Philippines, Tablas Island: Or cockroaches and aggressive gay men...

Okay...this is the last installment of storytime from the Philippines (though I still have more pics to show you guys and I really gotta get off my lazy butt and host/post my videos.

So...after leaving Carabao Island, I decided to head north to Tablas Island. I figured I would explore that place for a couple of days before heading back to Korea. I took the 6 a.m. boat from Carabao and arrived in Santa Fe, Tablas at around 7 a.m. and did one of the coolest things on my trip.

I went to board a local "bus" or Jeepney...basically some sort of a window-less bastard child of a million Jeeps and buses. How these things stay on the road is beyond me, but they're everywhere in the Philippines, as actual public transportation seemed to be completely nonexistent.

But...there was a twist. Since the boat had just come into town, everyone was getting on the bus...so, they had a rule. Women and children in the bus, men on the roof. This made for easily the most amazing and unique bus ride of my life. Being on the roof of one of these things, hanging onto the rack for dear life as it whipped around crazy corners and ducking massive palm branches hanging down from the side of the road was sublime! The scenery was bathed in perfect morning light and the whole experience was simply awesome. Something I could never experience in Korea or Canada, that's for sure.

Some of the awesome scenery:

After about an hour of bouncing around, I made it to Looc, my first stop. And wow, was the place ever a massive disappointment. It was completely run-down, half-abandoned buildings everywhere, people incessantly yelling at me trying to sell me stuff, etc. I spent a few hours there, and decided it was time to move on. So, I bought a Mountain Dew. Turns out, since they're all in refillable glass bottles, when you buy a drink, you only buy the actual liquid, not the container it came in...so here's my bottle of Mountain Dew:

I got on my Jeepney at about 10:50 a.m., since it was supposed to leave at 11 a.m. A few minutes after noon we actually took off...wonderful :)

I headed up to Odiongan, the main city on Tablas Island, and one I was told will be a pleasant place to visit. My impression was that for Odiongan to be a pleasant city to visit, you would need two things: a Jeepney from Looc to get you there, and a time machine to get you back to 1957, the last time the city appeared to have anything resembling charm and attractiveness.

The place looked like Dresden, circa 1946. You could tell that, at one time, hotels lined the streets and a beautiful walkway snaked its way along the seashore...but that was well before I was born. As it was, it was an unpleasant, broken down place whose occupants appeared to have no desire to beautify their city. And don't even tell me that they're poor, because you don't have to be rich to put your potato chip bag in a garbage can, instead of ditching it wherever you ate the last chip.

After a few unpleasant hours of hunting for something worthwhile to see, I boarded another Jeepney and headed back to Looc, anxious to get the day over with and get back to Carabao as soon as possible.

Once in Looc, I got a room at the local hostel (the horribly inappropriately named Angelique Inn...more on this in a minute) and went for a walk. First, I stopped at what passed for a local park (tiny patch of muddy grass in the centre of the town) and sat down to read my book. Soon, an overweight middle aged guy started talking to me. Not wanting to be social, but being a nice guy, I put the book on hold and chatted for a minute or two before he offered to give me a massage. Not realizing that I was being hit on, I casually told the guy, I'm okay and in no need of a massage. Then he winked and told me he was going to get some oil in case I change my mind.

Close the book, go for a walk. I headed to the water, where they were supposed to have a marine sanctuary. Unless their sanctuary is aimed at preserving plastic bottles and random pieces of garbage, it failed. It was, as expected, a disappointment. But, whatever, water is water, and I love being by it, so I went on my little stroll as it got dark and checked out the sorry little pier they had. I was admiring the dark horizon when a younger guy started talking to me. Being the nice guy, I talked to him, and things seemed to be going pretty normally. Then it started raining, so I told him I'd better get back to my hostel and started walking away. He rode his little scooter after me and stopped in front of me, blocking my way. He then asked me if I was straight. I told him, yes, absolutely. The next words out of his mouth made my head spin. "Is there any way I could suck your #&$*?," the young man inquired. No. No way. No how. Never. But, apparently, this wasn't clear enough for him, as he kept pressing the subject, even telling me that he had followed me from town to the waterfront. At this point, I was rather happy that, unlike in Korea, in the Philippines I'm a giant. At 5'10, 162lbs, I have a good 40lbs and 4-6 inches on most guys there, so while I was uncomfortable and at times tempted to end the conversation by introducing the young man's nose to the knuckles on my right hand, I never felt threatened.

I got out of that situation, went back to my hostel just as the drizzle turned into an all-out monsoon downpour, dragged a chair onto the balcony (after killing a roughly 4-5" spider in the bathroom...I'm not kidding, I actually broke the plastic pail I was murdering him with before the thing died!) and continued reading my book. Minutes later, the front desk guy came up and started talking to me. The conversation, again, started fairly normally. Then, about 2-3 minutes into it, he asked me if I was single. I told him yes. Then he asked me how my sex life was, being single and all. "Here we go," I thought. So, I told him  it's none of his business and that I'm going to sleep. I went into my room and closed the door. Ten seconds later I heard a knock on the door. Ignored it. Knock again. Ignore again. Knock again. Ignore. Knock again...open the door...before I could say "What the eff do you want?" The less than charming innkeeper uttered the following words (while leaning against the doorframe and making kissing faces): "I want to taste you." For eff's sake. I told him to get out. He resisted and kept dirty talking me. Finally, after asking him to leave nicely three times, I shut the door on him. And realizing that the fool had a key to my room, barricaded the door with the table and chair, packed my backpack and went to sleep fully dressed, ready to get out in 1 second flat, if the need arose.

