The Wobble

I met phil in the cameron highlands, he was there for the wedding of his girlfriends work colleague so stayed over in daniels lodge on the wednesday night. Sitting out the front, at dinner and in the jungle bar later on that night we got talking and got on fairly well. He lives in panang so insisted on me staying in his place when I get to that side of the country, sounded like a perfect deal.

I hung around the highlands as you already know longer than planned so didn’t make it up to panang till the wednesday. The bus takes about 5-6 hours to get to the port town of butterworth where you can then hop on a ferry that takes just 20 minutes to get across to the city of georgetown, the capital of panang. Georgetown is massive, totally took me by surprise. I was expecting some out of the way backwater, not some concrete skyscraping jungle. Phil was waiting for me as soon as I got off the pier so on the back of his bike and up to his house to drop off the bags. To say the house is sparse is something of an understatement. The toilet was rank and there was just one tv stand (no tv) and a mattress on the floor in one room. I started to get bad feelings.

We headed off to get some lunch and caught up on the last couple of days. The food was exquisite. When fed and watered we took to the streets of panang on the back of his scooter and took in all that there was to see in panang. Like the rest of the country there is a big hindu and chinese influence. I went into a couple of temples which in someway resembled the ones I have seen before in india and thailand yet retained a certain distinction. The chinese seem to prefer more animated dieties, some of the statues look proper evil.

We headed on out the coast to the main tourist resort called battam ferangui. It is just one massive development after another fronted by a pretty ordinary beach front. There is a food court there to die for though, when you speak to people about panang they continually go on about the food in the place.It is definitely the biggest tourist attraction on this island.

Phil used to work in the tourist industry but now works as a journalist. He comes across as a bit of a hustler, when I arrived I was immediately suspicious of him as he was rushing me from one place to the next and not coming into any of the places with me so instead of treating me like a friend which is the pretence under which I was invited I was been treated like any other tourist that he brings around. The inevitable conversation about money and the discrepancy between what he gets paid and what he has to pay for and worst of all he trys to make me feel bad about it. It came to ahead the next morning over breakfast when he went as far as asking for a contribution – without stating an amount he in one fail swoop trod all over any hope we had of a friendship. I did owe him for one nights accommodation in what was a pretty uncomfortable environment. So I asked him to drop me back to his house immediately so I could collect my stuff, I gave him what I would’ve expected to pay in accommodation and what I would’ve paid in taxi fare and bade my farewell with a pretty bitter taste in my mouth I have to admit. Its horrible that there are people out there like that. I went back into the centre of georgetown and booked a ticket to the perenthian islands off the east coast of malaysia leaving that night. A couple of nights earlier than expected I was glad to get out of there to be honest. Panang will not go down as a highlight in my trip, not by a long way. Whatever charm I’m sure it had years ago is dwindling fast and apart from the culinary circus thats there I would steer people away from there altogether.

So another nighttime bus – I have given up giving them up. Sometimes they are a necessary evil, and thanks to goodness there was the perfect remedy at the end of this nocturnal journey…

thats for another post. All the best,

Phil

The bus to the cameron highlands takes about 4 hours which compared to places like india and the philippines is a vertible spin just around the corner. There are many corners because as the name suggests the area sits at an ear popping altitude. Like the hill stations in india (dalhousie, ooty) it was set up by the english as a much more like home retreat away from the steamy lower lying lands. The road snakes and it makes it quite difficult to nod off to sleep especially seeing as had had no sleep at all when I arrived into the main town in the highlands I cut a pretty drowsy figure. Before setting off for somewhere to stay I figured I would gather my thoughts at one of the restaurants on the main strip, read the guidebook, get some food then find a bed to spend the rest of the day in.

The main strip is lined on either side with many many restaurants, the town itself is about the same size as ballyjamesduff at home. I picked one as the indian food looked nice, the indians back in the day were brought over by the british as a form of cheap (read slave) labour. They did this around the world, in south africa and the carribean especially there are large indian communities. None bigger than the one that they planted in malaysia. The form a sizeable minority in the country and you get the feeling that despite the passing of time they have not acquired a level social status with the indigenous malays. The indians that did come over all came from the very south, Tamil Nadu a place that I have spent 3 weeks previously in my trip. I figured my knowledge of the area might win me some friends. I didn’t count on the first staff member being an expat of nepal though. He introduced himself and asked me my name and my country before he gave me a menu he says ‘Conas ata tu?’ ‘Ta me go maith’, twas mad. I guess that book doesn’t need writing after all.

