Where's Ron?
Philippines, 28 December 2017 - 28 February 2018
Ron in Philippines, January 2018
Malapascua and Bantayan Islands
27 January 2018
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
Happily, we are now having more seasonal January weather rather than the unusually bitter cold we had for multiple weeks. At the very end of the coldest weather I was sitting in the living room reading one evening at about 9 pm. I heard a noise outside and thought a raccoon might be trying to get at the bird feeders. I went into the dining room and turned on the outdoor light, and it was a bear! Why in the world was the bear not hibernating in mid-January, especially with all the cold weather we'd been having?! I opened the door and yelled at it and it ran off. Then I brought in the bird feeders. Now I put them out every morning and bring them in every evening.
Love to all,
Ellen
26 January 2018
Malapascua and Bantayan IslandsHello, my dear,
Leaving the big islands and cities for the smaller islands provides a very different variety of experiences. I like to think of my annual trips as a change in my reality when I disappear for three months. And now this is a change in my existence in my new reality.
Malapascua, (what a wonderful arrangement of the alphabet to produce a name) is a different world from the cities. Its south coast appears to be mainly catering to divers from around the world. In some ways it reminded me, at least made me think about and compare to, Padangbai in Bali, one of our favorite places, where the ferry goes to Lombak. There were many diving resorts along the beach with some groups of bungalows in between. First I stayed in a fine room at a place on the eastern end but I later moved to a more primitive bungalow where I could sit on my front patio and see the beach and water. The traditional trade off between comfort, view and cost. There were options where I could have all three for $100 plus instead of my $41 comfort and my $24 rustic bungalow on the water.
Walking along the main walkway on the beach one evening I found a Japanese couple sitting on the front patio of their bungalow watching the beach, sunset and people walking by and I stopped and talked to them, and later rented the same bungalow.
I don't recommend a rolling suitcase for the beach. Not an easy task finding my first place rented on-line at the end of the beach from where the boat dropped me. It was the public boat from the Maya Port on the NE tip of Cebu. Not what I would think of as a ferry but probably carried 30 or more passengers. My best description would be an outrigger with a large motor with a covered passenger area. It was the public boat, it felt safe and the sea was calm.
My standard outfit is sandals, no socks, khaki shorts, blue t-shirt and sometimes a hat.
There were a couple of small roads where the locals lived, running parallel to the beach with restaurants, small stores. I learned the connecting paths and how to get around. Some had some concrete pavement, others had a more hard-packed surface. Some sections were easy to follow and some confusing, but I learned my way around.
There was not much night life other than the restaurants. One night I heard about the disco which turned out to be the area's festival. Each town had one and there was some kind of competition to pick winners to represent the town. A sort of Catholic Church and local government event. Between what I found out from the waitresses at my first place and my observations at the disco: there were some women contestants sitting in chairs and men would come up and pay to dance with them, and other men would come up and take the place of the one dancing. The woman who raised the most money would be the winner. After the contest there was more dancing like a disco. There was a woman I wanted to dance with who sort of fled when I approached her and then there was a gay guy and a ladyboy who were competing with each other trying to dance with me... I gave up trying to dance and left the dance area. Going and coming I rode on the back of a motorcycle.
When I arrived at the disco I met an older man, I think around 48. He lived in a couple of rooms there at the disco which had been converted into an apartment with kitchen for him. We had a good conversation and I got a short version of his life. His father immigrated to the US and he was born in the US as a first generation American citizen. He went to college and had a good business job, but left the US for one of the Islands of the South Pacific where he was a diving instructor. Then he moved to Tacloban (where I stopped overnight on my way to Cebu) and was planning to establish and run a diving center in the Philippines. In 2013 the typhoon came through and destroyed his home and he lost everything. I met his son, perhaps 10-12 who he said had to swim for several hours when the water rose. Instead of starting his own dive center (lost his capital) he went to work as the manager of another diving center on the beach where I am staying. At the end of his story I asked him what he would really like to do and he said work for a aid group that goes in to help people in emergencies. He was so impressed with the people and organizations that came to Tacloban after the typhoon.
On the boat from Maya Port I met a Dutch guy, who had moved to Italy and was now living in Singapore working for a Arab company that makes and exports tiles. We met for dinner a couple of nights. When he was around 30 he decided he wanted to give up his job as a consultant expert in corporate restructuring and moved to Singapore to find a job in international business. He was not successful at finding a job. When the typhoon hit the Philippines he went to Tacloban as a volunteer to help since it was the Christmas season and not a good time to be looking for a job. And because of his volunteer work, when he returned to Singapore he found his current job. I wanted to introduce the two, but when I went to find him again, he had checked out and returned to Singapore. I thought their two stories were so unique and they should meet. Now I will have to introduce them through email.
