A Filipino bus ride is sure to be a) bumpy, b) prone to stop your heart every once in a while, and c) fly like eagle on speed. Always sit away from the window, else a palm tree could have your eye out, and always wear shades, preferably goggles (this will go down well with the locals, I guarantee).
Along the way we pass many old colonial churches, their white walls fading to a gritty grey; slowly but gracefully into decline.
The bus steams on, past forgotten villages with laundry hanging precariously over barbed wire fences, skinny cows tied to skinny trees and gaunt children listlessly reading in hammocks.
Needless to say, there are no bus stops as such; my heart skips a beat as a teenage boy chases the wheels, clutching a sack of pork scratchings. I gulp as I hear his flip flops scrape violently against the fast moving road. He grabs the bus door and hauls himself up, his eyes wide with what I guess is relief or maybe just pure adrenalin from his Van Damme style stunt. Of course no one batters an eyelid at this act of utter lunacy; I hear the familiar sound of jingling pesos, ready to purchase some crispy pig fat. Yummy (in a kind of artery clogging way).
After the boy sells his wares, he makes an equally intrepid jump off the speeding vessel, much to the displeasure of my heart rate.
Next, some very vocal school boys ascend the already rammed bus; one of which makes a point of sitting next to me, staring triumphantly down at his peers. They jibe something in Filipino- which doesn’t leave much to my imagination. He spends the rest of his ride singing yet more god -awful pop ballads (or “poop” ballads as I now like to call them) in that good old fashioned pseudo American accent that seems to befit most young Filipino men.
I turn my head to Stef for salvation, but alas he’s transfixed with the road.
Thankfully the school boy’s journey is only short and I smile (almost) gratefully at the wannabe poop singer as he descends from the bus.
Finally, we arrive in Bato- the place where we can take a ferry to Dumaguette. Oddly, the bus doesn’t drop you at the port, so we have to get a trike. In fact, as soon as the bus stops, a guy on a motorbike rides right up to the door; as if we’re gonna jump straight on (these Filipino’s like the ole Van Damme moves). Even though I say no, the guy insists on hovering over the bloody exit. There’s little space to disembark, but somehow we manage to slink off and explain to him that we have two big back packs, so riding with him is out of the question. He finally gets it and scoots off at high speed.
In no time, we spot a trike plodding along with an ancient old man riding up in front. He gives us a toothless grin as we pile ourselves and all our gear onto the trike. Five minutes later, yet more people climb aboard; the trike now spitting and puffing under the excess weight. We approach a hill and cross our fingers; somehow this contraption makes the ascent, in slow, labored chugs.
At last, we arrive at the port; purchase our tickets to Dumaguette and check out the one available café, as we have an hour to kill. We recognize a familiar face outside; a guy we saw walking about in Panagsama. It turns out that he’s also going to Dumaguette, so we decide to take our lunch together. The port’s café is surprisingly good. I was expecting to share the bathroom with at least one cockroach; but the bathroom is pleasingly clean, the restaurant air conditioned and the food pretty tasty.
It’s funny, because we’ve pretty much forgotten what AC is; the last time we were blessed with its cooling presence was back in Singapore. Since then, it’s been fans all the way.
Anyway, David (the familiar face) turns out to be very good company indeed. He’s been traveling for a year and has many amusing stories to tell. I was surprised to learn that as an Israeli, there are a few places that he cannot travel to, like Malaysia and Indonesia for instance. Still, that doesn’t seem to bother David too much as he seems perfectly happy with traveling to all the places that he can travel to.
We board the fast boat to Dumaguette in good spirits; still listening to David’s travelling anecdotes. As we leave the port however, a gloomy cloud descends upon us and a thin showery rain begins to fall. Yet, the boat sails on and very soon we’re undulating upon the open water.
Suddenly there are gasps; somebody has spotted a school of Dolphins flanking our boat. Stef and I quickly turn our heads to spot them, and sure enough there they are, darting through the water. Awesome.
Apparently, Dolphins are very common between the port and Dumaguette. Still, we feel very privileged to have seen them.
Before we know it, we’re getting off the boat and bundling into a taxi, which charges the three of us 200 pesos. We don’t know how much the fare should be or how far it is to the city centre, so we have nothing to argue with. Besides, 200 pesos between three people really isn’t worth worrying about.
Dumaguette doesn’t really strike me as a pretty place, but then I doubt that many Filipino cities are “pretty”.
Immediately the fumes are apparent. It’s very, very smoggy. Maybe this is due to the weather, what with most of the fumes being trapped by the big ominous clouds that are covering the city and port.
First stop is “Why Not” an infamous Swiss style café. We all feel like a mango shake is well needed after the sea ride. Whilst Stef and David have a good natter, I try and find some hostels in the area online. Harold’s Mansion looks good, so after our shakes we take a trike there.
By this point, I’m almost having an asthma attack from the blatant pollution smothering the place. It’s quite disgusting. The city itself is bustling chaos; with trike exhausts spewing out filth in every direction and large four -wheel drives clogging up the already limited roads.
I cover my face with my shirt and automatically feel like a Korean; if only I’d brought one of those handy little face masks! Still, I have an inhaler that I bought in Lombok (which was also very smoggy and induced my asthma).
I feel instantly relieved when the trike pulls up outside Harold’s Mansion. It looks more like a Billiards hall than a mansion, but beggars can’t be choosers.