I made my way up around the corner to daniels place, more than anything else I was eager to check it out to see why it got such an awful review in the lonely planet guide book. Now I have been critical of the lp before, esp the south east asia one. But here, right here at this house they got it shockingly wrong. They described the place as a ghetto (think back to ghetto in ballyjd??), that the place was sparse and empty. The place was hopping, the beds were clean and the showers had great hot water. It has a free book exchange and the most hilarious collection of movies I have ever seen ‘Titanic 2’ anyone?? It also has an internet room and a bar out the side where they light a campfire every night and you can sit around and chat to whoever arrived off the bus that day. Alot of the chat was about what the hell are the lp on about.

Eddie the guy that runs the place, sporting a ho chi min beard let us know that the lp journalist for malaysia was a bit of a dirty scamp, asking for money for good reviews etc etc which is poor form, you are talking about a persons livelyhood here. It sparked a conversation with an new zealand dude who was there, chris. Who informed us that the lonely planet for south america, brazil specifically was written by a guy who never travelled the country, just spent his allowance on hookers and drugs in rio de janerio and made up all the travel guide stuff and got away with it until people started travelling to towns that didn’t exist etc etc – kinda funny but what a bastard!!!

I had a great time in the cameron highlands, there are tea plantations, forests, jungles, golf courses, butterfly and strawberry farms to walk around and explore. Its quite chilly and it rains most of the day its just like home. The weather meant I was confined to the guesthouse with the others for many hours on end either reading books or coming up with new ways to play jenga – the set I bought in chiang mai is earning me plent of friends 🙂 Not that I need the help of a bunch of tiny wooden bricks – people love my, and I quote ‘Flag waving accent’, its just that they don’t have a notion what I am saying half the time. I stayed for 6 nights, the time flew. I met so many cool people that it will be some bother keeping in contact with them all. I had to leave and to panang I left on a promise from one of the guys in the hostel, a malay with my own name that I would have a place to stay in panang when I got that far. Sounded too good to be true and in many ways it was but turned out to be in itself really worthwhile. I’ll go into that in more detail in my next post.

All the best,

Phil

We left donsol on the sunday afternoon to plenty more ‘hello joe’s. Our target for the night was the city of naga which is about 4 hours up the road on the long bumpy road back to manilla. We decided to take the trip during the day as you see more off the country that way and you also get to avoid the horrible practice of sleep depravation that goes hand in hand with night time travelling on a bus. We stopped over in naga which apart from a lively market sqaure didn’t have too much to convince us to stay longer than was strictly necessary. We jumped on a bus the following day going back towards manila. Being a bus in the philippines it only left the station as soon as every seat was filled up, we were the first ones on so we had to sit in the bus station in our seats for 3 full hours before the last person boarded up. This screwed up our plans royally for the day as instead of arriving at our destination at the intended, decent hour of 8 we didn;t get there till well past 11. We got a place to stay and went into the videokee bar next door for a few drinks to help us sleep over the loud street noise coming through the paper thin windows.

There is a volcano about 2 hours south of manila which we interested in seeing, getting there was a pain as it involved several jeepney changes in some god awful weather, the wet season had well and truely kicked off. We got to the pier where the boats leave for the volcano, took one look at the sky and another at the size of the volcano and one last one at the sandels, shorts and damp t-shirts we were both sporting and decided that we really weren’t that bothered about climbing it so we decided to head onto the next town before knocking on up to manila the following day.

Getting to the next town was impossible though, the taxi drivers wanted us to part with limbs to pay for the fare, we didn’t budge so were left on the side of the road. Manila seemed better idea with each passing minute, before we jumped back into a jeepney to retrace our steps we heard an almighty roar come from up the road. Our curiosity perked we wandered down to investigate. Cock fighting!! Its a horrible practice, really really disgusting but watching the men place their bets was fascinating, the announcer dude in the middle of the ring spotted us right away and stopped proceedings to inform the 400 or so people stuffed into this cattle shed of the appearance of the 2 white boys, or americanos as we were called. We didn’t stay long here, down the road and on up to the bus station where we picked up the first bus back to manila.

