It's more fun in the Philippines

08/DEC/2012

It has been an amazing couple of weeks (17 days) spent here in the islands. We have seen so many wonderful sights and done so many things, plus met many nice people. In no other country have we been invited for so many homestays. It is hard to pick exactly what the highlight of our trip would be: would it be the first few days spent hopping from island to island on a small sailboat eating the freshest seafood? Or perhaps our final 2 days getting an intimate, personal tour of Philippine life and eating as many mangoes as possible? Or perhaps it would be the amazing underwater sights that we had in the middle part of our journey? Tough to say!  But Julie says she doesn't see me happier as when I'm eating a sweet, ripe mango! :-) Too bad the first part of our trip was desperately lacking in the mango department but fortunately made up for in other local delights.
We start our long journey home today (currently somewhere in the air over Japan) and we're both sad to go home. We felt very welcome in Albert's family and probably could easily have spent a week there soaking up the hospitality of his and his wife's relatives. We were definitely lucky to be in the Philippines at the same time as him and his wife, even if our trips only overlapped by a few days. After travelling on our own and not knowing what everything is and how much it should cost, having Filipinos to guide us and answer our questions was so good. (We were like toddlers; what's that? What's this? Can I try?) Julie and I laughed, as we walked through a hot and crowded market yesterday, that we were cramming as much in as possible and going hard right to the end. Same same as always - we can rest when we get home ;)

Here are the highlights that spring to mind; ask us for the full story and pictures.
- the Palawan river canoeing and sailing adventure through the jungle and islands was stupendous, aside from the crowing roosters and annoying dogs in our humble accommodations - think open air bamboo hut; what it lacked in comfort was more than made up for in atmosphere. Our guide, Gener, is a great guy and fantastic cook. Each morning fisherman would arrive at our "doorstep" offering their catches and Gener would ask us what we would like to eat that day: squid, crab, tilapia fish, eel... then grill it for us on the beach.
- El Nido and the Bacuit Archipelago in northern Palawan are breathtakingly picturesque both above and below the water.  I hopefully won't forget the image of having a school of fish swim around me or the sunset from the bay when our boat broke down on the way back to town.
- meeting new friends and visiting them in a small village north of El Nido, amazingly videoke is priority one, even if generators are the main source of power.
- what they say about the traffic in Manila is true. Oh my gosh! 
- Puerto Galera is home to some great scuba diving and both of us were quite impressed with the abundance and variety of fishes, plus soft and hard coral varieties and the giant clams. We also made the best of a mild typhoon windsurfing!
- Taal volcano and the lake inside a volcano inside the lake inside the volcano makes for a lovely view.
- I saw my first field of pineapples in Tagaytay, where you can get a pineapple for twenty cents! Along with so many other tasty fruits at the big Mahogany Market. Don't forget a hot'n'fresh buko (coconut) pie!
- I became fluent in Tagalog, by which I mean I know how to say "pretty lady", "tasty", "what's your name" and "let's go!", and that got enough laughs out of the boatmen.
- going to the market with Albert was good fun, but standing (or swimming for that matter) idly will get you roped into impromptu group photos.
- the diversity of activities and amount we experienced in such a short time.

Philippines in general:
- I think that the Philippines is the most crowded place we have been. Hong Kong still claims the title as largest crowd but there are just people everywhere here, at nearly all hours of the day (even 4:30am on our way to the airport this morning). Driving here must be exhausting, as there is so much to take in and make instantaneous decisions about: cars, large trucks, motorbikes, tricycles, pedal-powered tricycles, bicycles and people, all moving at different speeds and directions. Fortunately the livestock is off the road, unlike Cambodia.
- it's not quite as cheap as I thought it was going to be. But a beer can be bought for less than a C$1 in the store, slightly over a dollar in a restaurant. And most everything else can be had for about half (or sometimes less) of what it'd be in Canada. Notably, mangoes are about C$2.50/kg.(110 pesos)
- if you're smiling, you're fine. If not they'll likely try hard to make it so that you will be smiling.
- it's hot here, and typhoons pass by faster than storms do back home.
- knock-off Oakley sunglasses can be had for ridiculously cheap here (about a dollar, I think is what I heard the tout say?) - too bad I bought mine in Hong Kong. - the pink/purple eggs for sale are died that way to indicate that they've been boiled in a solution of salt and termite spit. The partially developed ducklings in eggs are less obvious to spot but are worth seeking out for a truly local food experience - ask to see the video of me eating Bulot!
- as mentioned before, they love the karaoke here. At one store in the mall we couldn't figure out where the music was coming from until we walked further in and discovered a staff member singing into a microphone while another flipped through the songbook.
- contrary to other SE Asian countries we've been to, tourism in the Philippines is mostly done by Filipinos.
- also contrary to other places, the internet is not as plentiful or nearly as fast, as say, Vietnam especially.

