The Philippines / The Hunt for Good Karaoke

I’ve got a smidge of gravel in my knuckles. This is day 10 or something in the Philippines. This morning I wrote some memories in my journal and concluded the entry by listing some things I wanted before I ditched these 7000 islands. Top of the list: “adventure”. Welp, today I got it. Knock it off the list. Delete it from the dictionary. Forget I just wrote it. Falling off a motorcycle in piercing light rain at 7 miles per hour after failing to navigate a bumpy wide turn on a hill with trucks and tricycles whizzing by is adventure enough for me. [Incase you're worried, I'm fine. The only real casualty of the situation is my 10 minute ambition to one day own a Honda motorbike, which I'd never considered until whizzing down the Bohol national highway just before my little spill.]

My whole Philippines trip has been a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-tacky-shorts operation. I didn’t really plan it or prepare for it or have much of a clue where I’d go. All of that has been fine. Ever since a long summer canvassing and bar-hopping in Cincinnati in college, I’ve been pretty good at negotiating city maps. I’d managed to find some interesting people and things to do cruising around Coron and a place called Club Paradise in the lush island province (it’s actually useless to use the word island, since they’re all islands, but what the hell) of Palawan. I hiked up the tallest hill in Coron (724 whole steps), kayaked through waters with trash bags and alien-like starfish outside my hotel called Sea Dive, and got duped by a nice guy outside the airport in Manila (knowing the whole time he was just trying to get my business and I should just go with my original plan but being unable to resist) and missing my rendezvous with Samantha by several kilometers and a day and a half. The good stuff really started after Samantha and I met up in Coron.

Coron is loud, smells a bit funny with lots of exhaust and not so great sewage-systems, and is packed. It’s right on the water (a cover near the ocean but not on it) and has good diving, but is not a real pleasant location to spend three days as a tourist. Motorized tricycles with no regard for pedestrians or each other rule the streets. Every one of them has an interesting God phrase on the front and is driven by somebody who’s more obsessed with their horn than a new puppy with an annoying chew toy. I’m not saying American streets are any better. At least the speed and size of the vehicles in Coron is safer. It’s just that it was a little tough to get the sound of honking and motorcycle revving out of my head when I was expecting a beach (no beach in Coron) getaway. The other thing is that Coron is bonkers for Videoke, which is exactly the same as Karaoke, but named in a more specific fashion. This wouldn’t be bad at all except that it starts at about 8am and goes all night long and nobody in the entire town has any talent at all. They sing everything from Madonna to Sean Kingston to Ricky Martin and butcher all of it in their loudest, most passionate voice imaginable. This is a real shame because I know there is musical talent in the Philippines, which I’ll get to in a bit. It just isn’t in Coron.

When Samantha arrived we decided it was time to get to a place that actually had a beach and wasn’t full of annoying loud, smelly business. After surveying the options and having to set things up last minute, we settled on a fairly pricey resort with everything we wanted called “Club Paradise”. Now, before you get all, “damn, Josh. I never knew you were secretly into luxury cruises, the Hamptons, and croquet on yachts,” I have to tell you that we really only had 3 reasonable options that we could find in Palawan and one of them had it’s office still closed at 10:30am and the other, we only saw via a brochure that we later discovered had two of its pages stuck together. Somebody was telling us to go to Paradise. It had to happen.

The island of Club Paradise is ridiculous. We justified the price (still cheap by American standards) and outlandish amenities (really sweet) by focusing on the fact that it was very ecology-minded. They run a program to protect the Dugongs (big weird looking sea cows that are like manatees, but swim in salt water, not fresh, and travel alone, not in groups.), recycle, have sewage treatment on the island, discourage coral trampling, and sell shirts that say “Save the Ocean”. So, anyway, back to the amenities. We got there by taking an hour-long Jeepney ride (converted US Army Jeep used like a small bus), which destroyed my butt as we rode on the roof rack through the dirt roads followed by a 40 minute ferry (they call it a banca here) ride with free egg sandwiches and a nice German dive instructor named Rolf who told us all about what we’d see and answered lots of Samantha’s questions about their efforts to respect the dugong, the fish, and the ocean.

As our banca pulled up to the shore, three Club Paradise staff in matching yellow t-shirts gave us the royal treatment with our own welcome serenade. We’d soon discover that this acoustic band was a central fixture to the whole operation and played popular diddies for the guests at every chance they got. Needless to say, right away we knew we’d made the right choice by coming to this place. Even the giant bats flying over our heads as we were escorted to our room seemed like a classy addition to the ambiance.

It would take me way longer than I’d like to type and I’m sure than you’d like to read to describe the whole Club Paradise deal, so I’ll just make a bit of a list of what the place had to offer.