Manila is manila, is bloody massive. We stayed away from the nightlife this time – several of the people we met first time around were still in the hostel so we hung around with them, took some time to visit the 3rd largest shopping mall in the world where we caught the new indiana jones movie (which is complete garbage) and then flew out of manila to malaysia once more after 2 nights. The sly feckers at the airport charge you 750 pesos services tax after you have checked in n all, its very sly. The airport is the worst I have ever seen, there isn’t even a seat to sit down befor eyou check in, checking in takes hours, there are a ridiculous number of security checks – all in all its very exhausting. To top it all off the food is shocking aswell, but thats the country in a nutshell.

Its a strange place the philippines, there is so much to love about the place. I had an absolutely amazing time there, the people are complete dotes and they are immensely beautiful. Myself and bobby agree that they are prob the best looking race in the world (well off the ones I have come across), the first thing you experience of the country is the peoples accent, they all speak with a hispanic tone which took me completely by surprise – you’d swear you were in south or central america with the accent sometimes. Its dark side is also very prevalent, when the security guards at the local shop on the corner can justify holding a pump action shotgun you know its a country with some serious social issues that need sorting out. Once while waiting for a bus (something you end up doing alot in the country) two guys sat either side of me, both of them had massive assault rifles with attached grenade launchers casually strung over their shoulders, its not a country you’d want to start a fight in. I’ve already alluded to the sex industry which is rampant here, I don’t think I need to say anymore – it puts me in a bad mood even thinking about it. The worst aspect of the country is definitely its food – not once in 3 weeks could I say that I had a meal that I enjoyed. Its almost entirely meat based, really poor fatty meat. They salt everything up, dammit even their chocolate sucks, they cannot make tea nor coffee. I ended up subsisting on pot noodles for alot of my time there. American cheeseburgers can be bought on every corner, american tv in every room, american basketball players are the heroes for the little kids dribbling on the streets. If the food is this bad in america I think I will have to give it a miss. Shocking, they have all the basic ingredients that the likes of thai and india has so I don’t  understand how it can all be so consistently and emphatically horrible. Shocker!!!

But apart from those grumblings I had a blast. We flew back into kualar lumpur the other night after watching john terry fall on his arse in moscow, myself and bobby went our seperate ways in the airport. He is off to cambodia while my malaysian adventure is to start again with a trip up to the Cameron Highlands 4 hours north of Kualar Lumpur. I had an amazing time with the bob and I was very sad for us to go our seperate ways but we will meet again back in dublin, limerick cavan or whereever. I have promised to take him on my next trip to india so it looks like I am stuck with him….

Made it to the cameron highlands in one piece but thats another story for another day.

Ciao Ciao,

Phil

good times.

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

Back onto the jeepney to leave Sabang, I wasn’t too upset about leaving the place behind. We had squeezed every good drop out of the place and were exposed to the odd nasty one aswell. White beach isn’t too far away, with a combination of the fantastic jeepney and a spin on a trike the three of us found ourselves stood in the middle of the whitebeach strand on a sunday afternoon – the locals version of mothers day. It was swamped, this isn’t what we wanted. We wanted quiet, seclusion – the only noise we wanted to hear was waves lapping or wind blowing through coconut trees, creaking hammock strings (You get the picture)…. Alice had a plan though, she’s crafty. Before she left manila she got talking to some people in the guesthouse who explored this side of the world before. In her journal they had drawn her a pretty crude looking map that would take us to a beach not too far away but far enough to repell the lazy day tripper. Sounded like just the plan. Plus I am always up for a bit of an adventure. Bags on the back, under a blistering philippino sun we took on down the beach in the general direction of this hidden gem.

Christ it was one hell of a walk, it took over an hour walking on sand with the biggest bloody bulk of a backpack cutting inches into my already sunburnt shoulders. Bad enough as the sand was we had to scale two headlands, there was a third but sweating the way I was I just threw the bag on my head and walked through the water to reach the other side. Once around this final obstacle we were there. A beautiful beach with all the trappings I described before and the added bonus of dirt cheap accomodation. We got ourselves some food and a hammock.