You'd think this would all be enough for one day. But oh, no. The gods of Tablas Island had a few more surprises up their sleeves. About two hours into my sleep, I was awakened by a pinch on my neck. Immediately, I knew it was a bug biting me. I leaped to my feet, slapped on the light and heard three or four roaches scatter to safety behind the dresser and under the bed...and one massive (roughly 1.5-2", not counting the antennae) cockroach running around on my pillow and bed completely confused. Wonderful...I had just been bitten by a cockroach...exactly what I was hoping for. This was enough.

I got out of my room (after taking a couple of pictures of the cockroach) and went downstairs, to find the place completely deserted. I went outside, and saw that the neighbouring house was painted in the same colours as the hostel, and figured that would be the owners. I banged on the gate, woke up their dog, yelled, etc for about half an hour before they came outside. I demanded my money back...they asked me why. I told them that, aside from the guy at the front desk making sexual advances at me, the cockroaches biting me in my sleep were more than enough. I showed her a picture of the offending bug. Her reaction: She looked at me like I was crazy and said "What?? But it's just a cockroach!!". Thankfully, the front desk guy came out as well, and the more I pushed the whole line that him coming onto me is inappropriate, the more eager he was to tell the owners to give me my money and let me be on my way.

Finally, with money in my pocket, I resolved to walk to Santa Fe, I would guess roughly 30-35km away...in the middle of the night. It was a dumb idea, but I was wide awake and pissed off and that was the only place in town where one could rent a room.

Then, as I was walking, every stray dog in town (in the Philippines, there are roughly 27 stray dogs for every person) decided to howl at me...this got a group of local guys who were outside drinking beer interested and asked me what I was up to. I told them my story and my plan to walk to Santa Fe. They thought the idea was idiotic and I was likely to get robbed. Sweet. Oh Tablas, do thy charms never run out?

However, these guys were different...they offered me (every single one of them) their place for me to crash for the night before heading off the island. I declined, being weary of anyone and everyone. After they insisted for about half an hour, I agreed to just sit and drink with them (I still had some Mountain Dew I managed to find in a bottle)...we sat and chatted for a couple of hours (one of the guys was so angry at how I had been treated that he marched off to the hostel to yell at them), and I ended up sleeping in the guy's spare room.

On the whole island, these guys were the only genuinely good people I met.

After sleeping a few hours in the guy's spare room, I was up at 5 a.m., and got a guy on a motorcycle (after another one tried to rip me off, but having been in the Philippines for a week, I knew what fair prices were...I told the guy no way, then he started following me around until I told him to get lost). Anyways, after bouncing around on the back of the dude's motorbike (with no public transportation, this was my only option to get to Santa Fe), I got to the boat "terminal" and found out I missed the boat (I was told it left at 7 a.m., when in fact it was gone at 6). I'd have to wait for the next one for two hours...and just then I was told that another boat was leaving for a neighbouring island and that would have to go right beside Carabao anyways and they would drop me off in Carabao. When I asked about the fare, it was roughly 2-2.5x what it should have been. I knew I was getting ripped off, despite all the crooks hanging out at the pier telling me it was a great deal...but, screw it, I thought...it's only a few bucks, and I let Tablas take its last stab at me, as I got on the boat and mentally gave the finger to the whole island.

An hour later I was back on my beloved Carabao and the rest of the story I have already told you guys about in my previous posts.

Soooo....sorry about the negativity of this post, but it was a thoroughly negative and messed up 24 hours on Tablas. Here's my travel tip: If you're in the Philippines...avoid Tablas Island like the black plague.

Okay...I'm out...I'll have some more Philippines pics and videos up in the coming weeks, but I just bought a bike (more on that later), so I'm out riding as much as I can, rather than sitting behind my computer :)

Cheerio!
T

I got 99 problems...

A year ago today I made myself a promise: that I would stay single for 365 days. I know, I know. You're sitting there, yelling at your screen "But it's not fair!!! How can you be so selfish as to deprive the women of the world of your wonderful companionship??!!!" You're right and for that I apologize.

However, I had my reasons...you see, August 25 was not picked at random. On that day in 2009, I had the longest and most meaningful relationship of my life end. I'm not going to go into the details of it, but those of you who were around for it remember that I got my ass royally kicked and I didn't get back up on my feet for a long time after that. Then, on Aug. 25, 2010 I had another relationship end. Though that one was my choice and I have not regretted my decision for even a moment, when I looked at the date that day and looked inside myself I realized that it was time to just be me for a while...so I picked Aug. 25, 2011 as the date before which I am not allowed to get myself into a relationship. In case you're keeping track, this one year has been the longest stretch that I have been single for since I was 18.

