Where Age and Beauty Meet

Update: 30

Of all the places we've landed on this trip (and there've been more than my eco-conscience likes to admit) the approach to Cebu is by far the best. We liked the way the plane almost lands in the sea as it touches down on Hong Kong's reclaimed land runway but nothing we've seen compares with the azure waters and scattered islands with white beaches sprinkled in the Visayan sea. In some parts, the water is so clear and shallow that, from the air, it's hard to make out where the shores end and the water starts.

Cebu's not a nice city. It's a main connection point for the surrounding islands but, itself, has little to offer. We checked into a pleasant enough hotel and went out to explore. The guide book's opening words on The Philippines are: "This is southeast Asia with an edge". That's quite a call, because south east Asia includes Cambodia and it's no-rules policy.

In need of a haircut, I dragged Tam off to a roadside barber. Not the most exclusive establishment but then, to be totally honest, I don't really need to invest too much in my hair. One dollar for a once over with clippers seems to be the international Third World norm. That I was treated to a head massage, shoulder rub and a shave without asking for it makes me wonder whether the barber was trying to justify even that small sum.

I don't think bald guys are common here. I haven't seen another one and I keep getting strangers - adults and children - doing that hands together and bow like a Thai monk thing and laughing at me. It also explains why during my head and shoulders treatment in Jessie's Barber Emporium a small crowd gathered. Like they were observing a freak show.

***

I'm not sure I understand English's role here. It seems to be an official language - all the signs are in English and the most popular (only?) radio station has DJs who speak with that annoying silky smooth late night mid-western American drawl that only non-American DJs trying to be hip can pull off - but try and speak English to anyone and they have no idea what you're saying. Things like "Excuse me, waitress, my eggs are cold" or "Sorry, waiter, this toast is wet" are met with looks of utter confusion. Even simplifying to "Eggs. Cold." is not clear enough. (I know they know at least one of those two words since they wrote "Eggs" when we ordered.

And then there are the  Ps and Fs. In English it's "Philippines" in Filipino (see!) its "Pilipinas".  For example, our taxi driver explaining how to reach Bohol from Cebu informed us of a "puss crap" to Tagbilaran. It took some probing from my side to work out that a "puss crap" is what you and I would refer to as a "fast craft". 

Breakfast is not really a culinary highlight. Our introduction to this was a menu with such exciting dishes as "hotdogcilog" or "baconcilog" or "tunacilog" which are pretty self-explanatory cilogs. It was only the "tocilog" that confused me.

The question "What is a 'cilog'?" confused the waitress. So I didn't pursue it but, for the record, a "hotdogcilog" is rice, a Vienna and an egg.

***

To get to Bantayan Island, we needed to catch a bus to the north of the island of Cebu which is worth mentioning as for four hours we listened to classic after classic: The Eagles, Elvis, The Doors, The Stones. The bus was painfully over-crowded but at least it sounded good.

Bantayan hosts one of the best beaches we've seen. I think only Cape Naturaliste in Western Australia beats it on this trip. It's absolutely beautiful. Like a postcard. The sand is blindingly white (that's a cliché, but the glare literally is blinding) and the clear water sits at a depth of about one meter for as far out as you're likely to swim which means the colour is a magical turquoise until it hits the deep blue towards the horizon. We treated ourselves and splashed out on accommodation here. We try to keep to $10 each a night, but for $40 we had an en-suite with a door that opened onto the sand.

We hired a bike for a day and circled the island but other than that did little save eat and sleep. I spent some time getting annoyed by the way the country is so obviously in the wrong time zone but I don't think Tam was as concerned. I'm serious though: it shares the same time as Singapore which is over 2,000km to the west. This means it gets dark here at 6pm and light at about 3.30am (although I can't confirm that). I tried to explain this to a local but he thought I was insane wanting to make 6pm the new 7pm and avoided me from then on.

***

The Philippines may be off the backpacker trail, but it is firmly in whatever guidebook overweight American men in their late fifties who want some young totty but don't want to try too hard to get it use. The demographics in the beach areas are something like this (at a guess): Half Filipino and half Westerners. The Westerners are made up 1% women,  5% twenty to forty five year old males and then 94% Vietnam War Veteran with 18 to 30 year old Filipina on his arm.

The scene is somewhere between desperate and comical. Restaurants are packed with tables of four or five men sitting around drinking while these girls sit on their laps typing into their phones, bored. The men say nothing to the women except to get them to fetch more beer but their hands are like those of horny teenagers.

