Posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Travel Friends, May 22, 2009
Perhaps one of the greatest things about traveling is meeting people from around the world that you can really connect with. But sadly, at some point, you will each have to go your separate ways. I am always left with this feeling of non-completion (is that a word?) or incompleteness when saying good-bye to new travel friends. I want to complain to the god of friendships and cry out, “Wait…I was just getting to know X, Y, or Z…you can’t take them away now!” But of course that wouldn’t help. This is the travelers’ way. People come and people go and sometimes we are lucky enough to see them again and get to know them over time. But at the moment of parting, we can never really be sure whether we will ever hear from them again, or whether they will hear from us. I have always loved uncertainty in life, but I have never been too comfortable with uncertainty in people.
This post goes out to some of the people that I have met, who I someday hope to meet again.
To Galit Aloni & Debbie Waterman (from a Kibbutz in Israel) whom I traveled with for two weeks in the Philippines. Girls, you'll be happy to know that since I met you, I haven’t sat on a hotel room toilet or walked into a bathroom barefoot even if it is “a private room with private bath”.
Galit Aloni & Debbie Waterman
To Rodina, Irene, and our precious little rescue puppy, Laika (from Port Barton, The Philippines). Thank you for opening up your home to me, showing me Filipino hospitality, and for helping me rescue Laika and agreeing to raise her.
Rodina & Laika
Irene, Me, Laika, Rodina
To Berend Venema (From Holland and also from The Netherlands—yes, it is the same thing. What? No, the Netherlands does not include Sweden…and I speak Dutch not Hollandaise. Hollandaise is what you put on Eggs Benedict and well, the French invented that. Yes, I know…it is difficult to keep it all straight—especially for an American) whom I traveled with on the back of a motorcycle in the Philippines in the rain. Despite everything, watching a rainbow form in the sunset while we swam in the blue green waters of Sabang was awesome.
Berend Venema
This post goes out to some of the people that I have met, who I someday hope to meet again.
To Galit Aloni & Debbie Waterman (from a Kibbutz in Israel) whom I traveled with for two weeks in the Philippines. Girls, you'll be happy to know that since I met you, I haven’t sat on a hotel room toilet or walked into a bathroom barefoot even if it is “a private room with private bath”.
Galit Aloni & Debbie Waterman
To Rodina, Irene, and our precious little rescue puppy, Laika (from Port Barton, The Philippines). Thank you for opening up your home to me, showing me Filipino hospitality, and for helping me rescue Laika and agreeing to raise her.
Rodina & Laika
Irene, Me, Laika, Rodina
To Berend Venema (From Holland and also from The Netherlands—yes, it is the same thing. What? No, the Netherlands does not include Sweden…and I speak Dutch not Hollandaise. Hollandaise is what you put on Eggs Benedict and well, the French invented that. Yes, I know…it is difficult to keep it all straight—especially for an American) whom I traveled with on the back of a motorcycle in the Philippines in the rain. Despite everything, watching a rainbow form in the sunset while we swam in the blue green waters of Sabang was awesome.
Berend Venema
Honda Bay & Puerto Fish Market, May 20-21, 2009
The last stop on our motorcycle trip was Honda Bay's Pandan Reef and Snake Island (again)--this time I had a camera to photograph the fish feeding.
Feeding Fish on Snake Island
A Giant Clam on Pandan Reef
Fish Eating Bread
The day after Pandan I went to Puerto’s fish market and saw all of the fish that we had seen on the coral reefs laid out for sale on tables. It was like snorkeling on land! I bought a 1 kilo lobster and a 1.5 kilo crab for 1000 pesos ($22) that Berend and I later boiled and ate.
Its SO Big! A 3.5lb (1.5 kg) Crab.
A 2.2 Pound (1Kg) Filipino Lobster
Berend, Eating Our Crustacean Friends
Feeding Fish on Snake Island
A Giant Clam on Pandan Reef
Fish Eating Bread
The day after Pandan I went to Puerto’s fish market and saw all of the fish that we had seen on the coral reefs laid out for sale on tables. It was like snorkeling on land! I bought a 1 kilo lobster and a 1.5 kilo crab for 1000 pesos ($22) that Berend and I later boiled and ate.
Its SO Big! A 3.5lb (1.5 kg) Crab.
A 2.2 Pound (1Kg) Filipino Lobster
Berend, Eating Our Crustacean Friends
Sabang & The Underground River
The Monkey Trail, Sabang
The Jungle
The Little Bugger Who Stole our Cookies!
