Saturday April 2, 2011 8;40 a.m.

Jasmin by the Sea

Camiguin, Philippines

The rain came to an end at some point yesterday and today the sun is out. Luckily, the skies still have some wispy clouds scattered about to keep the full force of the sun at bay. There is a fair bit of wind and the sea is a little rough, so I don’t think I’ll be heading out to any of the offshore islands today. I think I’ll be staying on Camiguin and doing some more exploring. I’ll be going to the north this time and seeing what there is up there. Perhaps it is a good day to rent a motorcycle.

Some bits and pieces of my technology didn’t work out this morning. Despite all of my care in packing – and I took a lot of care – I somehow forgot to bring the extra battery and the charger for my Nikon camera. Considering that taking pictures is such a big part of my wandering about, it’s surprising that I could forget that. But it’s also not surprising. Everything has changed lately when it comes to that sort of thing. I have so much new technology that it gets confusing and I lose track of things. I’m also not that familiar with it all. My head is still in the old days when chargers and such large batteries weren’t necessary for my camera. The odd thing is that I made such a big point of charging both batteries. I wanted them fully charged before my trip. And then I didn’t bring the extra one. Worse, I didn’t bring the charger. Perhaps I’ll come across someone with a charger, but I doubt it. To my surprise, I haven’t seen cameras around. In Taiwan, my baby Nikon is practically a joke. It’s an old and very plain model. Here, it stands out as the pinnacle of technical achievement. I haven’t seen any true backpackers yet. The only other foreigners I’ve seen have been older Europeans, many of whom live on this island for long periods at a time. None of them have produced any kind of camera that I’ve seen. On my walk yesterday, now that I think of it, I did see two young foreigners. They came out of nowhere and suddenly appeared on the road walking behind me. The woman noticed me taking pictures with abandon, and I think that encouraged her to take pictures. I mentioned yesterday how people tend to keep their cameras in their knapsacks. They feel self-conscious about taking them out. I think this woman had done that, but seeing me taking pictures of random street scenes and such gave her the impulse to take out her camera. I stopped in a store to see if they had long pants, and when I came out, the two people were gone. I never did see what kind of camera she had. It feels weird to be away from cameras. I’m not exaggerating about cameras in Taiwan. Next to cycling, photography has emerged as the next big thing in Taiwan. Everyone has purchased very expensive cameras and you see people everywhere taking artsy photos on the street. You can’t turn a corner without seeing someone that looks like an arts major framing up a shot of a flower against the sky.

Anyway, I doubt I’ll find anyone with a Nikon charger. Even if I did find someone with a Nikon, it would likely be a more modern model and they use a different battery with a different charger. It’s not great, but it’s not a disaster. These batteries are surprisingly robust. With normal use, one battery charge can last for about 600 pictures. I think if I turn off the review screen and I don’t look at my own pictures at night, I can stretch the battery out for a long time. And I also have with me a small digital point-and-shoot camera, so I can use that when the battery runs out. It takes quite decent pictures. It just bugs me that I could be so dumb.

Actually, my dumbness goes far beyond that. I just can’t seem to get my head around packing anymore. I used to have systems for all this stuff, but all my systems seem to be based around cycling. So I don’t know what to do with my passport or my money. I just realized sitting here over coffee that I forgot my money belt and passport neck pouch in my room. It’s just lying on my bed waiting for someone to waltz in and take it. It’s not like I’m not aware of their value. I go so far as to sleep with them at night. I was recently reading a bunch of cycling journals online, and in two of them a cyclist lost his computer or his money and passport when someone snuck into their room at night. And this is while they were sleeping in the room!

This one guy had put his money belt on the bedside table. He woke up to find a shadow standing over his bed. He shouted or whatever, but it was too late. The guy grabbed his wallet and leaped out the window. This was in Senegal, I believe. This poor fellow was also robbed on the street by three men with machetes. He was attacked in broad daylight. He resisted at first, and one of the men slashed through his wrist and ankle with his machete. This fellow, Peter Gostelow, ended up in the hospital as they re-attached tendons and did other things. He’s still in Africa, by the way. He has a blog called “The Big Africa Cycle.”

