OK everyone, I did not get hauled off by Abu Sayyaf terrorists, gang raped, tied to a tree and left for dead! Sorry for the long delay since I last posted anything, my dear Luis got through on a frantic phone call yesterday after days of attempts. I was living in a thatched-hut village of 300 people with no Internet and one cell phone tower, in what felt like a whole different time zone. Electric generators power the lights from dusk (6:30pm or so) until a bit after 10pm: you get a little over 3 hours each day to try to charge up your cell phone battery.
Words will fail me, in English and all three other languages I’ve tried to learn (French, Spanish, Tagalog), trying to describe the indescribable experience I’ve had the past several days. This is a life-changing event for me, an epiphany which may lead me to reprioritize some of the things I’ve wanted to do with my life. I have been a drifter career-wise, and my mind is now filled with different views than before the trip.
Why did I wind up in Palawan? Well, I got frustrated with my guidebooks and with my attempts to get specific ideas for excursions from the people I’ve talked to here; for example if you want to go to Banaue or Baguio to the north, to Batanes in the far north, or perhaps to the southern parts of this island (Luzon), just try going into a travel agent’s office to get solid advice. You’ll get a sales pitch for a pricy tour package. You won’t find your own private paradise that way.
So I took out my mental dart board, looked at the airline map, and chose Palawan because its airport is in a city of about 100,000 which is big enough to provide services I’m familiar with but small enough that I won’t encounter the overwhelming many-bus-station problem of trying to get pointed the right way out of Manila on its overcrowded highways. My local kaibigan Ferdinand helped me get the ticket a week ago; finding a long line at the Cebu Pacific ticket office, we found a late-evening travel agent who booked me on a different airline.
Before the flight I looked at my Philippines guide book (the German one, forget the name, which is a year older but a lot more informative re: Palawan than the ubiquitous Lonely Planet guide that I’ve grown to detest) to figure out a somewhat hazy plan: see the Carlsbad-like caves at Sabang, head up to Port Barton, stay a couple days at El Nedo to go on a boat tour of the Bacuit islands which are supposedly like the Phi Phi islands I saw in Thailand, only better. My trip would start with either a night in Puerto Princesa, or maybe I’d try to hit Sabang the first day. At the airport tourist-info counter, I decided to skip Princesa and try to catch the 10am jeepney to Sabang.
Well, remember my complaint about not being among gay people in Boracay? The second person I met after stepping out of the airport at Puerto Princesa (capital of the province), after the tricycle driver from the airport to the bus station, was the friendly, guapo, gay 30-something jeepney driver who told me that I’d missed the 10am one but I could wait for the noon one. We chatted a long time, and I chatted with a European tourist in the seat behind me. I basically got seduced into taking that jeepney, which this driver (Romeo, can you just believe these Filipino names?!?) conveniently forgot to tell me would be departing two hours after the noon one I was hoping for.
Walang problema, I decided, I needed to readjust my internal clocks to a whole new “time zone” anyway. After the hustle-bustle of Manila city life, I could see this was a different place. Romeo insisted on parking my butt on the seat next to him. I wandered over to the fish market, discovered a stand selling pizza slices, so I shared pizza with my new kaibigan during the 3+ hour wait. The 75km jeepney ride is arduous, to say the least. A jeepney here is actually a medium-sized truck. On that route, it functions more as a UPS delivery truck that oh-by-the-way will haul passengers. I later learned that this particular dirt road, punctuated by occasional long stretches of concrete pavement, was opened in 1991. The jeepneys plying this route are important conveyors of commercial products to the various stores. I heard a tire blow out on another jeepney while waiting at the bus depot, so I recognized the sound when our own jeepney suffered the same fate en route. Now you know why there are so many vulcanizing (tire repair) shops scattered all over the Philippines.
I had not decided on lodging so I let Romeo drop me off at the Taraw cottages at the east side of the village. Check-in was a matter of getting pointed at a room: apparently this particular set of cottages was mostly rented out to a weekend tour group from Manila, whose 10 or so aircon vans materialized to spirit them away the next day. So the manager was clearly preoccupied, apologized for a brief delay to clean my room, and disappeared without requiring a guest registration card.