Bobby is an incredibly talented boy, he has a cult following at home through his music and comedy pastimes. Its readily available on the internet but because his act is incognito he regularly finds himself or at least friends of his do walking along the street so limerick when a car or a stereo nearby starts blasting out a bit of his work. That is his pastime though, for a living he works as a model maker for films and tv. He is just one of those people who can make anything out of very little. While sitting in the hammocks, peering out to the bay he was fascinated by the design of the catamaran. Within 10 minutes he had a perfect model built with coconut leaves and bits of wood that lay about the place. He gave the boat to some kids playing by the shore who adored it, they were still playing with it when we left a couple of days later…

There are about 4 bars on this beach, all with accommodation and food making facilities. ll except one are owned by the one family, the straw one is owned by them aswell but leased out to an australian man who liked the look of the place 16 years ago and never left. They got to know us pretty well pretty fast. There was a big party on for whatever reason I am not sure, it was the night before my birthday so we were having a few drinks. A few too many as it happened as my memories are a little sketchy of what went on. I remember having a great time and talking to loads of people though.

The next day as I fell out of bed I took a walk down to the shore for a dip before going for some breakfast. ‘Happy Birthday Phil!!’ Shouts this young lad – didn’t recognise him though thanked him profusely. ‘Happy Bday Phil!!’ another guy. I sat down for breakfast – ‘ Theres the Birthday boy!’ I even got a kiss of the mammy of the house. Everyone of them must have been at the party the previous night, not one of them forgot. It really endeared me to them. It was something that turned out to be a very common philippino trait, the people here are so sweet. They are so so so nice. They treat you like one of their own without wanting anything in exchange. It takes alot of effort to get off the beaten track, its assumed that you want to go to certain places where you will be exploited for the maximum amount of dollars but staying away from such places is a worthwhile venture, its something we learnt the hardway but we’re certainly glad because it gives us a much better perspective on the country. If I had only have visited manila and sabang I would’ve hated the country purely for the way that it makes you feel.

The rest of my birthday was pretty tame, didn’t drink much more than a couple of beers before hitting the sack. Did all the damage the previous night. Behind tamaraw beach is a pretty impressive mountain, we were told there was a waterfall halfway up to the summit so when we summoned the energy to go explore we took to the hills. The weather had turned pretty bad at this stage, it rained all day every day. Taking to the jungle might not have been the wisest choice in the world but luckily enough the path up was reasonably clearly marked, every now and again it was necessary to jump into the stream and walk up through it. We past through some tribal villages which was cool, each villager eager to point us on the right path. The jungle was cool, the sheer greeness off it all was almost blinding, my sandals were really slippy though so the going for me was quite slow. I had to revert to moving on my bum as a fall in that neck of the woods (excuse the pun) would’ve been pretty nasty and getting out would’ve been a whole lot worse. We made it in one piece. the water was cold. Like swimming in sheelin, but with the added bonus of a pretty awesome powershower at one end.

Back to the village for one more night before hitting the mainland again. Our time now is tight, there are two major major must do things to do on the mainland. We had only enough room for one. We either travel to the extreme south east of the country to a place called Donsol with the hope of swimming with the largest fish in the world, the whale shark! Or we head up north to see what the locals refer to as the 8th wonder of the world – the rice terraces (I think that title gets bandied around waay too much, people down deise way would have you believe Dan Shanahan was the 8th wonder, Ken Mcgrath the 9th….).

Tune in later to see which one we went for,

Later,

Phil

And so we made our way down to mindoro. It is the island immediately south of luzon which is the main philippino island. The best way to get there is to take a direct bus all the way down to batangas pier 3 hours south of manila before getting the 1-2 hour ferry across from there to Puerto Galera. But of course things didn’t work out that simple. The public buses in philippines are all privately owned, so instead of one central bus aras type effort where all buses go to and from, every bus company has their own station serving a different destination. That leaves a couple of dozen bus stations. Finding the right one would probably have been a total pain in the backside but we wouldn’t know anything about that as the one we found was the wrong one. The only thing we got right was that we got a bus heading south.

To solve the problem we ended up having to jump on two more buses and a tricycle to get us to the port. It was pushing on 6 o’clock and the chances of there being a boat for us was getting slim. Upon getting off the bike we were met with a barage of local touts proclaiming their utter disappointment that we had missed the last boat to the island, we decided to have a look inside the port just to be sure, always better to see stuff with your own eyes as the last boat to mindoro was sitting plump at the pier primed for two pink skinned paddies. We caught the sunset over the south china sea on the way over and it was stunning. When we arrived in the harbour we sat down for our first meal of the day, twas after 7. Ridiculously famished, we devoured a pizza before deciding where to go next.

