Around The World – Sabang and Puerto Galera, Philippines
With only slight confusion (not on my part), I caught a taxi in my first monsoon rain of the trip to jump on a nice aircon coach bus to the docks south of Manila. My goal is Sabang, on the island of Oriental Mindoro, the next island south of Manila’s island of Luzon. I’ve noticed a lot of duplicate town names so you always have to specify which island you want, otherwise you’re on a boat going the wrong way.
At the docks I got into what I can only call an outrigger canoe with a diesel engine that seats 130 people, known as a bangka. It’s a long narrow boat with a massive pontoon on either side. Local kids stand on the pontoons and dive into the water when people throw coins. Luckily the ocean was quite calm, small troughs & peaks but no whitecaps. A similar boat sank the day before somewhere further south so I securely put on my lifejacket.
Two and a half hours later we arrive at Sabang, a cute little seaside town, known for its corals, turtles and diving. I got some previous advice to stay at a certain guesthouse but when I got there, it was not to be found. A man at the dock chatted me up about his place, private room with private toilet and aircon for 900 pesos/night. When I said I would stay for 3 days, I bargained him down to 800, $17.78/night woo hoo!
The guy in the next room is called Greg and he lives in Vero Beach, Florida, the same town that my father lives in. We made arrangements to meet up when I’m in Florida in October. Small world!
After a short night and early morning, I had to have an afternoon nap and when I woke, it was warm in the room and pouring rain outside. The power had gone off and the owner’s generator only powered the lighting and fridge circuits. It didn’t matter though as the temperature plummeted with the incoming storm. I went for a walk through the town in my awesome waterproof raincoat, everybody else had quickly purchased these cheap, thin, one-time-use rain ponchos. You know rain is coming in the next 5 minutes when the vendors run out to the street hawking these ponchos. Several bars and restaurants along the waterfront offered cold drinks and great food and I did my best to contribute to the local economy.
I arranged for a snorkeling trip for 200 pesos the next day since I wanted to train my reptilian brain that I could breathe underwater – if I went straight to SCUBA I’d hyperventilate and burn through a whole tank in about 20 minutes.
The next morning it was still pouring rain and the waves were too choppy for snorkeling so I postponed to the next day.
Instead, I jumped in a jeepney and headed over the mountain to the seafront town of Puerto Galera for the day. It’s only about 5 km away but more like 10 km due to the steep, zig-zag, almost-paved road through the jungle to get there. An oncoming jeepney presents an interesting challenge. The rain continued to come in waves so I sat at the front bench in a bar and drank, ate, read my book and watched wet people run past me.
That evening I went for a massage for 300 pesos, or just under $7. Here they use pink moisturizer lotion mixed with a little oil, which I like better than the straight oil in Thailand since it seems to soak in better. It felt so good on my feet and legs from the miles and miles of walking I’ve done this week.
The next morning I was greeted by bright sunshine so I headed out for my snorkeling trip. I was on a dive boat with the divemaster and one other customer, Michaela from Calgary of course, very small world. I was dropped off no more than 50m offshore at the shallow coral area while Michaela went further out to a wreck site. Michaela’s boyfriend’s father lives in Hua Hin Thailand, same town as me and he thought he recognized me from one of the seedier bar areas in town, but of course it couldn’t possibly be me! This small world thing is just getting out of hand.
The coral and fish were beautiful and I got some good footage with my GoPro camera, unfortunately the lens fogged up a bit due to the humidity, I will need to get some of those desiccant packs soon to put inside the waterproof case. The highlight of the swim was spotting one of the big green sea turtles that lives in the area. He was headed off at high speed and I couldn’t catch up, you can barely see him at the end of the video. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMdeO7luS58
That night I watched Lewis Hamilton win the British round of Formula 1 in a bar, very happy for him. The most popular beer here is listed everywhere as “SML” which I later figured out means San Miguel Light, which we also get all over Thailand. I tried to ask the waitress for a beer from a smaller company, like a microbrewery, but she thought I wanted a smaller bottle, never mind, decided to go for Red Horse beer, really strong at 6.9% and 500 ml per bottle, so two bottles later I end up kinda pissed, stumbled home to bed.
Leaving the island tomorrow morning, bound for White Beach on tiny Boracay Island, using every mode of transport available except donkey.
