Landing ourselves a mediocre lunch at “Bad Ladz” on the towns pretty bay; where we’re graciously invited to use the house phone in order to call our resort for a pick up (this is free of charge as it’s so bloody far away and a virtual impossibility without private transport).
Coral Cove resort is located in the north east corner of the island; there’s one road in through Sabang (a sleazy little tourist resort) which presents many sharp, steep turns through high palmed forestry.
A sombre man in his mid forties wanders over to our table. Going by the bright orange polo with the logo Coral Cove in big letters; we presume he’s a driver.
We walk in awkward silence to our transport; which appears to be a garishly painted jeepney; complete with a rather askew representation of Ariel, the Little Mermaid.
Throughout the journey; my one hope is that the resort itself is in better taste than the monstrosity that is this jeepney in all its colourful glory.
After ascending and descending some extremely abrupt inclines, we pull into what looks like a scene from the Mediterranean; white washed stone villa’s, pebbled paths leading to a rich blue bay complete with a modest sized speed boat. It’s very picture perfect. A little too perfect if you’ve just been watching The Prisoner back to back.
We haul ourselves up to reception, fully aware that if this place is in anyway unsuitable, we’ve got a long trek back (and will be homeless this Christmas).
As it happens, we are told that we’ve been upgraded from a standard room to a deluxe. I’m immediately suspicious (mainly because things like this never happen to us unless there’s an underlying reason which generally leads to a can of worms situation) and ask why to which I am told something about children and something about noise (so the exact thing we’ve just spent a year plotting our escape from). Hmmmm...
However, I quickly shove these reservations aside and eagerly inspect our new room; which turns out to be very nice indeed, if not a little too close to the restaurant and lounge area. Although, it does look out onto that sumptuous bay and is close enough to let the sea softly lull you sleep.
Very soon however, we realise the catch in the form of two very loud, very ginger German families; which it seems we have unceremoniously been sandwiched between. And, of course, what with that good old varnished oak flooring; we can hear each step thundering past our window every five minute. I suppose it was kind of the management to move us from the standard rooms below; as I expect they would have been a whole lot worse what with all the children running up and down on top of us.
We console ourselves with the prospect that the two families, as noisy as they are; might provide us with a little of that Christmas spirit we’ve so been lacking since spending the last year in the Orient.
On the morning of Christmas Eve; we’re confronted with a rosy cheeked German boy who kindly takes it upon himself to explain to us the inner workings of his transformer claw thingy. We’re also confronted with a very large karaoke system which the elder, more rotund ginger sibling seems completely enamoured with. His voice is disturbingly close to a young Michael Jackson; yet more squeaky, off key and annoying. We spend the morning listening to the brat go through Abba’s entire collection.
By early afternoon we contemplate suicide.
As soon as we hear the intro to “Nobody” we know we must escape. I swear that atrocious piece of (dare I say “music”) noise contains subliminal messages willing the world to fall under its garbled spell. But anyway, the German kid is now prancing about full throttle, wiggling his arse in a most disagreeable fashion and putting us off our rather poor example of a brewed coffee.
I wonder where their parents are; but expect they’re at the bottom of the ocean somewhere examining a shark’s bottom or some other activity that allows them to avoid their offspring.
We actually have the choice here of taking a long walk off a short pier; but decide against it. Instead we follow the quaint cobbled path that winds around the cove. As if I haven’t exhausted allusions to The Prisoner enough; I must say that the whole resort is as close to “Village” as we can get. Even the white rounded lamp posts dotted about have an altogether twee glow about them. I’m filled with a very odd nostalgia as I recall childhood visits to the quaint St Ives back home in England.
Whilst admiring the view; Stef amuses us with throwing a water bottle in the air single handed, Tom Cruise style. We find this entertaining for about five seconds before heading back to the resort to raid the games collection.
Here we’re somewhat transported back to our childhoods when you’d have a spoilt brat friend who owned every single game or toy; only, due to their brat ways showed no appreciation or respect for anything. As a consequence of this ingratitude, every board game would be missing bits here and there which invariably meant you’d have to spend half the time making or finding substitute pieces in order to get any play out of it.
Well, that’s exactly what we found when we rifled through Coral Coves fine games collection.
Despite lacking 8 necessary pieces, we go for a beaten up plastic Backgammon board.
