Part III: Bantayan and Cebu City

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Two Weeks in the Philippines: Part III: Bantayan and Cebu City

We arrived in Cebu City around 5 p.m., much later that planned, and had to decide whether to stay in the city for the night or try and take a private car up to Bantayan. I knew we wouldn't make it for the last ferry, so either way we would be spending the night someplace other than where we planned.

Charito called up one of her friends who lives in Cebu and she said she has a friend who drives to Bantayan all the time, so we called him up and he was at the airport in 10 minutes. It was a larger passenger van, and it had AC so I was happy with it; we had it all to ourselves. Being in the PI for so long now, I half expected it to be filled with passengers already. I guarantee you that if we had made the reservations earlier, it would have been, with me being the only paying customer.

We took off, and it was still daylight so I got to see some of the city and surrounding countryside. It seemed a lot cleaner than Luzon. We drove for a few hours until the sun went down, and I saw it was getting late. We were about 3/4 of the way to Bantayan, according to my map, and we were really deep in the "provence" as they call it.

I knew that the last ferry for Bantayan had already left and the best thing to do would be to just find a hotel for the night. Charito told the driver, who said that there weren't very many hotels in the area, but he knew of one "that might be open". My "scam-artist" alert went off, but what could I do. It seems every single adult in the Philippines "knows" some hotel or private boat or driver...everybody has someone paying them to deliver tourists to them. We hit a few smaller towns on the way, but he said they were "too far" from Cagnaya, saying we wouldn't have time to catch the first ferry of the day. I told him we didn't NEED to catch the first ferry, we were on vacation for another week, but he was dead-set on taking us to this "place" he knows. What was this guys problem? We hit one last town before the final leg, and decided to stop get a quick bite to eat.

As we drove around looking for a burger joint, we passed a very nice looking 5-story hotel. I told Charito to tell the driver about it, but he replied that we were still "too far" from the ferry landing and that it isn't a good hotel anyway. I guess now is as good a time as any for...

TIP # 5: Do your own research! Don't rely on other people to find you the best hotel/restaurant/boat ride, etc. as like I wrote earlier, everybody is on commission. When I started arguing with him, he threw out another comment about how we wouldn't be able to find transportation from this town to the ferry landing, another 30 minutes up the road. I knew this was BS, as anyone in the PI with a vehicle will use it as a taxi if the price is right. What I should have done right them was told the driver to stop the van at the next hotel or I wasn't going to pay him. He would be then be free to leave, and we would find someone to take us the rest of the way tomorrow. You can add this to the above tip: Don't let anyone push you around like this guy was doing to us, doing what he thought "was in our best interests", or so he said. I knew he was planning on getting a kickback from this place he was taking us to, but I was to tired to argue.

We stopped to eat at some hamburger chain called Jollibees, which was the only place open this late, grabbed it to go and finally arrived around at Cagnaya around 10 PM. The last ferry left an hour ago. The driver said the place he knew of was right here on the wharf, and walked off to see if they had a room free. I asked him why HE had to go talk to them, since we are the ones paying, but he walked off. I told Charito he is probably going to tell them he has some American that needs a room and they can charge accordingly, and give him a nice little commission, too. I watched him walk over to a building that didn't look at all like a hotel, so it was just as I suspected.

He was talking to some girl at a convenience store on the outside of the building, so finally we got out and walked over, getting ready to tell him to take us to one of the many nearby resorts I saw along the way. He spoke first, in broken English, saying the lady behind the counter had a room for us for 2000 Peso, but I ignored him. He was trying to get a kickback, this place wasn't even a hotel, there was no sign outside saying it was, and 2000 Peso for a room in an isolated place like this? 500 Peso would have been more believable. I was pissed and just wanted to go back to the nice hotel we saw back in the last town, not this old house whose owners probably just rented out a spare room, a spare room with no A/C but had more than it's fair share of mice and roaches. The driver started talking to Charito now, and she told me that the driver didn't want to go back to that hotel, because it was too expensive, and "a bed is a bed, so why pay extra?" I just shook my head and started walking back to the van. This guy really wanted us to sleep at this place. Did he really just want a commission, or did he have other plans for us?

While we were trying to get this ass to get back in the van, a skinny, unshaven Filipino guy in a dirty t-shirt and smelling of beer came up and asked if we needed a boat ride across the water to Santa Fe. He told me it would cost 2000 Peso and we could leave right away. I immediately said yes, as I didn't want to spend the night here and pay mafia prices to this dump, then he said he had a boat right down the road, and our driver could take us there. The driver was disappointed as the boat man hopped in the passenger, and didn't say a word as the boat man directed him down the road. I guess I should mention here that Cebu is not a very safe island, especially up in the country, which is where I just happened to be.

We were quickly off the pavement and on a rough, dirt road, heading away from town, and I started to get nervous, wondering if this was such a good idea after all, especially since this guy looked like a bum (but then again, many of the guys here looked like bums, with their dirty clothes and flip-flops). I thought about how almost no one knows where we were, and if we disappeared...it would take forever to follow our footsteps. We picked up the driver at the airport, and he didn't know who we were other than "an American and his Filipina girlfriend". We had reservations at the Marlin Beach hotel in Santa Fe, but if we didn't show up, they would just rent the room to someone else. I suddenly realized how vulnerable we were just then, how we could just disappear and no one would know for weeks, and by then we would both be fish-shit at the bottom of the ocean, just like that girl who disappeared in Aruba in 2006.

After a few miles of bouncing through coconut fields, we suddenly stopped in the road, the door to the van opened, and we were immediately surrounded by 5 or 6 men, who reached in, grabbed our bags and started walking single file into the dark. I kept control of my shoulder bag with the money and passports in it, although they tried to take it. Shit, now what? I had already paid the driver back in Cagnaya, so I didn't have to worry about taking my wallet out in front of all these guys (and I sure as hell wasn't going to tip him, after all the BS he pulled on us), so he jumped back in his van and took off in a cloud of dust, probably scared himself (and hoping we would get robbed since he didn't get his commission).

