Stuck in Paradise
Trip Start
Jun 23, 2005
1
15
23
Trip End
Ongoing
Boracay, Philippines
Thursday, October 6, 2005
The boat was leaving at 6pm and I managed to get to the pier with about 10 minutes to spare. As I was buying the ticket the guy asked me if I was a tourist, to which I replied yes wondering if that was going to affect the price at all. They love to charge tourists more in this part of the world. As it turns out the ticket was far more expensive than I had been lead to expect but with 5 minutes to go before the ship departed and not wanting to be stuck in Cebu City for another night I didn't argue. I grabbed my bags and ran down to where the nice men were checking the tickets.
"Can you please put your bag down there for me sir?"
"What, next to the sniffer dog?"
"Yes please sir."
"Um.... well... um... shit, I think I forgot something over.... over there."
I beat a hasty retreat as they were trying to warn me the boat was about to sail. I was desperately feeling around in my bag for the half ounce of weed I had carefully stashed all the time assuming the dog was chasing me.
As my panic began to rise that either I was going to miss the boat or spend the next 20 years picking up the soap for butter fingered inmates at the Cebu Hilton I finally located the source of all my problems. I nonchantaly sauntered back to the bewildered guards dropping the package as I walked. They hurried me on to the ship and with my heart still beating like a jack hammer I looked around for a place to put my bag down.
I had entered a deck of the boat that was filled with about 70 bunk beds in neat rows. As this boat sailed throughout the night everyone was given a bed to sleep on which I though was nice. Of course the beds were about a foot to short for me but it certainly beat sitting in a seat without leg room on a bus.
I picked a bed near to where three other travellers were lying down and was soon telling them about my scrape with the sniffer dog. These guys were all from Switzerland and one of them began telling me about the time he spent in prison in Thailand.
It turns out he had been sitting on a beach in Ko Chang six years ago sharing a spliff with his mate. The next thing he knows a plain clothes Thai policeman put a handcuff on his wrist and he was taken away in a police van. His friend was not told where he was being taken too so effectively no one knew what was going to happen to him - apart from the police of course. I only say this because the length of time this guy spent in a Thai prison was equal to the length of time it took for his friend to track him down - 2 weeks!
After some serious negotiating from the Swiss embassy and a $2,000 fine he was released and expelled from Thailand. He went on to say that the penalties are even harsher here in the Philippines. Now I'm not uncautious in my dealings with weed in this part of the world. The reason for taking the boat instead of flying was I assumed that I would have no problem travelling overland. How wrong I was? His little story really shit me up and I realised I was being foolish and it really wasn't worth the risk of having a rectal prolapse in some god forsaken hell hole in the Philippines for a little bit of mind expansion. I decided that I had tempted fate enough ad was no longer going to try ad score weed in Asia anymore.
I chatted with these Swiss guys for quite a while and it turns out they were headed for Boracay as well. One of them had the lonely planet for the Philippines which I devoured. A word of advice to anyone thinking of coming here - don't rely on the shoestring guide to SE Asia, the section on the Philippines is not nearly detailed enough. It served me well for the other countries in this region but the Philippines is a whole different kettle of fish. With over 7,000 islands and no direct routes from one place to another it is well hard to work out where to go and what to do.
One part of the book really made me laugh. There is a warning about the most southerly island of Mindanao as there is a militant islamic group determined to create a break away state. As this country is predominantly christian these disaffected muslims have decided that they don't want to play anymore and are going home. This hasn't sat to well in Manilla and thus a mini civil war has been raging in this island for the last few years with many kidnappings and bombs and so on. It is definitely off limits to tourists, hence the warning in the lonely planet. What actually made me laugh is the main organisation fighting for independence is the Mindanao Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF for short. If this doesn't make you laugh then you're obviously not aware of the other meaning of this acronym.
In the morning I decided to venture upstairs to the posh cabins to use the toilet as the ones downstairs in economy class were full. It was only when I was up there that I saw this deck was called tourist class and that the cabin numbers were the same type as the number on my ticket. It dawned on me that one of these cabins was mine - hence the fact that my ticket was so much more expensive than I thought it would be and the ticket seller had asked not if I was a tourist but if I wanted tourist class. Oh well.
After 30 hours of travelling we finally arrived in Boracay and set about finding a place to stay. I was still with the Swiss blokes and was quite up for staying in the same place as them as we got on well and I was happy to have some other backpackers for company after spending the last week on my own.
This is when I really appreciated the beauty of travelling by yourself. You can make decisions without having to consult anyone else. We traipsed around for about an hour, our backpacks weighing us down under the relentless heat of the tropical sun. They just couldn't make up their minds and at least one of them always had a problem with what I thought were perfectly good places to stay. Eventually I thought fuck it and decided to stay at the next place we went to and to hell with them. As it turns out the next place was very nice and reasonably priced and they also elected to stay there.
Once we had settled in and had had showers we set about looking for some food as it was 4pm and we hadn't eaten at all that day. We found a place run by a german who had been there for 22 years. I had a theory as to why he had been there so long. He must have come when he was around my age and was perhaps of a similar build. But after a few years of sitting around drinking copious amounts of imported german larger his arse had grown so big that there was no way he could fit into a airplane seat and was thus confined to this little island paradise. Seriously you would have to see the size of his arse to believe it. It was gargantuan and had it's own gravitational pull. He was a jovial chap though and I enjoyed talking with him. His alcohol intake was almost as impressive as his arse (looking back that last bit sounds a bit weird). He must have drunk about 3 pints in the 30 odd minutes we were sat there. He just ordered glass after glass and downed them in one. Apparently he does that all day everyday.
