Sipalay and good bye to the Philippines!
25th June - Sipalay.
We were up really early and filled with excitement as we knew we were going for a three day ‘holiday’ to a beautiful part of Negros called Sipalay. A little later than planned we boarded the bus, I rammed my huge rucksack under my very small seat and poor Jenna’s wouldn’t fit so she had hers propped up under her legs. The bus was pretty full, my knees were rammed into the seat in front of me and there were sweaty people and Jenna and I couldn’t possibly have a conversation because it was so loud, all of the windows were wide open, so it was basically like an open sided bus. I enjoyed looking out of the window and seeing all the differences in this country. I could see rice fields, which were totally flooded, due to the time of year, with water buffalo trudging their way through. I also noticed all the paintings on the walls, saying things about becoming catholic, and ‘get high grades in school not high on drugs’ I am still amused that everything is in English. I also enjoyed taking in all the different types of housing. Some people simply lived in huts, others in metal sheds, it seems people use any materials available to put together some kind of ‘house’
After a little while I started trying to read, however, the road was so bumpy, filled with potholes and incredibly whindy that I soon felt sick. I was also desperate to stop, but even when we stopped at bus station, I couldn’t bare the thought of hopping off all hot and sticky and having to make my way through the hundreds of people trying to sell me water, snacks and even fish. I really felt like my traveling had started, I know that there are going to be many more times like this, and perhaps even more uncomfortable bus journeys.
It felt like forever, but after 5 hours we arrived. As we stepped off the bus in Sipalay, we saw a thriving fish market to our right, but right ahead of us was the sea! It was beautiful. The sand was white, the see was blue and the sun was shining. I breathed in the fresh salty air (along with the fishy smell from the market) and we headed down in order to find a boat that would take us to the place that we had booked. We slipped off our flip flops and walked along the sand, I realized that this was the first time that I had seen sand, since I went to Newquay with my friends last summer. Shortly a boat man approached us and asked us where we were headed, we told him and he said that we needed to get on his boat, but that we just had to wait for half an hour while he finished getting previsions from the market. We sat in the shad and waited for him, as we waited we were approached by a lady who introduced herself as Rose, who claimed to be the manager of the lodge that we were staying and confirmed that we were catching the right boat. We soon boarded the small boat; there were just us two and the young boat boy. We had to sit on the edge of the boat because it was full of fresh food and crates of drinks. The water was so blue and actually really choppy, as I looked over the edge and into the water I was so excited, I had the erge to just jump in right there and then, but managed to fight that erge and just take in the breath taking views. After 20 short minutes we arrived at ‘Sugar Beach’ and jumped into the water and onto the shore. We were gob smacked. The place was beautiful and there was not another person in sight, just our small lodge nestled in-between the coconut trees.
The place we stayed in was called “Takatuka lodge” and was definitely the most interesting place that I had ever stayed in. The place was owned by the Filipino, Rose who we had met at the beach, her Swiss husband (Marc) and a German couple (Kalle and Cathy). They were all very friendly and were kind enough to inform us that the exotic sounding name of the place originates from the fantasy story about ‘Pippi Longstockings’ and the story about when her father got captured by pirates and she boarded her flying bed and went to rescue him, from the island of “Takatuka”. Apparently the whole story is colourful, creative and crazy so the owners decided that this would be a perfect name for their little place. The place was so unusual; Jenna and I spend a little while excitedly running allover the place checking out all of the weird and wonderful things and twists in the decoration. There were clearly influences from all over the world, I noticed some masks on the wall very much like some that my parents brought back from Thailand, and also Indian and African statues, and most of the rest of the thins we noticed were things made up of complete junk! I will give you some examples: In our room the first light switch we came across was made up of a petrol can, as it seemed you were screwing off the lid the light flickered on, the second was a tourch fixed to the wall, where you would normally switch the tourch on, I pushed it and yet more lights came on around the room, I then wandered into the bathroom, this time I had to punch a stapler to turn on this light. Everywhere I looked there was another interesting thing to entertain and stimulate my mind. Nothing seemed related. There were statues of African elephants walking across the ceiling, Indian headboards to our beds and then random toy cars, paint brushes, computer parts, and bottles etc coming out of every wall. I loved it, what an interesting idea for a place, and what ingenious people they were to think of all the ideas. Marc, who was also a dive master told me that the four owners make everything themselves, using only junk!
