A Storm in a Bamboo boat

Phil and me and clouds closing in.

The dark clouds closed in and rain fell in great sheets making it impossible to see any of the islands around us. It thundered onto the too small roof of the local boat we had sailed out on. It was made of bamboo that seemed to be held together with string and there was not really enough shelter from the rain. 

The crew simply settled into their seats and smoked, relaxed, or made another bowl of rice and meat over the gas stove perched on the front of the boat. We had no choice but to sit back and rely on our crew to know what to do, and hope the rain would let up soon so we would know which way to go home.

Detail from the boat

Phil had just completed a deep sea dive onto a coral shelf, complete with schools of exotic fish and large manta rays. I decided not to attempt scuba this trip and had stayed by the boat floating crazily in the swell, holding tightly to a boat line and peering into the gloom through my mask, not really seeing anything but having fun and probably causing the crew some amusement.

Earlier I had snorkeled near a tiny island where Phil and the others were diving, I decided to walk across to the other side, just because I could. I thought the remaining crew were busy ignoring me until I heard loud shouts as they called me back in Filipino and broken English.

Love the blue of the water here.

They sounded serious, but I never found out whether I had walked on private land, or offended some tribal law, or maybe been in danger from wild tigers. They went back to ignoring me when I went back on board. I think it was how they coped because their English was so limited.

When the torrential rain started, we were as far from land as we could be. There were islands all around us, but I couldn't see any of them.

Since we didn't speak Filipino and the crew had limited English, we spent the time talking to a young English back packer who was the only other tourist on the dive trip. The crew fed us some of the meat and rice they had cooked on board. Within an hour, the clouds lifted, the rain stopped completely as if it had never been, and now that we could see land, we set off home.

Our boat and crew

The breeze of the moving boat over our wet bodies chilled me, but who could complain as we sailed back over the now sparkling waters to a picture perfect tropical beach. 

And the adventure wasn't over. That night we had a date with thousands of fireflies.

It was fully dark and the slope down to the river was slippery. The tiny torch one of the men carried was not helping much. The best view of the fireflies was from the river so we prepared to board another home-made Filipino boat. One I could hardly see.

Entrance to a home

I clambered over the bow as instructed, carefully holding the poles for reference and stepping awkwardly over what I knew was a narrow bamboo floor. My son once fell through a bamboo floor in a Filipino home, so I was terrified I was going to break through the boat deck and sink the boat. It took me some time to find the strongest bamboo beams to sit and walk on, especially since I had to feel my way around. It was so dark, I still don't know how many others were on the boat with us.

We skimmed along the river for a while, listening to the gentle thrub of the engines, and the quiet voice of the guide. I began to relax, and enjoy the cool scents of the evening. Then the guide pointed out a group of trees. 

To my surprise, each was outlined by thousands of specks of pulsing light, like the scattered sparks of fireworks in an ink black sky.

The pilot told us about the families living in the area, many of whom did not have electricity or TV. He had other interesting stories about the area, but the best part was when we all sat quietly and listened to the light slap of the water against the boat and a small hum coming from the insects above us.

He moved in closer and, reaching out to the trees, he gave us one each to hold. Mine was as inconsequential as a piece of sand. A tiny and weightless speck of light in my hand and gone too soon. Phil's continued to crawl around on his shirt for most of the trip.

It was another incredible experience in the Philippines, and well worth the fourteen hour drive from Manila.

We went to Donsol to see the whale sharks it is famous for, but we went in the wrong season. The only shark we saw was the statue outside our hotel. But there is more to do here than whale sharks. 

More even than diving and fireflies. In my next blog I will introduce you to the tiny village of Donsol and some of its interesting people. See you there.

P.s. Check out the sample of my new book Junk Mail Princess, due out soon. 

Security guards, guns, and human road blocks.

Our Donsol Resort Hotel

The hotel guard had a shotgun and dark pants tucked into his socks. He looked serious but it didn’t seem like a dangerous place. It was hard to tell since we had arrived at almost 2am in the morning. Driving to Donsol in the Philippines in a rental car had proved quite a challenge.

Phil had driven the whole way slowly and carefully. By the time it got dark, the traffic had thinned out but he still had to negotiate the odd pedestrian, dog, or slowly moving roadblock that turned out to be an unlit motorbike with a sidecar. Then we came across road works.

Not road works lit up with mobile street lights, two trucks with ten foot high neon signs, and a well lit up police car like we were used to in Australia, but a long dark hole taking up half of the road and bordered by a row of small rocks.

My husband drove carefully through the narrow space left on the road, praying no one would come the other way and almost ran into small children with torches and large begging cups with long handles.

Roadworks are tricky enough to negotiate in the light of day

We inched past with our windows up, trying to ignore them, unwilling to encourage them to approach cars.

The third time we drove through a town with road works and more children, we wondered if they were road works or road blocks. 

Then a man started running our way shouting passionately. We kept moving and spent the next ten minutes reassuring each other that he was not a police man. I could see us hunted down and locked up for the rest of our holiday if we were wrong. We had only been in the Philippines for a few days and had no idea what the rules were.

The trip had taken us much longer than expected. It was about eleven o’clock at night and we estimated that we still had about three hours to go. We considered stopping somewhere for the night, but we had no idea where. There were no obvious hotels and after being accosted by families in the villages, we had no idea if it was safe to even stop.

I called the hotel we had booked and they assured us they would have a security guard waiting for us. We decided to keep driving.