Bright lights, big city. Times square, HK

11/19/2012 11:50pm
After the long hike on Lamma, Julie definitely wanted a little pampering and had her eye open for a foot massage. They're quite abundant in Hong Kong so it didn't take too long to find one. But they all walk a fine line of your personal comfort level with "sketchiness", as they're frequently located above street level, up a dingy set of stairs and down a hallway. The one we picked walked this line indeed, especially since the lady at the top spoke little English. No matter; all sorted we sat down, WiFi password in hand, to have our feet taken care of.

Times Square in New York is a large gathering place, like, you know, a square. Times Square in Hong Kong is also a gathering place, but it's a mall. Aside from the small plaza in front of the entrance, I think about the only other thing it shares with the more famous version is the large, brightly lit billboards that surround the place. But still, it's pretty neat. Tonight LEGO took over and created a small Lego-Land Christmas scene that was made to be a small village, complete with bakery, restaurant and houses. The bakery's display case was quite impressive with its Lego cakes and pastries. So many people were milling around taking so many pictures of every little Lego figurine; I wonder what happens to all of these photos? Also, seems the new overly-large-to-be-a-phone Samsung Galaxy Note is the phone-du-jour here. I took a lot of people's pictures with theirs.
We had some dim sum in the mall at Crystal Jade whose "xiao long bao" was quite good. We wandered around the streets amongst the shops for a while before things started to shut down around 11. We had been to this area (Causeway Bay) way back in 2008 and it has changed: the bamboo-supported local ads are gone, replaced with new corporate advertisements. It's definitely not the same but there are many other places in HK to find those.
We took the tram (yup, old style electric double-decker tram) home and I got one of the best time lapse videos I've ever done, aside from the one of our drive through New Zealand's Southern Alps. Dunno how to share it...

One night in Puerto

Today was meant to be a down day - recuperating from the sunburn and restless sleeps of the past few days. In that we succeeded. Except we didn't get the laundry done.
We just got back from a bar just down the road from our hotel - so close that the walk home home is barely a memory.  Katabom (pronounced kata-BOOM) is a quaint little spot with live music who will be celebrating their third year anniversary in a couple days. We happened to be walking by the entrance when another couple were walking in. The man said that the live music here is very good and the owner is the best singer in Puerto. A moment's debate by us (I had hoped to go to the Baywalk to see the action) and we went in.
The place was dimly lit, mostly by candlelight and a man was singing cover songs with a guitar. The walls were covered with empty bottles glued together to form a three-dimensional wall paper. We sat down on the heavy metal chairs, trying not to make too much noise as they dragged, screeching along the floor.
The San Miguel beers are still produced in "stubby' format, and here they were served so cold that they were misting in the evening heat (it's still 27°C at 10pm).  I wrote notes in our travel book while Julie took photos. Suddenly two more beers appeared and the server said they were from the couple over there (see over Julie's shoulder in the one image) - the same couple who invited us in.
I thanked them as I passed by to the comfort room and they invited us to join them. A few hours of storytelling ensued with our new friend Marius insisting that we pay him a visit in El Nido when we travel there. "Sleep on a mattress this thick on my balcony and we'll eat fresh fish and watch the stars" he said. Round after round passed through as we discussed scuba diving, tourist traps, engineering, rugby, seafood and Filipino cuisine. He introduced us to a "salad" called kinilaw, which is like a ceviche but larger chunks of raw Spanish mackerel in this case. It was quite tasty! He declared that his girlfriend made the best though, because she made it with coconut milk.
A couple of guys at the next table had a couple of pitchers on their table. Julie wondered what they were so our host asked them. Iced tea apparently. But the smaller one was the local Tanduay rum. Seems the way to drink it is to pour a shot of rum and chase it with the iced tea. (Julie had noted earlier in the day how iced tea is quite popular here.)  Naturally this repatriated Filipino (he moved back from Cali) who was cheerfully wearing his Giants champions T-shirt offered us all a sample. And naturally my Julie was the one in there making it happen! She hopped over to their table after learning that he also had contacts in El Nido whilst I discussed the finer details of Springbok and Allblack rugby.
We collected more contact numbers while sharing our new Filipino cell number and I'm sort of surprised that we outlasted the Cape Town lad, but he did have a 5am bus to catch in order to get his building supplies shipped.
Fortunately we are catching the 11am "Fort Wally" van so we can sleep this off.

Palawan sailing adventure (day 2 to 3) – Snake Island, Honda Bay

This blog is related to the following photo gallery: http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/Travel/Philippines-2012/Sailing-Palawan-day-2 The adventure took place November 22-25, 2012.

Our second day with Gener on the Tao Philippines jungle tour. (www.palawansailing.com)

Today we would finish floating down the Babuyan River and trade boats to start sailing out into Honda Bay.