Jenna and I moved our bags into the “Bamboo room” which was right on the beach, with its own veranda, with a magnificent view of the see and then went to get ourselves some breakfast (even though it was well past lunch time) We realsied that the lodge restaurant was the only place that we could get anything to eat or drink, it was rather expensive too…well I say that, but in reality it is English prices. It is difficult to get used to when you are used to spending 30 pence on a beer or 5 pence on a chocolate bar! But I must admit, despite the beauty of the place, we were slightly disappointed that if we wanted to go anywhere else, or even to a shop we would have to go back in the boat to the market area where we had hopped off the bus earlier. We were worrying about how much money we would spend, but were also pleased by the fact that the most people that the lodge could hold at one time was 15. So we enjoyed a nice breakfast and then unconfidently slipped into our bikinis and headed down to the sea. The sky had already clouded over and rain was pushing its way through (as usual), but that didn’t stop our fun. We had a good long swim all the way to the end of our private little beach and then clambered up some rocks and had a little explore. We then looked to the West and enjoyed a beautiful sunset across the Sulu Sea, from the beach, while we got eaten alive by sand flies. That evening we enjoyed a delicious meal in the restaurant and when then by about 10 o’clock everyone headed to bed. We have definitely found that people in the Philippines certainly seem to live by the sun. Up at sun rise and to bed shortly after the sun had set. I supposed it is resourceful!
26th June
I awoke feeling utterly refreshed, despite sweating a lot throughout the night because Jenna had decided to turn the fan off! We sensibly applied some sun cream, paying special attention to Jenna’s badly burned arm, which had gotten 5 hours of sun through the bus window yesterday! We then headed down to the beach. We enjoyed the morning, swimming, walking up and down the beach and reading our books. We though our peace was ruined at one point, when 6 overweight middle ages white men arrived on their little boat, luckily they departed shortly after they realized that there was nothing to entertain them on ‘our’ beach. It rained all afternoon so Jenna and I spent our time swimming (well we were wet anyway) and writing post cards. It was probably a good thing that it was cloudy too, as Jenna had managed to get her whole body very burnt, luckily I only burnt my very pale backside!!! That evening we chatted to the owners and they were delighted with the Kimchee paste that Jenna had brought then from Korea (they had asked us when we booked the place, and they found out that we were in Korea) We orgainised a trip to do the next morning and we all retired to bed by about 10. I don’t think I have ever had such early nights, especially on holiday!!
27th June – Julian’s Wreck.
We awoke early and shared a cheese, tomato and onion sandwich before heading down to the dive room to equip ourselves with snorkels, masks and flippers. We then boarded the boat that we had come across on two days ago and headed away from Sipalay, across the Sulu Sea towards the North. It took about 20 minutes, and it seemed that we were in the middle of nowhere as headed towards Anajaua Island, we looked to notice the difference in colour of the water beneath us. The last time I had looked all I could see was a deep blue, now I could see shadows and a much lighter brown colour. It was the wreck beneath us. Marc was reluctant to tall us exactly how the ship had sunk, he told us that there were many theories, but he liked to believe that it had run aground on a coral reef in 1980. We wondered why the boat had been spit in two though. Perhaps, it had been bombed! I suddenly felt a little nervous, anxious to jump straight into the water knowing that there was a fully submerged ship beneath me (perhaps this is why Marc had opted not to tell us the whole story on this wreck.) I was assured that there were no sharks and just dived in, once I has I could immediately appreciate the beauty of this 60 meter long ship, half of it was almost completely buried in sand and the other half was above the sand and only covered with corals. Jenna jumped in shortly after me and we spent the next who hours marveling at the magnificent wreck, with its immense diversity and manifold of colourful corals and all of the vivacious fish. Some parts of the wreck were as close as 5 meters to the surface; I could easily swim down and touch the side of the boat. I do however wish that I hadn’t been so intent on prodding corrals to see which ones were hard and which were soft, as I accidentally touched some fire corral, causing my fingers to burn for the rest of the day! It has been overcast all morning, but when the sun came out is when we saw the true beauty of the fish. Most of them were pretty small, but my favourites were the schools of pearlescent fish, that changed colour every time they changed direction in the sea, also the stripy fish, that looked tike they were covered in tiger skin and the most interesting were a medium sized fish that had a green body, with bright blue and pink fins, a blue head and a yellow tail. I could have analysed their beautiful differences all day. I also enjoyed seeing the huge blue star fish and I was even lucky enough to see one of the very rare luminous ribbon eels, it was a magnificent blue and yellow colour, I was excited to share the experience with Jenna. I lifted my head to find her but when I looked back under the water it had gone again, probably into one of the nooks and crannies of the ship. I would have loved to have had the confidence to go into one of the windows and look around the ship, but I worried that I might get stuck or that I might come face to face with something nasty! We spent the rest of the day in the shade, as it was simply too hot to be in the sun and Jenna seemed even more burnt than the day before. We enjoyed another delicious, yet expensive meal and then headed off for another early night.
28th June – Back to Bacolod.
