Wednesday September 10, 2014
6:10 a.m. San Juan, Siquijor
Room 2 at the Casa Miranda

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good if tiring day. The weather stayed nice. It was overcast a lot and a bit windy, but that works in my favor. The sun when it comes out is pretty brutal, so an overcast sky is actually more pleasant. And there was no rain at all that I can remember.

I strolled around the outside of the Casa Miranda when I first got up yesterday. I was astonished – as usual – to see just how far the tide had come in. When I arrived the day before, the water was a hundred meters away from shore. But in the morning, it was right up against the shore and waves were beating against the stone breakers and the piles of sandbags. I had seen the piles of sandbags earlier and had wondered what they were for. They were pretty ugly. But then I saw that they were there to protect the shore from erosion. I had parked my bicycle inside a little shack with a roof and felt it was quite safe there. Unfortunately, the waves were so strong that seawater splashed right up inside the shack and was drenching my bicycle. I keep underestimating the tides. I can imagine people sleeping on the beach and setting up tents and then waking up in the middle of the night to find themselves floating away. You really can’t take the ocean lightly.

After coffee and some buns, I loaded up my pannier bag with the necessary items for the day and then set off down the road for a town called Lazi. There was nothing in particular in Lazi that I wanted to see, but it was the next town up the road (about twenty-two kilometers away) and I wanted to see a bit of this area. It would serve as a destination.

Beyond San Juan (the village right beside Casa Miranda), I passed a number of beach resorts. Most seemed mid-level and therefore out of my price range. However, I did see one that advertised itself as a budget option. It was called Tori’s Backpacker Paradise or something like that. I pulled into the steep driveway and soon found myself chatting with the thirty-something Czech owner of the place. He had purchased it (I assume with his Filipina wife) just eight months ago and was in the middle of fixing it up. Everything falls apart quickly in this climate, and he had a lot more repairs to do than he anticipated. He also had to juggle his repairs with guests. If guests were occupying the rooms, he obviously couldn’t be around them banging and sawing and renovating. I found it interested he had that point of view. It is such a Western one – and the correct one, of course. Asians would not be so concerned and would go ahead with the banging and crashing (and in Taiwan, jackhammering) no matter how much it bothered other people.

I’ve noticed that a lot of these beachside properties are long and narrow, with one side of the narrow portion being the ocean and the other side the main road. Then resort owners have to make a choice about where to put the resort’s rooms and the resort bar or restaurant. Only one of them can be against the water. It’s a touch choice to make. Whoever had built this place had chosen to put the guest rooms nearer the water and the bar that this man (I think he said his name was Thomas) was repairing was right beside the road. I saw another place later in the day that had made the reverse decision, and there were advantages to it, too, as guests could congregate at the bar and have a drink while enjoying the sunset views.

Thomas’s place had four rooms, I believe, and they were all in the same building. He showed me one of the rooms and it was quite pleasant. It had extremely high ceilings (perhaps twenty feet or more) and a lot of floor space. It was simply but pleasantly furnished. It didn’t have its own bathroom. That was shared between the rooms and was located down the veranda at the far end. (I’m not sure if any of the rooms had a private bathroom.) I don’t know if it was a low season price (it is low season now), but Thomas said the rooms were 400 pesos per night. I asked him about the possibility of camping there. Had he come back with a figure like 100 pesos, I would have considered it, but he said he would charge me 200 pesos a night to camp. I’m paying 300 here at Casa Miranda for a room with a full bathroom and a door I can lock etc. so to save 100 pesos a night to be in my tent didn’t seem worth it.

I enjoyed chatting with Thomas quite a bit. I could have stayed much longer to hear the whole story about how he came to purchase the resort. That would have been fascinating. However, he had work to do and I had places to go. Thomas had told me a bit about some of the places to check out around Siquijor, and I was inspired to get back on the bicycle. In particular, he pointed out a secondary road that went right along the coast for much of the distance to Lazi. The main road itself stayed inland. I decided to try to take that coastal road on the way back. I knew from previous experience with such roads that it might not be easy. Thomas didn’t say anything about that, but I guessed that the road could be quite rough and confusing.