Well, let me tell you...the past 12 months have been nothing short of amazing. I would say it has been one of the best years of my life. Not having a girlfriend was certainly not solely responsible for all the good that has happened in the past year, but it has definitely contributed to the overall awesomeness...so, let me highlight a few things that have happened in the past year...in absolutely no particular order:

- I got closer to my friends and family than ever before. Not having a girlfriend allowed me to spend mega amounts of time with them, whether it was chilling with my parents and watching old Hungarian movies or going on one of the many superb camping trips with my best friends. And, I'm not going to lie, sometimes, for one reason or another, I needed them and they were there for me. Always and without hesitation. Whether it was Jon cheering me up after the second break-up, Mark letting me crash on his couch for a couple of months while I was going to school or my parents giving me the kind of supportive and loving home everyone dreams of, I could count on every one of them.

- Exactly 11 years and 1 month after first setting foot in college, in October, 2010 I got my Bachelor of Journalism.

- I quickly followed that up by adding a TESL certificate so I can teach English as a Second Language at home (and make myself more competitive in the field abroad) in January, 2011.

- I lost 40 lbs and got into the best shape of my life.

- I moved to Korea to teach English. I mean how crazy is that?

Random: One of the all-time awesome single guy songs (Johnny Cash: Understand Your Man)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipjaLMd8TqM

- I travelled around Canada and to the United States, China, Korea and the Philippines.

- I bought my dream camera. It took me five years of lusting and saving, but in November, 2010 my very own Canon 1D Mark III arrived in the mail! Today - 9,000 pictures later - I still grin every time I grab it and go shooting.

- I paid off a third of my outstanding student loans...now I'm down to roughly a quarter of what I started with when I left school...the end is in sight!!!

- Last, but not least...my life has been thoroughly drama-free. No fights, no breakups, no heartbreaks, no woman, no cry. Best of all, I'm not jaded, bitter, angry or sad anymore. Been there, done that. I'm in that perfect place where I have nothing against relationships and, should one come my way, I would welcome it with open arms, but at the same time I'm loving being single and I'm in absolutely no rush to change that status.

So...here's to a year of me. And thanks to everyone who has made it the blast it has been...

T

Carabao Island, Philippines: the best part of my trip

Okay...after the negativity of my Boracay Island post, let me lay some positive thoughts on you guys! Also, I'm going to bombard you with a ton of pictures, so if you like visual goodness, read on!

On my third day in the Philippines I got up nice and early and headed to Carabao Island. On the boat, I met two other backpackers, Andrea (a Colombian who now lives in China) and Antonella (an Italian living in Germany) and we instantly hit it off. Antonella, like me, was trying to get away from the craziness of Boracay and looking for a more peaceful corner of the Philippines.

On Carabao Island I found the experience I had been looking for: beautiful beaches all to myself, friendly locals with no agendas, and the peace and quiet to read my book.

The girls were there for 3 days (we stayed at a motel-style "resort" of which I'll have videos soon), and I stayed a total of 5 days on Carabao before heading off to Tablas and quickly coming back to spend 2 more days there.

Carabao was bordering on magical...the first two days we just spent walking on the beach, chilling on the shore, swimming every chance we got and taking things easy...we met a ton of locals (mostly kids) who were incredibly friendly and genuinely happy to see us.

Like this kid who was proudly showing off his toy...a dead crab:

Or these kids playing on the far end of the beach:

Or these kids running off to school:

It was an idyllic existence...mostly sunny and hot during the day, stunning monsoon/typhoon storms at night (videos of that to come soon too, I promise!).

The Moon and stars through palm trees at night:

On Thursday I decided to take the main highway through Carabao Island and walk from Lanas to San Juan...okay, so the main highway is more like a sidewalk:

The "road" is about 7 km long and connects the two main settlements of Carabao Island. It winds through some amazing tropical rainforests, you're surrounded by gigantic coconut and banana trees the whole way...on a beautiful day with nothing but blue sky and fluffy white clouds above you, it doesn't get much better.Wait...it did. I think the highlight was that, among all the friendly people, one stood out. I was walking along minding my own business, when a girl - about 10 or 11 years old - coming towards me smiled at me and handed me a fruit. Stunned by her spontaneous generosity, I said "for me?" to which she nodded...I said thanks, she said "you're welcome," smiled and walked on. It was a small gesture (though the guava she gave me was very delicious!), but it summed up the kindness of the Carabao Island people.

Some of my detours:

And a 360* shot from the top of a hill:

On Friday morning the girls left (which was a little sad, since they were awesome to hang out with), and I went on a 3-hour kayaking trip by myself to see what I could find...I paddled through caves, among tiny little islands and onto deserted beaches...it was simply sublime.