Two long hours later, as we drove into a small Filipino town, Phil felt a sudden loss of traction in the rental car. He pulled over under a single street light next to a small hall and got out to find we had a flat tyre.

He to get the spare tyre from the boot, while I got out and stared nervously around.

Just then, a large group of young people came out of the hall and began to walk towards us. I moved closer to Phil, but they all got into nearby cars and left. It looks like they had just finished a meeting as we arrived, so I relaxed.

Phil began the process of jacking up the car and I looked up to see two men on a motorbike drive past pointing and waving. The motorbike did a u-turn and pulled up next to the car.

The older of the two men was clearly drunk, but he insisted on trying to help as Phil struggled to work the cheap and badly designed jack which skittered and dropped the car several times. The older man continually offered useless suggestions and offered do it for us.

I stood aside holding the tyre iron firmly and trying to look tough as I kept an eye on the younger man who was checking the other side of the car. He looked to me as if he was planning to open the door and run off with anything worth having.

Despite inadequate tools, poor light, a barely functional spare tyre, and a very vocal and bossy audience, Phil finally replaced the tyre.

Then the fun began.

“You have some money mister?”

“No, we have no local money” we said only half lying.

“You have a bottle mister?”

“No, sorry, I don’t drink.”

“Just one bottle’”

Phil knew all along what was going on, but it only clicked for me then that the men had stopped to try to get something out of us.

We left as quickly as we could get away without being rude, and we left them empty-handed. They contributed nothing but distraction to the job, and we felt safer with our wallets tucked away in the car.

Another hour later, we rounded a tight uphill corner and came across three people asleep in our lane. Phil braked and changed lanes quickly as they didn’t seem inclined to move. It was the day of the dead and many people were sleeping at the cemetery but these guys were close to sleeping in one for good.

Our Hotel at Sunset

At last we arrived in Donsol, our destination, but I couldn’t find the hotel which looked so easy to find on the google map. It was almost two in the morning but we spotted a couple of young women out walking with a baby (yes, a baby at 2am) and asked them for help.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up to the gate and were met by the security guard with a rifle hanging from his belt. We fell out of the car exhausted and followed him through the dark compound to our room, wondering what was so dangerous that he needed a gun in a small town tourist resort.

The room was damp as if it had not been used for months, but I was impressed to see the welcoming sight of towels made into a swan on the bed. Then a large cockroach scuttled across the wall startled by the light. After a bit of cockroach bashing, we stumbled into a cool shower and a warm bed, and finally fell asleep, looking forward to a few days of swimming on the shores of an uninhabited island and floating down a river under dark trees festooned with fireflies.

But that is a story for my next post. See you here. 

Philippines - Manila to Donsol

There was a goat on the road, and people sleeping in our lane. There were cross-country buses going eighty miles an hour on the wrong side of the road and motorbikes with side cars going ten miles an hour in the middle of the street.

My husband and I were driving from Manila to Donsol on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, and he needed a whole new set of skills not taught in Australian driving schools. He had to learn to negotiate pedestrians and even parades walking down the centre of the road, pass overloaded motorbikes without knocking off any protruding limbs, creep through intersections filled with cars going in all directions, and overtake any sort of vehicle with limited line of sight and often no idea what was coming the other way.

It was only our second day in the Philippines, and our first day driving the rental car. Google maps said our trip was about five hundred kilometres and would take eight hours. It took us fourteen.

The main highway out of Manila was wide and clear and lulled us into a false sense of relaxed expectation. We set a cracking pace. Even the toll booths were a minor annoyance, and the hardest part was choosing which coins to hand over in an unfamiliar currency.

When I found out what sort of road was waiting for us, I would gladly have handed over all my money in loose change for another highway.

After the first hour, the road was like being on a moving obstacle course.

First there were the other vehicles. My husband was still getting used to driving on the right side of the road (not our usual practice) when he would find cars, jeeps, and even buses coming at him on his side.

Everybody overtook with great confidence no matter how small the gap and size dictated who had right of way. Buses roared past in the wrong lane, confident in the knowledge that all other vehicles would move aside. Motorbikes often had to leave the road to avoid a head on collision.

It didn’t take us long to realise that there was a reason for all the overtaking. We would come up behind a motorbike with a side car and sometimes people hanging off the back and legs everywhere and be stuck at funeral speed unless we found a way to get past.

Note; Truck and car overtaking

Sometimes there simply was no way to get past. We took this epic journey on the Day of Souls when it seemed the whole country was out on the road on their way to pay respects to the dead. Driving through town often meant driving through crowds of people ambling along the road in no particular hurry or taking a detour down a long narrow back alley along with hundreds of other vehicles.

It also meant every single motorbike and pushbike, with or without sidecars had been pressed into service and was busy delivering people to the cemeteries.

People took what they could get, even if it meant hanging off the luggage carrier or sitting on the roof of a sidecar. We were often slowed to pushbike speed, and Phil soon learned to pass in the smallest window of opportunity. To add to the degree of difficulty, most of the only road was narrow and winding, with buildings, dogs, chickens, or even toddlers, often right up against the edge of the driving lane.

After ten gruelling hours, night fell and my long-suffering husband had a new challenge. He would peer through the dark and slow for a dark shape that turned out to be five people on a motorbike without lights, or a pedal bike with a cow in the side car.

It was hard work driving under those conditions but it got worse.

First we were accosted by children begging for money, and then we blew a tyre.

More on that next time.