Donsol – whale sharks, fireflies, dancing elderly ladies and some pretty lousy luck
The lonely planet guide for South East Asia sucks, its sucks really bad. Its poorly written and contains really sketchy and vague information that has left us stuck in the middle of nowhere for hours on end on more than a couple of occasions. On top of that some of the chapters are written by complete imbeciles, the chapter on cambodia was almost enough to turn myself off visiting that country ever ever. Yer man is such a complete dope. As a result I have not been paying too much attention to the guidebook of late.
We needed to consult the famous travellers testament when we arrived in the port town of donsol in the very south east of Luzon, the main philippino island. It took us a whopping 23 hours to get from mindoro to donsol so we were absolutely knackered. We needed to find somewhere to stay so out with the book, and this is what we read…. ‘Not many travellers make it to this neck of the woods… you’ll want to pay extra attention to the news before you go as the area is prone to natural disasters of biblical proportions – floods, typhoons and showers of ash and molten rock are not uncommon. Sporadic Guerrilla activity can also be an issue….’ I swear I am not making this up. Needless to say that made us a little apprehensive, though it has to be also said, a little excited.
After finding a gaff we hit the sack straight away to catch up on all the zs we missed on the bumpy ride over. Twas late afternoon before we surfaced, too late to do anything other than take a stroll around town and figure out a way to get to see some whale sharks the following day. We were in for a treat, everyone we walked past gave us a hello, all the kids ran up to shake our hands, teenage girls came up with their camera phones and took pictures of us, the older fellas begged us to hang out with them for a while. We were informed that the buzz around the town was due to it being their local festival, all the expats were in town so we were in for a couple of good nights in donsol.
After basketball, a phenomenon known as videokee is the most popular pasttime in the philippines. It is, as the name suggests, a bastardised version of kareokee. Instead of singing along with the original music you sing along with what sounds like a kid on a fisher price piano beating out a tune that loosely resembles the original. Its serious stuff, while some people are shockingly bad at it, it could get you into a lot of trouble if you were caught sniggering at their expense. So into one of these bars where we were begged to take part but I couldn’t do that to anyone, we made loads of friends – one in particular frederick brought us down to the local market place where there was a music concert going on.
We sat there sipping away on the cheapest beer on the planet, when in pure soppy movie style life went into slow motion for me. The band were playing disco, I love freakin disco. Donna summer, supremes, earth wind and fire…. the lead singer was gorgeous and a flawless singer, kool and the gang…. I was smitten. I mentioned to the lads, jays check yer one out, she’s savage. Fred piped up saying, ‘ah yeah thats ivy, I know her well, do you want to meet her?’, ‘sure’ I said, half joking. The music continued, one belting tune after another. The makings of a typhoon was now battering the town but the open air square had about 40 mad idiots dancing around the place – needless to say 2 of them were irish. The place got flooded and we simply had to give in. We headed to the only place where there was shelter, the stage. Before long fred had ivy over and we were chatting away, a fierce nice girl and absolutely stunning. I’m telling ya mam I was almost on the next plane home with another daughter in law for you, all the while I was talking to her poor bobby got accosted by the local town mayor who was baloobas. ‘C’mon bobby sir, we go strippers, we go strippers’, let me say that again, the local town mayor was trying to drag bobby to the local brothel. He turned to me and cursed whatever circumstance had me talking to the miss world (except with a talent) effort and him stuck with the sweaty overweight shirtless, in heat middle aged dignitary.
We decided to call it a night but before doing so we all arranged to meet up the following night at the same place. Early start had us out at the port. We got on a boat with a filipino family of 5 and out to see in search of the incredibly rare whale shark. There are only a handful of places in the world where you can see these massive sea creatures – this was really once in a lifetime territory. It is by no means a sure fire thing that you get to see one either, several people have made the long pilgrimage to this spot only to return disappointed.