After sneaking this delightful piece of craftsmanship into the refuge of our room (we can still hear the faint wailings of old ginger Jackson singing Waterloo on repeat) we hungrily search in our bags for something to substitute the missing bits.
Nothing comes to mind, until Stef has a brain wave and whips out some old Nicorette Gum. It’s far from perfect, but it’ll do.
We play Backgammon into the night, until the Nicorette Gum goes all sticky and melts into my fingers. Outside our room we can hear the night’s revelry begin to take shape. The resort has been selling tickets for a Christmas dinner in town and now it seems the town has turned up; right outside our room.
Perhaps it’s too much of The Prisoner or that ginger kids incessant howling to the Abba gods but we’re feeling decidedly anti social; plus the ticket for the dinner is excessively priced.
We treat ourselves to a Steak and Kidney Pie, Mash Potatoes and lashings of gravy and quietly slink back to our room with a large G and T. There we pull off all the buttons of our less loved shirts in preparation for a marathon Backgammon session; anything to take our minds off a hideously tone deaf Filipino woman who is clearly in love with the sound of her own voice.
Later, when I do muster the courage to entertain some form of social interaction; a nice if not very gaudily dressed Filipino woman offers me a glass of warm mulled wine.
I feel terribly guilty at being so reclusive but somehow can’t bring myself round to the idea of enduring a night of squealing strangers around a karaoke machine.
The next morning we mumble something about Christmas and make a determined effort to Skype all our family members. This proves a little difficult as the internet connection here is far from consistent. Eventually, however and through many curse words, we do get to see most faces and have a heart warming if not brief chat.
Our Christmas presents to each other come in the shape of a Margerita and we spend the day dossing about just like we do at home, only with a lot less chocolate and no mention of a turkey.
The food at the resort is pretty good but always leaves a bitter taste due to the extortionate prices. In fact we’re quite surprised that they advertise themselves on Hostelbookers, as they’re by no means in that category.
Still, we do manage to get a relatively Christmassy dinner consisting of a roast chicken leg, roast potatoes and so on.
Obviously the place is way off our budget and we both realise that we need to get out of here at the first opportunity.
We’ve heard that Sabang is a sleaze pit of a place, so thought we’d give White Beach and Aninuan Beach a go which are on the north west of the island. Accommodation choice doesn’t look abundant but we manage to book a place at Bamboo huts, which we’re told is in a nice secluded place with some good snorkelling spots.
One thing’s for sure; the cash is slipping through our fingers fast and we desperately need some good cheap accommodation.
On the day before we’re due to leave Coral Cove we take a free ride into town; pick up a trike and get him to take us to White Beach in the hope we can find cheaper digs than Bamboo Huts as they are still quite expensive.
He rips us off terribly as we’ve no idea how far White Beach is. This puts us in a god awful mood; we really have had our fill of money grabbing taxi men. But worse still, when we get to White Beach, what we find is a ghastly Filipino Malaga. It’s a heartbreaking find- a totally ruined piece of landscape.
We make a quick retreat to the sly trike driver, still with the hope that Aninuan Beach will be an attractive alternative.
Alas, it’s exactly the same as White Beach, only on a smaller scale. And, when I spy the far from secluded Bamboo Huts, my heart sinks.
This is by far the worse place we’ve been to in the Philippines. We may as well be on an 18-30’s tour package. It’s disgusting and we hate it.
It is here that for a moment our love for the Philippines leaves our hearts. We sit crouched in the trike scowling at the Filipino Chav driving the thing and desperately trying to see a way out.
Call it foolish and impetuous, but we make a decision to leave the Philippines for good. We have barley any money left and we’d rather spend it somewhere where we’re actually going to enjoy ourselves; for it seems that for quite some time now we’ve been in an endless struggle avoiding one rip off only to fall for another. Frankly we’re tired of the place and need to leave before we grow to despise it; which would be a crime because this is such a beautiful country.
The dream of renting a place on an idyllic reef has well and truly expired. It’s not going to happen and we haven’t the time or money to look anymore. We decide to spend the last of our pennies visiting somewhere new- Thailand, in the hope that it will deepen our appreciation for this beloved place. And I’m sure that as we initially expected it will but pale in comparison to the 7,000 glorious islands that make up this tropical sanctuary, the Philippines.
But that we have yet to prove...