One of the saddest things I think I saw was one of these old guys sitting on his own (his wife probably had school the next day and her mother wanted her to get an early night) in a karaoke bar singing "Bad Moon Rising" badly. Although karaoke is very popular here, generally I would think it's something one would do with friends; perhaps with a few beers under the belt. This guy was on his own in an empty bar, his painful cry inflicting his anguish on the rest of the street.

I'm convinced that there's a subculture here that I would have missed out on if it wasn't for a few minutes while sitting in an internet cafe. The girl next to me strikes up conversation:

"Hi! You on holiday?"

"Yes"

"Where are you staying?"

"Panglao"

"With someone special?"

"Yes, my wife." (Pointing at Tam three computers away)

Conversation ends. Dead.

I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into it but I have this sneaky feeling that, under different circumstances, it wouldn't have been too difficult for me to get some company for the ten days here - and I'm not even a War Vet. Or retired.

***

One of the great attractions on Bohol Island is the Chocolate Hills Geographical Monument. Formed by coral pushed out of the sea thousands of years ago (I think), these little hills look like scoops of ice-cream all the way into the distance. A trip here makes for a good day out. We hired a bike and rode through forests, past rice paddies and remote villages to get there and weren't disappointed. While the hills themselves are fascinating to gaze at, it was something else that will stick in my memory. We'd both noticed that everything happens at a slower than normal pace on these islands and nobody seems too bothered about anything. I know all islands are notoriously laid back, but this was unnatural - example: I told a tricycle taxi driver that we'd need him in two hours to go back to the ferry. He said he'd meet us here, pulled to the side of the road and climbed in to the back for a two hour snooze. I mean what's he supposed to do for the next two hours?

And he's one of the entrepreneurs. Any form of work other than riding a bike seems to be taboo. I thought I might have been unfair when I pointed out to Tam that nobody seems to do anything other than hang around, but when we arrived at the Chocolate Hills viewing point, my belief was confirmed. The viewing point comprises some stairs up one of these hills and about three small stalls. The plaque outside the structure says, proudly,

"Chocolate Hills Development

Commenced: January 16 1970

Completed: August 30 1975"

That's longer than five years to build something that the Germans could whip up in an afternoon.

I doubt very much whether we'll ever see the Football World Cup in the Philippines.

***

On our last night in Panglao while embracing "Duane's Happy Hour: Rum Coke P25" (that's 53 US cents), it was Tam's turn to get chatted up. An Austrian who'd been humouring Duane for a bit longer than us, came around the bar and interrupted our conversation with two Frenchies to tell her that he thought she was beautiful. This might have been more flattering if he didn't wear his receding hair in a bleached mullet style and possibly changed his grey vest into a larger one that covered his belly. His fashion may have been dodgy, but his judgement was good. (Thanks, Tam, I'll take the ten points now).

Generally I don't like TVs in bars as they're distracting and I normally try to switch off from them, but not even Duane's Happy Hour could stop my eyes wandering to the screen. It was 8 o' clock and that is time for "Fights of the Day". In any other country, there may well be a programme like this with boxing results or perhaps some martial arts or something. Not so in the Philippines. Here, "Fights of the Day" gives the highlights of the day's cock fights. It's crazy to think that there are people out there who will tune in for a good hour to watch 40 second excerpts of two roosters pecking each other to death. Weirder still, at these fights of the day, were people cheering in an arena. Next time you grab your newspaper, put on a cap and head out to catch some cricket and chomp on a bacon sandwich in the Saturday morning sun, remember that there is a bloke on the other side of the world who is doing something similar, but instead of etiquette, straight bats and good sportsmanship, he's heading out to see Manila's finest cock in action.

It was this cock fighting that caused me to strike up a conversation with a heavily tattooed Swede next to me at the bar. I think he'd been drinking all day because he was off his head. Quickly the conversation moved on to his tattoos. He told me that he has his own tattooing machine at home. When, after he'd shown me, I asked what the significance of "Conquerer War Death Famine" covering a significant part of his torso was, he told me that it meant "don't play with a tattoo machine after drinking." Which I thought was great advice and I've made a mental note of it.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that "Conquerer" is spelt Conqueror. 

***

We've had a good time here. The beaches are beautiful, San Miguel is arguably the best beer in the world - if not then certainly the cheapest - I retook my Open Water and Advanced dive courses (the African cowboys who tested me eight years ago forgot to license me) and we were regularly entertained by oddities that can only come from some islands in the Pacific colonised first by the Spanish and then the Yanks.

Tomorrow we fly to Colombo in Sri Lanka for some hard core travelling up to Delhi. We've placed our bets and the odds are on that one of us has diarrhoea by the weekend.