So out with the lonely planet – where to stay, what to do? The first thing I read ‘Mindoro has 1 atm which is 3 hours away from puerto galera, buses only run during the day’… We had less than 8 euro between us, rooms were running at 10 euro a night. Should really have read the book on the bus down, there were plenty of atms at the port we had just left. We took a spin on the back of a bike to the small village of Sabang which is now a major diving destination and also a favourite haunt of dirty old men coming to find young female companionship. It took a serious amount of irish charm and persuasion to get the girl behind to the counter to waive a deposit until the next day at least, it worked thank god. We settled into the Big Apple resort which had a pool, had enough money for 1 beer before going to bed.

The trip to the atm was something special, more than special it was one of the highlights of the trip so far. The atm is in a town called calapan 60 km south of Puerto Galera. Local transport is in the form of a jeepney, I love the jeepney, I adore the jeepney!! Basically they are like little mini vans that do the smaller runs around the philippines and are the closest thing the country has to a coherent public transport system. They are mad looking yokes, the original ones are old us army jeeps abandoned after the second world war by the us adapted so they can hold about 20 people out the back. They look like something that the a-team would put together. On this particular morning we had to take 2 spins, the first was just a short hop up to Puerto Galera, the second was the whopper trip.

As we walked up to the jeepney terminus in PG we noticed that there was just one jeepney left going to calapan and that it was packed. We had to get to the atm, we were flat broke. The driver said, ye can ride on top if you want…. we didn’t need to be asked twice. Up we got and off we went, holding on for dear life. What a way to see the island, countless numbers of beautiful bays with golden sand and the bluest of blue waters surrounded by the thickest jungle you could imagine. The road quickly deteriorated and became little more than a dirt track which made life pretty hard on the posterior but was an assault on all other senses. You had to be careful to avoid stray branches, though looking at the tropical bays I got slapped more than once. Halfways to calapan we came across a waterfall. It had pools on two levels, it looked savage – the jeepney simply drove right down thru the middle of the two of them, no roads, just a flat bit enough to get the vehicle across. Class stuff. We arrived into calapan eventually, to took the guts of 3 hours but what a trip it was. Sensory overload, it felt as if I had just played a massive football match, the adrenaline was pumping, couldn’t stop giggling about how feckin cool that just was, Dangerous yes, probably but its a common way for people to travel here and you know when in rome etc etc.

On the trip back we rode inside, the light was fading and the mosquitos were out in force. Back at base camp we were able to pay for our accomodation, get some grub and book ourselves a snorkling trip for the next day. Alice arrived soon afterwards so there were 3 of us for the next week or so till she had to go and catch her flight back to Thailand. After some fierce bargaining we arranged a 3 hour snorkling trip for the next day from 2 to 5, leave us enough room for a bit of a sleep in – which as you should all know is never far from the top of my considerations.

I spent the rest of my morning sitting around the pool and diving off the ridiculous diving board into the ridiculously deep swimming pool, the owner of the resort came over to me and said that he was taking a few mates over to puerto galera on his speedboat for a game of poker and asked if we wanted to go with them and use his boat for our snorkling trip, it would mean leaving an hour earlier. I said, feck it shure never have been on a speed boat, twould be a pity to pass it up. I rounded up the troops and off we went. The sea was choppy enough so alot of our time in dropping the people off was spent trying to keep stuff dry rather than take in any scenery.

After we dropped them off it was just myself, alice, bobby and the driver – a young lad called carlos on the boat. As we gently headed off into the bay, I said to carlos, half joking ‘Can I have a go driving the boat?’, Haven’t driven a car in my life let alone a speedboat on the south china sea.’ Yes Sir, of course Sir’ and he showed me the way to the steering wheel and the trottle. Pedal to the metal, screw snorkling we have a speed boat!!!! Savage stuff, tearing around the bays, the same ones we saw the day before from the elevated confines of the jeepney roof. We took turns doing our best miami vice impressions, stopping occasionally to go for a quick snorkle (which in itself was beautiful, if anyone asks I have found nemo!!!).

