Around The World – Davao, Philippines
Today’s target is to get across a fairly narrow body of water to the island just to the south, Mindanao, with a final destination of the city of Davao on the southern coast, to meet up with the family I met on Boracay. Davao has several claims to fame such as fishing and agriculture, but primarily it’s the hugely popular mayor Rodrigo Duterte. He was nicknamed “The Punisher” by Time Magazine. This is a no-nonsense guy driven to make Davao a modern and safe place to live. The tap water is among the cleanest in the world, he hired IBM to run high speed Internet throughout the city, is putting all communication and power lines underground to avoid widespread outages when tropical storms hit, modernized the police, ambulance and emergency communications system and has cracked down on corruption and cheating to the point where even taxi drivers will give you back your change to the last peso. The entire city, except your own house and car, is completely non-smoking since 2002. In a controversial stance, he supports the summary killing of kidnappers and drug dealers. Many people want him to run for President but it is acknowledged he is now too old for the position.
I woke up in Siquijor, had breakfast then jumped on the motorbike to go to Lorena Town to buy my ferry ticket for the late night (2AM) sailing, which only goes on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The tricky thing is ticket sales start on the day of sailing only, at 9AM. By the time I got there around 9:30, the ferry with several hundred seats, beds and cabins, was totally sold out. A lady nearby explained that many brokers get in line and buy dozens of tickets at once. What’s the big problem with selling tickets days before when people come to inquire about the schedule? There goes yet another ferry plan down the drain.
I decide to just get back over to Dumaguete ASAP and then figure things out from there, as it is a ferry and bus hub. I called Philip to tell him I was done with the motorbike and told the hotel staff I would be checking out soon. Philip came and took the bike away, no extra time so no extra pay but he got about 3/4 of a tank of gas out of me for free…
The front desk said they would have their man take me to the ferry dock at Siquijor Town but it turns out he had a regular motorbike only, not a trike, so I said no, I’m not risking my life like that. I waited for a trike to go by but nothing for 15 minutes so two guest house staff took me to the dock on two motorbikes, one with my suitcase and the other with me wearing my backpack.
I got to the dock about 11:40, with the next ferry heading to Dumaguete at 1PM so I bought my ticket for $2.67 and of course the terminal fee. I stood right at the gate in the sun to be the first one on and get a good seat but I quickly realized the ferry had padded steel bunk-beds set up on the deck in the passenger area so I grabbed the closest bottom bunk for a very comfortable ride across. The 1PM ferry left right on time at 1:17PM and took just over an hour. The fast boat company I came over to Siquijor on was scheduled to leave 40 minutes after us and it pulled in right behind us but I liked mine better because of the padded bed and fresh ocean breezes on the beautiful sunny day.
I got off the ferry and went straight to the outgoing ferry ticket desk area. I was hoping for a ferry to Iligan on Mindanao as it’s closer to Davao but I had to settle for Dapitan – it’s a lot further away but seems to be the only other port available. It’s scheduled for 3:30PM, so I bought an aircon ticket for $8.80 and boarded. They’ve got rows of nice padded seats but I wandered around and found a wooden bunk bed area and asked a crewman if I could go there and he said yes, so I moved my stuff to a top, window-side bunk. This will be great for the 4 hour crossing.
I arrived in Dapitan just after dusk. I took a trike to the surprisingly distant bus station in Dipolog and it started to pour rain as we were going along. I huddled in the trike passenger shell to stay dry but my bum was getting soaked. I arrived at the Dipolog bus station at 8PM and found that the next bus towards Davao goes to Cagayan de Oro which leaves at midnight… So begins 4 hours of waiting at a dark and rainy outdoor bus terminal. They did have a bakery but no working power plugs so I couldn’t use the laptop or phone… I intentionally didn’t drink anything as I had two very long bus rides in my near future.
As I was boarding the bus, I got an attempted scam by a kid who grabbed my suitcase from me, turned around and heaved it into the compartment under the bus, then wanted some money for his 2 seconds of effort but I said no. I went onto the bus but became worried they would steal something out of the suitcase or just take the whole thing, so I brought it onto the bus, with the permission of the ticket man, and put it on the seat next to me. The bus was lightly loaded so there was no problem. At a few minutes before midnight, the bus pulls out.
After 9 extremely cold max-aircon-blasting hours we arrive at the Cagayan de Oro bus station. I walked down a few meters to the bus to Davao. They’re set up with very frequent runs and we left in 5 minutes. I arrived 8 hours later at the Ecoland bus area of Davao. Rose from the family found me and we went back to their place in Midland Village in a taxi. I had a shower and scrubbed off 30 hours of ferries and buses.
