Philippines: Part I of II

We’ll start this blog post with a fair amount of background information before getting into my one-week trip to the Philippines.

I was really excited to get the hell out of Jakarta, to put it delicately. I felt like I had hit my wall* for about the previous month and I was ready to get away from life. By no means am I not happy here or am regretting my decision to be abroad; I have just experienced some frustrations recently. That’s life.

*It was a matter of when – not if. I had been told months 3-6 were traditionally when homesickness settled in and you started to get really frustrated with your surroundings. It took about 8 months for this to happen with me, but I think it had to do more with other factors than just my surroundings. My older brother and his wife had a baby girl, Ellie Katherine, at the end of February, so I’m ready to meet my niece; I’m ready to see one of my best friends marry the love of his life this summer (can’t wait Ian and Hillary !!); I’m ready to kick it with my homies for a few days; I’m ready to hug my mom so she doesn’t have a panic attack.

 (the only problem is Craig will def be the cool uncle, not me)

(so happy for you big bruh; you have been such a great role model for me; blessed to have you) 

The planning of this trip goes all the way back to December. I was in a car with a couple Filipino teachers I work with and we were heading home from a couple hours of ballin.

They mentioned that the Christmas sale on flights to Manila was really good right now. I said that I was interested in going there during our March break because that is their summer time. After being told that my paperwork would not be an issue and I would be able to travel abroad in March, I booked the ticket.

Indonesia has elections coming up on 9 April and apparently the government offices more-or-less shut down leading up to election time. This caused the renewal of my work visa to be delayed and it became a question of whether or not it would be processed in time for me to leave the country at the end of March. Obviously, I was a little disappointed by this, but I had not booked anything else and did not until I got the green light a little bit later on; that happened the day after my birthday. I was told that I was good to go and I could start booking other stuff. Sweet….

Except the following Tuesday I was told that I actually would not be able to go. This got me pretty livid because I had booked a lot of nonrefundable stuff over the weekend.

After a crazy three days, my passport arrived at my apartment Friday night at 8:45pm and I was good to head to Manila. Plenty of time to catch my 12:55am flight that night. What was I freaking out about??

But in all seriousness, the school has been very good to me. I have had great relationships with almost everyone I have worked with and I think the school genuinely cares about my well-being.

wheels up ;;

22 March

I ran into several Filipino teachers I work with at the airport that were going to be on the same flight as me*. They gave me a list of some Filipino dishes that I needed to try and a few words that would help me get around. They speak Tagalog Filipino frequently in the workroom, but I don’t understand any of it. Whenever the conversation switches to Tagalog, I just assume they are making fun of the dumb American (can't blame them).

*I’ve mentioned before that I work with almost all Filipinos. I have nothing but respect for all of them. I’m very blessed to be surrounded by them. I hope they know that.

We get on our flight with Philippine Airlines (great company) and I pass out. Wake up and I’m in Mania.

(#hardlyhomebutalwaysreppin)

One thing that is really nice about being an American is that you don’t really have to worry about a visa in most countries. I just showed up in the Philippines and they let me in. It was the same way in Thailand and Singapore. It’s complete BS and totally unfair, but hey, I got that going for me…which is nice.

The first thing I did at the airport was trade some USD into Pesos. The rate at the airport was almost exactly the current exchange rate. By far the best exchange rate I’ve experienced while traveling and it was at the airport.

The next step was to go from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 to catch my flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa. That is the main city on the island of Palawan.

At the terminal I grabbed some Filipino fast food, Jollibee. It was fried chicken. (shrugs shoulders)

At the gate, there is a TV with the Bulls-Pacers game on TV*. I think I’m going to like the Philippines…

*Filipinos love them some NBA. The teacher I sit next to at work, Mr. Jonas (tremendous dude), and I talk NBA all the time. None of the Filipinos really have a favorite team, but they love to watch and talk about it (Heat are probably their favorites because they are so good and Erik Spoelstra is half Filipino).

Safe flight to PPS and if the beaches I saw flying in are any indication, this vacation is gonna be sick.

The easiest way to go from PPS to El Nido (where I would be spending my first 5 nights in the Philippines) is to jump in a minivan for about $12 and suck it up for the 5+ hour drive. It is really uncomfortable.