The main road, like all main roads, was called the National Road and it was smoothly paved and almost entirely free of traffic. It was a joy to ride along it and there was a lot of interesting scenery to check out along the way. I still wasn’t blown away by the scenery. Siquijor was a nice island, but it didn’t have the whole “thin road hugging a craggy shoreline” vibe going on. The island of Camiguin, for example, was much more scenic from that point of view. The mountains were also quite remote. The main mountains of Camiguin were right there beside the coast and were visible from everywhere. I can’t remember how small Camiguin was, but I imagine that Siquijor is much larger in area. In any event, if there are mountains on Siquijor, they aren’t visible from the coast.

That isn’t to say that the island is flat. In fact, there was quite a long and steep climb between San Juan and Lazi, and I had to bend over the handlebars and really get to it to make my way to the top. Near the very top of the climb, I found myself at the advertised tourist attraction “The Century Old Balette Tree.” It doesn’t appear to be an accurate name because the information sign at the tree itself said it was about 400 years old – four centuries, not just one. Perhaps the more grammatically correct “The Centuries Old Balette Tree” was too confusing. The tree was an imposing old thing with masses of thick roots and offshoots dug into the ground in all directions. More interesting, however, was the fish pond sitting right in front of it – a fish pond fed by a natural spring and filled with those tiny fish that nibble on your feet. The place was advertised as a foot sauna and you could sit on the edge and dangle your feet in the water to have them cleaned up by the fish. I have seen this a hundred times on TV, but I’ve never had the chance to do it myself. I wasn’t convinced that anything would happen, but I took off my sandals and sat down and lowered my feet in the water. To my surprise and delight, hundreds of the little fish came zooming over to have a nibble. My feet were soon almost lost to view there were so many fish on them getting in for a snack. Apparently, my feet were a delight. Their teeth were much sharper than I expected and their nibbling was also much more energetic than I expected. They would clamp on with their teeth and then give a brisk shake with their entire body to tear away some dead skin or perhaps living flesh. The effect was much like a shark attack though on a minuscule scale – clamp on and shake your whole body to tear some flesh free. I happened to have a recent scrape on my left foot, and the fish were particularly eager to get at it and tear off the newly formed scab. The scab was soon removed and then they started working on the exposed flesh. It got to be quite painful and I had little choice but to pull that foot from the water. Blood streamed down the side of my foot when I raised it from the water. The little critters had gotten right down into the flesh and had opened the wound right up and made it bleed again. I wondered if you left your feet in the water for an excessive period of time whether these fish would strip it to the bone – like a school of mini-piranha. It would take them some time, but I imagine they would do it. It’s not like their goal is to strip away dead skin and clean the foot. They are just after a meal, and the dead skin comes away first. After that, I’m sure they would be happy to consume live skin and then flesh if they could manage to tear it loose. But that was certainly not a concern for the fifteen or twenty minutes I kept my feet in the water. The fish only nibbled on the outer layer of skin, concentrating on the probably yummier areas between the toes and at the edges of the toe nails. With my recent experience with toenail fungus – which I had to get treated with expensive drugs over several months – I can see that having these fish around could be a very good thing. These days, I’m much more aware of foot health and I make sure to keep my toenails clean and scraped and fungus free. You don’t want to let that stuff get a deep hold because once it is sunk in, it is nearly impossible to get out. However, it would be great to have a fish pond or tank with these fish in it and have them clean up your feet once or twice a week. I don’t know for sure that the nibbling of these fish does present some health benefits, but I don’t see why not. I now scrape the edges of my toenails with a sharp point whenever I think of it in order to keep the area clean. These fish would do that for you at no charge. I can imagine some people not being too happy with the experience. I have somewhat ticklish feet, and it took me some time to relax and endure the nibbling on the bottom of my feet. I’m sure more sensitive and excitable people would giggle and shriek and not be able to keep their feet in the water. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable experience, and I can now tick off two things on a hypothetical bucket list – swimming with whale sharks and being nibbled on by a pack of voracious mini-sharks.

