The true test of friendship is to travel a few days together in sunny, third world Philippines. If you and your friend are still alive by the end of the trip, then you have found a true friend in each other. Well either that or you have been channeling 50-cent the whole trip, donning a bullet proof vest!
When the southwestern monsoon blows, she blows with all her being bringing with her heavy, torrential rain. The island of Boracay transforms herself from the uber party girl to a wallflower, well almost. You still get the ubiquitous peddlers, ridiculously expensive restaurants, and the never-ending expanse of white sand. However, gone are the swarm of human beings looking for zipless fun, the blue tranquil water, and the dreaded muzak that seems to turn the place into one huge dance club!
Frodo hits the beach with last season's fashion trend, nautical stripes!
Joerg giving his best bad-ass pose. Next frame we him attempting to build a sandcastle while he contemplates on life's mysteries. Like a recent midboggling experience when a young pretty island girl offered to braid his hair for a dollar. I say this is no mystery at all, but rather a harsh reality, poverty makes people attempt the inconceivable!
A testament to his penchant for the romantic and his fear of malaria, Joerg chose this resort with the friendliest staff. We get to have adjoining balconies so I just have to scoot over to his side of the island for rhum and coke. We made new friends over Tanduay (internationally-acclaimed Filipino rhum that I never tried before) and a boring game of dominoes, where Joerg impressed with his mastery of elementary mathematics despite intoxication. We met Peter the American volunteer who upon a few days stay in the country, got a tattoo of the islands on his foot (Joerg thought it was silly; I thought it was cool). Devlin, the Canadian who doesn't know which is the good and the bad Korea. Of course, the hot Swiss guys with their brooding looks, tanned bodies and knowing smiles. Too bad I don't have pictures!
Jet ski, the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off(this is probably true for all water sports anyway). Like swakeboard, not a real water sports but a most fun water activity invented by my doped-up surfer friends after endless days of no surf. An eclectic mix of skimboarding, wakeboarding for the economically-challenged, and surfing. A surfer stands on his surfboard near the shore and hangs on to a rope. The rope is then pulled by three friends who ran like crazy on the beach to hopefully provide you the stoke! They alternate. Our jet ski experience was not nearly as exciting as that though. We just drove around in circles but I did enjoy our secret game of trying to bump off the other person from the ski. I swear my ass was hurting too much trying to stay glued to my seat so that when it's my turn to drive I try my damnest best to drop Joerg from the ski!
Next stop, Iloilo, where people are supposedly sweet. With my family as an obvious exception, we just love screaming at each other. They also loved Joerg so much they kept calling him "George" and did not put poison on his food. We went wallclimbing, a sports where my sister, skinny legs and all, just rocks! I used to think that wallclimbing like surfing is such a spiritual experience. Just you, the wall and your fear. You get to clear your thoughts on the climb up and contemplate about the magic of life. And you start to wonder, what if the harness fails? Have you really lived life with reckless abandon? Come to think of it, I also thought a root canal surgery to be a spiritual experience. Just you, the dentist and your fear. And this thought swirling in your head, "I don't want to die in a dentist's chair! I still want to live out my fantasy of having sex in a Red Hot Chilli Pepper Concert!". I'm digressing, what I really wanted to say is that this climb was not a spiritual experience at all. All I could think about on the climb up was how huge my ass would look like in the picture.
After a speech from my mother about the importance of chastity, two plane rides, two donuts, Joerg's hysterical attempt to speak Tagalog, incessant banterings, stares from ageing women who probably suspect that I'm an underaged sex worker and Joerg is a paedophile (because we admittedly do look the part, moi with my look of childlike innocence and Joerg with the word perv practically tattooed on his forehead), we finally made it to Palawan. Known as the last frontier, with its pristine beaches, rainforests, underground rivers, waterfalls and all the other great stuff written in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Unfortunately, we did not get to see the other lovely places in this lovely island because we only get to stay a few days.
In authentic Filipino travel style, we took the three-hour, bumpy, dusty yet surprisingly charming ride to Sabang. For lunch, we decided to rough it up a bit. Eating canned sausages and bread in a moving jeepney, with school kids riding on top, was amazingly fun! I especially loved putting my hand outside the jeepney and feeling the gust of wind. The houses were small and made of nipa. You can see poverty everywhere and yet the people looked happy. Evidence of few hundred years of colonization (which ironically bred the Filipino obsession for anything foreign) can be glimpsed everytime kids wave happily at Joerg.
The sand, the surf and fresh coconut juice every morning! What else can a girl ask for? Well, what about playing in the surf with Christian Bale? I loved the long walk to the resort, with these weird prints on the sand. My theory is that some aliens from planet Zorf decided that they needed a little sun.
From the land of the neutral, Joerg usually defies categorization. Is he hero or anti-hero, saint or sinner? I know of one category though that suits him best, the category for the inept when it comes to putting up a mosquito net. What would he have done without me, super Gracey, defender of the weak from the Filipino killer mosquitoes? In the last two frames, we see him acting all grateful. The moment I started regaling him with my other heroine exploits, he started logging Z's!
Me, my id and my super-ego! Never been comfortable with having my picture taken (I still harbor the belief that your soul gets trapped in the camera, nah! Just didn't like seeing ugly pictures of myself). However, this all changed with my first digital camera. Now that you can easily delete pictures where you look like a waddling duck, everything's A-ok. Obviously, this is not true as evidenced by this series of pictures. You cannot delete everything! I should start learning photoshop.
The longest underground river in the world, was a breeding ground for Christian Bale's nocturnal friends and home to numerous stalactite and stalagmite formations. Joerg was unceasingly pointing out how ridiculously religious the Filipinos are. The stickers that says God Bless in every tricyle and jeepney, how his Filipino friends would end their e-mails with "God Bless" (as usual I am the exception, I end my e-mails to him with "This e-mail will self-destruct in 5 seconds"), masses inside the malls, statue of the Virgin Mary on a rock in Boracay! Now why did I mention this? As expected there are religious rock formations inside the frigging cave!!! Talk about omnipresence. I got bored by the middle of the tour. It would have been more exciting if they turn it into an adventure trip, where you can paddle in a kayak, climb the rock formations, squeeze your way into a crack, and push your friend into the river with snakes.
Only in the Philippines! Whoever said that travel in the Philippines is inconvenient, have not travelled the country. Do you feel the call of nature while hiking to a waterfalls? Worry not, we provide with you this unequalled toilet, equipped with state-of-the-art flushing function. Tired after cavorting in our lovely falls? Worry not, we provide you with transportation that will take you back to feudal times. After all, we are a country that is more than the usual. More than your usual corruption, more than your usual political bickering, more than your usual pollution...
Palawan bids us farewell by commanding the winds, lonely planet guidebook, and the its electrical forces to bring us to: Banwa Pension Art House Cafe. Lovely place! We survived the blackout with a hostile and extremely competitive game of "sungka". I emerged victorious after laborious hours of scheming and applying economic analysis. This game is not for the mentally challenged.
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