We could’ve ridden that speedboat all day and into the night but the petrol ran out and we had to take it back into port, in the middle of the bay in puerto galera though are two rather unique bars. Floating bars, they are about 200 yards out in the bay and the only way to get to them is either swim out or just jump on the free ferry out. These bars had waterslides and diving platforms, we spent hours jumping or sliding off each of them. Typhoon season has kicked in a little earlier than expected, as we sat at the bar we saw a whirlwind form off the neighbouring island and move swiftly over to the next one. It was a scary sight, we sat there and ordered another beer thanking the heavens that it was the heavens way over there in a swirl and not the ones over our own heads. The sun went down and the bar closed. We took the party back to more solid grounds.

And that was pretty much sabang, we stayed another day were we ate loads and drank none, read an entire book and plotted an escape away from what is a perverts paradise. Our best times there as you have read were away from the main drag, we had to get away from it. On the other side of the peninsula lies the allegedly quieter white beach, figured it was the best place to pass my birthday….

Thanks for all the bday greetings by the way…

Ciao,

Phil

And so to Manila, the capital of the philippines. The flight over was horrible, it was delayed by 2 hours so didn’t leave till 3 in the morning. Sleeping on the jumbo was a non starter so myself and the bob stepped into the warm early morning sun of manila with the reddest of red eyes. Bobby just wanted the nearest bed, whether that was the Hilton or a rusty flea pit I managed to convince him to hold out until we got to friendlys guesthouse on adriatico street right in the middle of manila.

When we arrived at the hotel and after we were let in by the man on the door we found ourselves in a pretty nice backpackers joint. There was a kitchen to cook yer own food, big tv with lots of dvds and all the channels and a nice place outside to sit around and shoot the breeze with other residents while looking out over the manila skyline and harbour. The only trouble though was that all the beds were full and that they weren’t completely sure whether they would have place for us until 12 o’clock. It was 7. Too shattered to go anywhere else we hung around the common room  praying that someone would check out earlier than 12. Didn’t happen, for the first time in my life I slept sitting upright with my chin squashed firmly into my chest, I thought that only happened to babies on whos been framed.

We got sorted eventually and after some kip we took to the streets to explore. Manila is right on the water so there is a reasonably pleasant walk along the waterfront. The city certainly has its problems, some of them are very confronting. While the poverty certainly isn’t as bad as india, places such as calcutta make it pale, you still get accosted every now and again by a child or a desperate adult looking for some pesos. I even got asked for money by a pretty desperate american dude. In a weird kind of way I found this comforting as I have been missing india since I left there I figured that this place could fill the void so to speak. Thailand was a pretty easy place to get around and somehow lacked the edge of india. Edge is something that manila has in buckets.

After some dinner (the first meal I’ve prepared in 5 months(the food in the philippines is awful)), we took to the streets with some people from the hostel. We ended up sitting outside on the street, this is the way alot of local people socialise so when in rome, etc etc. There is a pretty cool bar called socialista around the corner from the hostel, we were to come to appreciate the normality of this place compared to the rest of the city pretty soon.

Leaving manila is a pain – we flew to this country with the intentions to make our stay as brief as possible. With a little more research we would’ve realised that most transport to palawan in the south leaves on thursday and friday and that the cheapest flights leave on a wednesday. That left us with 5 nights in manila – after the first couple of nights we had enough of the place to be honest. The place got flattened in the second world war so there is very little of interest to see in the city, the characters hanging around the street corners don’t exactly encourage leisurely walks around the block as a result we felt kinda trapped in or around adriatico street and the shopping centre thats at the end of the street.

The sex tourism industry is unbelievably rampant here, I’d guess the vast majority of tourists here are rich old fat men here for a couple of weeks. More than 9 out of every 10 places masquarading as a nightclub is in fact a brothel. One evening while out to buy some food to cook back in the hostel this guy asked us if we wanted ‘Nice Girl’, he then pointed down to a girl lying asleep on the pavement!! Shocking, it left me sick and wanting to get out of the city. The only other place I would recommend for people to go in manila is a bar we found called the hobbit bar where on top of having a round door all the floor staff are ‘little people’, it was very amusing.

Disaster struck early wednesday morning – our flight was due to leave at 7. In fact it probably did leave right on time, trouble was though that we weren’t on the bleeding thing. The booking didn’t go through at the last minute and we lost our seats. I was wrecked having stayed up to try and sort it out, but was determined to get out of manila, I got myself and bobby up and onto a bus heading south with the clear intention of getting to another island, somewhere with some peace and quiet. We met a girl from england called Alice in the hostel before we left who having been abandoned by her own mates agreed to meet us down on the island of Mindoro.

