Monday February 15, 2010

8:30 a.m.

I arranged to have breakfast at the canteen at 8:30. The woman has just run off to get fresh eggs and will come back to scramble them. Perhaps I can get a cup of coffee first.

I slept really well last night thanks to the fresh air and all the exercise. Otherwise my feet would have kept me awake. That anti-inflammatory cream did help with the itching, but not entirely. It feels like my feet are on fire. They burn as if they are both sitting inside campfires. It’s hard to believe that something as tiny as a sand flea can cause such a wide systemic reaction. It’s actually a good lesson in how chemicals can affect the body. Whatever the sand flea injected into me along with its bite must have been miniscule, if not microscopic, in size. Yet that tiny amount of material is affecting so much of my body. So any kind of chemical or medicine could potentially have the same effect. Makes me think we should be cautious when it comes to medicine.

I’m a little bit confused about the name of this town. All my maps have it listed as San Vicente. However, when people here refer to it they call it Poblacion. I think that Poblacion means something like town. And they say that Port Barton is part of San Vicente, which means that San Vicente would refer to the district and that this place is the center of that district – the Poblacion. Or perhaps Poblacion is just a name. I’ll probably never know.

Breakfast came and went. It didn’t go entirely according to plan, but it was no worse than a fish. The scrambled eggs I was promised were not scrambled so much as just cooked, but cooked incompletely so that there was a film of raw egg on top. And the vegetables and onions were flavored somehow – very oily and strong. I had trouble getting it down. We’d also talked about fried rice, but she served me plain rice. That’s fine, though. I like plain rice better.

I was only out on the street for a few seconds as I crossed from the hotel to the market. But in that time I noted that San Vicente didn’t look much different from Sunday – yesterday. The main street was almost entirely empty. The group of motorcycle drivers waved at me from up the street. People are hanging out everywhere I look. I try to imagine these people living my life in Taipei, and I don’t think they could survive. The rush hour commute to work alone would kill them. And then to work that hard for so long with little relaxation or fun. They couldn’t do it.

A clear clue to their nature is the way that they like to sing. I met up with the Filipino ex-pat community in Taipei one time, and they were crazy for singing – karaoke of course. And the sappier and more romantic the song, the better they like it. The guys who beat on my rim with sledgehammers did so while singing along to a love song on the radio. They sing all the time and everywhere they go. It makes me wonder about the foreign men who marry Filipinas. You see them everywhere. I wonder how comfortable they really feel with their adopted culture and the family of the woman they married. I can understand marrying the women. They’re quite sexy and they’re a lot of fun. They’re also very traditional.

It’s pretty hot here today. I haven’t done anything except sit here and eat breakfast, and I’m sweating like crazy. My t-shirst is practically drenched. I think part of my good mood yesterday came from the air-conditioning. My Canadian blood needs that cool air. Heat just does me in. It does me in in Taiwan, too. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live with this heat your entire life. It just never goes away. And that is true for so many countries in the world. I guess you adapt emotionally and physically.

3:00 p.m.

Well, I’m back in my air-conditioned room and drinking hot coffee. Paradise.

After breakfast this morning, I went for a walk around San Vicente. There wasn’t much to see, but it was interesting. I guess I’ve walked around enough of these third world type places that it begins to have the same pattern. There are always the quaint fishing boats, the cute children in torn clothing, the fish drying on bamboo platforms, the giant pig dozing under a coconut tree, the drunk men calling you over for some good-natured abuse, and the shacks and huts that the people call home.

I walked the whole length of San Vicente and then went out the other side. At the far end, I stopped to chat with an old man who was tending to some ducks. A path continued past his house and he told me that it went into some coconut tree fields and then along a mangrove swamp. I followed the path until it met up with a road that went up into the hills and back to San Vicente. By the time I got back, the sun had nearly done me in. My shorts and underwear and my T-shirt were all soaked with sweat.

The most interesting encounter of that trip was with an American man. I had walked out onto San Vicente’s single long pier and I was taking a picture of the town when a smiling man with a big head of curly blonde hair came out on his motorcycle. He had seen me out there and came out to introduce himself.