The family cooked a local veggie dish for dinner with dugbati, a spinach-like vegetable. Something in the meal hit me with my full onion reaction just 5 minutes later. It turns out they used a very common Filipino seasoning packet called Magic Sarap which tragically has onions in it. Rose says this seasoning is used everywhere in the Philippines so I’m in big trouble here. I had just luckily managed to avoid it so far…
We walked around the neighbourhood, and they introduced me to all of the many, many relatives who live very close together in mostly cinder block and tin roof houses, with about a thousand barking dogs. The land goes back several generations and has been split up for the children over the years. They have a tennis court, volleyball court, darts area and a pool table and the extended family hangs out in in the evening.
In the morning we had thin, crispy pancakes with vanilla and cinnamon mixed into the batter, no need for any syrup, and this is coming from a Canadian who hasn’t had real maple syrup for years! We took a jeepney to the Davao city museum, where I learned about the historic area tribes, customs, and the waves of occupation by the Spanish, Japanese and Americans.
We took a taxi through downtown to Claude’s Restaurant for a light afternoon snack. Claude’s is located in the house of the first Mayor of Davao, built in 1929. The building was amazing, great natural wood, lots of glass, hanging fans, white painted interior and great decor. We were alone until 3 people walked in, one was quickly recognized as MJ Lastimosa, the 2013 Miss Universe contestant from the Philippines. She came in somewhere between 6th and 10th place. Also in MJ’s group was a famous Filipino basketball player who seemed to want to be recognized but even Rose didn’t know who he was until the staff told us.
We took a taxi to Jack Ridge Hilltop restaurant, with a great view of the town down to the ocean. We had blue marlin, a local specialty, which despite asking for no onions turned out to have the same Magic Sarap powder and I had to quickly handle the digestive situation… Damn, this onion thing is really getting old.
From there we took a taxi to Holiday Spa for a massage, but the driver was on drugs or drunk and didn’t know where to go, so we jumped out and grabbed another one. After showering I walked into a large room with about 25 beds. My assigned massage lady was sleeping when I walked in, and she really didn’t seem happy. She was super strong so I had to ask her a couple of times to soften up. At the end, she was just throwing around my arms and legs, wanting to go home, so this may have been the worst massage ever. Maybe I’ll just stick to Thai massage shops…
In the morning, more pancakes and an apple-mango fresh off the tree. I had to turn down the soup because they put the seasoning in again.
I began planning my trip towards Australia. I’ll stay in Sydney for a few days, then take the train to Melbourne and stay with Peter, the manager of the team I worked with at the ANZ Bank in 1995-1996. The train leaves Sydney at 7AM and arrives in Melbourne at 5PM, giving lots of opportunity to enjoy the countryside and relax on the journey. The bus service is actually slower and a plane is only slightly cheaper but much faster so I’ll probably take the plane back to Sydney then jump over to New Zealand for the next leg of the journey.
I made an Airbnb request for a place Sydney but I was rejected because the owner would “prefer a woman”. Hmmm. I made two other requests but the hosts didn’t respond within 8 hours and I need a quick answer as time’s getting short. I cancelled those requests and did one of the very few Instant Bookings available in Sydney, near Manly Beach. Instant Bookings don’t require the review and approval of the host, so at last I have a place locked in for my arrival!
For dinner, we took a taxi to Vista View Resto Point. We sat at a table for over an hour and had a great conversation but we were strangely completely ignored by the waiter so we just got up and left. We took a taxi to Abreeza Mall, a very high end shopping mall. Walking through, we talked with a condo builder, who happened to be the same company I spoke with in Makati in Manila. The prices are so much higher than Thailand, and the units have an old-fashioned window aircon unit rather than a split-unit mounted up on the wall, and you have to buy a parking space for $15,500 and pay $78/month fees so this is really not a great option for me. We finally had dinner at an Italian restaurant, I inhaled a quattro formaggi pizza.
In the morning I was notified that my Airbnb Instant Booking was cancelled because the owner already has someone staying there but she didn’t block the days off on the Airbnb site. Dammit! I’m beginning to really hate Airbnb. I see two problems. First, you submit a Request for a booking to the host and then you have to wait for up to 24 hours for a response. This doesn’t work when time is getting close, on a holiday like mine, I don’t know my exact schedule until a few days before. Second, you’re dealing with people with a spare bed somewhere, not a company running a professional hotel, and some of these people are lazy or not detail-oriented or just morons. I gave up and booked a serviced apartment one block off Manly Beach with agoda.com, great price and it took about 30 seconds. Despite my best efforts, I may abandon Airbnb. I really hope I get a customer survey email from them.
I set the alarm for 6:30 AM to head towards the airport in the morning. Tomorrow, the short flight back to Manila then a long flight to Sydney!