I wandered off to take pictures of the beach. Words won’t suffice to describe, I will add pictures to this when I get back sa (to) Boston. (This excursion served as an intensive Tagalog immersion class, among many other things.) Sabang is on the northwest side of the Palawan island facing the South China Sea (Malaysia lies 430km south, Vietnam 1100km east); at its center is a small pier, just big enough for jeepneys to drop off cargo and turn around. Aside from a couple dozen infrequently-used private cars, the only vehicles you see are a few jeepneys and motorcyles during the course of a whole day. (Next morning some wise guy busted my chops, saying there are “many aircon vans” heading toward the cavern area – not bloody likely over those mountain trails!)
The village started as a logging community circa 1949. The famous 8km cavern was discovered sometime in the 1970s, I think; tourists got there by boat until the road opened.
The coconut-palm lined beach area facing north stretches a kilometer or so in each direction; Taraw lies on the white-sand side to the east, and the other side west of the pier is dominated by a tidal reef and a cluster of the local boats (diesel powered outriggers, no sailboats). Two mountains lie behind the village; more mountains stretch to the east as far as the eye can see. Between the mountains lie fields of rice and other crops. At night the north star and big dipper lay low on the horizon. Already, one can see nourishment for the stomach and for the soul alike!
The nourishment started as I wandered back toward my cottage to see if the room was ready. A stunningly-handsome 20-something guy glanced at me and shimmied up the tree next to me (just like the one I reported here in Malate a couple weeks ago). I made a video of him harvesting a few coconuts. Noticing my interest, he took his knife and with a deft couple of slices opened the top and served me the buko juice inside. Satisfying my thirst long before the coconut was empty, I handed it back to him and with another 3 or 4 deft slices, cut it in half and made a scoop for me to eat the fresh buko within. He smiled and wandered off to carry out his other duties.
Tapos (then) I noticed something that gave me a bit of a jolt: the whole property is lined with slightly-modified rainbow flags, of the type you see in big-city gay neighborhoods of the USA (and occasional small towns like Juneau and one other place I remember from Alaska, just remembered that the shirt I’m wearing at the moment came from that 2002 trip).
I got a San Mig beer and then wandered around the village a bit at dusk (the jeepney got me there sometime well past 5pm). There are maybe 10 clusters of cottages, separated by refreshingly-long unbuilt vacant areas, most of which have a beachfront restaurant. I saw few other tourists: a couple of German guys, a mixed-race couple from Tanzania, maybe a half-dozen others among many dozen mostly-young local Filipinos. The entertainment I saw that evening was billiards and a gambling card game (pusoy?). After dark I sat down by myself to have a meal. My jeepney driver Romeo showed up with a couple of others, and pretty much from that point on I wasn’t alone in Sabang.
OK so it’s time to diverge from the chronology format because the essence of this excursion is the whole collage of amazing experiences. Here is a glimpse of what I will write about:
- A challenging hike through 5km of jungle hills, by myself save the macaque monkeys in the trees
- Dirty-dancing with about 20 of the native fishermen: 80s disco blaring on the stereo in their living room
- Going out on their bangka (motor boat) snorkeling to capture mussels and octopus, then hanging out for hours
- Lounging on the wreckage of one of the “big boats” that ply the El Nido route
- Feasting on seafood stew over the campfire, after catching it ourselves with bare hands and machetes at night by the light of a Coleman
- Watching the guys display their talent on the basketball court, guapo, shirtless and sarap
- Living life in the way of the village: no Internet, no aircon, less than 4 hours a day of electricity
- Watching boat-builders and hut-builders display their craftsmanship with bamboo and coco wood
- Getting embarrassingly wasted on the locals’ favorite drink, San Miguel gin
About 3 dozen locals (age 15 to about 50) adopted me at once and pulled me right into their community. It was love at first sight, in every way you can define the word love! When I finally had to leave about 30 hours ago, the mahal kitas (I love yous, in both languages) just couldn’t stop flowing!
By Monday morning I canceled the whole rest of my Palawan excursion and extended the date of my return flight just to have more precious days here at Sabang.
Ang ganda, mahal kita Sabang! You have stolen my puso (heart)!
[I’ll add more to this entry later, along with pictures.]