Monday August 3: We're Here!!!

As mentioned at the tail end of the previous post, we didn't sleep all that well the night before thanks to the rooster who wouldn't shut the fuck up. Needless to say, we were happy to say goodbye to Maya and finally reach our desired destination. The only thing in our way was the bangka ride across to the island. Bangkas are the standard mode of water transportation and given the design, with its bamboo pole supports to keep the boat steady, they have been for the past 500 years or so with little change outside of a engine. Now, as you can see from the pics, these boats don't instill the greatest confidence in their sturdiness and seaworthiness, but its all they got, so I shut my mouth. After the disaster on the ferry to Jeju (where I lost 150% of my bodily fluids, my boxers and what was left of my dignity, granted it wasn't much), I was rightfully concerned about my sea legs. No problems though and 30 minutes later we were on land at Malapasca. Now this was my first real experience being in any of the big touristy areas of the Philippines (but I imagine its like any other place where the visitors have loads of cash and the locals have almost none), so I was unprepared for the bum rush of people that greeted us as we disembarked. "Do you need your bag carried?" "Where are you going, sir?" "Do you need a room?" "Do you already have a reservation?" "Would you like to rent a motorbike?" "Do you plan on snorkeling while you are here?" "I know a great dive shop I can take you to if you like." We were more than a little dazed and confused, but we eventually chose a guy to show us to some rooms. Once we were settled in our 10 dollar cabins (can't beat it), we decided to grab some grub, then headed off for some snorkeling.

As an aside, Malapasca Island itself was incredible. It's just a tiny little island off the north coast of Cebu that literally takes only 2-3 hours to walk all the way around. There are absolutely no cars, so everyone either walks, bikes, or uses dirt bikes if they really need to move. The various settlements are scattered along the coast at various parts of the island. The major village is situated on the south end where the traffic arrives from Maya. This area is the only part of the island with an actual paved road and also features a legitimate church with basketball court with frequent pick up games. This is the only section of the island that features homes built from stone or concrete as the rest of the island houses less sturdy, more traditional wooden huts. There is zero industry or cash flow, save that from tourists. Everyone works in one way or another with the tourists. Working the resorts, running the numerous restaurants for the tourists, dirt bike drivers, boat operators for snorkeling or diving, dive instructors and operators, small convenience stores owners who sell almost exclusively to the tourists (how much use are the locals gonna get out of the numerous hygienic products for sale when they appear to shower themselves at community wells?). As for the sights, wow. Just wow. The water: perfect. The beaches: perfect. The entire island: quiet, simple, secluded, isolated. My dreams of being a hermit/recluse have been realized. Ohhh, and they only have electricity from 6pm to 6am, as everything is run on a generator. And the generator was frequently broken. What more could I ask for?

For our snorkeling venture, we were randomly paired with...imagine that....a Korean in order to fill up our boat and he didn't have anyone to go with and didn't feel like paying for the boat all by himself. His English name was James and he is from the city of Wonju, which is about an hour east of my town by train. He was about my age, having already served his military service, and was working in the Philippines over the summer before going back to university in the fall. Cuz Jamie and I emit massive amounts of cool (mostly me though), James decided to hang out with us for the remainder of our time on the island and our 2 became a might triumvirate. Once on the boat we were able to get some good views of the island. Final verdict: still gorgeous. It was quite windy that day, so we had to move our boat around quite a bit to find a calm piece of water in which to clearly see the coral below us. In some spots the reef was only a few feet below us. Being the Philippines, they weren't too strict about protecting the reef, as our captain would just chuck the anchor at random into the reef and we could get as close to the coral as we wanted. Our of the crew was a rather unshapely (or if he had a shape I would describe it as "American from Wisconsin"....you know what I mean) man who insisted on wearing a tiny little Speedo. I spared you any pictures of that. You are most welcome. In the end I realized that snorkeling is not for me, as I cannot breathe with just my mouth. Obviously when snorkeling, you breathe through the tube thingy (the official technical term) while your nose is covered up in the face mask. So every time I would suck in air through the mouth, my enormous European honker of a nose would desperately try to draw in air, but there was no air to be found inside the face mask, and my body would then instinctively begin to freak out to try and get air. What a mess. I eventually gave up snorkeling and just began holding my breath while paddling around. Much freaking easier.

Once snorkeling was over, we wandered around the island for a while, taking plenty of pics and taking in the sights around us. Still pretty. Later on, after dinner, Jamie decided for lack of anything else to do, he would start drinking again. Can't really blame him, as once the sun goes down you can eat and drink. That's about it. Now remember that before the vacation, Jamie said he would only drink seriously for 3 days. Here we are on vacation day 3 and he's drinking heavily for the 2nd day (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the day in Manila). Tonight he tried something different, as Tanduay Rum (the local rum that everybody drinks) and Coke were plentiful. 1.50 and 2 dollars apiece, respectively. You heard right. A bottle of rum costs less than a liter of Coke. Enjoyment for hours. We three drank the night away (well, really the other two and I just watched them get progressively more drunk and Jamie begin to tell the same stories over and over and over), then crashed at the late hour (at least for our vacation) of 11pm. Hey, you'd be crashing too if you started drinking when it went dark at 5:30pm.

Pics: See Album 1, Pictures 15-60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Sq2-GWfp4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9c306FmqEg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnzf9JMC-Aw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB4f7VpKJK4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjho7eOGkeU