I couldn’t believe that it was time to head home already, this place was so peaceful and I really didn’t want to leave, but when we didn’t have enough money for the bill, including our tab, I was glad that we wouldn’t be spending any more money. With no banks anywhere near and not credit card option we were relieved that we could settle the bill by pay pal. We had also entirely run out of sun cream, so spent the morning out of the sun, sitting in hammocks taking in the views for the last time and having one last nosey around the place. We said goodbye and got onto our little boat, we left the Takatuka lodge and our paradise behind and sadly caught our bus back to Bacolod. Now I thought the bus here was bad, I thought the busses in Korea were bad, but nothing could have prepared me for this ride. It must have been the fastest bus journey that I had ever endured and I must say: it was NOT fun. We swerved around tail pin bends, looking down it looked as though we were only 1mm off plunging down the 50 meter cliff face; on the other hand the road was full of cracks, bumps and huge potholes. They really were so badly maintained, and numerous times I jumped about 2 feet into the air, my head dusting the roof and almost jarring my back on the way down. I wanted to read my book, but I couldn’t even consider it on this journey! I felt like I was on a really unsafe rollercoaster, my knuckles were literally white, palms red, from clinging onto the pole in front of me so hard, also my slightly burnt and very sweaty back was also sticking to the seat. At least that kept me in place some what. To make matters worse a man sat next to me, stinking of BO, with his legs open so wide that his knees were constantly rubbing against mine and he ‘accidentally’ kept falling into me, he also had a box on his lap with and animal in it, I still don’t know what that was! I must say I was delighted to get off the bus, and we realized it had taken an hour less than planned with our crazy bus driver. We were happy to get back to Fatima and Brian’s house. It almost felt like going ‘home’ even the dog was pleased to see us. We unpacked and then we all got ready for another night out. We went back to Chicken Ally, with the live bands, and MO2 and then ended up in a club, where we were the only guests. I couldn’t believe that it only cost 50 pence to get in and that included one free drink. I spent most of the evening dancing with Fatima’s young cousins, it was a fun night, however that night I went to bed and I really missed my lovely boyfriend Brian.
29th June
Today was a very unproductive day, it rained, we popped into town and that is about it. Poor Jenna had some how got conjunctivitis, and had one dreadful looking eye, but we still went out that night and I had fun having a dance in the club with little 6 year old Joshua. Every time I spend time with him, I wonder about my lovely little classes that I left in Korea. I hope that they are all ok, and the new teacher is doing as good job as I did
30th June. I rode a caribou
I would like to start off saying Happy 21st Birthday to my little brother. I hope that he has a lovely day and that he got his package ok. I miss you and an so sad that I can’t celebrate this special day with him.
Today we had a family outing. We went to visit Fatima’s grandmother, in her little village at the ‘other side of the mountain. 14 of us bundled into the Jeepney along with the usual supply of delicious food and drinks. It took almost 3 hours to get there along the bumpy roads. The close we got the more in the middle of nowhere we became. We finally got to fields and fields of sugar canes, that whipped us through the open sided Jeep, then the Jeepney could safely go no further. We all got out with our bags of stuff and then along came a caribou (a water buffalo) to help us along the bath for the last little bit. Joshua and I hopped on (obviously with no saddle or ropes) and desperately tried to stay on as he plodded down the lumpy muddy path. His skin was like pigs skin and not at all like a cow. Numerous times I thought that I was going to tumble into the stream running along the side of the track. Thankfully we didn’t and we arrived safe and sound at grandmother’s lovely place. The little village was something else, it was lovely. In the middle of nowhere they had no electricity and no running water but the place was lovely. The houses were spacious and tidy. We cooked some fresh fish in a banana leaf outside on a little fire, then went to wash in the stream. They are entirely self sufficient. They had their own chickens, pigs, goats and grew all their own vegetables and picked the plentiful fruits off the trees. Everyone seemed to chip in, even the kids would be hanging out the washing or collecting the chicken eggs, it really was lovely and they were certainly surprised to see three white people. After a couple of hours we got back on the caribou and all got back on the Jeepney. We then headed to Prezle’s house. Where she lived was even more remote. There were babies and animals everywhere, and we were shocked to find out that her mum didn’t even know that she was working and living with Fatima’s family for the past few months, so certainly seemed relieved to see her young daughter. The place reminded me of houses I saw in Tobago, where it seemed they had nothing, all sleeping on the floor in one big room, with tattered clothes yet I looked to the side to see the hugest CD player I had ever seen and a TV, both blaring away all day. As the sun begun to set and the afternoon rain begun to fall we headed back, getting utterly drenched through the glass less windows running down the side of the Jeepney. That evening we all went out for a few drinks, but a few drinks turned into a few more and we didn’t actually get back until more like 3 o’clock. It was a good night though and I will definitely miss this lovely little family that I have come so close to.
This morning I awoke early, knowing that we had a dreadful day of traveling ahead of me, what a daunting prospect. However I had a lovely time her in the Philippines (will on Bacolod anyway) and had such a fantastic time with Jenna’s kind and accommodating family, I will say good bye to the family, the piiad, Jeepneys, Chicken Adobo and come away with a few Elongo words (the language they use in Negros) adding to my ever confused vocabulary. It is almost second nature to talk in an American accent and input Korean and Philippine words, oh dear what will I sound like by the time I go back to England in February? I am extremely excited to move on, four flights later and yet another day spent in Bangkok and I will be in Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand. I will see yet another exciting place, another place to check off my ‘places to see’ list. 3 countries down 9 more to go!
- Posted by emily1183 on 02/07/2007.
- emily1183's site
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