When I read Peter’s story, I reflected that he should have kept his passport and money inside his pillow case. That’s what I did all through Ethiopia and Guinea. I take all my valuables and wrap them up and put them inside the pillow case and sleep right on top of it. I did that last night as well. I pulled them out this morning and left them on my bed intending to put them inside my knapsack. But I got distracted by my lack of a camera battery and charger. To be honest, my systems are slipping considerably. Normally, I’d have taken my money belt into the shower with me. I guess I’m so used to living in Taipei that I’ve forgotten about the dangers. Thieves are no dummies. They know exactly when to strike, and a perfect time is when a person traveling alone goes into the shower. They can waltz into the room, take whatever they want and you can’t hear or see them because you’re too busy showering. Well, I will take one more chance and leave it for now. I’ll get it when I go back to my room. The best thing to do might be to somehow leave it with the management of the hotel, but I’ve never been comfortable with that.

My other big distracting problem this morning concerns that heating pot that I bought in the supermarket. It’s an interesting story because it illustrates a couple of things about this part of the world. This thing is like a small kettle, I suppose. You fill it with water and plug it in and boil some water. I figured I could make my own instant coffee in my room and sit on my balcony as I type. I tested it last night, and it seemed to work. I didn’t expect much out of this thing since it cost a grand total of 135 pesos – about $3. It was clearly cheaply made and wouldn’t last long, but I only wanted to get a few days out of it. I boiled some water last night and it worked. I left the water standing in the pot. This morning, I noticed a big pool of yellow goo on the floor near the bedside table. What had happened? The water in this pot had simply leaked out the bottom during the night. It ran down the table leg and the varnish on the table leg had dissolved into the water. It all ran to the floor and lay there and became horrible yellow goo.

I didn’t expect this pot to be of much use, but I certainly didn’t expect it to simply leak like that. I have no idea how it could have leaked. It is a solid aluminum or stainless steel bowl. I don’t see any cracks or obvious holes. Yet it all leaked out. I didn’t even get one cup of coffee out of it. I could still use it to boil water, I guess, but I don’t trust it now. All that water had to leak through the main electrical area, so it is all damp inside now and just waiting to short circuit and burst into flames if I plug it in.

This event illustrates two points that I’ve thought about a lot in the past. One is my tendency to buy high quality items. It’s a pattern for these trips, and for everyone who goes on these trips. We buy things in the west and then take them with us to this part of the world. You’d think you wouldn’t have to – that you can buy things here, too. However, you simply can’t. All the bits and bobs that we need in our modern technology-driven lives are simply unavailable over here. We are all on the same planet, but a trip like this is similar to a trip to the moon. If you don’t bring it with you, you will probably have to do without. You’re not going to be able to find that special battery charger you need on the moon. And you’re not going to find it on Camiguin either.

There are some things available here. A good example is this little water boiler I bought. I’ve often thought I should buy one of these things and carry it around with me. There are even those ones that consist of nothing more than a heating element. You hook the thing over the edge of your cup or bowl and immerse it in the water. Then you plug it in and it heats the water. I actually went looking for one in Taiwan, and I rejected them all because they were all pretty cheap. Well, you can buy such things here. I bought this one in the market and it didn’t last for one day. The point is that for the people that live here, this is all they have access to. They live entire lives with nothing but the cheapest and the worst quality junk that can be made in the worst sweat shops in Mexico and China and shipped here.

In the past, I’ve often felt bad and self-conscious about the price tag attached to the things in my backpack. For local people, the prices are astounding. I have a mosquito net, for example, that is made by one of the bigger travel products manufacturers in the United States. It’s quite expensive. But at least it will do two things. It will work and it will last. I can probably buy a mosquito net here in the Philippines, but it will likely tear into pieces very soon. And it probably won’t even work. It will be difficult to set up and it won’t fit the bed size and on and on. The one I have is very high quality. And it does things that a locally purchased net could never do. For example, it is made in such a way that it is almost invisible. When you are inside the net and looking out, you can see the entire room around you almost as clearly as when you don’t have the net. I don’t know how they do it, but there is something about the black material and the weave that makes it almost invisible. A locally made net would be pretty much like looking at a wall. My net with its special design also lets air through easily. I had my fan going last night and the cooling air blows right through the weave. A locally made net would not do that. You’d sit inside the thing and sweat to death.