Then, on Friday night we had the most gorgeous sunset of my trip, and one of the most beautiful of my life (the first picture in this post was taken on Friday night...here are a few more):

Panorama:

More sunset pics on my Flickr!!! http://www.flickr.com/tamasv

On Saturday, I walked again to San Jose and, wanting to save a little money (more because I was running out of Pisos and there was nowhere to change my dollars than actual cheapness), I spent the night in a quaint little cottage...okay, so the truth is it was the outdoor patio section of a restaurant...it was beautiful! The night was pretty uneventful, but I did manage to grab one of my favourite pictures of the whole trip there. Not photoshopped, everything about this picture is real...night on the beach at San Jose:

From there I departed for Tablas Island (next blog) and quickly returned for two more days of quiet bliss!

Okay...it's almost 4:30, I'm sick of sitting on this chair (day 2 of deskwarming)...I'm going home...

Y'all take care now!
T

Philippines, Boracay Island: Paradise Ruined...

The first place I stopped at when I got to the Philippines was the island of Boracay. According to everything I've heard, seen and read on the Internet, it was supposed to be a tropical paradise.

My plan was to simply go there and do nothing for 10 days...I brought a book (my childhood favourite and very appropriate Robinson Crusoe) I was hoping to finish and beachcomb and enjoy the peace and solitude of a tropical beach when I wasn't under a palm tree reading.

Well, if you want peace and quiet, Boracay ain't the place for you. On the surface, it looks like for thousands of years it was a gorgeous island. Its major claim to fame is White Beach, which, living up to its name is a kilometres-long white sand beach bordering a gorgeous teal blue sea and lined with palm trees. Something like this:

There's one problem, however. And it's a big one. It's an overcommercialized, anything-goes-as-long-as-you-have-money mess. I mean Boracay makes Las Vegas look like your grandmother's annual church bake sale.

During the day, there are a million people trying to sell you everything from massages to boat rides to endless trinkets, sunglasses and bootleg DVDs. You literally can't walk 3 metres without someone yelling "YES SIIIIIIIR" at you and then going on about whatever the hell they're trying to sell. The worst part is that 90% of them are mobile (carry little cases of "Rolex" watches, pearl earrings, etc), so they follow you around. They're like a pack of wandering sell-monsters waiting to attack anyone who looks like he has a wallet.

It took me roughly 17 minutes (which equals about 914 approaches by these people) to be sick of the place. Which is sad, because when you managed to get away from the crowds, scenery like this greeted you:

One of the few positives was that it's a good place to be for a vegetarian, since most restaurants (unlike in Korea) had basic vegetarian options like omelettes and panninis. Sadly, it was also the place for establishments like Starbucks.

But...walk away far enough from them and you're rewarded with this:

In Boracay I found a guy who ran a dive shop with a few hostel-type rooms in the back...for about $9.50 a night...perfect...cute room too, all natural materials, and with a tiny bit of ocean view!

On the surface, things were excellent. Sadly, even on the beach, when I was taking pictures, people came up to me selling stuff. Even far from the crowds they were coming out of nowhere and saying "no" to them once was not enough for them...most I had to say no to three or four times before they left me alone.

At night, things got even worse. The island is flush with hookers and aggressive "ladyboys." Now, not being an expert, my understanding of ladyboys is limited, as far as I know they're gay guys who are somewhere along the spectrum of a sex change. I'd say easily half the prostitutes in Boracay are ladyboys, and I'm guessing if you choose to enlist the services of one, it's a complete toss of the coin what genitalia you'll land yourself.

Now, normally, I wouldn't spend so much time describing the sex for sale in a town I'm visiting - not being a customer myself, it normally does not concern me in the least. However, Boracay was a little different.

You see, pretty much as soon as the sun set the DVD and straw hat peddlers were augmented and then replaced by hordes of hookers. So, walking on the main pathway connecting all parts of the beach became a gauntlet of prostitutes and they're even more aggressive than the toothless dude trying to tell you that the $10 "Rolex" he's waving in your face.

I'm guessing that travelling alone as a guy made me the #1 target on the beach, but still...when I'm trying to enjoy a beautiful tropical night (a night I had been dreaming of since I was a kid) I really could do without hookers of all sorts grabbing at me.

Let me relay a few of the experiences that made me want to get off that island as soon as possible...but first...a picture from the night:

So....here are a couple of experiences... Walking along the beach, enjoying the warm air, soft breeze and the sound of the waves, I had probably 200+ proposals from prostitutes, and a bunch kept grabbing my arm and starting to walk as if we were together. Needless to say, this was rather alarming, as I really was not keen on being seen sauntering along the main drag (no pun intended) with a hooker of questionable gender, and I guess my panic showed on my face as I looked around trying to shake her off me. Nearby, I saw a cop/security guard (hard to tell, they all carry guns and are equally useless, more on this in a minute) and thought "oh sh*t, that's exactly what I need...to get busted in the Philippines with a hooker holding on to my arm"...reading the alarmed look on my face, the cunning woman quickly told me that it's okay...the security guy/cop was actually there guarding a nice little hiding place for her to take customers to. Beautiful.