* Fancy traditional (at least it seemed that way) dancing over dinner with flashy costumes and big bamboo sticks being smacked together to a rhythm as people jumped over them

* Slurky three foot monitor lizards, including one that scurried up the hill 30 feet from our room

* A really white beach with a cool breeze, hot sun, and water that felt like a salty warm bathtub

* Buffets of fruits, sweets, rice dishes, salads, pastas, locally-caught hook-and-line fish, omelets, vegetables, and such three times a day

* A big open bar with strong pina coladas and mango daqueries that you could drink on the ocean, by the pool, or in the bar while playing pool or ping pong

* A tennis “tournament” between two CP staff and the two of us, which we won 6 to 3 despite their cheating and Samantha having basically no tennis experience or shoes

* A short summit hike through a lush forest with stunning views of surrounding islands covered in green mountains

* A day-long boat trip to see the dugong, which ended with a few sparse sightings by some of the people on board including Samantha briefly, but not me (our chances were partially spoiled when one of the German snorkelers in our group decided to splash out loudly in the direction of the dugong while the rest of us were on board quietly waving for her to come back and stop scaring it away)

* A “house reef”, which Samantha scuba dove along with an instructor named Jun and got face-to-face with a sea turtle

* Almost as many staff as guests, all of whom were really smiley and good natured at all times, catered to anything you wanted, and had some hidden skill that they’d bust out at one moment or the next

Like I said, Club Paradise was ridiculous. Everybody there was in a couple and I’m sure at least half were on their honeymoon. Despite the lavishness of it all, it actually didn’t feel over the top or pretentious and the other guests mostly seemed as relaxed and laid back about everything as we did. It’s not the way I’d want to spend my whole two weeks visiting the first developing country I’ve been to, but it wasn’t bad for a three-day getaway.

Alright, this is getting long, so I’ll catch you up quick. Samantha and I flew to Manila on Thursday where she bounced on to Taipei and to San Francisco. After discovering that there were no flights to Puerto Galero from Manila and learning that it was again all about diving and beaches, I grabbed a ticket to Cebu. I stayed in Cebu City on Friday night, which is a much cleaner and less chaotic version of Manila. The only nerve-racking things in Cebu were the countless five-year-olds tugging at my clothes calling me “Daddy” and asking for a peso, and the drag comedians in the Comedy Bar who kept insisting that I get up and sing for everyone because I was from California (I resisted on account of my lack of song knowledge). Otherwise the Comedy Bar and street roaming were enjoyable and I found a nice little Pension House with cable TV where I watched the Democratic Debates on CNN yesterday morning. American influence is deeply entrenched in Filipino cities and is all over the television.

Yesterday afternoon I checked out of my hotel and took an hour ferry boat to the island of Bohol, which is quieter and has more natural attractions than Cebu. After checking in to a cheap hostel in the main city, Tagbilaran, I roamed the streets for a restaurant on the map called “Garden Cafe”, thinking it might be vegetarian and interesting. It was certainly interesting and much more than I expected. The place is run by a local foundation for the deaf and has about 8 pages on the menu with every kind of food. My server was a friendly deaf guy with an infectious smile.

As I waited for my meal after ordering I started flicking through the pictures on my camera only to find the security guard and the host lurking behind me checking out what I had on the Power Shot. They were really friendly about it and were signing to the deaf server what they saw. I had a great time talking about my travels with them and chowing down on curry followed by soup, then rich party cake. The three of them gave me some good tips on where to go around Bohol. The suggestion of renting a motorcycle came from them as well. I left the restaurant happy and ready to set up a full day of travel for today.

Now that I’ve been typing for two hours and my wounds are quickly healing, I’m feeling good about the fact that I didn’t just find a tour bus and bounce from site to site around Bohol today. I’m not about to ditch my ten-speed and buy a motorbike when I get back to San Francisco after seeing how easy it would have been for me to break every piece of bone and muscle that holds me together, but I did enjoy the ride.

My first stop was Luboc at 10:30am where I bought the buffet river cruise up Luboc River, got a guided tour through Museo de Luboc by a friendly old guy who’s Luboc-born daughter lives in Napa, California, let a man put a little tarsier (it’s in the lemur family with really big eyes and has been around for 45 million years) on my shoulder, and explored the tourism center on a hill looking out over a range of goofy-looking grassy mounds called the “Chocolate Hills”, which are the biggest tourist attraction in the province.

The best part of the whole thing was the buffet river cruise where I sat with a boat full of tourists eating not-so-tasty food, but listening to the most incredible karaoke man I’ve ever heard play every genre there is. Halfway through the boat ride we stopped at a floating platform where a group of about 20 local young adults and children sang this beautiful dancing song and played little mini guitars. Most of our boat unloaded into their platform and either picked up extra instruments and played along or boogied away to the music. As I’d learned earlier at the Museo de Luboc, the kids in that town can really sing. They’d won an international competition in Spain back in 2000 and were going to California to compete in it again this year. So nice to flip my take on Filipino music after the trashy Videoke of Coron.

Now it’s 8pm and once again I’m thinking about sleep far earlier than I would back home. The spill on the bike and the embarrassment afterwards as the only white person on a motorcycle driving with clear evidence that he should not be riding a motorcycle in the Philippines took a lot out of me. So, it’s back to the gripping book about sharks at the Farallons that Samantha lent me and maybe a fourth meal for the day.