I was exploring in the area behind my bungalow, where the locals live, and found a man carrying a fish and asked him where he got it. He directed me to the home of the fisherman who explained that all the fish were sold that day. I asked him if he would have one tomorrow and he said maybe, depends, and I said I would check with him tomorrow. I met his wife and his son who fishes with him and gave them my card and a couple of American coins as we talked. A very interesting and friendly conversation with limited English. I asked the woman in charge of the bungalows and the restaurant if they would cook the fish if I bought one and when I suggested we could share a fish she agreed happily to do so on the outside grill.
The next day I returned to the fisherman's house but no one was at home but in the cooler on the porch was one large fish. I had the feeling it had been saved for me. I put another card with a note on it behind the gills saying I would return. When I did I met his other son the carpenter, who said he checked with his mother and the fish was mine. He weighed it and I think it was 3.7 something. Maybe that was almost 400 grams and the price was per hundred grams. But it was a good size tuna and I paid a few dollars.
I took it back to the lady for cooking and her husband put it on the grill like a BBQ. I invited someone else to share the fish and we were all very happy. After dinner there was some one at the front gate to the bungalows. It turned out to be the fisherman and the best I could understand he was saying he got home and his fish was gone. I thought he was saying I stole his fish but no, as we continued to try to communicate he was saying he saved it for me and was going to clean and cook it properly for me - not like they cooked it at the restaurant - poorly cleaned and not cooked properly. I think he was saying he intended it as a gift. Life on the road gets strange some times. But the fish was great and I have another fish story.
There were some beautiful days on the island but then it started to rain in the evening then started in the afternoon and I was trying to figure out the weather forecasts and it looked like the rain was just going to increase over the next few days so I left by boat one morning when it was clear and returned to Maya Port, caught a van to the Hagnaya port on the West coast of Cebu a bit south of Maya Port and caught another boat to Bantayan Island on the west side of the northern tip of Cebu.
It rained the first night so I just stayed in my small resort restaurant on the water with a large family - mother, father, two sons and two daughters. The oldest son had a wife and two young children. They lived on the island of Mindanao and were taking a family vacation since their second son had come home from working in Kuwait. The two daughters were working in real estate and the older son had been in the military and then the police but quit to go in business for himself to have more time with his family. Now he has three boats for passengers and cargo. An enjoyable evening.
Next day in town they were having their fiesta and all the schools had large groups of students competing: marching bands, dancers, etc. They had a lot of schools in Santa Fe. I wandered around town and enjoyed the festivities. I met the family again in a Topas restaurant on the corner of a short street with lots of restaurants. They were just drinking and recommended a restaurant across the way but the next night I tried the Topas Restaurant and met the American owner (franchise) and he introduced me to some of the other locals who were travelers who had sort of stopped on the island. I met a young couple, both 21, who were from the same place in northern Italy but met in Bali and were planning to travel to Columbia South America. There was another guy there who had been to Columbia recently so we had a fine conversation. It appears to be safe again after being dangerous for so many years. It brought up my memories of traveling the gringo trail in South America back in the early 70s as a hippie.
Each day the rains got worst and again I was looking at a forecast that appeared to have more rain in the next few days, so when the morning was clear about 6 am I left for the port on the other side of the island. The resort had a tricycle take me to the main road where I caught a jeepney for a half hour ride, and then caught a boat to Cadiz Port on the north of Negros, then a tricycle to Cadiz city and a long bus ride to Bacolod through the fields of sugar cane and a ferry to Iloilo where I spent the night. mThe next day I took a Grab car to the Ordiz Wharf where I got a boat to Jordan on Guimaras Island, a very crowded jeepney to an intersection in the south, a motorcycle to the coast and a boat to Cabugan Resort. Surprisingly this was all very simple, efficient and cheap as most of my traveling has been.
This has been an enjoyable trip with lots of social interactions and seeing interesting sights. My next to last night on Guimaras Island I met a 70 year old gay woman from Bordeaux France who was half Spanish. Our path crossed again a couple of days later on our way to Boracay, but that story will have to wait.
I finished reading Evicted by Matthew Desmond and have thought a lot about the differences between the poverty in the Philippines and the US. I have lots of thoughts but when I try writing them I realize it would take a book and a lot of study to convey the differences. Perhaps because while many of the people I see are very poor, they still have dignity, a large family, a place to live and seem happy. Obviously I am just seeing the surface. But somehow poverty here does not feel like the poverty I read about in Evicted.
Miss you, our home, the Kubota, but not the winter - but might be happy to make a trade for heat for cold to make both of us more comfortable.
Love and miss you,
Ron
Forward to Ron's travel in Cabugan on Guimaras Island and Boracay
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Questions? Send email to Ellen, ebouton 
Last updated: 24 February 2018