The worst, experience, though...and the one that made me swear to get off that island as quickly as possible was when I stopped on the beach to admire the moonlight filtering through the tall palm trees. It was a perfectly sublime moment. Just then a ladyboy prostitute came up to me and started propositioning me. When I declined the offer, he/she/it (I have no idea what you're supposed to call them), asked what I was doing there. I pointed to the magnificent sight before us and said "I'm just watching the moon behind the palm trees." To which he/she/it replied "Go do it somewhere else. Get the hell out of here." Apparently me enjoying the beach was ruining his/her/its business...wonderful. Even before this, earlier on Monday, I was looking at the local tourism office to see how much it would cost to fly to Singapore or Hong Kong, wanting to get the hell out of there...this cemented my determination to leave.

Okay...a word about the cops/security guys. They're EVERYWHERE. I mean, you can't go 10 metres without seeing one. They're armed, and I thought this was funny, with all manner of guns. Some had what appeared to be semi-automatics, while others were rocking wooden-handled 6-shooters from 1884...I'm guessing they just brought whatever they found at home to work. As numerous as they were, they were completely useless. The ones who were not sleeping on the job (I'd say no more than half of them fell into the "awake" category) were quite content sitting on chairs in the shade and talking to sellers or prostitutes and completely ignoring whatever may have been going on (like the drunk Korean guy abusing his girlfriend, which the armed men of justice simply laughed at). Very telling of how useless and corrupt the "police/security" forces are was that there were members of the auxiliary military police trolling the beach wearing "Sponsored by Coco Manga's" T-shirts...Coco Manga's is perhaps the dirtiest and most morally loose bar in town.

Thankfully the owner of the hostel I was staying at was going to a nearby island and asked me if I wanted to join him...of course I said yes! That island was Carabao and it was by far the highlight of my trip...but, more on that next time...for now, despite my negativity about Boracay, here are a few gorgeous pics to leave you with...

The view a few steps from my hostel:

One of the half dozen or so abandoned resorts at the far end of White Beach...it was the best part of the beach...nobody there!

Okay, that's enough for now...I'll be back tomorrow with more!

T

Back from the Philippines!! Let the storytelling begin...

After 13 days, roughly 6,500 km by air and 1,000 km by land and sea I'm back in Korea! While I was gone I checked out 6 islands (though only 5 by choice haha) in the Philippines, met a lot of awesome and some really creepy people, took 1,700 pictures and a ton of videos and have enough stories to fill a small book...so I'll break the blogs into sections...I think today's is just going to be about my trip back (which was an adventure in itself) and the rest of the entries will be broken up into segments by island :) This is partially because I'm trying to get through my pictures to have some up for you guys, but it's taking a long time...(though I'm becoming a whiz with Photoshop keyboard shortcuts...BAM!)

Sooo...on Wednesday I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to board the little boat from Carabao Island to Caticlan at 6 a.m. For some dumb reason, they only have one boat a day, so if you go from one island to the next, you have to wait a day to come back...oh well. Anyway, so I was at the airport by about 7:30, even though my flight wasn't 'till 11...Caticlan is a pretty small town, and there isn't much going on, so after hunting down some breakfast (chocolate milk and some awesome local pastries), I went to the airport, checked in and waited. And waited. And waited.

At around 10 a.m., the screens showed (no announcement was ever made for anything) that my flight was delayed. Upon asking the sour staff, they told me it's delayed by an hour due to mechanical troubles with the plane. Sounded pleasant. By the time 11 a.m. rolled around, the screens showed that my flight had been pushed back to 2:30 p.m. Wonderful. This put my afternoon connecting flight in Manila (to get back to Busan, South Korea) in serious jeopardy.

Then I saw this...

So much for that. Of course, again, as expected of the fine folks at Cebu Pacific Air, no announcement was made.

They did, however, serve lunch for those of us stuck at the airport. You had a choice of chicken, chicken or chicken. Wonderful news for the vegetarian in the room. I asked about a vegetarian option and they looked at me as if I told them I was hoping for Martian turtle soup. Because, apparently the Philippines' biggest airline is still stuck back in 1952.

Soon, with the rest of the discontented herd, I lined up at the counter to figure out just what I was going to have to do (by the way...as peaceful as the Swiss may be in time of war, the ones at the airport were a bunch of jerks when it came to rebooking...they were ruthlessly cutting ahead of anyone they could in line...poor showing, my friends...poor showing).

Upon my turn at the desk, I was told that I was out of luck for getting back to Korea on Wednesday. In fact, the best solution they could come up with was bouncing me literally all over the country for more than 24 hours before putting me on a plane to Korea. I asked, rhetorically, if they're going to pay for a hotel room. To that they said no, but they assured me (as if expecting an outpouring of thanks from me) that they won't charge me for the extra flights.

It was then that I hit 100% pissed off and let loose on them. Turns out an angry Hungarian in the middle of the Philippines armed with a handful of words I wouldn't want my students to ever utter in class can get a lot accomplished and I managed to get a few concessions: hotel room and breakfast paid for. At least it was going to beat spending another night at an airport (the Manila airport, where I was originally going to have to spend the night is pathetic...spending the night on my way to the Philippines there was more than enough).