I’ve already forgotten his name and I didn’t get much of his story, but what little I got is interesting. He has been in San Vicente for two months. He has a 3-year-old boy. I’d actually seen a little blonde-haired kid running around the market, and I assumed that was the kid he was talking about. He said he also had a 20-year-old son, but I don’t know if that son is here or not. I also don’t know anything about a wife. He talked a lot about how great life in the Philippines was, particularly how safe it was, how friendly the people were, and how cheap things were. He had purchased a 60-foot boat and was having the whole thing rebuilt to his own specifications. I’m not sure what he plans to do with it. He also bought two motorcycles. He mentioned that he was in Nicaragua before this, but he got tired of the poverty and the lack of security there. He said he got tired of the iron bars on all his windows. He says it is much safer here. He said that he was sure that there was crime, but he has never encountered it. He keeps his money in a pouch that he hangs on a hook OUTSIDE his house. He told me that he had recently flown to Taiwan with the idea of doing some business. He said he was so shocked and horrified at the crazy pace of life there that he flew out the very next morning without doing anything.

I hope to learn a lot more about him. He invited me over to his place for supper tonight, and I’m looking forward to that. He said he would come to this hotel on his motorcycle around 5:30 and then I could follow him back to his place. I hope he shows up. I think he could use the company, and so could I.

I always find these drifting foreigners interesting. How did they get here? How do they survive once they’re here? A guy like him is particularly interesting because he is apparently doing it with children. He’s certainly not alone. A number of Americans settle down here – largely because life is easy and cheap.

He strikes me as someone who has the right temperament to really be happy in a place like this. He takes things day-to-day, I think. I told him that I’d been to Taytay on a previous trip to Palawan, and he wanted to know if I’d met the waitress named Mona Lisa. I said that I didn’t remember her. He replied that then I couldn’t have met her. If I had met Mona Lisa, I’d know! And he gave me a high-five. So I assume she was gorgeous and sexy.

After this walk around San Vicente, I came back to my room and took a shower and rested for half an hour or so. Then I pulled some things together for a trip to the beach and I got on my motorcycle to look for Long Beach. I had directions and I thought I knew where to go. I was pleasantly surprised though when my directions took me not to a 14-kilometer long empty beach but to a funky fishing village in the next bay over. It really took me by surprise. It was a great place. The main drag was just a dirt and stone path nicely shaded by tall trees. On both sides and stretching down to the beach were various huts and houses and shacks. I drove my motorcycle to the end of the village where the path turned to the right. I assumed I had to go that way to get to Long Beach. I followed it for quite a while thinking that I was leaving San Vicente far behind. Suddenly, I found myself right back in San Vicente, exactly where I’d left from. I had somehow come full circle. I still have no idea how that happened.

I turned around and went back to this fishing village because Long Beach had to be in that direction. However, when I asked people for directions, they all pointed in the opposite direction – to the south instead of the north. So I figured I had my directions all mixed up. It certainly wasn’t a total loss, though. The fishing village was likely more interesting than an empty beach would have been. I parked my motorcycle at the far end of the village and the made my way to the edge of the water. Then I walked along the beach for the full length of the village chatting with people and taking pictures.

It reminded me of a fishing village in Vietnam long ago. I remember walking along the beach in Vietnam and being amazed at what I saw. Everything was brand new to me and I took pictures of fish drying on bamboo racks and other things, and I thought I was having a real adventure. Now I kind of take it in stride. My first day in Puerto Princesa I was a bit unnerved when I found myself out in the middle of the real Philippines among poor people on the beach. It hasn’t taken me long to get over that, though. And today I felt perfectly at home. How could one not feel at home among these people? They are so simple and easygoing. Some of the men called out “one shot” as they asked me to take their picture. I did, and they just waved thank you and went away. They didn’t even want to see the picture on my camera’s screen. They just thought it was a compliment for me to take their picture. I wonder, though, how many visits by people like me before they become jaded and start demanding money when someone tries to take their picture?

The people were very welcoming. There is an island-wide campaign to draw tourists to Palawan. I think it has been going on for a couple of years, and the local people are aware of it. Many people asked me what I thought of Palawan, and they prompted me with slogans from the tourism campaign – “The last wild frontier.” They are billing Palawan as the last great untouched piece of paradise in the Philippines. I wonder if the people who live here are a bit bemused by that. I thought that beach with its hundred and fifty fishing boats and drying fish quite picturesque. But for them, it’s just where they live. It would be like tourists walking up and down Woodhaven and oohing and ahing at things and taking pictures. We’d think they were a little nuts.