Now, not wanting to appear nervous, I took Charito's hand and fell in line behind the guys, and, like so many brave adventurers before me, in the spirit of Hemingway and Livingston, I headed into the dark jungle. We followed a path down a short hill and I was happy to see a small house on the shore, and tied up nearby was...a boat! So we might not die after all, I thought. The boat was smaller than I expected, about 25 feet long with no shelter; it was basically a wide canoe. It didn't look like it was in the best condition, as the paint was peeling, and sticking out off of each side were several large bamboo poles tied together to keep the thing from tipping over. Hey, whatever got us over to the island worked for me

The men put our luggage down, and then...well, all just sat around talking for awhile. They were asking us questions about our vacation, about where we had been, where we had come from, and where we are going, and I had to walk over to Charito and whisper in her ear to shut her mouth, as she was telling them everything we had done on vacation. They asked her where we came form, where we stayed, where we were going, which hotels, etc. I had already warned her to keep her mouth shut, as I really didn't need all these guys knowing about our entire itinerary, especially when it included Boracay, as you normally have to be well-off to visit it. One of the first things you learn when traveling is to keep your mouth shut. No one needs to know which hotel I am staying in but me. They were acting casual, but not overly friendly, for the most part and never made any threatening moves, although one guy seemed particularly interested in Charito. He was asking her for her phone number, but I let go, even though I thought it was disrespectful to me. However, I was on an isolated beach on a moonless night surrounded by 8 or more Filipino men, I had a shoulder bag with over $700 in it, our passports, my new digital camera...

I looked around for a good bamboo pole to start swinging around if I needed to, and I was starting to get nervous, wondering why we hadn't boarding the boat yet, when they suddenly grabbed our bags and carried them onto the boat, and told us to get on. We walked up the little ramp and took seats on the far end, near the motor, facing the beach. The "leader", the guy who approached us at the wharf, came up and said we had to pay now. All the other guys walked up the plank and were standing behind him looking at us. Was this a shake-down? I told him I would pay him when we were safely on the other side, but he said that wasn't possible, that we had to pay first.

Seeing that I didn't really have a choice, I stood up, turned around and pulled my wallet out and counted out four 500 Peso bills and gave it to him. He counted it, put it in his pocket, then said to Charito; "excuse me mum, but now is the time for the tip too", and to Charito's credit she started talking harshly to the guy, saying if we DID decide to tip, we would do it at the end of the trip, not before. Why he was talking to her anyway? Did he think she had a more sympathetic ear? I was the one with the money. The guy replied by saying that we couldn't go then, without a tip. I started getting really nervous now, almost shaking, preparing for a fight to defend ourselves. However, Charito got mad and started arguing with the guy, then pulled out her phone and said she was calling the van driver to come back and get us, then I stood up and started collecting our bags.

I guess the guy thought we would be nervous and scared tourists and immediately give him more money, so he seemed a little shocked and started apologizing, motioning for me to leave our bags alone, and yes, I could tip the pilot when we got to Santa Fe. Oh, I got it; he wasn't going with us. Was this another middle-man? Possibly. Everybody got off the boat and walked over to the house where they formed a huddle, then two older men came down the path, walked up the ramp and into the boat, and started getting it ready to go. So, these were the actual owners, I took it? So who the hell was the guy I gave the money too? Did he own the boat, and paid these guys to pilot it to Bantayan? Or did these guys own the boat and he is paying them, keeping a tip for himself? There was nothing I could do about it now anyway, and I still wasn't sure we were going to live through the night, so I let it go. The pilots got everything ready, and we were just sitting there, with me wondering wondering about all this, when 10 more people came marching out of the jungle! They marched right over and started walked up the small ramp, then stood there, looking at us.

Alright, now it's time to fight, and started looking for something lying around to start swinging, but except for our luggage, the deck was bare. In the meantime, they all sat down in the front of the boat, thought still looking at us. Then, the alcoholic guy and a few of is buddies walked out, lifted the ramp, threw it on the deck, and pushed the boat out into the water. Of course, all these different scenarios were going through my head, scenarios such as...are these guys going to take us out into deep water, kill and rob us and throw our bodies overboard? They would never be found, I knew that. The pilots backed us out into deeper water, started the motor, turned us around and we headed out into the silent, moonless night. All the people who boarded earlier were still sitting in the front, looking at us. They couldn't have been passengers, could they? They didn't have any luggage with them... Great. So now, were these people taking us out to sea to rob us, or were they poor villagers waiting for some rich, dumb 'cano like me to get screwed into paying the passage for everyone who wanted to go across? Why would they want to go to Bantayan at 11 PM at night with no bags or belongings? Charito and I just sat there, scared shitless, and I was on a hair trigger, expecting that at any moment they would stand up and rush us.

After a few minutes though, I began to relax, figuring that if they were going to rob us, we were well enough out to sea to do it (it didn't occur to me that they could have easily robbed me back on shore when there were 20 of them) Bantayan island is about 12 miles across the water and the trip would take 30-45 minutes. Except for fearing for my life, it was quite an experience, gliding across the very still, very dark water. It was a jet-black night, and the stars were furiously bright, as there were no major towns around for miles.

I had previously only seen stars like this when I was in Iraq, up north in the desert, far away from the lights of Baghdad. I was relaxing a little bit, thinking we just might get out of this thing alive, when I tempted fate and turned around to look at the pilot, and he ruined my peaceful buzz when I saw he was holding a shotgun across his chest. Laughing at it all, for being so stupid to get us in this situation, I made peace with myself and thought about how much worse it could be to die, ie. car crash, torture, poisoning, etc. I also though this wasn't too bad a place to die, in the peaceful South Pacific sea.

I don't know why, maybe I have a mean streak in me, but I leaned over to Charito and whispered to her "Hey, guess what? The guy behind us has a shotgun." She looked at me in horror, and almost passed out. I had no idea she was so stressed at the moment, or I wouldn't have said anything. She slowly turned around to look and almost fainted. She looked up at me with the sad, desperate eyes with a look that only woman can make. It was the look that a hostage makes, looking up at me with eyes that beg the guy not to kill her, and it broke my heart.

I didn't know what else to do, so I hugged her and said the first thing that came to my mind which was that the guy was probably using it to defend us and his boat against pirates. Thinking he was going to finally rob and murder us, and possibly even desecrate my corpse, I stood up and started acting "macho", like Hemingway crossing over to Cuba on his boat, the Pilar. I stretched (to show my muscles) and put one leg up on the edge of the boat and surveyed the horizon, trying to look like a true "man o' the high-seas" and no easy pushover in an ambush. I may go down, I thought, but I'm takin' a few of them with me. Caught up in the moment, I even pulled out a small Cuban cigar I brought from Qatar and lit it up, just to enhance the overall effect.