Then they gave me my itinerary: Just after 2 p.m., I'd have to take a van from the Caticlan airport south to the Kalibo airport, where I would board a plane bound for Manila (to the north) at 7 p.m., land there at around 8:30 p.m., rush to the departure gate and grab a flight back down south to Cebu at around 9:30 p.m., where I'd spend the night and then board a plane at 2:30 p.m. the next day bound for Korea to the north. If you were to draw my trip on a map, it would look like a seismograph...up, down, up, down. In case you're keeping track (I was...since I had nothing better to do), that puts me at FOUR airports in 9 hours. That has to be some sort of a record.

So, I got in the van, passed some stunning scenery on the way to Kalibo, arrived at the Kalibo International Airport, whose name made me want to both laugh and punch whoever decided that such a lofty moniker was appropriate for what was basically a barn in the middle of a field. The floodlights for the runway were connected by exposed wiring that had been cut, taped together with electrical tape, cut and taped again countless times. Straight wicked.

At the airport, it being dinnertime now, they again served food. Considering they knew my situation and they were the ones bouncing me around, I was sure they'd have something for me. Nope. Chicken again. Bastards. So, I ventured outside and dodging the pushy store/restaurant employees shouting "yes siiiiiir" at you every time you showed your hide (I grew to hate these people within about 20 minutes of landing in the Philippines...12 days prior to this), I found a restaurant and had a quick meal.

Back at the airport, I boarded, took off, flew, and landed in Manila. There, I had just enough time to grab a drink, go to the bathroom and run to my gate.

Once at my gate, the lack of two things quickly jumped out at me. 1: An airplane. 2: Enough people to fill an airplane.

You see, my departure gate was completely deserted and outside of it I saw nothing but unlit tarmac. The two Cebu Pacific employees packing up their station (their day obviously done) asked for my boarding pass to figure out what was going on.

After much scratching of heads and twitching of eyeballs, the problem was discovered: the imbeciles at Caticlan booked me on a flight on the wrong freaking day.

Yup...Aug. 18. Too bad it was the 17th...they were so close. They almost had it!

What scares me even more is that I was able to get past all the security people, get all the necessary stamps, etc, without anyone noticing that I shouldn't have been there. But they did confiscate my mini-tripod, lest I bring down an Airbus A320 with it. Wonderful experiences.

After much scrambling, the staff in Manila (the only competent Cebu Pacific employees I met in my many, many interactions with the company) managed to get me on the last flight bound for Cebu that day...barely. I was the last one to board after running to the gate.

After landing in Cebu, I swaggered up to the airline's counter and asked about my hotel room. This request was met with blank stares and confusion. Apparently the staff in Caticlan neglected to inform the Cebu office of this little detail. That's okay...they only had 9 hours to do it.

While I sat in the terminal waiting for them to figure things out, airport security started hassling me and telling me I wasn't allowed to spend the night at the airport. Exactly what I needed...some fool with a toy pistol and a cute little plastic badge pestering me. (More on security personnel in the Philippines in the next blog).

Finally, with minutes to spare to midnight, I got in a sketchy van and was whisked off to the magical land of the Cebu Days Hotel, thus ending what was possibly the weirdest day of travel of my life.

The next day everything went smoothly, and I got two fresh additions to my new hobby...stamp collecting:

Okay...that's it from me for today...I must admit, though, that...despite the people at Cebu Pacific effectively wasting a day of my vacation (not happy about that) and all the sarcasm and jovial negativity in this post, it was kind of a fun day...definitely makes for a good story (I hope). And, far from turning me off of travelling, I wasn't even back in Korea yet when I started hatching plans for my next trip. Hong Kong? Singapore? Taiwan? We'll see...for now, this is it from me, I'll try to be back tomorrow with a post on Boracay Island (and I promise I'll have tons of pictures).

Be good!
T

Philippines Trip...Part One

On Saturday night I got on a big jetplane to leave for my first ever out-of-country vacation that wasn't a road trip!

The plane ride was uneventful, which is always welcome when it comes to air travel :) I sat nextt to a couple from Vancouver...small world, then switched planes in Manila, where I got out and wandered around until I realized that the airport area of that city really didn't have much to offer.

I landed in Caticlan at around 7 a.m. on Sunday and almost immediately the skies opened up and hammered us with a wicked monsoon downpour.

I took a 3-wheeled motorcycle taxi to the boat terminal and headed for Boracay Island. These 3 wheeled motorbikes are everywhere and they're truly frightening. Compared to these guys, the drivers back in Korea are a bunch of considerate, sleepy motorists. Also...anyone with a 125cc motorcycle will yell at you offering you 'taxi' rides.

Once on Boracay, I decided to ignore the rain and, unlike everyone else, opted to walk, instead of taking a three-wheeled taxi. I don't get people who travel halfway around the world only to hop into a taxi and get dropped off in an air-conditioned, all amenities included hotel room. So...I bought a gorgeous flower-print umbrella and walked for an hour or so through gorgeous lush tropical forests and countless little homes and stores. My first impression of the Philippines was that it was a gorgeous, but very poor country.

Then I got to the tourist part of Boracay and started looking for a place to spend the night. Since it's monsoon / typhoon season, prices are down and usually negotiable. The average motel room goes for the equivalent of $25 with an air conditioner or $20 without. But...I wanted something cheaper and a little less usual than a motel room...so I found a guy who runs a dive shop / hostel...for $9.50 a night, I got myself a wicked little non-air conditioned room a few paces from the ocean! I can hear the waves crash on the shore all night long.