SE Asian travel is not designed for an athletically built Westerner. It was worse than the ride to Lake Toba because of the windy roads, but hey, it was cheap and we got there safely.

(the landscape of Palawan reminded me a lot of Northern Thailand)

After checking in at my hotel with Jao*, I take the 2 minute walk to the beach.

*Jao was a huge help all week. Great kid. He was really hungover when I checked in (at 5pm) and he seemed a little out of it. He asked me how old I was and I told him. He then asked me to guess his age. I guessed 17. He immediately perked up and we became best friends. “Thank you! Finally someone guesses my age correct. You’re the first to get it correct,” he beamed. I was a little surprised by the enthusiasm, but it was genuine. Anyway, he is 17 and more-or-less runs the hotel for his aunt. Good kid.

(aaayyyeee (tee_y voice))

Beautiful area. As I’m walking down the beach, I get yelled at, “Bule!!” Out of habit, I turn and see Jeremy and Kasandra sitting and enjoying a drink on the beach. Jeremy is a native of A Whale’s Vagina (I believe that’s the translation) and is teaching Biology in the secondary school at BBS. His wife, Kasandra, is a teacher at the unofficial feeder preschool to BBS; she is Venezuelan and they met in Venezuela when Jeremy was becoming a dive master.

I knew that they were planning almost the exact same trip as me (El Nido for 5 days and then Manila for 2) but we had only mentioned in passing that we might meet up in El Nido. I didn’t want to crash their getaway and I really enjoyed traveling by myself to Thailand.

Turns out, we did almost everything together in El Nido. I kept stressing that I wouldn’t be offended if they wanted to do their own thing, but they brushed that off each time and I don’t think I got on their nerves too bad. I think that turned out for the best because for some reason I don’t think I would have enjoyed being by myself in El Nido now that it is over. Maybe it is because I had such a great time with them I can’t imagine doing it by myself, but I think it was a big blessing being able to chill with them.

We had a few San Miguel beers (the main one in the Philippines) and then I mentioned that the Filipino teachers I work with had all mentioned that I needed to try Red Horse beer. It is brewed by San Miguel and has slightly less taste but is 6.9 instead of 5.0. I had Red Horse 90% of the rest of the trip. Solid.

(#teamfoe)

After a good start, we all strolled over to my hotel and we noticed a lot of Filipino food was out and ready for the taking. This was my first experience with checking off the dishes my Filipino colleagues had told me to try. We all split some pork adobo, chicken adobo, and some pork sisig. Adobo is a dish with a meat cooked in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and a variation of veggies. It was everywhere in the Philippines and I can see why. It was incredible. Sisig is another dish that involves a meat cooked in vinegar; from what I can tell, sisig is in much smaller chunks, kind of diced up, and served on a sizzling plate. Also incredible.

After dinner, we went down to the Reggae Bar to have a couple drinks.

We got into a pretty heated game of sleep with*, marry, kill that night.

(the happy couple arguing about who they would sleep with, marry, and kill out the 3 choices)

*We use family-friendly language here at mattinindonesia.blogspot.com

Good times with good people.

23 March:

Ok…I see you Red Horse.

Included in my stay at the hotel was a breakfast item each morning. You couldn’t go wrong. The omelet was incredible as was the banana or mango pancake.

Here is a map of El Nido:

(where Palawan is on a map of the Philippines)

(where El Nido is on Palawan)

(map of El Nido; the main town is located right under the letter "I" in Helicopter Is.)

The big thing to do in El Nido is the island hopping tours. There are 4 tours (A-D) and they leave each morning, have lunch on the boat, and get back each afternoon.

Our first day we (Jeremy and Kasandra included) decided to do Tour A. We had heard that Tours A and C were the best.

We get on the boat and the two guys sitting next to me are Danish. I now must kindly ask that all readers be seated so that they can explode out of their chairs in an Anrio Adams-esque fashion after the following two paragraphs.

Oscar was the Danish guy sitting right next to me.