This tour is typically 3d/2n but we paid for an additional night out in the bay, and we are oh-so-glad that we did because it provided us the chance to experience an island to ourselves.

As we pulled out from the mouth of the river, we could see the white caps on the sea, and admittedly we got a bit nervous about it. So we strapped everything down on to the cargo net of the modified bangka boat. It was a good thing that we did, because it wasn't long before a wave came crashing into the hull and swept right over us! Oh, my, gosh! The water is SO wonderful here! It is the perfect temperature and amazingly clear azure blue. Plus, a few minutes of sitting in that intense sun and both of us were impatiently waiting for another wave to come crashing aboard and cool us down. It was really fun! Unfortunately I didn't have the water camera ready so no pictures of it.

As we sailed along on our little boat, Gener mentioned that he wasn’t sure where we’d stay tonight, as it would depend who was at this one island and how friendly they were feeling. We didn’t sail for long (and we sort of wished that we did a loop around the island just to be on the boat some more) until we coasted in towards a long narrow beach. There was a man there in a bamboo shelter on the beach, and after a bit of conversation, Gener pulled down his sail and happily announced that we were staying here on Snake Island! (I had to ease Julie’s fears that the island was named because of its shape, not because of a plethora of snakes living on it.)

It didn’t take long for our presence to be noticed by other boats going by and one enterprising fellow hauled his catch of day to shore for us to view. He proudly hoisted up an eel writhing on the end of his spear gun, to which Gener asked us if we wanted to eat eel tonight. Sure, why not? When else does one get to have super fresh eel? A bag of mussels was also exchanged, and I think Julie was a bigger fan of that purchase than the eel.

Snake Island was once a very popular tourist spot, but it has been shut down to save its ecosystem. There’s a guard who keeps watch, and with that a large rain barrel that Gener said we could use to bathe ourselves. So we did that. And only when you take off all your clothes on a desolate island does somebody suddenly pop around the corner.

We took a sunset stroll down the long strip of sand, maybe making it half way before we got tired and turned around.  And then look at that sight!  Awe-inspiring, really.  I cannot adequately describe it, other than to say that we could not believe we were here in the Philippines, on a trip that’s turning out to be a lot different than just going to a resort.

Gener’s cooking has been fabulous on this trip, and we’re becoming big fans of the calamansi limes that are used in almost everything here. The calamansi-onion-garlic-soy sauce-tomato salsa is great as a universal sauce on seafood. Tonight we learned that with a dash of sprite and a shot of local rum, it’s a tasty mixer too! After a couple glasses of that, it was bedtime in our tent on the beach.

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There’s something about camping, and that moment when you unzip the door and there lies before you a view like no other, with sun streaming down from a blue sky shining onto clear blue water, and you think to yourself that this is truly amazing. Today was one of those mornings.

To make it better, a pot of coffee on the fire and then we learn a new word – bananacue! Gener explains that there are many varieties of bananas and some are good for eating raw, while others are best eaten cooked. These ones, called “saba”, are best eaten as bananacue; deep fried, and sprinkled with sugar.

After breakfast we grabbed our snorkel gear from the boat and ventured off down the beach to see what we could see.  It did not take long to see something as Julie stuck her head underwater and immediately came back up waving and pointing and trying to yell through her snorkel. Something with a large head was poking out of a hole in the sand.  It didn’t look like an eel, but we sure weren’t about to test it. Further along we were pleasantly surprised by the abundance and colour of fishes swimming amongst the sea grass and corals.  Also saw a pipe fish, and a number of large starfish, plus a new thing called a feather star that wisped along in the water.

Before we knew it we were being called back to the camp for lunch. Today it was fresh squid marinated in olive oil with black pepper and salt, breaded and stir fried. Tasty…

We snorkelled a bit more in the afternoon before loading up the boat and sailing away from our little strip of sand.