My room

 The view from my living room:

 A few paces away:

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.....I wrote a huge blog entry and I just lost almost all of it...I'm on a shared computer and the rest of the residents are getting impatient...sigh...check out my Flickr for more photos. See you soon!!!

T

BAM! Sold my motorbike...pics from the last awesome ride...and I'm going to the Philippines!!!

Okay...I'm going to try and make this one a quick one...yesterday I went on two amazing rides...one that took me down one side of Dream Bay, across the bridge (no motorbikes allowed, but the only place where they have signs announcing this is ON THE FREAKING BRIDGE...little too late by then), and then down the Jinhae side, around this gorgeous little fishing village and up the coast again to Masan and back home...simply stunning ride on a perfect summer day.

While there, I took a bunch of pics again (with the trusty little G9!)...all of this is the famous Dream Bay around which are build Changwon, Masan and Jinhae...

The big bridge...Jinhae side on the left, Masan side on the right:

Little fishing village on the Jinhae side where I stopped to take photos and have a drink:

Random shots around the village:

Because I'm really liking black and white these days:

And finally...the last pic of my bike while it was still mine:

The ride was absolutely awesome...I loved the twisty seaside road and the scenery and weather were both astoundingly perfect. On the way up, I ran into rush hour traffic through Masan and to my great surprised I handled it like a champ.

After that, I went home, ate dinner, felt restless and got on the bike again, heading toward Tongyeong and Geoje, hoping to see the sea at night.

The ride again was beautiful the highways were more deserted and the farther I got from Changwon the more stars came out to greet me...by the time I got to the farmlands about 50km from home, the sky was filled with gorgeous stars, constellations and the Milky Way, with the setting moon thrown in to make things really perfect. I have been missing the night sky for too long. I love just staring at it or taking pictures of it, it was absolutely perfect...that right there was worth buying the bike for.

However...I quickly realized something...I got to see all these great places, but I couldn't take decent pictures of them (at least at night) because the little G9 was all I could carry around...sure I could grab a backpack and take the big camera and a few lenses with me, but that's too much hassle and trouble and, quite frankly, I didn't feel right about having all that camera equipment with me while riding a motorcycle. So, thanks to that and another big thing, I decided to sell the bike. The other big thing was basically post-traumatic stress disorder.

When I was a reporter I had to go to more than my fair share of deadly things...murders and motor vehicle accidents mostly. During the course of those years, I have seen what happens to motorcyclists when things go wrong (the results are worse than any nightmare I've ever had...it's truly horrendous) and those images are burned in my mind. So, every kilometre of amazing riding was tainted by the images of death and suffering I have seen. I kept getting these stupid flashbacks and mental pictures as I was riding and it made things really uncomfortable. I really loved riding and I hope that with time those images go away and I can buy another bike (perhaps back at home), but for now, it was just too much to handle...I kept thinking "none of those guys ever left home thinking they won't live to see another day...". I realize that the vast majority of bikers lead happy, healthy and long lives, but thanks to my experiences, that was hard to keep in mind.

So, I texted a few friends I know have been interested in buying bikes and just before midnight, the bike became Jesse's. I'm going to miss the freedom and the pure joy of riding a motorbike...in 4 days I put over 500 kms on it, so I guess I was pretty good at it too, considering I had never ridden a motorbike before...but it's just not the right time for me.

So...now I'm up to having owned 16 cars, trucks and motorbikes. Owning the Hyosung for four days handily beat my previous record of 20 days of ownership of my 1990 Chevy Beretta GTZ haha. Sooooo when I come back from the Philippines, I'm going to look for a little car!

Oh yeah...that's the other thing...in about 24 hours I'll be on my way to the airport to catch a plane to Boracay Island, Philippines. Go ahead. Google it. Yeah...it'll be paradise. I'm taking only a backpack...a few clothes, my camera and a copy of Robinson Crusoe...let the relaxing begin!!! I'm not taking my laptop, so it may be some time before I do another blog post (might do a quick update on a rainy afternoon if I can while I'm there), so take care, enjoy your summer and I'll be back in a little under 2 weeks with some awesome pictures and some amazing stories to tell :)

Cheers,
T

Blast from the past: A glimpse into my journalism days.

I just bumped into something I wrote a long time ago. I used to be a reporter for the Edmonton Sun newspaper, which belongs to the Sun Media chain of newspapers. At one point, as a cost-savings measure (right after the company owner made an offer to buy an NHL team), the company took away our watercooler. This came hot on the heels of several rounds of major layoffs and related cutbacks...so I wrote a little piece about it, and it circulated the office for a little while. If you find the names weird, they're little inside jokes, they're twisted versions of actual names around the newsroom.