On this beach, the most interesting encounter was with a fisherman who called me over to take his picture while he was stirring a pot of rice stew. He called me over with the usual phrase “one shot.” I assumed he would want to pose formally, but he made me wait until he posed with his spoon in his pot of fish stew. That struck me as unusual. The pot of stew was cooking over an open fire. To take the picture, I had to go right up beside the hut where he lived with his family. A bunch of young and teenage children were hanging out and he said that they were his children. He said that the hut was his house. It was where he lived. I wanted to see the inside, but to be honest, there wasn’t much point. I could see inside and it looked pretty much like you’d expect a hut to look like. To think that he and his whole family live inside that little ramshackle place permanently is a strange thought. I fall apart if I don’t get my regular cold shower every four hours like clockwork. I can go out exploring that beach in the hot sun because I know that I will eventually be retreating to the comfort of this room. He has nowhere to retreat to. Perhaps other people are tougher than I am. I think that’s true in general. Most people are tougher than I am. Still, living like that has to be tough for anyone. I’m sure there are some nice things – things connected with community and family.

I was really curious about his financial situation. The American told me that the standard daily wage for a worker here is 150 pesos a day. If they are very skilled, like a good carpenter or welder, they can get 300 pesos a day. Of course that doesn’t mean they get that all the time. They only get that when they have work to do, which isn’t very often. This man was a fisherman only. He pointed out his pumpboat. I asked him if he went fishing every day, and he said that he didn’t. He went fishing only when he had money for gas for the engine. I asked him if the fishing was good, and he said that sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t. Then I asked him if he just ate the fish or sold it, too. He said that he did both. He and his family lived on the fish that he caught plus rice that he bought with money he earned from selling extra fish. A precarious existence, I thought – very similar to that of the farmers in Ethiopia. I wonder how much actual money passes through his hands in a year. I assume it isn’t very much. And then how does he have the courage to get married and raise a family? How does he have the courage to think about the future? Some things certainly go by the wayside. His teeth, for example, were a complete horror. They were giant yellowing fangs that stuck out of his mouth in all kinds of strange directions. I saw a number of men with teeth like that, so perhaps it is a local thing. But he has certainly not had the money to go to a dentist. What would he think of my lifestyle and my 800-peso a night room? That’s one of the odd things and interesting things about travel. In Taiwan, I was thinking of myself as one of the very poor with a precarious future – no real safety net for the future. For us in Canada and the United States, the thought of falling ill is really frightening because that illness could wipe out your savings in a short time and leave you with nothing. The difference perhaps is that we assume that we will fight the illness with treatment. I don’t know if the people here think about these things consciously, but I’m sure that if that man developed pancreatic cancer, he wouldn’t even know what he had. He wouldn’t be able to be diagnosed. He would just get sick and die in a very short time.

From a travel point of view, the Philippines is an interesting place. I’ve seen lots of these poor fishing villages in my time, but usually I can’t talk to anyone. Here I can actually speak to them in English. That’s quite unique.

Well, this trip has certainly drifted far off course from what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a total pleasure trip. I guess that is actually the point. It still is a pleasure trip. It’s just my type of pleasure trip. I get more pleasure out of a little exploration like that than I would get out of a day at Coco-Loco Island Resort. I remember my trip out to Coco-Loco. The helpers carry your luggage onto the boat. And when you get to the dock at the island, there are girls there waiting to greet you. They didn’t go so far as to put a garland of flowers around my neck, but it was a near thing. Then you are led inside the restaurant area where they sit you down and serve you a cold drink in a hollowed out coconut – with a little umbrella. You get fresh fruit and other snacks. People go to Coco-Loco for this kind of pampering, and I guess for most people that is pleasure. Don’t get me wrong. It is for me, too. But doing nothing but that wouldn’t be that great for me. I had planned on just going to Sabang and mixing with the backpackers and then hopping a boat and going up to El Nido to do all the cruises and meet lots more people. A few people from LiveABC planned on going to El Nido and I imagined meeting up with them and going out for drinks and meals. Instead, I’m in this end-of-the-road typical town by myself and chatting with fishermen. It’s all right, though. And I guess I owe this experience to the motorcycle – to having my own transportation. Otherwise, I’d never have ended up here. That transportation thing – whether it’s a bicycle or a motorcycle – is the key.