Exiting the Underground River
May 18-19, 2009
On Monday, a friend and I rented a motorcycle and rode off in the rain from Puerto to Sabang. The road to Sabang is gorgeous—imagine El Nido, but with fog –covered limestone karsts jetting out of rice fields instead of out of water. Mayor Hagedorn has built lookout posts where you can catch impressive views of the islands surrounded by blue green waters. We reached Sabang just in time to jump into the water and catch a rainbow forming in the sunset. On Tuesday we hiked the beautiful monkey trail and visited the famous underground river, an 8.1-kilometer river that runs through an underground cave. We didn’t run into any monkeys on the monkey trail but they were waiting for us at the visitor’s center where two of them opened my bag and stole an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies. I was more impressed by the hike then by the heavily touristed underground river—which was cool—but a little cheesy since the guide spends most of the time pointing out images of Jesus, Mary, the holy family and giant Filipino fruits and vegetables in the stalactites and stalagmites.
The Jungle
The Little Bugger Who Stole our Cookies!
Exiting the Underground River
May 18-19, 2009
On Monday, a friend and I rented a motorcycle and rode off in the rain from Puerto to Sabang. The road to Sabang is gorgeous—imagine El Nido, but with fog –covered limestone karsts jetting out of rice fields instead of out of water. Mayor Hagedorn has built lookout posts where you can catch impressive views of the islands surrounded by blue green waters. We reached Sabang just in time to jump into the water and catch a rainbow forming in the sunset. On Tuesday we hiked the beautiful monkey trail and visited the famous underground river, an 8.1-kilometer river that runs through an underground cave. We didn’t run into any monkeys on the monkey trail but they were waiting for us at the visitor’s center where two of them opened my bag and stole an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies. I was more impressed by the hike then by the heavily touristed underground river—which was cool—but a little cheesy since the guide spends most of the time pointing out images of Jesus, Mary, the holy family and giant Filipino fruits and vegetables in the stalactites and stalagmites.
Whale Sharks, Day 2 and The Filipino "I want to fuck you" handshake, May 17, 2009
Photographing a Giant Jellyfish
photo, Courtesy of Duncan Murrell
Berend and I, Chasing Jellyfish & Hoping for Butanding
photo, Courtesy of Duncan Murrell
Duncan, Photographing Jellyfish with a Proper Camera
photo, taken with my Kodak disposable plastic camera, can you believe it?
After an amazing day yesterday with the Butanding (Whale Sharks), I decided to go again with a Dutch guy named Berend. But as luck would have it, today the water was blue, there was less plankton, no krill and therefore no Butanding or Mantas. We decided to drink our sorrows away by joining Berend’s friends from the Peace Corps who had just flown in from around the country to help another Peace Corps worker with her project to reduce turtle egg poaching. After a night of margarita drinking and heavy conversations on politics, idealism, and the third world Berend and I hit a local dive bar that was blasting karaoke versions of 1980’s love songs—a Filipino favorite. Except for the tranny running the place, the bar looked no different than any other—full of straight looking, drunken, working class men drinking beer and cursing. But as the night progressed things starting getting…well,…a little different.
It is worth a pause here to explain that despite being an uber conservative Catholic country, the Filipinos have a very liberal outlook on homosexuality between men—in particular, on transsexuals. Trannies, are EVERYWHERE in the Philippines. Every little village no matter how small or remote has at least one or two flaming, skinny jean and make up wearing trannies with MTV hairstyles and kafiyah scarves. And unlike in Western countries, the straight men don’t seem to be threatened by them; they treat them as one of their own and joke around with them as if they were just another one of the boys. The folks in the Peace Corps had explained that in the Philippines, sex between men wasn’t necessarily an indication of gayness and that there was even a secret handshake to indicate the urge—the “I-want-to-fuck-you handshake” is a handshake between one man and another that involves the middle finger of one man tickling the inside of the palm of the other man. If the tickle is returned, the deal is on.
So as the night progressed and the men became drunker, they started to Karaoke to cheesy love songs. The men all started dirty dancing with each other and coming up to our table. Of course, I was expecting that I would be the one to get hit on but my friend Berend was most definitely the hit of the night. He even got his palm tickled with THE handshake. Well, at least we can say the boys had good taste.
When we were walking back to the hostel around 1:00am, we ran into the boy that works there who had apparently just broken up with his boyfriend and was heart-broken. He dragged Berend and I to the middle of a shanty-town neighborhood in Puerto where a dance party—complete with disco balls—was happening on the street and we danced the night away to Rihanna with the locals, the kids and the dogs.
photo, Courtesy of Duncan Murrell
Berend and I, Chasing Jellyfish & Hoping for Butanding
photo, Courtesy of Duncan Murrell
Duncan, Photographing Jellyfish with a Proper Camera
photo, taken with my Kodak disposable plastic camera, can you believe it?