(koolin on the boat with my youngin Oscar)

He had slightly better English than his buddy, Emile, but they were both plenty fluent. Oscar and I talked about all kinds of sports: European soccer, American football, basketball, etc. In passing, I mentioned that my dad’s best friend is a Dane who he met through soccer in America. After mentioning I was from Wichita, KS (#hardlyhomebutalwaysreppin) he asked if I had heard of the Wichita Wings…heard of them? Are you kidding?! I just met a homie…from Denmark…on a boat in a remote part of the Philippines…who knew the Wichita Wings !!

If you can drop the mic on a blog post, I just did it.

He knew of the Wings because of Erik “the Wizard” Rasmussen who played for the Wings and is a soccer commentator in Denmark. He is also a close friend of my dad. Just nuts. Anyway, he was a good dude and it was fun chillin with him on the boat for Tour A.

Tour A included Big Lagoon, Cigarette Lagoon, and a few other places. There were incredible cliffs and even a cave that we swam to in Cigarette Lagoon. There was also a good amount of snorkeling during Tour A. Here are a few pics from Tour A (Jeremy is a beast with the underwater camera):

(just chillin in my cave)

After done with Tour A, I headed back to my room and took a shower and chilled out before meeting back up with Jeremy and Kasandra for dinner.

(the stairs leading up to my room; shockingly no injures occurred throughout the stay)

(outside view of the hotel)

I spent a little bit of the chill time just thanking God for everything. Everything. A great family that supports me no matter what. A great job that provides more than I could ever need. Great people surrounding me while I’m almost 10,000 miles from home. Health and a body that allows to see amazing places on this planet.

Then, being the selfish Christian I am, I asked for something. I prayed for the perfect girl at the perfect time. Selfishly, I think the time is now, but it would be limiting God to ask for something specific right now. I need to pray for the perfect girl to be presented to me at the perfect time. So I’m praying for that. A lot. Those of you that know me really well know that the only thing I have ever wanted is to find the right girl and run off happily ever after. I don’t care if I have to turn in my man card for saying that, it’s the truth. That’s all I want. I’m impatient and I hope it happens soon.

For dinner that night, we listened to our good friend TripAdvisor and checked out a pizza place called Altrove. They had some really great combination pizzas and the food did not disappoint. The only problem with finding a great place to eat right off the bat of a vacation is that you are tempted to just go back there and not try other places.

After dinner, we ventured over to the dive shop to see if tomorrow would be a good day to do some scuba diving. They were expecting strong winds so we decided to push our dive back a day and do some kayaking tomorrow instead.

24 March

Probably the biggest complaint about El Nido is that they turn the electricity off in the city during the day. Silly brownouts. At my hotel, that meant that at 6am, my fan turned off. That always woke me up (I’m a light sleeper to start with) and usually meant that was the start of my day. The electricity is back on early in the afternoon, before you get back from the day's activities, so it is not that big of a deal. Those couple extra hours each night would have come in handy though.

Since we were renting kayaks, we were on no strict timetable to catch a boat in the morning. We finally got in our kayaks around 9:30am if I remember correctly. Jeremy and Kasandra split a 2-person kayak while I was in a single.

The day included us kayaking from beach to beach and chillin/snorkeling. It was a great day.

Some pics of our day kayaking:

("Do you think you could show me Magnum?" "Are you kidding...I shouldn't even be talking about it")

The only problem was that with each beach we got further and further away from the city. That left a massive trip back into the wind with the waves picking up that afternoon. I’m not great at estimating, but I’m guessing it was 3km to get back to the city. The fact that it was into the wind and I was by myself made it brutal. Probably the best upper-body workout of my life. I didn’t check the time, but I bet it was slightly over an hour of straight paddling to get back.

After showering, I lied down on my bed until Jeremy and Kasandra came and grabbed me for dinner. I got that Asian bed. My feet dangled off the end. I was so tired each night that it didn’t matter, though.

After a quick equipment fitting at the dive shop for our 3 dives the next day, we headed to the beach to grab a Red Horse before dinner. The night before we had spotted a Mexican restaurant and we had our minds set on it for dinner. It did not disappoint. The only downside was that they were out of tortilla chips, so there were no nachos. If that is the biggest disappoint of the day, it was a good one.