Thanks for all the bday greetings y’all. Had a blast 🙂
Will be in touch soon,
Phil

One morning in Chiang mai I woke up with the grandest of intentions and ambitions. I want to write a book about my trip around the world, or at least the first half of it. Travel books are a dime a dozen and for the most part they are (in my opinion) pretty poorly written – even the much lauded Bill Bryson bores me to tears. So, my twist? My way of making the book interesting or novel is this. I want to improve my irish, I want to write the book in such away that it teaches me how to write and speak in irish. The book would start off in english, I would write about the trip while slowly bringing in the irish to eventually finish the book in irish with the person reading it having no problems with the language by the end. Whether that seems to you a good idea or not doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is that this particular morning, over that particular bowl of rice soup, this idea blew my mind apart. It got me excited, I could really do this. I saw none of the obvious difficulties, I was invincible. When I arrived in chiang mai my first stop was a book shop where I saw the ‘Teach your self Gaelic’. My plan that morning was to track down that book and get cracking that afternoon on the first great english/irish travel novel.

Finding the book was a pain in the hole, there are a dozen second hand book shops in chiang mai which is great when you don’t know what you are looking for but when you do and its such a rare specimen as a book to teach you a language that in global terms, a handful of people can speak with any degree of confidence – its a bloody nightmare. Over and back across town, I got it eventually. I stopped just short of punching the air in delight, I rushed up to the counter and happily parted with the necessary amount mullah before scurrying off to take my first irish lesson in 10 years. Across the moate and back into old chiang mai I sat at my favourite caf, ordered some more soup and opened the book. Bloody scottish!!!

Firmly back in my non novelist box myself and bobby took to the skies away from thailand on our long winded way to Manila. 3 hours on the plane to KL went pretty quickly. We made our way into the hustle bustle of late afternoon KL chinatown. We made for the local youth hostel who were gladly able to put us up for the night, they even had a tv where I could watch the pools rather unfortunate demise from this years CL.

KL is one mightily impressive city, its the veritable concrete jungle. Planning permission gets denied on the account of buildings being too small or too conservative. Bigger, better, ridiculous than anything I have ever seen. We took a lift to the top of the Petronas towers which gave us a fantastic view of the city and coincided quite fortunately with an amazing sunset. The city even has its own twin towers, bigger than the ones that no longer exist manhatten side, standing underneath them gives you the impression that you have been dropped into the middle of a science fiction film.

Our second and final day in KL we regressed back to our pre-teen years. We went to an indoor theme park, my first ever rollercoaster (twice). Its good fun!!! Though bumping cars against 7 year old malaysian kids is better fun. Its a good and relatively economical way of passign a couple of hours – beats sitting in the pub thats for sure. KL is a cool city, but I don’t feel the need to dwell there that long on my return in a couple of weeks time. Its population is a strange mix of indian and chinese people, so at times it was like walking around india with the exception being that there were decent roads and actual pavements. The food in the capital was pretty poor but I am told it gets much better up around georgetown which will be my first port of call when I return….

Slan,

Phil

I am sat here with a cold bottle of san miguel beer in the heart of manila, the capital of the philippines. When I landed in chiang mai about 10 days ago I had neither thought nor intention of visiting the philippines on this trip, goes to show how things can change so quickly, this is how it happened…

Chiang Mai is the main city in the north of thailand. Its more elevated than the rest of the country so in theory it is alot cooler. Could have fooled me on that first evening, it was unbearably warm and sweaty. The air was really thick and it was pretty tough to breathe. Finding a place to stay was a breeze, the old town which is surrounded by an old defensive moate is awash with accomodation at good prices. For the first day or two I did little but read a book and guzzle a few beers.

On my third day in chiang mai I finally got off my rear end and signed myself up for that thai cooking course I have been threatening to do. The place where I did it was great, there were just two of us students and we had 2 teachers to keep tabs on us. So it was me, two jaw droppingly beautiful thai girls and rather cute japanese chef. Yes, a bloody chef. She had all the complicated, finger tip shaving knife artistry down to a tee. She left me for dead with almost every dish, but I was happy out. No pressure I was free to goof around and basically spent the rest of the day having a laugh with them. I’d highly recommend the course to anyone that visits chiang mai. Baan thai was the name of the company. To begin with they take you to the local market to buy all the stuff you are going to cook with, i love markets so I had a great time. Back to the gaff where we cooked up a storm, for 800 baht you get to eat about 7 meals in the one day. Phil = happy.