9:12 p.m.

Well, THAT was an experience. This American, Jason, that I met, came to get me for dinner, and I ended up having the most extraordinary evening. Meeting him was a stroke of luck. I don’t know much about him, of course. I just met him. However, what I have managed to glean makes him very much larger than life. He’s 50 years old, but does not look or act it in any way. He’s still slim and in good shape. He has six kids, but he hasn’t mentioned a wife at all except for a reference to wanting a woman whose heart is true.

Anyway, I hardly know where to begin in describing him. He spent 7 months in Nicaragua, but he got bored there, which is why he left. While he was there he had a 22-year-old girlfriend. He told her that he was leaving, but if she wanted, he would take her with him to America – not as a wife. He would just take her there. In the end, they couldn’t get papers for her, so he smuggled her in. She even had to swim across rivers and he picked her up on the other side. And she ended up working as a maid for his parents in New Mexico. As he put it, she went from living in a shack with dirt floors to a 5 million dollar mansion. So I guess his family has money. He has money as well, as far as I can make out. He went to Nicaragua with a pick-up truck with a dune buggy in the back, for example. And he has businesses in the U.S. that fund his life. He has money tied up in land deals and things like that.

He came to the hotel on his motorcycle, and I followed him out to where he lived. He is renting a set of small bungalow type houses just a few hundred yards from Long Beach. Before we went to his house, we drove to Long Beach, and I had one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was AWESOME. The sand on Long Beach is hard enough near the water that you can drive your motorcycle down it. And so we drove down the beach. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Nothing like it. The beach itself was fantastically beautiful. Wide and pristine. The sun was setting. And I drove the motorcycle down the sand. It was spectacular. I had to record the moment for posterity and I got out my digital camera and shot some video The end of the video is priceless. I caught up with Jason. He had stopped to look at this huge pig that was eating jellyfish on the beach. It was priceless.

After this amazing ride down the beach, we drove to his house near the beach. It is almost impossible to describe what these houses are like. He really does live in these places. He isn’t just a vagabond like me. He shops and cooks and has become a part of the community. I met his 20-year-old son, Craig and his 3-year-old son named Eldin. Eldin is the darling of the whole of Palawan by this point. Craig is a great guy – gentle and good-looking. A real heartbreaker I would think. He doesn’t live with his dad all the time. He lives in Texas, but he catches up with him from time to time.

Jason and Craig made chili on this outdoor stove. It was delicious, and we ate it with crackers. Meanwhile, Jason introduced me to his landlady, a woman named Beck Beck. Beck Beck is his window onto the community, and through her Jason has become very popular. He bought and rebuilt a huge boat for $1,300 US. He was introduced to this 18-year-old girl named Rose. Jason joked that he would call his boat Rose after her. But they took him seriously and the next thing you know, they had christened his boat Rose and painted that name on the side. That has caused lots of laughter and joking in the area. A local beauty name Sharita is apparently very jealous. I met her tonight, and she is a girl that could break your heart. I mean, seriously. It made my heart lurch just to look at her.

Beck Beck, among many other things, runs a bakery in the fishing village that I visited today. Tomorrow is delivery day and I was invited to go on the boat as they make their deliveries to all the nearby islands, villages and towns – even to famous Port Barton. I have to be down at the beach at 7:30 in the morning. Then I get to ride in the boat all day and visit all these amazing places making deliveries. We’ll get back around 5 o’clock, just in time for the christening of Jason’s new boat. A whole bunch of men will pick up the boat and carry it into the water. Then they’ll have a party with Jason buying the liquor. I can’t believe my luck in meeting Jason and then going on this bread delivery.

We went down to the beach in the dark to look at his boat. The thing is huge! It’s a massive boat. I have no idea what he is going to do with it. While we were there we also went to the bakery and had a piece of cake fresh out of the oven. Then we drank beer out on the street and met the heart-stopping beauty Sharita. If this keeps up, I might never return to Taipei. I enjoy meeting people like Jason.

 

 

 

Tags: Long Beach, Nicaragua, Palawan Motorbike Trip, San Vicente