So there I was, posing and flooding the deck with testosterone, when we suddenly slowed down. I looked down and could see coral and white sand; we were approaching the island! Looking off ahead of us I could barely make out the outline of coconut trees against the dark night sky, and below it was the white sand beach. See, my macho resolve guided us through yet another crisis! (I'll pause here a minute while you finish laughing at me...)

We slowly puttered the rest of the way in, as close to shore as possible, then suddenly a man appeared out of the dark, waded out to the boat, someone tossed him a line, the ramp was lowered down into the water and then everybody looked over at us. Taking my cue as the lone paying passenger, and thankful to be alive, I walked down the ramp into the water, then (still full of testosterone and feeling manly), when Charito came down, I grabbed her around her waist and carried her to the shore so she wouldn't get wet, much to the amusement of the freeloading passengers, who until now hadn't showed any signs of life.

The man on the shore turned out to be beach security for the Marlin Beach Resort which happened to be the hotel we were staying at. So the pilot, with no guidance devices that I could see, and in the middle of the night, had brought us to the exact spot we were headed to. Amazing. Some young men emerged from the darkness and boarded the boat, grabbing our bags. The guards walked us up the beach and brought us the front desk, where we checked in. The "bag boys" were standing outside with the bags, and when I walked out of the office, several of them grabbed my key and ran ahead of us, opening the door to the room, placing the suitcase on a stand, turned the lights and AC on, and started showing me everything. Several other villagers who had been hanging out at the front desk also wandered in to see what we looked like. I heard one of them whisper the "Nicholas Cage" line again.

The funny thing is, this guys who carried our bags didn't even work at the hotel, they were just village boys trying to get a tip. One of them started asking what we were doing tomorrow, did we want to jet-ski? Scuba dive? Snorkel? Hike? Take a picnic boat to a deserted island? He was crushed when I told him we were just there on business (kind of) but would let him know if we wanted to do anything like that. It took a few minutes to usher everyone out of the room, and I'll tell you, I was never as happy as when I locked that door, relieved that whole experience was over. We hugged, took showers. then went to bed.

3 May - Santa Fe - Like I said, we were staying at the Marlin Beach Resort (which isn't really a resort in the American sense, it is just a small hotel on the beach). The room was decent enough, despite there being ants in the bathroom, in the shower, near the fridge...everywhere. I quickly learned to put our snacks in the fridge. Also, the room was L-shaped, and the A/C was mounted high on the wall, around the corner from the bed, which is where we needed it most. Basically, the AC was as far away from where we were when in the room. Finally, the room really smelled of mildew, which I can sort of understand with the high humidity in the Philippines, but still.... The fridge also smelled of mildew, too, maybe because they unplugged it when no one was in the room. But these are things that are common in the islands, I suppose, and generally accepted. With the heat and humidity, where I even had trouble drying my clothes, you had to give a little.

The hotel had two guards, one posted in the front entrance and one on the beach side. I don't know if they were there to prevent robberies, or to simply keep the villagers off the property and leave the guests alone, because the second we left the front gate we would be asked if we needed a bike ride, or wanted to go scuba diving or a dozen other things. Even if we walked the block to the main street to get something to eat, many of the kids (anywhere from ages 6 to 18) would follow us, hoping we would give in. I'll admit, I felt terrible knowing these kids were so poor, and all I had to do was let one of them give me a ride for a block or two and I could give him 100 Peso ($2) and he would have something for the day, but I just wanted to walk! Hoping that if I got in one they would leave us alone and we could see the town in peace and quiet, and also because I am a bleeding heart liberal, and there were very few tourists when we were there, I broke down and told one of the kids he could give me a ride.

The carriage on the bike was really small, and when I managed to squeeze in, I had almost NO room; my head was hitting the roof, the seat was only about 6 inches wide, I had nowhere to put my legs, and poor Charito was squeezed up against me. I felt like Herman Munster trying to get into a Mini Cooper. These tricycles were made for a typical small Filipino passenger, not a 6-foot tall, 205 lb American man and his girlfriend. The poor kid could barely move the bike, he was standing on the pedal, trying to move it downwards, when he called two of his friends over to give him a push. Then, when we were moving, the two kids jumped on the back, so the poor kid now had to pedal 5 people! Whatever hopes I had of buying some peace and quiet disappeared when the whole gaggle of kids from the hotel followed us all the way, riding circles around us on their own tricycles, kids with no bikes were yelling and laughing and running alongside, as if seeing me crammed into the carriage of a tricycle was the greatest thing to happen in to them months.

I really felt bad later on when I decided to rent a small motorcycle to ride around the island; as when I pulled out of the hotel compound, all the kids looked at me as if I was a traitor, robbing them of their livelihood (and entertainment).

On the small motor-bike I rented, we rode the 11 kilometers over to Bantayan, the largest town on the island, to get cash from the one ATM on the island, and, as usual, it turns out it didn't accept cards with the Master Card logo, only Visa (of course), the one card I didn't bring and left back in the hotel room (of course) because I didn't want to carry all my cards in my wallet. So we rode back to the hotel and ate lunch, then rode back and to get the cash. The ATM was on the outside of the bank and was guarded by two security guards with shotguns. They gave me a look, as they don't see many Americans I am sure, and watched as I put my card in. I took out a large sum, about $250, which is around 12,000 Pesos. This is a large amount of money in the PI, especially in the backwoods where I was, where many people get by on $2 a day. The security guard became obviously nervous and told me in faulty English "take your money and put it away!" I guess this place was a hotbed for bandits or something, I didn't think two guys with shotguns would be so worried. Put, I assumed they knew more than I did and beat it out of there.

The sun was really beating down as we rode around the island, and I was glad I brought our suntan lotion with us, as we would have fried. There are many chicken farms on the Bantayan, and it produces and exports 1.5 million or so every day to the rest of the Philippine Islands. I wonder what they do with all the chicken waste, export it? You'd think that with that many chickens, they could spread some of it around the island and help the soil out, as most everywhere we went, the ground was harsh; hard packed and full of rocks and volcanic stones.

