The Wobble

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