Now don’t get too excited. Don’t imagine that there was nothing negative about this experience that I can’t go on about. Don’t think you’re going to get away with a glowing “that was amazing!” type of report. Nope. There was lots to complain about, and, as always, it involved some local kids. When I first arrived, a group of four boys were sitting on a bench and acting cool and tough. I guess kids come there from a local school to smoke or have their lunch. They called out to me and asked me to give them my sunglasses, my bicycle, and some money. When they got up from the bench, the very last boy turned around and pissed all over the bench and they all laughed. They thought that was hilarious.

Later on, two other people arrived for the fish sauna experience. They were a friendly Filipino couple from Dumaguete here on a short holiday. It took them a while to get up the courage to put their feet in the water, but after seeing me doing it, they decided to give it a try. They put their feet in the water and we chatted while the fish did their thing. Then some more kids from the local school arrived. They had plastic containers that had contained their lunches from home, and they proceeded to throw food scraps into the water. The problem with that is the fish were far more interested in the big chunks of food than in what dead skin they could nibble off our feet. So all the fish in the pond raced away to eat the rice and other scraps of food. The couple from Dumaguete who had stopped there for the “fish sauna” experience were now left with no fish. The kids were clearly aware of what they were doing and laughed about it. It’s no big deal, I guess. It’s a fish pond, and it’s a natural thing to throw food into the pond to feed the fish. But there are clearly visitors sitting there to enjoy the advertised fish sauna. It’s obvious that when you throw food in the pond, all the fish will leave to eat your food. It just seems rude to deprive visitors of the advertised experience and then ask them for your sunglasses and for money and then to make jokes about them and laugh. Just kids, I suppose. I really dislike kids.

From the old tree and the fish sauna, I rode to Lazi. Most of that was a fast downhill after the long climb up. Lazi was a nice little town, much larger than San Juan. There was an old cathedral and convent with the usual sign saying when it was built and then how many times it had burned down and been rebuilt. I stopped off at a little eatery near a school to have lunch and then rode around the town to check it out.

From Lazi, I made several attempts to find the small road along the coast. It took a long time, but I eventually found it and then enjoyed a lovely two hours or so of slow cycling down a rough road through small villages scattered along the coast. The road was not on the water as often as I wished. Only occasionally did the ocean suddenly come into view, but it was a nice ride nonetheless.

I stumbled across the fancy Lazi Beach Club resort and went in to check it out. There was a short but very steep road to navigate, and they had put up several signs warning motorcycle drivers to be careful and NOT use their front brakes. Apparently, a number of them had wiped out when their front wheel locked up. The resort had a swimming pool and a bar/restaurant and some nice rooms along the shore. Being low season, they were completely empty. The woman I spoke with seemed desperate to have me stay. She seemed lonely. I believe the rooms were 1,500 pesos a night. I told her that since I was alone and had “no companions” (as everyone points out to me with sadness) I couldn’t really enjoy myself in a resort so far away from the rest of the world. Better for me to be in a place back in San Juan.

I was very curious about all the people living in the houses – big and small – along this remote stretch of coastal road. It amazes me how people live everywhere on the planet – or at least everywhere in the Philippines. There isn’t a scrap of land no matter how remote that doesn’t have someone living on it. It’s astonishing to think of people ending up there and then looking around and thinking, “Well, this is where my life will take place.” Of course, they don’t think of it that way. They were born there and it is home to them.