We went swimming later on and saw loads of starfish and a small group of sea porcupines. On the shore, dead, we saw what I think was a Puffer fish. I had never seen one before, and was freaked out by it's stubby birdlike beak. We played around in the water but the tide was out and the shore seemed far away, so we went back to the hotel for some more motorcycle riding. That is the way the tide is in the Philippines; you wake up in the morning and head to the beach, and the ocean has retreated so far out you can't even find it, just a mile of beach.

Santa Fe is a nice, quiet town, with many tree lined streets and fields full of coconut trees. It has proper paved streets, and many of the households have flowers in the yards and on windowsills, much different from what I saw in Angeles. The people here were poor, but they seemed to take more pride in their appearance and looked happier than people in other places in the PI.

We found a coconut grove near the shore and stopped to take some pictures. A farmer who was working nearby came over and asked if we wanted a coconut and climbed up a tree and cut down a bunch of green ones (called buko), just for us. He hacked one off with his machete, then cut the end off it so we could drink the water, and we did, right out of the coconut. He then split it open and using a piece of the husk, carved out the meat, which was soft and chewy, not like the hard stuff in the mature, brown coconuts.

That night we ate dinner at the Portuguese restaurant again, as the place across from it was running a buffet, and when we went over to see what they had, saw about 7 items to chose from. The sign they had out on the street was advertising a 30! item buffet, which was nonsense. I hadn't gotten sick yet from the Portuguese place yet, so I stuck with it, even if they did allow dogs to wander in and beg at the table. I got a glimpse into the kitchen through the swinging door, and it looked like a typical Filipino kitchen. The backdoor of the kitchen was open and I could see out into the alley behind the restaurant. I had to wonder what might wander in while that door was open....

Walking around after dinner, we found our way to a small building that has a sign advertising thai massages, so Charito and I went in and found three girls sitting around gossiping and happy to see us. They had four then mattresses on the carpeted floor, each mattress separated by a curtain. We had them pull open one of the partitions up so we could be in the same area, and then we started undressing. I was reminded we were in the conservative "province" when the girls got embarrassed, and they made us go put on some skin-tight, shin-high pajama bottoms that made me feel like I was wearing spandex, but that was how they did it here in scandal-free Santa Fe.

Before they started, I asked to use the "comfort room", as they call it here, and went in to deal with my daily stomach "issues" that I have been dealing with since I arrived in the Philippines. Must be all that raw pork from the roadside stands. Anyway, I go in and later and when I try to flush...the button on the top of the tank is stuck! I mean, it was so rusted, it looked as if it hadn't been used in years. So how the hell did these chicks flush the toilet? How do I always manage to find myself in these situations; wearing skin-tight high-water pajama bottoms 4 sizes too small, in a Filipino bathroom with a broken toilet toilet, and three cute girls standing outside the door, listening to everything going on. There was NO WAY I was going to open the door and ask for help. Not with a toilet full of...whatever.

So, being an American Male, I started to disassemble the tank to see what was going on and if I could fix it (I'm also one of those guys who, when his car breaks down and not knowing the first things about engines, pops open the hood and stands there staring at the engine while scratching his head as if that will magically fix it).

I lifted the lid to the tank and saw nothing was connected to the plug, and it was filled with slimy brown water, which was a good start. I stuck my hand into it, not knowing if leaches would start attaching themselves to me and found the plug at the bottom of the tank, and pulled it. Yes, it started flushing! However, maybe this was too much water than it was used to, as it started filling it, as if plugged! I am guessing that the girls filled a bucket at the sink and poured water into the bowl to flush it, and maybe the pipes were small, because it sure looked like it was going to overflow. I looked around for a plunger, crying on the inside thinking how great this would all look on YouTube, when something snapped inside and the toilet flushed away my problem.

I put the tank back together, just imagining what the girls outside must be thinking, hearing all the clanking, and hearing their toilet flushing for the first time since 1987. Would I be thanked as a liberator of broken toilets? Or would some boyfriend or husband come after me for fixing something he had gotten away with not fixing for years by saying it was beyond repair and now forcing the girl to re-evaluate their whole relationship? Who knows...they never mentioned anything about it. I walked out, looking all casual, as if nothing had happened and went and laid down next to Charito, where we received two mediocre massages for 300 Pesos each ($6). Well, ya' get what ya' pay for. After the massages at the Mandala Spa, I guess any other massage just wouldn't measure up.

After this, we walked around for awhile, got something to eat and then let the local boys taxi us around in their tricycles for a bit as an excuse to give them some money, then went back to the hotel. Talking to Charito later that night, we both decided that we had seen everything Bantayan had to offer and we were getting bored with it, so we decided to leave early, as in the day after tomorrow. Really, I don't think any tourist would be happy with more than three days on Bantayan. It is a nice place to visit for a few days, but.... Anyway, she called the driver who had brought us here and arranged a pickup, but he had a previous appointment and couldn't make it.

I asked the hotel clerk if they knew a van driver (most do) and she talked to the guy I rented the motorcycle from (who was hanging around the desk flirting with her) and he said he knew a driver in Hagnaya who would take us to Cebu for 2500 Peso (which is what I paid to be brought here). I told him to make the arrangements, which he did, and which leads us up to Tip # 6!

TIP # 6: When at all possible, try to get the phone number of any people who will be helping you, driving you, guiding you, etc. Try to talk directly with the person involved instead of through a middleman. This is good advice anywhere, but especially in the Philippines. You will see the reason for this in 5 minutes if you keep reading.

4 May - Santa Fe: We rented a motorcycle again and rode it around the island one last time. In certain areas we came across many large volcanic boulders, and once, on the side of the road, a small hole which was an old volcanic vent. I know the island was formed from volcanic activity, but I found it off that there was no old volcano or even a mound. Whatever formed Bantayan must be underground. On the way out to Bantayan, we saw a sign that proclaimed "Maia's Botanical Garden and Inn - 500 m", so we hooked a left and headed down the road and figured...100 meters...200 meters...driving on the small concrete road that wound through the fields and trees, volcanic boulders on the side of the road...400 meters...600 meters...800 meters...wait, didn't the sign say 500 meters? We drove on. On and on and on. We had probably gone over 3 kilometers before we came across a typical, smallish Filipino house on the side of the road, which was surrounded by some trees, and around it all was a fence. But "Botanical Garden" and "Inn"? Another case of a Filipino exaggerating the hell out of something they have and are trying to promote. I am sure "Maia" might have had some interesting plants, but this was no botanical garden.