To our dismay, there are no private rooms at Harold’s, so we all cram back into the trike and onto the next hostel on my list.
We soon realize that pretty much everywhere has no room at the inn. Why? Because us silly billys have decided to come to town on a public holiday. Oops.
It becomes apparent that there’s a government holiday for civil servants and schoolchildren in Dumaguette; bad news in terms of finding accommodation but good news in finding a fiesta.
Feeling like I’m going to die before we find a haven from the smog- I suggest to Stef and David that we go a little out of town and stay at this place called The Sea Forest. I found it on Hostleworld and it seemed perfectly nice, if not a bit out of the way.
We ask the trike driver how far it is to the Sea Forest, but he looks a little scared, or bemused- I can’t tell which to be honest. We stop by some armed security guards (security guards are always armed here; there’s one for every ATM in most cities that we’ve been to) and ask them how to get to the Sea Forest. They say to take a taxi as it’s quite a ride in a trike. We presume that our trike driver overhears this logical advice and will take us to the nearest taxi rank. Silly billys strike again.
Of course he doesn’t take us to the taxi rank; instead he decides to drive us all the way to the Sea Forest and charge us three times the price. I guess we deserved that.
The journey takes at least an hour, and is not comfortable in the slightest.
When we pull up to the Sea Forest, we notice yet another armed guard and a kindly notice informing us to drop our weapons now as we are entering a “Gun free” zone. Instead, we gladly drop our bags and cross our fingers that the Sea Forest has rooms. Before we enter the gates we spot another notice informing us that alcohol is strictly forbidden. Ouch.
The place has a good feel about it. You can hear tropical birds everywhere; there’s a pool with a winding slide coming out of a tree house and traditional nippa huts dotted about with strange names such as Avocado and Manga.
I get a cottage by the sea and feel instantly better away from the smoggy oppression of Dumaguette city. The entire hut is made from wood; it’s completely open, so very airy what with the sea breeze coming in. It’s also completely round, and very, very cosy.
We love it.
Then it absolutely pisses it down. For three days. It seems like we’re in the middle of a typhoon. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much rain. It hammers it down from morning till night. There are no boats leaving Dumaguette, so we decide to haul ourselves up at the Sea Forest until the rain passes.
All is not lost, as the food at the Sea Forest turns out to be very cheap and very good. Stef and I are happily surprised with a Filipino dish called “Kinilaw”, a raw fish salad, with a vinegary, spicy dressing. It’s absolutely delicious, especially if raw fish is your thing.
And, although the alcohols ban was a bit too reminiscent of the Singaporean prohibitions that we’ve been familiarized with, we somehow managed to rebel by drinking our fill at the restaurant next door, who incidentally had gone all out on the Chrimbo decorations and looked more like Lap Land that Chicken World or whatever it was called. The only other things around were a rather ethereal “Ladies garden”, which boasted a huge iconic effigy of Mary amongst many a tropical flower and Palms. Not far from this wonder was a sign indicating that a shooting range was nearby. And that was that.
During the next few days we decided to embrace the torrential rain and finally get some use out of our otherwise useless anoraks. We headed to the city in the hope that we might catch some parades from the fiesta (and scoff ourselves silly in Why Not).
We spend the day eating pizza, using Why Not’s free internet and watching poor little Filipino girls desperately trying to smile in their sodden rain splattered costumes.
I also go in for a foot and back massage whilst Stef and David do “man” things somewhere. The massage parlor is a funny affair indeed; the place is tiny; staff and space ratio seemingly out of balance. Instead of taking me to a private room (which is my normal experience of these places), I’m plonked in the middle of the foyer and told to sit down. I do so, obediently. I guess this is where I’m going to get the massage; not exactly what I had in mind.
There’s a whole gang of Filipino boys singing poop in that good old familiar fashion. I make a subtle comment about the noise whilst the masseuse wraps my foot in a steaming towel, indicating the “Observe silence” sticker plastered to the wall in big black letters.
Either she doesn’t understand my accent or she thinks I’m a moany twat; but she just smiles lamely and continues to wrap my feet. I try and tune out the boys wailings and enjoy the massage.
I realize that this is my fifth massage in less than a month. The Philippines is ridiculously cheap for them. The best massage so far has definitely been from Suesima’s sister, Jessica; back in Panagsama. For such a little lady, she sure can hit the spot. And for around 2 quid for an hour’s massage, you really can’t go wrong.
We get back to the Sea Forest just after dark and settle in for a night of abstinence and silly YouTube videos depicting turtles beating up great whites and such. We also contemplate setting the Palawan Hornbill free as he looks terribly lonely and a little bit mad.
On our last day I pay all the birds a visit, there are plenty to choose from; Parrots, African love birds, Brahminy Kites, Rainbow Lorikeets- a whole host of prisoners L
There really is something distinctly wrong about birds in cages, especially large birds such as the Palawan Hornbill- he really needed more space.
On the flipside, the day we leave, 300 school kids turn up on a field trip; the bird’s imprisonment might serve some kind of didactic purpose.
Overall, it’s been a relaxing, fun time at the Sea Forest (I developed a serious obsession with the pool’s slide), but I think once the rain cleared we were all glad to be moving on.
We have a final lunch with David in Why Not and head over to the port, ready to catch the next fast boat to Siquijor. Witch Doctors here we come!
