day, when and how it will go. And we just nod and say okay to whatever they are trying to propose, and we’ll see what happens. So far so good and by letting go of all control we have experienced some awesome things and situations that we would not even have been able to ask for. On Sunday we attended mass in a local Catholic church with our hosts, to see how they experience and practice their religion. Afterwards we were taken on their usual ‘Sunday Picnic’ at some family friends, who live on the shore of a lake in the middle of the bush. There, fresh fish was caught and prepared on the spot. It looked pretty disgusting (like most food they prepare for us here I must admit), but it tasted remarkably good. Then we were invited to come and check out their cattle inland of which one apparently had a sore leg. So we stomped single file through jungle and rice-paddies, all in all some beautiful sights.
Another aspect that I thoroughly enjoy whilst here is the fact that I allow time for philosophical thoughts again, instead of just practical thoughts. The lack of internet, (of all electricity even) on this island, creates a wealth of time just sitting and looking outside, observing life. And I must admit that I have come to the realization that allowing time for ponderous thought is something I have sorely missed over the past few years setting up a business and attaining new and higher guiding qualifications. There is more to life than just moving on and growing a company bigger fast, oriented on the future only. I think I am starting to unwind here ;-)
And the people, so super friendly, and so different from us, which by default makes them interesting. I will never forget the taxi driver in Manila who asks me: ‘So, you say you are from Africa right? Then why are you not nigga?’ And why does everybody look at me strangely when I say ‘Yebo yebo, Shap Shap’ to them? Yesterday I was invited to play some pool with some locals, and they just sank the black ball in the middle of the game! With simple English, hand and feet I try to find out what happens to the rules, and it turns out they were under the impression that the black ball was one of the solids. When I pointed out that that would mean that the person playing solids always had one more ball to sink than the one that would play halves, which would be unfair, they looked intrigued. ‘That did make sense…’ I managed to explain them most of the official pool rules, and they were super exited. Then they annihilated me anyways…
We were originally planning to stay a couple of days here, but then a approaching typhoon rendered the sea too rough for a passage, so we were stuck for another number of days. This gave us the opportunity to watch the whole island starting an emergency harvest off all rice, before the typhoon would hit and destroy everything. The windows of some of the houses were reinforced, and emergency lights were supplied for the moment the typhoon would hit. We were advised to move to the central room of our house when it would hit, that would be the safest. Without internet we have no idea how strong this typhoon is and what was going to happen, so we just sat and waited to see what would happen. We got some strong winds and heavy rains, but the typhoon verged towards the east and thus largely missed ‘our’ island. Another two days later the coast guard allowed vessels to cross the ocean again.
So now here we are again in Manila, for a stop over, before we fly to Palawan Island