The overall point to this rambling? Well, I guess it’s that I feel sorry for people in this part of the world who have to spend their entire lives putting up with junk. Things fall apart all the time here, and part of the reason is that it is all of such low quality. Even the varnish on my bedside table is a case in point. Perhaps it was applied poorly (it probably was), but it couldn’t even stand up to cold water dripping down the leg. A varnish that simply comes off when water touches it isn’t much of a varnish.

Some last thoughts:

Hammocks make great photo-ops. However, they really aren’t that comfortable. I tried to relax in one by the ocean last night, and I simply couldn’t do it. Lying in them bends your knees in the wrong direction. There’s a reason Brazilian jujitsu fighters win fights by bending your legs that way – it hurts like crazy. Your joints go in the other direction. I’ve heard of people sleeping in hammocks, but I can’t imagine how they do it.

When I came back last night, my new friend Allen waved down transportation for me. I’ve since learned that that particular vehicle was called a multi-cab. I thought everyone was saying moto-cab, but it is multi-cab. They don’t get any points for comfort. The roof is very low, and I have to hunch over. You sit on two benches that face each other, and there is not enough room for my legs and knees and the legs and knees of the person opposite. There is no room period in the middle, so if a person in the middle or the end wants to get out, a lot of chaos ensues. I’m still not clear on prices. However, the upper limit for a trip seems to be about 15 pesos, which is 33 cents Canadian. Allen seemed to be talking to one of the men that was hanging off the back, so when we arrived at Jasmin by the Sea, I tried to pay him. This caused a lot of laughter. I was supposed to walk around and pay the driver. This wasn’t easy to do, however. I may have mentioned how crazy the traffic is. Well, walking to the driver means walking out into the middle of the street in the dark. It’s very dangerous. Anyway, I gave him my 15 pesos and I was home.

People were very friendly on my walk, but I can see how some people might come away with some negative feelings. For example, there was a LOT of laughter. And it is difficult at times not to believe that that laughter is at your expense. My presence caused the laughter, of course. However, it wasn’t aimed at me. Often, one person would say hello and I would say hello back. And as I pass by, all of this person’s friends would burst into laughter and I’d hear all kinds of comments leading to more laughter. The point is that they are likely teasing their friend about his being courageous enough to speak English to the foreigner. They aren’t making fun of me. Yet, it is easy to feel that they are laughing at me. I have to remind myself of what is going on. There are a thousand ways to misunderstand a situation here and you have to be super patient with everything. It’s like the ticket-taker on the bus who seemed to be ripping me off by keeping the change. You have to wait and let the situation play out. And you have to always assume the best. Most of the time, the best is what is true.

11:00 a.m.

Not much time has passed since I had my breakfast and packed up for a stroll down the beach. However, I popped in to check out a diving resort called Camiguin Action Geckos. Not sure how that name came about, but there it is. Once you move into a bungalow on a place like Camiguin, you automatically start wondering if you made the right choice. Is there another bungalow out there that is better? If Camiguin Action Geckos is anything to go by, I am doing quite well at Jasmin by the Sea. This place is obviously nicer, but nicer doesn’t always translate into better. Jasmin doesn’t really have a beach per se. The ocean comes right up to a stone wall where the waves crack and crash over onto the lawn. It’s very nice actually, since I’ve never been one to just lie on a beach. I’m bored within two seconds and roasting hot in four seconds. I want to do something, if only read a book, and you can’t read a book while lying in the hot sun on hot sand. I felt that, since I was wandering around and checking out the place, the least I could do was order something, so I got an espresso and I’m sitting here enjoying a cool breeze in their outdoor restaurant. This place seems to be run and owned by foreigners. They look to be a young European couple. As such, it is pretty well-organized. It feels much more like a resort than Jasmin. You’ve got the foreign owners with their sense of order and discipline, and then you’ve got all their Filipino employees. They have things like a sign-up sheet for various day trips. You write your name down and when there are enough people for any particular trip or activity, you go. They also have a price list for their bungalows out in the open, and their bungalows are three times as expensive as the ones at Jasmin.