I’m mainly curious about where the money comes from. It probably isn’t expensive to live there, but some money is needed. And there were motorcycles everywhere. So they needed money to buy the motorcycles. I also heard TVs playing. All these things require money. I stopped to talk to one young fellow that was mixing up some cement to repair a patch in the road. I asked him about this – what people did in this area. I approached him several different ways on this question – asking about jobs, about income, about what his father did, about what that man over there did, etc. And the only answer I got from him was that they did nothing. His exact words were “We just sit around.” I tried to press him on this (without being rude), and pointed out that you can’t buy a motorcycle by just sitting around. You had to have a job to buy a motorcycle. So what jobs did people have? He replied again that there were no jobs. They all just sat around and did nothing, he said. I asked him about his father. What was his job? He said that his father was inside the house sleeping. Doing nothing. I gave up at that point.

Just before the back road met up with the main national road, I found myself on a long, attractive beach area with an interesting village laid out along it. There were lots of fishing boats pulled up on the beach and I heard a lot of singing and laughter. It was fiesta time in Canaloan. I got off my bike to walk out onto the beach to take a picture and I ran into a friendly young woman. She was eager to talk to me, and it was from her that I learned it was fiesta time. She was born in this village, but she currently worked in Manila as a sales lady. (A sales lady for what, I didn’t learn.) She had two weeks off and had come home for the fiesta. When I first saw her, I had this idea that she was a visitor like myself. The way she was standing on the beach and holding her cell phone made her seem like an outsider. I thought she was taking pictures of the view. She told me, though, that she was texting. The reception was better out there. She seemed desperate to find out everything about me. She was intensely curious and asked lots of questions, but she didn’t seem able to put it all together. It’s not surprising since simply riding around the Philippines on a bicycle doesn’t make a lot of sense from a local point of view. She assumed that I had flown into Manila, but I said that my jet had flown to Legazpi instead. Her eyes widened and she said, “You have a private jet???” No, I said. Just a bicycle.

And that was about it for the adventures of the day. I stopped off at Tori’s Backpacker Paradise to say hello to Thomas on my way back. I also stopped at another beach resort and it was so nice and attractively laid out that I had a cold beer – my first in many, many months believe it or not. I find that I get a bad headache from even one beer, so I rarely drink.

There was a young British guy sitting at the bar and we chatted for a while. It was fun to talk to him. He was my first backpacker contact in a very long time. I tend not to meet anyone from that world. He was here with his girlfriend. Apparently, her father was building a bar and since he – Rory was his name – was a bartender in England, he was here to help. He was a nice guy and we chatted about this and that. I noticed right away that all his toenails were painted a different color. I assumed that this was some crazy backpacker beach thing that he did – like getting dreadlocks, a tattoo, or wearing shell necklaces. But he finally confessed that he had lost a bet and that was why his toenails were painted. It was funny, but I think he was dying the entire conversation to find an excuse to tell me about this bet. He might have been worried that I was some older gay man and was going to hit on him when I saw his painted toenails. Who knows? But when I told him the story about the fish sauna and mentioned that the fish were quite good at cleaning the area around the edges of your toenails, he found his opening to apologize for his painted toenails and tell me about the bet. I noticed that he also mentioned his girlfriend in every second sentence. It seemed excessive, and, again, I think he was making his heterosexual credentials clear just in case. Funny. It used to be that only women had to do that – constantly mention their boyfriend (whether real or imaginary) to forestall some random guy from hitting on them. Now guys feel the need to do it, too.

After my delightfully cold beer, I stopped off in San Juan to pick up some Flying Tiger denatured alcohol to cook with and then I made some delicious spaghetti back in my room. I know it is against the rules to cook in your room, but I set up the stove on the tile floor in the bathroom, and I’m careful to keep things neat and clean and safe. It’s also a 100% quiet stove, so no one can hear me.

And today is another day.

Tags: Beyond San Juan, fish sauna, Lazi, Lazi Beach Club, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Siquijor