Rural experience in HK - Lamma Island

11/19/2012
One of the goals of this trip to Hong Kong was to explore the further reaches of the territory. So today we got onto a ferry and went to Lamma Island, a small island about a 30min boat ride SW of HK. Cruising west out of Victoria Harbour it is interesting how the dense concrete jungle suddenly ends at a steep hill at the sea's edge and is replaced by thick green vegetation. You're reminded that you are in fact close to the tropics.
Leaving the rows upon rows of 40-storey apartment buildings behind, we pull into Yung Shue Wan that has just a smattering of 3-storey buildings.  Disembarking and walking along the quiet main street (you can actually hear birds chirping!) it feels as though we went from downtown Toronto to small-town Manitou. Except here there are large tanks of fish, abalone, scampi, clams and prawns at the side of the small street and there are no vehicles, aside from these neat little lawnmower engine-powered trucks.
Our purpose here is to do a walk from one end of the island to the other. Julie got the info from discoverhongkong.com and it said it would take about 4hrs. We got a little bit lost at first trying to get out of the village (having a GPS-enabled tablet is pretty handy!) but we found it, and armed with a waffle slathered in peanut butter and condensed milk, we wandered off down the sidewalk in the shade of the large trees.
Shortly a beach comes into view and with the sun trying to burn through the clouds, it's almost tempting to take a dip, but the sign that says "stay within shark net" makes one think twice. After the beach the path goes upwards out of the trees and into the drier grasslands. We stop for a snack at one of the half-dozen pavilions (rest shelters) that dot the route.
Coming down out of the hills a final pavilion offers a grand view of the bay and the village of Sok Kwu Wan. Walking through the village, seafood restaurants hawk their catch with the catch phrase that the ferry doesn't leave for over an hour - enough time for lunch! We take the bait (pardon the pun?) and sit down at a seaside place after the lady convinced us of her set menu lunch and julie bargained for some sweet'n'sour. HK$198 got us a plate of clams (slathered in a tasty spicy black bean sauce), shrimp, calamary [sic] and our first taste of abalone, served in the shell.  We actually had to get the server to get the meat out of the shell for us since we'd never done it before.  The sun came out and it was quite nice sitting there next to the boats bobbing in the water. Couldn't enjoy it for too long as we had to chug the final bites and dash to the ferry.

Lan Kwai Fong - we love this place!

5:20pm on Sunday, touchdown in HK!
We're getting to be pros at this now - I even remembered the bank machine at the airport that lets you withdraw a higher limit. And with our experience from last time with the airport-hotel shuttles, we easily sailed into the city (which was surprisingly dark already) gazing at the lights of the skyscrapers. Stepping out of the shuttle bus I immediately smell the familiar scent of the place - something like humid fried noodles, followed shortly by that sweet lemongrass scent that Holiday Inns in Asia manage to all smell like.
We're located in Sheung Wan and only a 10 minute walk to our favourite party place Lan Kwai, a concentrated block of restaurants and bars.  This weekend they were hosting their own version of Carnival.  The narrow streets were even more crowded with tourists and locals crammed in between small booths on the side of the street selling beers, sangria and rum punch, plus an assortment of food.  Suddenly we spotted a dense crowd blocking the street. Getting there all we could see was what we could view on people's camera/phone screens in front of us.  But then the drums started and feathers bobbed above the crowd and there we were - in the midst of a Carnival parade!
Guessing that they'd be coming round the block in a while, we ventured off the other way and got a nice big glass of sangria in time to see the parade come by.  Drums banging, whistles blowing! It was pretty fun!  For some reason, after the parade passed by, we became photo subjects - must be Julie's Latino looks?

We capped off the night with some tapas at a Spanish restaurant Boqueria high above the street. Amusingly they described their wines as "earthy, crisp, rich and elegant".  Since Julie couldn't decipher the wine descriptions and didn't want a sweet cocktail, she tried making her own from Campari.  Fail.  But my beer was good.  Oh, and they had bacon-wrapped dates. :-)

I love HK

If in doubt, add more wine

We just finished watching the movie "Hemingway and Gellhorn" and you could say I've been inspired to start writing! That and we're 12.5 hours into a 14-hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong.  It's such a long flight that you can't really comprehend it; nothing else takes 14 hours to compare with it.  For example, we're about to eat for the third time - do I really need another meal? Especially after I've essentially been eating Julie's as well? (It baffles us that they don't know the ingredients of the meals they're serving us.)   Did Julie really need four mini-bottles of shiraz-grenache? The answer to all questions is likely no, but hey, we're on vacation!
Overall it's been an enjoyable flight; one that may reinstill my faith in Air Canada. Our stewardesses have been very nice ladies, even snagging Julie a meal from first class that was dairy-free. The one french woman was quick to dole out disciplinary advice to a young mom ahead of us - apparently there were no fights in her house and her boys did their chores.
For the record, sitting in the very last row of a Boeing 777 is actually quite good: there's nobody behind you kicking your seat, you're in a row of just two seats, you're close to the galley (more wine please!) and the toilets (maybe too much wine?) and since it's a big plane there are multiple lavatories so there's no queue of people standing beside you. 
Also for the record, it's almost worth the flight to Vancouver for the sushi. The fresh, thick-cut slabs of wild salmon were sumptuous, and cheap too!  Need to thank our hosts last night, the Jamans (old university friend and former roommate from the hey days of 369) who made us feel welcome and suggested the sushi from a strip-mall restaurant. His cute three-year-old daughter gave us a glimpse of the princess fixation that Julie's two-year-old niece will possibly soon develop. (Oh, I've just been informed that that fixation has already developed.)

Well, the drink cart's coming round again. I'm almost surprised that this flight's almost over.  Time to sign off.
-A