Back on the beach that night we heard the all-too-familiar sound of “Baloooooot!” from the local children as they were walking up and down the beach with balot. What is balot? Excellent question. I was first introduced to the idea of balot at the airport with my Filipino colleagues. Ate Rhea was nice enough to type a note for me in my phone with all the different dishes I should try. Before making fun of ate Rhea (ate means “older sister”), I have to say that she is a really nice person. Unfortunately, she explained to me that balot is a developing chick embryo that is boiled alive and then eaten out of the shell. When it was first explained to me, I thought it was a joke.

It was no joke. Filipinos eat this stuff! So gross. Almost all the Filipinos I came across on this trip not only had tried it, but they like it! Oh, man. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. Sorry if the following picture disturbs you, but y’all gotta see this.

For the record, I did not try it.

25 March

After a quick breakfast, I took a slight detour so I could walk on the beach on my way to the dive shop.

I got there early and had some time to kill.

(#yahedid)

Kasandra has done diving before, but she is not super comfortable with it, so it was just Jeremy and I on the dives. The other couple that was paired with our guide was from Germany. They were cool.

Jeremy is the perfect person to dive with. He is a total nerd when it comes to underwater life and he was a wealth of knowledge for everything diving.

Our 3 dives that day were at South Miniloc, Twin Rocks, and Nut Nut Beach.

Some pics from diving:

After showering following the diving, we enjoyed pizza again for dinner that night. Was incredible again.

Wifi was few and far between in El Nido so when it was available it was nice to check up on people and let mom know I was safe.

So blessed to have the family that I do. I say this a lot, but I truly believe it: I’m the luckiest man in the world.

When it came time to pay at the bar that night, I slipped Jeremy Indonesian Rupiah instead of Philippine Pesos. Both Kasandra and I were laughing hysterically, but it took Jeremy about 90 seconds to realize what had happened.

As we were strolling the streets that night, Jeremy ducked his head into a souvenir store which left Kasandra and I on the street together. A white dude came out of a store at that time and introduced himself to us*.

*I don’t get the introducing yourself to other white people move. I am not a participant.

He thought that we were married and I explained that I worked with her husband and I was single. At this time, his Filipino wife came out of the store and introduced herself. His parting words to me were, “Don’t worry. You’ll find and marry a nice Filipino woman.”

26 March

Our last full day in El Nido was dedicated to doing Tour C. Jao was nice enough to take us out on Tour C with just the 3 of us for the same price as the other tour companies would charge.

We hit up the main spots on Tour C, but the highlight was when we went to Binang Kulan (Jao didn’t know what that translated to) and chilled there for a while. It was a great place with tremendous coral and a lot of fish. Fishermen had used dynamite in the area to get fish, but the coral was still pretty good. It was off the official list of Tour C sites, so we were the only ones there.

(one of the most beautiful places I've ever been)

(#wigginsing)

Jao and skipper made lunch for us there. The mangoes on Palawan were fantastic. They also made some great chicken and fish. I ate well on the trip.

The next few spots were Secret Beach (it wasn’t much of a secret – it was packed), Star Beach, and we drove by Paradise Beach but it looked just as crowded as Secret Beach*.

*El Nido and the surrounding islands had awesome cliffs and rock formations. Around bends and different corners were small beaches to hang out. It was really cool. A few of the really cool places like Secret Beach were hidden behind rocks and you had to swim through narrow alleys to get there.

At our last beach, Jeremy and Kasandra put on tanning oil. I had never tried it, so I thought, what the hell. Who knows if it helped/hurt/whatever. It smelled kind of nice, though.

Got back to the hotel and showered. Grabbed dinner. Jeremy and I were playing quarters during dinner. He is such a goofball.

He is incredibly immature but in all the right ways. It was cool to see him and Kasandra interact together. They are perfect for each other. Both big kids that are just enjoying life. I’m lucky I got to spend time with them.

That concludes Part I. Part II will cover my last morning in El Nido, my one night in Puerto Princesa and my time in Manila.

As always, thank you for reading. I can’t thank you enough for all the love and support. If you ever need to get a hold of me, hit me up at mattsphillips@cox.net

God bless !!