Looking around this tiny island I could see that I could stay here for a while. It has a vibrant night life, a beautiful white sand, palm tree fringed beach with crystal clear water that is alost too warm to swim in. In fact the last week I have found myself stuck here unable to leave but not doing very much at all. My days have consisted of getting up around noon and strolling from my room straight on to the beach. I swim a little, have a leisurely lunch and then read my book or watch copious amounts of premiership football before some fine evening dining at all you can eat establishments and then partying until 4 or 5 in the morning. Honestly I haven't gone out drinking and dancing so much since I was in Thailand 9 years ago. The only difference being that I can't dance for nearly as long as I did back then and the hangovers seem far worse. But what better way to cure a hangover than going snorkelling across coral reefs with a plethora of multi-coloured fish darting about below you.
I had no idea that a place like Boracay existed in the Philippines. Most people in England have heard of Kuta in Bali or Phuket in Thailand but this place is easily there equal if not better. Obviously it depends what you are looking for but this is the first party place I have been to in 4 months and the nightlife here is brilliant. There are loads of clubs some of which play properly good house music and there is a party atmosphere along the length of the 4km sandy road that runs along the edge of the beach. And the women, well guys all I can say is that if you are single, or if you just don't like your girlfriend very much then get thee to Boracay.
When I first arrived in the Philippines I had got it into my head that it was a case of beautiful filipino women getting together with Western men in the hope of getting some money to help out there families. Now to a certain extent that is the case but after having talked to many filipino women I have realised that many of them are just looking for a good time like young people across the globe. Most of the girls I spoke to are funny, intelligent women who have finished studying in Manilla and just want to work in some of the resorts for a few years and enjoy being young before they settle down and have a family. It sounds like most people I know.
The only differnce between these girls and the ones in nightclubs in London is that they are not shy at all and if they like you then they make it perfectly clear. And for some reason there just seems to be hundreds of them on this island. If trying to pull in Laos is like fishing with dynamite then here it is like fishing with nuclear warheads. And almost without exception these girls are all stunning.
The one thing you have to be careful of in the clubs are the ladyboys. There is a seam of them on Boracay and their whole mission in life is to snag a western man. You can't sit down without one of them saying 'scuse meee, do you have a light' whilst shuffling a little bit closer. Most of them are pretty dam obvious but sometimes you really can't be sure. Luckily the girls who work at the hotel where I am staying come out with us most nights and they can spot them a mile away and will come and whisper in my ear if I have been approached by one that I'm not sure about. On one occassion this lady boy went mad screaming at poor Maita that she was a fucking bitch and how dare she tell me that she was a man. It was a crazy scene.
What generally happens is that all the teenage boys end up dancing and flirting with these heshe's which seems to be mutually beneficial. The ladyboys feel like women and the poor teenage boys get some idea of what it is like to dance with a woman because unfortunately all the women their age are dancing with western men. I have to admit that I 'm glad my teenage years weren't spent in filipino nightclubs. It was seeing this when I first arrived that again made me think these women were only with westerners for the money. But after talking to the women I discovered they prefer western men because they treat them like equals and not like inferior beings who are only there to serve. Just about all filipino women think filipino men are lazy and are bound to cheat on them whereas western men are chivalrous and gallant. So until filipino men change their attitudes to women the poor teenage boys are going to have to try their luck with ladyboys. At least in the resort towns anyway.
The only drawback about this place is it's not really designed for backpacking. It is the kind of place you come to for a two week holiday and the prices reflect this. I have almost doubled my daily budget since I have been here and have been trying to find ways of cutting costs where I can. One of the ways I have tried to do this is eating cheaply. If you venture beyond the main strip into the village you can find really good filipino food at more than reasonable prices. One morning I fancied eggs for the first time since Myanmar where we were served them everyday as part od our complimentary breakfast that all guesthouse's offer. I always opt for boiled eggs as when they fry them in Asia it tends to be in a vat of oil and the amount of grease on them can be extremely unappetising. I saw a place where everyone seemed to be enjoying boiled eggs so went in.
I ordered two and when they came they looked a little unusual - slightly bigger than your average chicken egg. It was only when I cracked it open that I realised what was different. A delicacy in most of the countries I have been in recently is to eat fertilised eggs. In other words unhatched chickens or ducks. The thought of this turned my stomach and I never plucked up the courage to try it in the past. Well, now I had one in my hands and thought I may as well give it a go.
I dipped my spoon in and brought out the severed head of a little duckling to be. I looked at it, it looked at me and without further ado popped it into my mouth. I can't describe the taste but the consistency was disgusting and as my stomach began to churn I just had to gob it out right there and then in the restaurant. It flew across the room and hit the wall, where it stuck momentarily before dropping to the ground with a plop. I apologised profusely to the staff and other guests and went and picked up the mangled remains of this ducks head.
I cracked open the egg to look at the rest of the corpse and saw that it already had little feathers and well formed webbed feet. I quickly paid the bill and left fighting the urge to throw up.
A couple of days ago I decided to explore the island and went for a wander to the other side where there is an equally beautiful and much quieter beach. I sat on the beach for a while but then decided to explore the jungle a bit as there are caves all over the island. In one of these caves I saw signs of someone living there. I could hear someone shuffling about way in the back and went in for a closer inspection. It was there that I discovered an old Japanese man cowering in the corner with a rusty rifle in his hands. It turns out that he had been hiding here since World War II and hadn't realised that the war was over. He survived by eating moss and drinking stagnant cave water. He seemed so content I didn't want to shatter his illusion so confirmed that the war was still raging and that I wouldn't tell anyone where he was. He seemed happy enough with this so we shook hands and parted company.
I tried to leave this island yesterday but it's so hard. I'm having such a great time here and drinking until 5am makes it hard to get up at 8 to get the boat. I think I might cheat and get a flight.