Interestingly enough though, being so far down this little side road, we were surprised to see another sign advertising a resort just down the road! A resort? Way out here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dried-up fields baking in the heat? Well, this we HAD to see. We rode on another couple of miles, heading deeper into the country, when we came across a small dusty village on the shore, and at the end, behind a wall, was indeed a resort. We rode our bike in, and it was like a scene from an old western movie; the deserted village with a tumbleweed rolling across the main road. An older Filipina woman walked up and we asked her the name of the place, and she said it was "Moby Dick's Beach Resort"! (http://members.aol.com/mobyscebu/resort.htm) Moby Dick? Wasn't that a story set in the North Atlantic ocean, off the coast of North America? Anyway, check out their website for the vintage 1995 classic style with pictures from what I am guessing were a 1 mega-pixel cell-phone camera.

The prices look really cheap, at only $16 a day, but it is SO far away from Santa Fe! I am not trying to dig on them any, but I just have to wonder what is going through the minds of the people who arrive on the ferry, then get into the little shuttle van that drives them through beautiful Santa Fe, past the few restaurants and shops, past the coconut groves and out into the hot dusty fields, all the way to the other side of the island. (I saw the same family runs and operates a bar in Santa Fe called "Little Moby Dick's, or "Little Dicks" to the locals).

Bantayan town itself is a decent enough small town with a town square and a very old church, one of the oldest in the Philippines. They have a decent sized fish market near the wharf, and during the day one can see children jumping off it and swimming around, and many times I saw fathers in the water playing with their children. Despite the heat and poverty in the Philippines, the children seem to be healthy and having one fun hell of time growing up. Almost every child that I met was smiling and happy and fit, not like the obese little things strung out on Ritalin that we have waddling around in the states, unable to wrench their blank little eyes away from the TV screen.

We stopped outside an internet cafe (which wasn't really a cafe as they wouldn't let you bring any food or drinks inside, and they also didn't serve any) which was a converted big-rig trailer, and checked my email and looked around for a room in Cebu City, as we were leaving the next day. I found a nice looking place called the Alta Cebu Resort on Mactan Island, and booked two nights there. The pictures I looked at had grass huts with A/C, and the website made the place out to be the Taj Mahal of the Philippines. I wanted to burn a CD of pictures from my digital camera, and the sign outside said they offered the service, but when I asked about it, the kid said I would have to go buy a blank CD or DVD, as they don't stock those items. I was about to complain, until I realized I was in the backwoods of a third-world country, and not in San Francisco. The kid sent me to a store about a mile away, across the town square, to a small electronics store, where I bought 2 blank CD's from a girl behind a counter. They didn't even have any blank DVD's.

Riding around the Philippines, one will always comes across small shacks set up on the side of the road selling gasoline in glass bottles, especially in places where gas stations are few or far apart. I stopped at one near Santa Fe several times, mostly because it was run by a man who was surrounded by kids; I am assuming his. They were lying on tables outside the shack, they were stacked 3-high inside the shack on a makeshift bed, they were everywhere; so many kids, all dozing in the mid-day heat, the father earning just enough to feed them, it seemed. When I tipped him the change, he seemed very happy, not like the arrogant smirk you sometimes get in the states from some snotty spoiled teenager.

Riding around again (and noticing that the roads here were better than in Boracay), we happened upon a small dentist office and went in. I'd been looking for one since I arrived in the Philippines, as I wanted to get my teeth cleaned; it was way too expensive in Qatar, and I didn't have insurance. The office here was a small one-room affair with a dentist chair at the far side and a partition in the middle. By the front door were a few chairs and there was a TV with terrible reception. The dentist was a young woman, no more than 30 years old, possibly younger (it is hard to judge a Filipina woman's true age). Her "assistant" today happened to be her husband (who was a soldier) who stopped by after work and was just hanging out.

I was the only patient just then, and quite possibly the only patient she'd seen all day. She took me to the dentist chair, leaned it back, and went to work. I felt like I was back in the 70's when the dentist didn't use any eye protection or those masks they all wear these days, making you feel like some diseased leper. Personally, I think it's all a little ridiculous. I mean, how much of a disease is a dentist going to contract by cleaning someone's teeth? I think they are all freaked out by the AIDS scare. I liked this office; she even had the old spit basin next to the chair! I miss the old spit basin, and hate having to rely on that stupid suction thing they stick in your mouth; it only gets whatever is in it's immediate area.

It was hot in the office, and we were both sweating, but she worked quickly and afterwards only charged me 300 Peso, or around $6.50. Six Dollars and fifty cents to get my teeth cleaned and polished afterwards. How much would this have cost in the states if I had paid out of pocket, I wonder? I don't even want to know. Of course, she also asked if I was an actor, and did I know Nicholas Cage (as if every person who has a passing resemblance to someone famous should "know" them).

We had passed the Santa Fe city hall several times, and on this day decided to stop by and see if they could tell me anything about moving to Bantayan and opening a business. I had purposely worn a nice Izod shirt and slacks for the visit, and made sure I had shaved. I parked the motorcycle outside and we went inside (which wasn't that hard as I don't remember there being a door) and wandered around, looking for an official to talk to. There were a few guys lying on a bench in the courtyard, sleeping, and some villagers sitting outside of offices.

We went inside one office, and Charito talked to the girl for a few minutes, but she evidently didn't understand what we wanted. I told Charito to ask her if it is hard for an American to move here and open a business, to buy land, etc. The girl just looked at us blankly (probably wondering why I would waste money to buy land on this dried up island, when I could live in America). Finally, some older lady came in, found out what I was there for, and answered all my questions. Evidently Charito told him I was an American Investor, and then she seemed to wake up. She seemed happy that I wanted to live or invest on Bantayan, and asked if I wanted to see the mayor.

Without waiting for an answer (which would have been "no", she grabbed me and ushered me upstairs to the 2nd floor, to the Mayors Office. Leading me down the hall, several other women came out to look at the great American Investor. I was led into a dusty office with a desk and some sofas in it, and was introduced to a short, portly man who didn't speak English, so Charito did most of the talking, but that seemed to impress him more anyway. I guess he thought that she was my secretary or something. The fact that I was an American, who came all the way from California to visit their little island...he probably thought I was a millionaire.

