Moalboal. 3 speeds.
I am back in Cebu City (on Del Rosario St, close to San Carlos University to be precise) having just spent 3 nights in Moalboal. Moalboal is on the South West coast of Cebu Island. Sarah (the girl who had the birthday last week) managed to get the weekend off and asked to come with me. I thought “Why not? The more the merrier”. I spent the time snorkelling with two Danish lads from Denmark (well, where else would Danes be from? hehe). Although there are no beautiful sandy beaches here, the awesome coral reefs and snorkelling more than compensate for this. I even saw a mahussive eel this time among the infinite varieties of impossibly coloured fish - MINT! I saw hundreds of those orange/white fish of Finding Nemo fame. We drank Tanduay Rhum and cokes while watching the sun set over the volcanoes of Negros Island - MINT. I won a few beers by giving the best guess as to where, exactly, the sun would set - hehe - you can’t bullshit a bullshitter I told the Sarah, Sern and Stefan!
We shared fresh pineapple, jackfruit and mango. I even had a western dinner which was surprisingly masarap (delicious). My first quality Western food in ages. I went for fillet steak n chips. Mmmmmmmm. I won’t let the fact that it was not actually ‘fillet’ steak detract from the pleasure. You can’t have everything. It was still excellent. YES! GERRIN! I wish I was there now so I could have it again.
On Saturday night we went to a disco until 0300. I have not been in a disco like this for ages. It was an open-air bamboo affair. It was really good. The clientele was mainly local. A few of them could do very impressive break dancing. As one of only a few foreigners, I was unwillingly dragged up. A young lad did the spin-on-ya-back thing then encouraged me to follow suit. Obviously I was crap and I felt like a right tool. How pathetic. Good laugh though - (if you reckon watching a drunk 30something trying to break dance is a laugh).
I thought there were only two speeds in the Philippines: 1. Very slow and 2. Almost dead. I have now revised my thinking and added a third speed: 3. Terrifying. The bus down to Moalboal took a pleasant 3 hours crossing the Island’s mountainous spine to Cebu’s west coast. This morning, 1 hour was shaved off that time. You might be thinking ‘Great’ but it was far from great. I was f*cking petrified. People pay a lot of money to experience these kind of thrills at amusement parks like Alton Towers, Blackpool or Disneyland. Here you can have white knuckled exhilaration for a fraction of the cost! It really was brown trouser stuff today. I was still shaking 10 minutes after alighting the death contraption. The driver MUST have taken amphetamines before departure as there can be no other explanation for his insanity. Either that or he was trying to be the first human to take a ramshackle bus past MACH1. As for oncoming traffic? Well, a few blasts of his horn would sharp clear them out of the way! I think I actually prayed for the first time in years. Even the chickens and livestock looked a little nervous to me!
Today I bought a ferry ticket from Cebu to Manila. I leave tomorrow (Tues) morning at 0945 and arrive the following day at 0845. 23 hrs but I get a bed/food and the ticket was only 1200piso which beats the tortuous bus any day. I hope my fate is better than those unfortunate souls that sank last month on this same route.
I managed to swap books again. This time Tom Clancy’s ‘The hunt for Red October’ - MINT! Loadsa submarine stuff in there to make me nostalgic.
Well, I am off. I’ll write again from Manila or Whore Central (Angeles).
Ba a lam.
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