The mock article had been lost until an old friend messaged me on Facebook a few days ago and it showed up in our old messages log...I thought I'd share it with you all:

RUSTY SHACKLEFORD
Sun Media

In a shocking and unprecedented move to save a few bucks, Sun Media management has removed the water cooler from their Edmonton Sun newsroom, leaving staff thirsty and mad.
"I'm completely flabbergasted," said reporter Rochelle Frampton as she scoured the parking lot for a clean puddle to dip her cup into. "If I wasn't so dehydrated, I'd spit on their doorstep."
A few metres from her stood two other reporters, guarding small plastic dishes filled with the rainwater they have been collecting for days.
"It's appalling, but what are you going to do about it?," scoffed Pickard Livericht, angrily raising a fly-swatter at a photographer sneaking up on his blue Tupperware dish.
The empty spot where the water cooler used to stand is now a makeshift memorial.
Staff members have been showing up in droves, leaving behind empty paper cups and plastic bottles once filled with the liquid of life.
Despite management's promise that water cooler chatter would be replaced by jovial exchanges around the bathroom sinks, the culture has yet to resurface.
"It's definitely part of our culture we've lost," said an editor, taking a break from digging for water-bearing roots behind the building.
Calling the event "a most shocking development," University of Alberta African American studies professor Horace Finklestein weighed in on the issue.
"We rarely see this sort of mass mistreatment of a group of people," he said shaking his head. "I mean, even a slave in Alabama in the 1840s was provided with as much fresh water as he could drink."
In fact, research has shown that from Guantanamo Bay to the World War II prison camps of Siberia, water was a necessity most took for granted.
Unfortunately for the typewriter monkeys of the Edmonton Sun, things may get a lot worse before they get any better.
With meteorologists forecasting temperatures into the 20s as early as next week, the fight for the stuff that covers more than two-thirds of the planet may get a little more fierce.

----------------

Cheers!

T

Second day of riding...starting to REALLY like this thing!!!

Okay, so Monday was a rainy/crappy day and I decided to head into Masan instead of riding and hang out with Dawni...I got my hair cut (interesting experience when you and the hair stylist don't speak a word of the same language and you're trying to get a haircut nobody in this country has)...but it came out surprisingly well! I'm very happy...so happy that I'm going to go back...which, I think, is the hairdresser's biggest fear. After that, we went to our favourite pizza joint and as soon as I walked in, the cook exclaimed "hair cut!!"...I guess we hang out there a little too much haha...

After a delicious pizza, we hung out at Dawni's and chatted for a few hours while I grabbed 3 seasons of Big Bang Theory (w00t!) off her computer.

Then came yesterday...it was another rainy, gloomy day...got soaked on my way to school and wasn't too happy about having to go another day without riding my iron steed...but...then it dried up and I even saw a bit of blue sky...game on!!!

So, I saddled up, showed the old girl to Nicole and Ross and off I went in search of new horizons!

The first thing I found was this...on top of a gorgeous twisty mountain road, there was a beautiful lookout point (best of all, the road was dry and deserted, so I could enjoy it at my own pace):

As I've said before...this is the Korea I have been waiting to see!!!

The view from the top:

And the bike at the top...

After that, I went home, made a delicious dinner (mmmm scrambled eggs with a TON of veggies), decided the night was still too young and headed up north again. So far, it's my favourite stretch of highway, and I finally figured out why. It's a beautiful 4-lane divided stretch with near-perfect pavement and almost no traffic (yesterday I went 15-20km sections without seeing another car)...I finally found out why....there's a massive expressway running parallel to it (at time so close you think it's part of the same highway)...so, while everyone gets their speed kicks on the expressway (and pays the toll), I chill out and ride in peace and comfort on the "old" highway...it's perfect!!

View from one of the bridges over a massive river the hwy crosses:

I also found out a few things about the bike...I thought it was a late-1990s when I bought it (no papers), but upon looking at others on the Internet, I think it's at least a 2000, which makes it the newest vehicle I've ever owned!! :) Also...it's not a 5 speed, it's a 6 speed....ooooooh....fancy!!!

I'm starting to get a lot more confident (as in I'm not constantly scared of crashing) and a lot more comfortable on the bike without getting overconfident. I'm still aware of the vulnerability of this mode of transportation and pick my routes and moves carefully and having more and more fun with each ride!

I set course for Daegu (about 100 km away), but about 2/3 of the way up, the road was still wet from the rains earlier that day, so I decided to play it safe and head back down and enjoy the dry pavement.

I got off the main highway and decided to check out a little village near Changyeong...the whole place must have no more than a few hundred people living in it. It was awesome rolling through there at just before 11 p.m....everything was closed and dark, a big departure from the stuff I'm used to in Korea: convenience stores that are open 24 hrs a day, neons that flash all day and night, etc...I decided to go for a little walk and for a while I just chilled out on what I think was the town hall's front steps, listening to the wind, the bugs in the trees and enjoying a perfect night...

The bike in the town...taken with the little G9 :)

and

After that, I just headed home nice and slow (love this highway...the speed limit is 80, but if I feel like taking it easy and cruising at 60 or 70, it's no problem, I don't have anyone on my ass pushing me to go faster), and watched some BBT at home.

It's funny...I'm heading to the Philippines on Saturday on what should be one of the most amazing trips of my life and I'm actually going to miss riding this bike while I'm there!!

Okay...that's all out of me today...take care!

T