After an amazing day yesterday with the Butanding (Whale Sharks), I decided to go again with a Dutch guy named Berend. But as luck would have it, today the water was blue, there was less plankton, no krill and therefore no Butanding or Mantas. We decided to drink our sorrows away by joining Berend’s friends from the Peace Corps who had just flown in from around the country to help another Peace Corps worker with her project to reduce turtle egg poaching. After a night of margarita drinking and heavy conversations on politics, idealism, and the third world Berend and I hit a local dive bar that was blasting karaoke versions of 1980’s love songs—a Filipino favorite. Except for the tranny running the place, the bar looked no different than any other—full of straight looking, drunken, working class men drinking beer and cursing. But as the night progressed things starting getting…well,…a little different.
It is worth a pause here to explain that despite being an uber conservative Catholic country, the Filipinos have a very liberal outlook on homosexuality between men—in particular, on transsexuals. Trannies, are EVERYWHERE in the Philippines. Every little village no matter how small or remote has at least one or two flaming, skinny jean and make up wearing trannies with MTV hairstyles and kafiyah scarves. And unlike in Western countries, the straight men don’t seem to be threatened by them; they treat them as one of their own and joke around with them as if they were just another one of the boys. The folks in the Peace Corps had explained that in the Philippines, sex between men wasn’t necessarily an indication of gayness and that there was even a secret handshake to indicate the urge—the “I-want-to-fuck-you handshake” is a handshake between one man and another that involves the middle finger of one man tickling the inside of the palm of the other man. If the tickle is returned, the deal is on.
So as the night progressed and the men became drunker, they started to Karaoke to cheesy love songs. The men all started dirty dancing with each other and coming up to our table. Of course, I was expecting that I would be the one to get hit on but my friend Berend was most definitely the hit of the night. He even got his palm tickled with THE handshake. Well, at least we can say the boys had good taste.
When we were walking back to the hostel around 1:00am, we ran into the boy that works there who had apparently just broken up with his boyfriend and was heart-broken. He dragged Berend and I to the middle of a shanty-town neighborhood in Puerto where a dance party—complete with disco balls—was happening on the street and we danced the night away to Rihanna with the locals, the kids and the dogs.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Whale Sharks in Puerto? May 16, 2009
Whaleshark (courtesy of Duncan Murrell)
A School of Eagle Rays that Came Swimming Toward Us
(courtesy of Duncan Murrell)
Me, Swimming with a Giant Manta Ray with a 3 meter wingspan
(courtesy of Duncan Murrell)
To view more pictures of the Butanding, taken with my grocery store bought Kodak plastic camera, click here. To view more of Duncan's fabulous images, click here.
The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, (Butanding, in Tagalong) is the largest living fish species in the world. It can grow to be 12 meters (40 feet) long and weigh up to 15 tons. These beautiful and massive creatures are the gentle giants of the sea. They feed on plankton and krill (small shrimp) and move slowly through warm ocean waters. For more information on whale sharks click here.
The tiny town of Donsol in Southern Luzon is known as the only place in the Philippines to spot whale sharks. May is considered to be off-season for whale shark watching, and it is entirely possible to go out and come back without having spotted any at all. The reports I’d been hearing from fellow travelers about their experiences in Donsol weren’t great—because of the popularity of the activity and the lack of whale sharks people were reporting sightings of one whale shark sighting in one day with 8 to 10 boats on its tail and up to 100 people in snorkeling gear swimming around trying to follow it. Since, one of the primary reasons I had come to the Philippines was to see the whale sharks—I was prepared to take two flights from Palawan and give it a gander anyway.
But while in El Nido, I heard about a British photographer named Duncan who was photographing whale sharks in Puerto—apparently he was willing to take groups of up to 6 tourists from the Banwa guest house with him on his boat. I called the Butanding Center in Donsol to see whether they knew of the existence of whale sharks in Puerto and they told me that there were none. But the Banwa guest house in Puerto confirmed that Duncan had indeed been taking people to see the whale sharks for the past 6 days. So, Galit, Debbie and I changed our plans to fly to Donsol and made a beeline back to Puerto.
Swimming With Duncan, Whale Sharks, Manta Rays, and Eagle Rays.
Duncan Murrell has spent a good part of his life photographing marine wildlife. Before the Philippines he spent 20 years in Alaska photographing the humpback whales. He has been following the whale sharks in Puerto on and off over the past 2+ years, and will occasionally take tourists when the conditions are good. Unlike in Donsol, we were only one boat with five snorkelers and we had the whale sharks and the ocean all to ourselves.
