10 Do's for Sugar Beach, Sipalay

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1. To get to Sugar Beach cross yet another tidal river. Upon arriving to the stream realize, that the little boy who accompanied you from the trike is hallucinating about being your man to paddle you over. Look around. There's no one else there. Ask the boy how old is he. "Eleven", he says. This is child labour! After making sure that he only does this only on the weekends when he is not in school allow him to take you over but tip him heftily.

2. For once wish there was another Finn around so that you could laugh at the Swiss run guesthouse Takatuka (Takatuka is only one k short of mullet in Finnish).

3. The sun finally out! Run like crazy to find a boat that's going out. Find out that it is the stupid market day and that's when everybody goes to Sipalay proper even though the weather's been crap for the last week and now's the perfect day to go snorkeling.

4. Screw that. Charter your own boat with the local guys from the nearby village.

5. Wonder why you need three guys to take you out. Learn that it is for one of them to operate the boat and show you around the made for snorkeling wreck 40 minutes from the beach, for the other to light your cigarettes for you when it gets to windy for, um, amateurs in the middle of the sea (sorry mum, in case you had not noticed I'm smoking again) and for the third to climb palm trees to get you overdosed on coconuts on a deserted beach after two hours at the wreck.

6. Freak out upon seeing a two year old whacking a coconut with daddy's machete.

7. Meet Mark at 8 o'clock next morning when hiring the guys to take you out again. By 8.15 learn that he too is nursing a broken heart after a grimy affair with an Angelina Jolie look-alike, who is now in Cebu out of all places. Form the most pathetic snorkeling duo of all times. When your trip, which required yet one dead cellphone and a nasty coral cut, is cut short by rain, just laugh it all off. Hilarious in retrospect, maybe?

8. Forget about your resort and move your business to the village. Let Rowena cook you boneless milkfish, calamaries and sinigang and then some jackfruit, tarapple, papaya and mango fruitsalad. Amazing.

. Wonder wether the following sentence would work as an opening line in a novel about backpacking: "Like all long time travellers, I have become rather fond of my voice. In fact I prefer listening to myself telling the same old story from Poipet, Hong Kong, San Salvador or wherever to any of my fellow traveller's stories. They are the same anyway, but mine are more exciting."

10. Decide it's time to get you back in a city. Bus it to Dumaguete and splash on an aircon double with a telly.

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Comments

[TinNiE]

item # 6 made me laugh! LOLS nice tips on your blogs ...