Charito played her part perfectly, talking me up properly as if I was the biggest thing to hit the island since hurricane Carmen! By the time we left there, I'm sure he thought I was going to open a exclusive golf resort right in the middle of the island, and I could already see the dollar (or peso) signs in his eyes. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was just looking to open a small beach resort, and after seeing how boring the island was, probably wouldn't even do that anymore. I just wanted to know if I would have any trouble with buying a plot of land, getting water, electric, etc. He walked us out with great fanfare, dismissing lesser workers out of the way with a wave of the hand, as if they were flies. As we walked by, people in the hall were whispering to each other, some wondering if a movie star was visiting the Mayor to shoot a hollywood film, or if I was a great business man going to build a mega-resort on the island, I'm sure.

One last thing about Bantayan; there seemed to be a handful of Americans living on the island, which I thought a little odd, as there isn't that much there. Maybe they were looking to get away from it all, the whole "desert island" thing. There are literally tens of thousands of Americans, British, German and Australian men in the Philippines, but they mostly live on the big "mainland" islands like Luzon and Cebu. If you go to the malls you will see them everywhere.

The ones in Bantayan were all gone though, at least the ones I was told about. I saw this new, pleasant 2 story American-style house in a coconut grove, and when I asked about it was told it was an American married to a Filipina girl, but they lived and worked in the states. Maybe it was a future retirement home. I was also told some of them rent the houses out to tourists when like me they are away. I saw a Thai/German restaurant, but the couple had given it up and went back to Germany. I was playing with the idea of perhaps moving to Bantayan myself, but after seeing so many other westerners leave, and the overall lack of tourists on the idea, I dropped that idea.

The only people there with money are the Western and Asian tourists, and there really aren't enough of them to make a living. I even saw one of the beach resorts for sale. The government had built a small airport right outside Santa Fe in an attempt to increase tourism, but truthfully, there simply isn't anything to do on Bantayan for more than 2 days. You can see everything there is to see in one day. It is a simple, large island covered with coconut trees and volvanic rocks. There are many chicken farms, several scattered villages, and one major town. There are several nice beaches, a handful of mediocre restaurants, and a few bars. That ‘bout sums it up.

However, if the government allowed someone to build a huge gold-course near Santa Fe and surrounded it with condos and wrapped it all in a gated-community, I'm sure many retired westerners would move there. But "the Next Boracay" it is not.

That night, for some reason I can't remember, I changed our departure time from the 6:30 ferry to the later one at 9:30. I walked out to the hotel lobby and saw the guy who had made the van reservation, told him of the change, and he said he would call the driver and let him know to be at the Cagnaya ferry landing at 11 am. Satisfied, we went to sleep with the balcony door open with the breeze from the ocean drifting through the room.

5 May - We checked out in the morning, and the hotel actually gave us a ride to the landing in a van. The guy I rented the motorcycle from and his buddy drove us there, and when we pulled into the landing, we were assaulted by two or three guys running alongside the van, beating on the doors and yelling! I didn't know what the hell was going on; did we hit someone and were pulling their mangled body through the parking lot? Were there Muslims at morning prayer all spread out before us and these guys were warning us?

As usual, it was just some locals looking to carry our bags onto the ferry for a tip, but the "buddy" the driver brought along had that market cornered, as he chased them away before opening our door. One of the guys went to the back and opened the hatch to get at our bags, but the driver went back and chased him off. I felt sorry for these guys, but really, I can't help everybody in the Philippines. I can't have 20 people carry one suitcase, and I can't give money to everybody, no matter how hungry and poor they are. Next time, if I ever go back, I'll try to let the stragglers carry my bags, so I can spread the tips around more.

I went to the ticket counter to buy two of them, and saw they had two classes; coach for 150 Pesos and First Class for 300 Pesos (which the teller told me was a closed room with A/C and a TV), so I went with those. Charito said that since I was an American, it was expected of me anyway. She said the other passengers would be disappointed in me if I rode in the the economy section with them; they expect better out of Americans. Why should they try so hard to go to America if I ride in the cheap seats? I didn't really understand this logic, but went along with it.

We boarded and were ushered into the first class lounge, which was actually pretty nice. The seats weren't comfortable, but they had a large wide screen TV on the wall playing a bootleg of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" and several A/C's were pumping, so I was happy. The only bothersome things were the two old lady's walking around trying to sell us all chips, pork rinds and other dried things that would make us buy their expensive soda. I told her several times I didn't want anything, but every 10 minutes one of them would come over and ask.

The ferry left late, around 10 am, but we arrived in Hagnaya about 90 minutes later, and as we walked off the ramp, a small swarm of hustlers boarded the ship, grabbing our bags. It was a scene right out of the movie we just watched. The competition for baggage porters is high, so as soon as the ferry lands, they all push and fight to get to the first-class lounge. Luckily I had my sword and whip, and also a dagger between my teeth, so I was able to hold them off until I made it safely to shore. "Back! Back, I say!"

I saw a man by the taxi stand with my name scrawled on a piece of cardboard, so I walked over to him, and he tried to get us into a small taxi that was parked nearby. "Wait a minute, I thought we reserved a van..." I said to Charito. She pulled out her cell-phone and called the guy from the hotel who was arranged this, and I fended off the 40 hustlers who were throwing prices for the taxi at us. Funny thing was, I didn't SEE any other taxis around. Plus, some of these were the baggage handlers from the ferry.

So this is the scene, if you can picture it: the porters are trying to put our bags in the one taxi. Charito asking (who we assume) is the taxi driver if he is there to pick us up. The driver says no. I am told that this is not our vehicle and we should try to take the one that we reserved, but I don't see any van (or taxi, for that matter) around. I keep telling the porters to just put our bags down and leave us alone, but they are trying to talk to Charito AND the taxi driver at the same time, trying to "broker" a price for the ride to Cebu. It is hot in the direct sun, we are sweaty and pissed off, we got 4 guys arguing and yelling in front of us, all begging for attention. I wish I had had a shotgun to wave around or shoot into the air to scatter them all. Mace, an airhorn...anything.

Finally, we find out what happened: the guy at the hotel last night didn't call the van driver and tell him we would be checking out later then planned, arriving at 11 am. (I now regret tipping him $10 when we left). So the driver was sitting at the ferry landing at 6:30 am waiting for us, and when we didn't show up, he grabbed some other people who needed a ride to Cebu and left! This taxi was there by chance (he had dropped off some American couple earlier in the day and was hoping to get a ride back to Cebu City), and if he hadn't been, we would have been screwed. Thankful, we decide we have no choice but to take this taxi. I pull aside the guy who I am assuming is the cab driver, since he keeps asking us where we are going, if we need taxi, etc. and I ask him how much.