I was incredibly lucky to witness a rare phenomenon that Duncan had encountered only once before: because the water was so full of plankton and krill—whale sharks, and schools of Eagle Rays and giant Manta Rays were feeding together. This is how it went:
Our spotter signaled for us to jump into the ocean because he had spotted the wings of mantas jetting out of the water. I jumped in the water and as I was adjusting my mask Galit started screaming and pointing behind me. I thought she was warning me about the bamboo floaters on the outrigger that were perilously close to my head but as I turned around to grab a hold of them a baby whale shark measuring approximately 4 meters (12 feet) nearly ran into me. This massive animal was inches away, completely unperturbed by our boat or my presence. I was so excited that I could barely breathe and I completely forgot to take its picture. Later, while I was following a school of eagle rays swimming with a few giant manta rays, a 9 meter Butanding came to swim peacefully beside me. Because she was moving slowly, I was able to observe her closely and watch the various species of cleaner fish that had attached themselves to her sides and tails. At one point, she opened her gills to breathe and an 8 inch cleaner fish that had been feeding in the area got sucked right in and met a terrible fate.
There are no words I could write that could come close to describing the experience of swimming with this majestic animal. And unfortunately, because my underwater camera died the day before, I also have no video or decent pictures (except for the ones I took with a cheap underwater camera). Duncan was kind enough to provide me with a few images he took with his professional grade camera. To see Duncan’s images, click here.
Puerto Princesa, May 15, 2009
Snake Island
All around Palawan, the locals speak of Puerto Princesa ("Puerto" as it is affectionately called) as if it were New York City--for every problem, the solution lies somewhere in Puerto. The media touts it as one of the country's cleanest and greenest cities, but most guidebook writers will tell you to that Puerto is a dump and that you should treat it as a one night stop on your way to the rest of Palawan's beaches.
So, I arrived in Puerto at night and took the first jeepney I could find early the following morning. I had no plans of coming back. Like all final things, that, of course, changed. So, now I can tell you another story of Puerto. There are a ton of “do not miss” things to do in and around Puerto and you should budget at least three full days to do them. The first of these is Honda Bay.
Galit on Snake Island
Starfish Island
All around Palawan, the locals speak of Puerto Princesa ("Puerto" as it is affectionately called) as if it were New York City--for every problem, the solution lies somewhere in Puerto. The media touts it as one of the country's cleanest and greenest cities, but most guidebook writers will tell you to that Puerto is a dump and that you should treat it as a one night stop on your way to the rest of Palawan's beaches.
So, I arrived in Puerto at night and took the first jeepney I could find early the following morning. I had no plans of coming back. Like all final things, that, of course, changed. So, now I can tell you another story of Puerto. There are a ton of “do not miss” things to do in and around Puerto and you should budget at least three full days to do them. The first of these is Honda Bay.
Honda Bay:
10km north of Puerto Princesa is the unexpectedly beautiful Honda Bay. Galit and I took a tricycle there (500 pesos round-trip including unlimited wait time) and then rented a banca (an outrigger) and snorkeling gear from the super organized tourist office in Honda Bay. Truthfully, we weren’t expecting much; especially since the ocean in Honda Bay is dark green and totally unlike the gorgeous clear blue-green waters of El Nido or Port Barton. But then we arrived in Snake Island—a curious Island that is shaped like a snake. Where the island curves, the ocean comes in to create shallow internal lakes lined with bright green mangrove trees. The highlight of Snake Island for me was snorkeling. Although the coral reef isn’t extensive, the locals have accustomed the fish to being fed as a result, tons of huge fish have set up their home in the area. Galit and I took a bag of sliced bread and as soon as we threw out a piece we would find ourselves surrounded by hundreds of fish, many of them measuring well over 15 inches. Some of the fish are so tame that they’ll take the bread straight from your hand! Among the notable sightings were a 2 foot long adult batfish, a four foot long barracuda, and an 18 inch trigger fish. This, of course, was the moment when my brand new underwater camera decided to die so unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture the moment. :( Beware of the trigger fish, he bit my friend Yohann.
Our next stop in Honda Bay was Starfish Island—named so, because of the large starfish that live there. Starfish Island, like several of the Islands in Honda Bay is what Filipinos call a lulubog-lilitaw—a floating and sinking island—that appears and disappears with the change in tide. During high tide, when most of the Island is submerged it creates the illusion that one is walking on water in the middle of the ocean. Like in Port Barton and El Nido, the water around both Snake and Starfish Islands is crystal clear and changes in color from clear to turquoise to green.
Travel Tips: It isn’t worth going to Honda Bay during low tide. The beauty of the Islands is completely lost. Ask to be taken to the reef instead of Pandan Island. The reef has gorgeous coral in very shallow water, decent visibility, and most of the fish you’ll see around Palawan.
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