Despite the accomplishment of licking 7 plates clean I found myself feeling a little peckish come 7 o’clock at night so I made my way down to the main stretch where the streets are lined with guys throwing together sumptious healthy food that you would collapse over yourself to find if you heard it was available back somewhere in the streets of dublin. I was tucking into a thai green curry when a familiar face walked down the pavement in front of me. The unmistakeable Bobby Mcglynn who I met on the boat to Ko Phan Nang and shared a room with for my first week on the island. I let a roar and we were happily reaquainted. He was booked onto a trekking trip the following day and night so it was 2 days before we properly caught up with each other.

I arranged to meet him in the irish bar in chiang mai, to be honest its the most tenuously linked irish bar in history but it served the purpose nicely. I ordered a bloody awful pint of guinness to mark the occasion and we got chatting. I had been talking to another travel buddy earlier in the day on gmail he was on his way to the philippines having had enough of the circuit here in SEA, so I guess that had planted something in my head. In the course of conversation I suggested that we ditch the tried and trusted laos cambodia vietnam circuit for the meantime and just grab a flight to manilla and seek out hidden treasures around the island of palawan, jaques cousteaux’s favoutite dive spot I have been reliably informed. Within a couple of days we were booked and ready to go.

before we left though we had to give ourselves a proper thai send off. I stayed in my place for the duration while bobby was bobbing from one guest house to another mostly all in the vicinity of Julies guesthouse which is a really nice place to hang out. We really didn’t do a whole lot other than sit around all day, read book and tell stupid stories. Something which we are both adept at, and has won us many friends along the way. At night, oooh at night its a free for all. Initially I was a bit wary of including the next episode in the blogs. Its a little shocking to be honest, but I think that its an inherent part of travelling in this part of the world and that excluding it would only serve to cheapen this account of my travels. what am I talking about? Ladyboys, ladies and gentlemen. Boys who dress up like girls, who augment their bodies to make themselves look like girls yet retain crucial bits that make them boys. Lets cut to the chase, we found ourselves just off chiang mais most famous tourist site, the night market. We had just finished some food and we looking for something to wash it down with. We found ourselves in a big open air space surrounded by lots of bars. In the middle was a thai boxing ring so the attraction of watching some lads pummel the bejaysus out of each other was enough to get us sitting down. The bar we sat at was boring and in our eyeline with the ring we saw a troope of people getting on their feet and performing a laughable version of YMCA. There was no way we were not going to go for a closer look. Twasn’t long before we were getting the welcoming attention of the owner of the bar, Marina. I think she liked me at first but soon swapped her attentions to bobby. We had an absolutely brilliant night, they were hilarious. I know it sounds shocking and is shocking but the key is to not take it too seriously. These are people after all, talking to them you hear tragic stories of how they have augmented their bodies to make money to support their familes back in the remote border villages of north thailand. Some of them refugees from the oppressive sickening regime in neighbouring burma. It should also serve to banish the myth that they try to deceive you into thinking that they are genuine girls, certainly in the ones I have met they were pretty up front as to what they were and you cannot have anything but admiration for that. Before you start worrying we left the bar alone, though bobby is on a promise to marina to return. I think they would have beautiful babies.

That was the undoubted hilight of the week in a bloody brilliant week in chiang mai. We flew to Kualar Lumpur on wednesday where we toured the city with a girl that just fell out of vogue magazine, to say that this girl is beautiful is like saying michaelangelo was handy at painting. At first we thought that she had poor english, but then found out that she used to teach english to kids in thailand, twas just the sheer thickness and speed of our irish accents had the poor girl in a spin. I will return to kualar lumper again so I will talk more about our adventures around there in the next post.

All the best,
Phil

p.s. something tells me its gonna take me a while to live this post down, but people, just think do you want me to write blandly about places being paradise or nice and that everyone is lovely etc etc. I’m afraid the world I am currently having a goo at is just not like that and you know what? thank god for that, cause it makes it a whole lot more interesting….