Thinking we don't have a choice, he quotes me 3500 Peso, which I laugh at and say "I'd rather wait for a car from Cebu...", and he lowers it to 3000, which I agree on. Now, instead of getting into the cab, he walks off! I start loading the bags into the taxi (the other porters are still trying to do this too, so I have three people trying to put one suitcase in the trunk) and I am wondering where the hell the driver went, when he comes walking back around the corner with an older man, who gets into the drivers seat! If you didn't guess already, it turned out the older guy is the driver, and the guy I was talking to? He's just another asshole porter trying to cut a deal, quoting me one price, higher than the cab fare. So his plan is I give HIM the money, then HE pays the taxi driver the true fare (2500 Pesos) and keeps a nice 500 for himself.

The trouble for him was, I hadn't paid him yet and didn't plan to until we were actually delivered to Cebu. Porter Boy came up and asked for 3500 Pesos, Charito and I jumped in the cab, shut and locked the doors, and I asked the driver how much to Cebu. He said "2500 Peso", and I said "fine, just go!" and we took off, with the small army of porters running behind us, beating on the trunk, wanting tips, bribes, extortion fees, and anything else they could get out of us.

So now we come to Tip # 7: This is similar to Tip # 6 above, but it is worth stating again: Try to eliminate the middle-man when trying to get a taxi. Try to talk to the driver himself, not an "agent" or broker or porter. They are all trying to be "helpful" and earn a tip, or even quote you a price for a ride. They will then talk to the taxi driver, find out the actual cost or haggle until they settle on a fare, then come to you and tell you, adding a good amount for them selves! However, in some bigger cities it is better for you to go to the man at the taxi stand, usually in a booth, and he will give you a price and a piece of paper, and write down where you are going, etc. This is done to keep the drivers from ripping you off. But enough said about that.

The drive back to Cebu was uneventful, except that the driver took my request that he "not drive like a crazy man, take your time, no passing! No rush!" a little too seriously. He was too slow, but I didn't want to say anything. Being a Filipino, I thought he might have only two settings, fast and slow. He never passed anyone, just drove nice and slow and sang along softly to his radio, perhaps practicing for the Karaoke bar later that night.

We arrived at Cebu City around 3 pm and drove over the bridge to Mactan Island and I told the driver the address of the hotel I booked. While in Bantayan remember, I was surfing the web (AsiaHotels.com) and came across a hotel (Alta Cebu Village Resort) which I saw advertised as a "4-star resort". I booked a few nights there, and seeing two different pricing levels, chose the premium, or more expensive room, as I saw it had a microwave and "guest laundry & laundry service", which I assumed was maybe a washing machine in the room(?). After not doing laundry for two weeks and when we DID wash something it wouldn't dry, we had some smelly clothes.

So I give the driver the name and address of the Alta Cebu, and he has no idea where this place is. It also wasn't listed in any of my guide books, so I just assumed it was a new resort. We drove and drove, the streets getting smaller and grungier and more ghetto-like. Once we passed a sign that had the arrow pointed back in the direction we had just come from, but a guy we asked said the district it is in is back THAT way, etc. Finally, I had to call the hotel twice and give the phone to the driver so he could find it. The whole time, I'm thinking "what kind of 4-Star resort is situated in a dirty ghetto like this"? Also, I didn't really need to be 30 minutes or more away from the main district of Mactan Island and Cebu City, in a place even the taxi drivers were nervous driving through.

After 90-minutes, we found the place at the end of a road near a washed-out bridge (we had unknowingly passed it twice) and waited for the gate guard come out and look at us before letting us in. I already had a bad feeling about this and wisely (for once) asked to see the room before checking in and giving them any money. First, there was no microwave in the room, and when I asked about it, they clerk said "oh, we can bring you one if you want." Um..excuse me, but isn't the premium room listed as having one? What was I paying more for? I also didn't see a washing machine in the room, and when I asked the guy what the laundry situation for the "premium" room was, he couldn't answer; he was confused. Way to train the staff, guys.

I enjoyed the view from the balcony, looking out at the slums and stagnant water and weeds next door. I wondered why, in an air-conditioned room, I would need a large fan next to my bed? The A/C on the wall was really small and I doubted it cooled the whole room down enough to be comfortable. Bearable, but not comfortable. I liked how on the website description they wrote: "Western standards of excellence (American owned and operated) in an exotic tropical ambiance with nearly-new facilities". Western Standards of Excellence? They might have had a decent enough place, but it isn't the Four damn Seasons; it was more like a youth hostel. And the exotic tropical ambiance? That must have been the view from the balcony overlooking the slums and standing water filled with trash. Oh, and the "American Owned and Operated" line? An American guy married a Filipina girl who now has an American passport, so it technically " IS American owned, but Filipino American owned.

The final straw was, while talking to the clerk, he dropped in that the place was "an ESL school for Japanese and Korean teenager, Mr. James! Sure, what you think Alta stand for? American Language Teaching Academy!"

Oh, so now it all made sense; they run an ESL school and decided that there wasn't enough money coming in, so they decided to rent the empty rooms out as a hotel, or as they like to call it, a "resort". Well now I knew what all those Asian kids standing around drinking out of plastic cups were about. Evidently the school staff also work the hotel side of the business.

We had just come from Boracay where we stayed at and visited many different resorts, and I didn't see many similarities between this ESL school and a resort. I later found out that the American guy who married the Filipino woman, built the place on her family's land, as is usually the case in the PI, so they didn't have much of a choice but to build way out in the sticks.

Maybe I wouldn't have been as disappointed if I had known in advance what the scam was, then I wouldn't have had higher expectations. But I did not expect to have to drive 90 minutes through a slum to a "resort" even the cab-driver had never heard of, and to pay a premium price for what was basically a room at an ESL school with nice grounds. I know they are just trying to make a buck, but really, passing a mediocre ESL school off as a 4-Star Resort? They are lucky that on the AsiaHotel website, the "feedback" feature doesn't work, or I would have left a less than great review.