It’s funny that as a westerner I might yearn for more organization. Yet, when you find a place that is organized, it is both less interesting and lots more expensive. I do admire the people that set up and run these places. I can’t imagine the amount of work and know-how it involves. It’s all too real-world for me. I couldn’t imagine hiring local people at local wages and making them work the hours they have to work. I would end up doing all the work myself because I would feel too guilty. I’d also be a soft touch for every con artist out there. I don’t think I would last a week or a month. I think I would enjoy setting a place like this up, but then I would want to move on. The day-to-day work wouldn’t appeal to me – unless of course it brought in a lot of money and allowed me to do a lot of traveling.

The walk down the beach was very interesting in that there was no real beach. There are rocks and gullies and trees and other things that have to be navigated. The sun is very hot today. I stopped twice already to apply more sun screen. It probably won’t matter. I’ll probably burn no matter what. I’m just hoping to take it slow and expose myself to the sun bit by bit.

5:00 p.m.

The bulk of the day has come to a close, and though not a great deal has happened, it has been a good day and I thought I’d make a note or two about it. When I left from my bungalow this morning, I turned left at the water and started to walk. I was going to call it a beach, but it isn’t a beach. It is a shore, and, to be honest, I prefer a shore to a beach. Beaches can be quite boring. Shorelines never are.

It wasn’t easy making my way along the shore. The water often came right up to the land and I had to wade through the water or make my way inland to find a way. I stopped at various resorts to check them out. Most of them were nicer in some ways than Jasmin by the Sea, but none pleased me as much. I even found one place that had a much nicer bungalow for the same amount of money. This bungalow was much bigger and newer. It had very nice appointments and furniture. It even had an outdoor shower – a garden shower with a rock wall and plants all around and the blue sky up above. Yet, it felt like an isolated and lonely place. Jasmin has a very friendly atmosphere. The owner, Melinda, is a joyous woman with a wonderful smile and an even better laugh. She brings sunlight with her wherever she goes. The restaurant here appears to be known around the whole island, and lots of people come here to eat or have drinks. The atmosphere is nothing special, but the food is very good. So the people come. The women who work in the restaurant and the bar are very nice. I mentioned Janet, the married woman with the “If you’re rich, I’m single” T-shirt. The other is a stunning young woman named Mimi. She’s very beautiful and very friendly. The owner, Melinda, has her two daughters and her auntie and other relatives here. It all has a family feeling. It is also part of a local neighborhood and not that far away from Mambajao. I like it here, and I can see not leaving my entire time. Why leave when you’ve found something that feels like home? I even spent two hours in one of the hammocks today. I managed to find a way to get comfortable and I relaxed there with my Kindle. The wind had died down considerably, but the waves were still crashing against the shore. How can a life get any better than that? Reading a book, swinging in a hammock next to a crashing ocean?

The sun was quite hot as I made my way down the shore, and I reapplied sun screen a couple of times just to be safe. I do not want to burn if possible. Many times on my walk, I had to go inland on some small path through local houses, skirting past water buffalo and territorial roosters. Then I’d find another path to bring me back to the water. People everywhere called out hello to me and came up with almost anything as a pretext for a conversation. The interesting thing was that once they had me, they didn’t know what to do with me. Conversation isn’t easy with such a large cultural gap, not to mention the geographic and economic one. One older woman called me over to the fence around her house. She was cutting up some firewood and doing some gardening. A younger man was working on the hull of a boat. She pointed at my camera and said in very clear English, “What is the purpose of this camera and taking pictures?”

Almost everyone who spoke to me wanted to know where I was from. And I don’t know if it is national pride (I like to think I am beyond something like that), but I do feel happy that I can reply, “Canada.” To be from Canada here feels somewhat special. Most visitors by far are European. And it is probably my prejudice regarding European tourists that is behind it, but I’m glad to be able to provide them with something different from the norm. They usually hear Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland when they ask this question. And maybe they don’t even get to ask this question often. I walked for hours and hours today and I didn’t see a single other foreigner walking around. I saw them in their resorts, but I didn’t see any of them on the streets or anywhere else. I see Europeans as being too self-confident and too self-contained to be out and about and trying to please anyone. I think of that as a Canadian thing – a big dumb white guy from Canada wandering around and bending over backwards to be polite and nice.

Tags: Camiguin Trip, Canada, Nikon, Taiwan