We were on the boat 2 hours in searing heat before we even got a sniff off one, we saw another boat unload its passengers, they flapped around for 10 minutes but ultimately they saw nothing. Another half an hour passed before the boat next to us saw something again. everyone jumped into the water with their snorkling gear and flippers, I turned down the offer of flippers stating that my size 14 feet should be sufficient enough :). It was frustrating getting into the water as the mother of the family right infront of me got a panic attack and held up myself and bobby. We got in eventually, I thought I had missed it. Anyone who has jumped into water like that knows that it takes a moment to gather your bearings, I ducked up to the surface to clear my goggles and then got back underneath. What I saw…. was something I will never forget. I was terrified, thinking back I don’t think that there have been many if any times in my life where I have been truely scared – this may be the only time. What was approaching straight towards me, the size of single decker dublin bus with its mouth wide open, big enough to fit in 2 or 3 phils let alone one. I had to kick to get away from it, losing sight. By the time I had regained my composure the behemoth was drifting past – I had just had a moment with a whale shark. The largest fish in the sea. I was now about to have several moments with peoples feet and flippers as the emptied population of other boats scuttled past me, I got kicked and battered from every angle. Bobby in fairness to him caught me with a right belter to the cheek, he managed to get touch of the dorsel fin of the shark so he was delighted himself. Happy out I decided it was fruitless to chase the thing and the throng any further, I got back into the boat and sat there shaking trying to come to terms with what I saw. I knew there was no danger of being consumed by the shark, it only eats plankton and maybe small fish but you doubt what the experts tell you when you are face to face with something that makes you feel like a housefly. Incredible stuff.
We spent another 2 hours trying to find more sharks but ended up just getting sunburnt. Bobby took a fair doing, I got off lightly enough. We had a date that evening before the gig to go see some glowing flies with frederick. We arranged to meet him in the videokee bar and from there we headed out to his homeplace where we met his mum and extended family, 7 brothers and sisters I made it known that we in the gill household beat him by one – good catholic families as bobby would say. We took off into the country side to find the fire flies, its tropical country side around here. Coconut and palm trees line endless flat rice fields which give way to incredibly thick forested hills and rivers. Tis near the rivers you get to see the fire flies, when they bung together and swirl its a really magical sight. Damn we were getting a lot of action in on the one day.
Back into town and off to the gig – we met some of the people from the previous night. Being the only white boys in town we were easier to pick out than most people. Ivy was on stage kicking out the tunes – more of a rock set this time. The band she plays with can play!! Disaster struck though, they were double booked for the night so she couldn’t hang around with us. Dang, oh well. Fred wondered where the other gig was, I told him it was a private function and it was no point heading off to it. He was having none of that though. He went up to someone in the know and asked them what the craic was? Before we knew it we were marching across town and up the gate of a private residence. Fred asked if we could come in bu the man on the door refused, he then hit them with an absolute pearler. ‘These are my friends from ireland, they want to experience real philippino culture – twould be a pity to leave them disappointed’, he took one look at out puppy dog effort gait and let us in reluctantly.
So what was the party, local girls school class of 68/69 reunion. Sticking out like sore thumbs we were there less than 30 seconds when we had a couple of elderly ladies over asking all about us, one of them asked for a dance and bobby being bobby declared his delight at such and offer so 4 of us took to the floor (just 4 on the floor) and started jiving away. Bobby can move, but the poor dear that was with him was struggling. In the midst of a twirl under the arm the humid and sweaty conditions contributed to her hand slipping out of his and in a perfect pirouette she felt plump on her backside in the middle of the floor. Gingerly she got back up to her feet and they made their way back to their seats, the rest of the crowd loved it though they were all on their feet giving them a standing ovation. She was lucky that she didn’t break her hip, but I think it made her night at the end of it all.
Trouble was around the corner though, 2 lads who we didn’t know had also snuck into the party. They were messy drunks, one of them – just out of jail he was telling us previously – got up and decided the walk to the toilet was too far and relieved himself on the flowerbed in the middle of the garden. It was really lousy thing to do, what made things infinitely worse was that we were automatically associated with these two losers so despite all the goodwill we had built up previously we soon found ourselves out on the street. Twas getting late and twas prob time for bed at that stage, disappointed I didn’t get to say goodbye to ivy who was still belting out the tunes as we crookedly ambled on down the street back home happy out with an epics days entertainment. I’m afraid the search goes on mother dear…
Adios,
Phil
Tags: donsol, philippines, whale sharks
Phil Gill
All the talk about Ivy? I was afraid I was going to read a sequel to The Crying Game!
Keep searching, young man.
Sounds like you have the material for your first chapter of
“An Plainéad uaigneach”