Also, on the way out, I noticed their "gym" was nothing but a small tent with some rusty free-weights. Charito and I both found the place much different from what was advertised on the website, and so of course we didn't check in and left and checked into some high-rise, the Crown Regency in the shopping area for basically the same price and a much nicer room. And guess what, it was as advertised, as in it had a microwave in the room.

Later that night I did some more research on the Alta Cebu and found this job listing:

http://www.graffiks.com/dylan63_esl.html

After checking in and taking showers, we took a cab to the Gaison Mall up the road, but be warned, it is NOT a mall; it is a 3-story department store, with little or no A/C, and it is filled with cheap plastic crap. A mall? I wondered what their definition of a mall was?

The SM Mall was the best; really big, lots of good restaurants and stores, many bootleg music/dvd shops, and a bootleggers paradise. You can sit and look through a book listing CD's and DVD's and just tell them what you want and they will burn you a copy for a couple bucks. I bought the entire Nirvana CD collection in MP3 format on one CD, and a dozen or so bootleg DVD's, all for about $20. We finished up the evening by eating at a nice thai food restaurant with surly waiters, then headed back tot he hotel.

6 May - The final day: We checked out in the morning and the hotel was nice enough to let us keep our bags in their storage room until we would go to the airport later. This time we took a taxi to the Alaga Center Mall, but it was cramped and the entire two upper levels were filled with fast food joints. They had a couple of decent shops, but it wasn't the best mall. (Between you and me, I am not the biggest fan of malls. However, the Philippines is very hot and humid, and I would prefer to walk around in an air-conditioned mall all day compared to making my way through a crowd of sweaty pickpockets).

We left for the Cebu airport, and this is where I ran into those priests I wrote about back at the beginning of this story, so I won't go into that again here. We landed in Manila in the evening and upon our arrival, found the airport doesn't allow taxis in to pick up passengers! Evidently there is a taxi-mafia that controls the place, and they don't allow regular taxi-cabs into the main terminal to pick people up. We waited and waited and there were no cabs. Finally I asked some rent-a-cop standing near a door, and he told me I would have to go downstairs and get a "special" taxi, minimum 500 Pesos. Nice.

Well, I figured that since we were going to be staying the night in Manila anyway, I could call a hotel to come and pick us up. I followed the sign to the "hotels/reservation" counter, and met a woman working for the airport to help people find hotels. Of course, this being the Philippines, she also has a scam going, directing tourists to hotels she gets a kickback from. She will call them "as a courtesy to you" and have you fill out a pre-registration card "for your convenience", which she will then write her name on and even staple her business card to, for you to give the clerk at the hotel.

This broad kept pushing this expensive hotel on us, the brochure showing a lobby with gold and marble everywhere,it was something like $120 a night, which was about 4 times more than I wanted to pay for a room for maybe 5 hours time? She made a show telling me there were no other rooms, that it was only 10 minutes away, etc, and tired and pissed off, I finally said ok, but I wasn't going to give them her card. She smiled and said she would call the hotel shuttle, and oh, that was an additional 500 Pesos plus tip, of course. She could see I was pissed so she threw in "because it is a 20 minute drive!"

I gave her back her paperwork and said I had never heard of a $120 a night hotel charging to pick you up at the airport, and also, "I thought it was a 10 minutes away, like you said earlier?" She just looked at me, knowing I caught her in another lie. I told her "good luck" and walked off, back to the upper deck to try to get a cab that was dropping people off. Luckily, Charito showed a little leg and a cab driver who was, indeed, dropping people off gave her a look and while he was distracted I jumped in the back seat and locked the door, so he had to take us. He said he could get in trouble if caught leaving the airport with passengers, and I would have to pay him 400 Pesos (plus a tip) to take me. By this point, I just wanted to get the hell away from this airport and out of this crooked country, so I agreed. We left the airport without getting caught and he took us to a somewhat-seedy hotel where we got a few hours sleep, and he, no doubt, got a kickback.

7 May - Monday. We got up early and said our goodbyes. I was leaving for Doha, and Charito was staying in the Philippines for another 2 weeks, returning to Doha later. We took a cab to the airport around 5 am, but I was too late and the ticket counter had already closed(?), even though the airplane wouldn't leave until 6:30 am, but I am an American and bitched about it, and they caved and took my bag. I joined the agonizingly slow line through immigration, paid the extortion (terminal) fee, then had to wait in line at the security gate (again) could hear they were announcing my name over the speakers "final boarding call for James Dylan". Finally I cleared all this bullshit and, looking like OJ Simpson in that 70's commercial, ran through the airport, dodging old ladies, hurdling suitcases and doing combat rolls under luggage trains, I hit the gate and jumped through just as they were putting the rope across the boarding gate. Ha!

I boarded the airplane and could feel the eyes of every passenger glaring at me, as it had been announced to them all that they were waiting for "1 dumb-ass American to board the plane". I took my seat next to an older, mean-looking Filipina woman, and was happy to find out I was late passenger # 1, because we sat at the gate for another 30 minutes waiting for late passenger # 2, but it was hard to be mad at him, because he was a mentally retarded kid with special needs. Finally, we took off and I got the hell out of shitty Manila, hopefully never to return again. If I ever go back to the Philippines, it will be to Cebu, then up to Boracay. Please take this advice; avoid Manila International at all costs. All I remember now when someone mentions Manila is the corruption I experienced. Check out this web-page of comments left behind from people who had to spend the night in the Manila Airport and what they experienced.

The only thing of note to mention on the flight home was that the lady was obviously new to airplanes, for she had no idea of how to operate her little TV because she kept leaning over to see what I was watching, and she also didn't bring anything to read because she kept leaning over to read the magazine or newspaper I was reading, which was really annoying. She would chuckle while reading something, and I was thinking, is it safe to turn the page? Should I turn it or wait a bit....? Screw it, it is my magazine, but I don't want to be nice....She put me on the spot, man!

I arrived in Doha at 11 am, and never thought I would be happy to be back in Qatar, but with it's clean and safe airport and non-corrupt airport workers, it's clean streets, and it's relatively decent traffic situation....it was a welcome change from the Philippines. But really, despite all the faults I could find in Doha, despite it's mind-numbing boredom, incredible arrogant Qatari nationals, aggressive drivers...even despite the heavy heat and humidity.....I won't say I would rather live in Qatar, either. Between the two countries, nothing beats Northern California!

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