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Published: March 19th 2009
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We left one of our neighbors, but we'll be back!Paradise Island
Hi again; after a day with no internet-connection we are again on line to the rest of the world. We left Panabo and the small village were the Project-house is and headed for Davao City to take a boat over to Samal Island, also called Paradise Island. I was only a trip of 15 minutes so we thought we should be there within an hour or two. We did not calculate the time it would take to struggle through the heavy trafficked road going south of Mindanao. All though it was Wednesday and the clock was showing 10 am it felt like Friday in New York the day before Christmas. Somehow the traffic was formed in more lines than the circle a round Coliseum.
We finally entered the city and were stopped by a soldier sticking a rifle through our window of the van. “Where are you going?” he asked us. With 50 dgr. in the van and with red and sweaty faces I though it was obvious that we where nervous and had a load of something back in the van which was to supply any illegal group somewhere. We all answered “Samal Island”.
It sounded
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The pier with our boat like we had practised the answer for the last two hours.
“Oh, no” I though and I saw us spending the next weeks in interrogations by some local authorities. I was trying to read the reactions of the man holding the firearm, but him wearing sunglasses, and me also for that matter, it was hard to communicate and impossible to read some signals. But as if we had given the right password to pass through we were “released” and free to go. Shortly after we arrived to the pier where our boat should take us to the island.
The boat was ready and we said goodbye to Mr. EmEm and soon after we had water on all sides. It took really 15 minutes. We docked at the pier of the Paradise Island Park and Resort hoping we should be able to get a room. We usually never book in advance, so why change a winning concept. On spot you can negotiate directly with the person in front of you and try to charm the prices down.
We where greeted by the staff and was guided in direction of the reception. First we were stopped by the security at
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The boats went fairly often, but only until 5 pm. Than you better be on the right side. the entrance. Like an airport we were asked to open our bags.
“Do you have anything here sir?” was the question.
“I hope” I said, “otherwise I’d been carried two empty bags all day long, stupid” I told him in Norwegian, with a smile. There, in front of two staff-members, groups of tourists and my wife I was cauthed like a criminal with my travel-companion; a half drunken bottle of Malt-Whiskey, bought in Barcelona as medicine to kill all kinds of problems caused by food. He held the bottle like a trophy to the sky.
“You have to pay for this, sir!” he announced. I saw my self tied to a pillar being stoned by I tribe of natives. What have I missed? Was I ever to return from this island?
“But it’s my medicine” I tried to explain. The reaction was like if I was a stand-up comedian. People laughed and the “detective” went with the trophy to an office still holding it in the sky.
A moment of uncertainty. Seconds being minutes. He came back! With the bottle, still half drunken and with a note telling me I had to pay 260,- (<5€) in tax. I paid and
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The, by now, famouse bottle of whiskey, and it's not the famouse groose, but a single Malt....... felt like a jerk smuggling whiskey. So a bad start of our visit to the island. But I was determent to get even with my price-negotiating.
Berit reminded me of my hopeless effort to press the prices in a resort in Koh Samui, Thailand. It was a hopeless situation. The clerk of the resort simply did not offer any discount. I try to explain why we needed a reduction but everything seemed useless. Finally I demand to see the one in charge. I was presented to an iron-lady with a communication-walky-talky thing from 30 years back. My imagination was that she used the thing to beat people who demanded discount. I turned on my best charm, and opened with “hallo madam; how are you this beautiful day?”
“I’m fine sir, how are you?” she replied back. The next move was mine. Like a chess-player I went through my option to have her open so I could make a final check-mate. I tried to polite explain that we needed 3 rooms and with a good price we consider to spend the rest of our vacation there, hoping she would not ask to find out that it was only to days. She
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A private beach in front of the resort replied with a firm “it’s impossible, sir”
“Everything is possible” I said, “People have reached the moon!” I saw that her body-language gave her away and sadness in her face was detected. Now! I realised she had lowered the guard and I had only to finalise our end-price.
“OK, madam” I said. “We can offer you cash and we don’t need an invoice, so what is your best offer, madam?”
“Well sir, I think your best offer is to go somewhere else, because as our clerk already told you, we have NO ROOMS AVALIBLE!”
We learned to always ask for availability before ever talk about prices. So even now.
The best deal we could have was 10% off because the UN-Food for hunger and some famous thing was to visit the resort tomorrow (today). We accepted and installed us in the room. We noticed there was a toilet. Not the model we had the last week. We invented a rather long phrase suitable to that toilet-model; should I stand or should I sit, should I stay or should I go. After a week we were still not sure of the better.
Anyway, we fought to use “it” first. Sitting
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In the restaurant there, we kind of reflected that the other model was not bad after all, for the leg-muscles, that is.
We also tried what 25 dgr. was like, but started to freeze soon after. Well installed we took a check of the resort and find it to be quite nice and with an over-populated staff. We had about two staff-members for every guest. Not including the staff behind one of the ten counters. After checking if internet was working (negative) we went for a nap.
Our stomach waked us up demanding to do something about the gap. We went down to the restaurant-area and sat down with a table and ordered. Spaghetti Carbonara?! And Fruits of the sea. Excellent food and friendly staff. We were also entertained by a local group singing and playing oldies to Berit’s delight. I was more moderate as they were standing very close to our table. Normally I enjoy music but not live “on” my table during my dinner. Well, we paid them off; only to get a break of 15 minutes. The singing quartet was soon back. At least by now we had finished our meal and with a long drink the music
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The quartet singing our food down. Hi guys give us some distance, will you! was much more enjoyable. The style was now native music and the feeling of being on some Hawaii Island was close. A cool breeze, sound of the ocean and the music made it a nice evening.
The next day we spend at the waterfront. Reading, taking a swim and sipping some milk-shake. Even under a thick canvas the sun reached and painted us light red. Hours later and time for our evening supper we came to the restaurant in time to witness some celebrity coming to the resort. Who it was could not be reviled. “It’s confidential” one of the staff-members told us. But we could also share the hula-hula ensemble greeting this special guest with his or her group welcome.
A beep and some fiss was ordered (beef and fish) and over again very tasty. To the sound of the music we went back to our room being promised that the internet should now be up and running. As you see it was true!
Hula-hula greetings from Samal Island to all of you! We try to download some pictures tomorrow as the connectionrate are only 2,0 Mbs
Berit & Alf
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