I believe I can fly

Discovered AcroYoga in my readings this week. Acrobatics combined with yoga.

Well want to give it a whirl. Any volunteers?

In my dreams

I gave up bread for lent, not for any Jesus reasons but in my annual test of willpower.

I’ve been dreaming of sandwiches.

Junglist Massive

It was jungle time. You can’t come to Borneo and not see a) jungle, b) Orangutans, c) heavily-tattooed men in loincloths. Mulu National Park is one of the most-promoted of Malaysia’s impressive selection of national parks on account of its network of vast caves, jungle hikes, headhunter trail and abundant wildlife. So abundant that I met at least four separate biology researchers there, honing in on bats, jumping spiders, snakes and scorpions, among other things. It’s accessible by land… if you are prepared to travel for two days through Brunei and up the river to get there. Most people (including me) choose to fly in using the government-subsidised MASwings flight.

A twin-prop departs direct from KK a couple of times a day, landing briefly in Miri then pressing on to Mulu airstrip. The scale of palm oil production really hits home as you soar over enormous tracts of neatly-planted palms before you reach jungle. Scarily, they also seem to be recarving and diverting watercourses left, right and centre too. I hope they know what they’re doing.

The national park HQ here is a slick operation run by an Australian family. It has an onsite restaurant, dormitory, private rooms and bungalows all built and maintained to a very high standard but correspondingly high-ish prices. The skanky (me) can stay outside the park in local homestays which start at 15ringitt a night. There are two swanky hotels in the neighbourhood, if you’re so inclined. I checked into a homestay that my new Belgian friend declared ‘smells of bat shit’.

I spent the first day information scouting. Having missed out on the Kinabalu climb, I wanted to replace it with another, superior trek. The headhunter trail runs from the HQ for five days(ish) walking down the river to the town of Linbang, from where you can catch overland connections out. ‘Headhunter’ is a misnomer; it was actually a trade and commerce route for the nomadic tribes but the shrewd tourism folks realised that travellers wouldn’t be interested in ‘the Durian trail’ so, on finding some skulls off to one side of the path, injected some tribal mystique.

Already had a flight booked out to Kuching five days later so it was no good to wind up in Linbang. Instead I opted for the Pinnacles trek, a three-day, two-night dawdle up to some pretty limestone pinnacles and back. Choosing a hike meant opting out of the adventure caving on offer but next time… It took me two days to gather a group so I spent that time exploring the show caves and park walks on offer.

Behold! The view over Mulu at dawn with a nice cup of coffee.

And sunset over Betty's Homestay

The show caves are super-touristy (think Wookey Hole) but breathtaking nevertheless. The Deer Cave boasts the title of ‘largest cave chamber in the world’ as well as a colony of 3 MILLION bats. In the day these bats hang out on the ceiling, chirping and pooing, but all depart each evening en masse on their hunt for insects and you can watch them pour out in what’s known as the exodus. They eat a staggering 15 tonnes of insects each night, including mosquitos so that’s totally fine with me.

Inside looking out. Can you see the Deer Cave's Abraham Lincoln profile?

Nearby is Lang’s Cave, a smaller affair but with marvellous stalagmites and stalactites. It’s not quite Lebanon’s Jeita Grotto, but it’s close. Plus it has tiny weeny bumblebee bats hiding in the crevices.

Lang's cave

Pinnacles day arrived. My hiking buddies were a Belgian chap with uncontrolled flatulence and two Hungarian warlords. Ok, not warlords but they were pretty cagey about their work. We began at 8am with a longboat ride up the river to Clearwater cave and the local village for a poke about on the way to our overnight destination, Camp Five. Getting there involved an 8km amble along the flat but you arrive pretty sweaty and greatly appreciate an icy dip in the river that flows in front of the camp.

Camp Five

It’s pretty flash, as bunk houses go. Established in 1978/9 for the 18-month National Geographic Society exploration of the area, it has since been expanded to include a posh shower block, a big kitchen equipped with more than enough stuff to make a hearty meal and several dorms. Sure, you have to sleep on a matt on a wooden platform but I was comfortable enough. The main complaint from folks was the volume of the jungle noises. Cicada are insanely loud and sound like car alarms. If you catch one, you can make it sing by pressing its belly with a chopstick.

That 8km hike counts for day 1 leaving eons of time for fecking about by the river, taking dips and wandering about. I was taken with the butterflies so spent nuff time chasing them and, when bored of that, discovered that my phone comes with Sudoku. Yippee!

The guides – and you have to have one – don’t want you to be under any illusions and take pains to emphasise how hard the Pinnacles hike is. The last 200m of climbing involves a series of stemples, ladders and ropes. There’s a check-point at the bottom of the ladders that you must reach by 11am else you’re not allowed to climb as you won’t be back before dark. Time frames of 8-12 hours were bounded about and we were urged to eat high-energy food. They were making me nervous.

We set out at 6.15am the next morning, as early as the daylight would allow, to avoid the heat of the day and allow ourselves maximum time on the mountain. The path upwards is relentless, averaging about 70degrees over terrain of rocks laced with tree roots.

Words of encouragement

It’s sweaty, but it’s not unbearable under the shade of the trees and our guide had carefully-mapped rest stops and times, stashing full bottles of water on the way up to lighten the backpacks. One of them was here, at the mini-Pinnacles.

Mini Pinnacles

For all the fearing, we were at the top just after 9am and the ladders bit was well easy and only a little exposed for the last 100m. At this stage you’re in the cloud forest too so the trees are dripping with moss and succulents. We half-expected a Navi to appear around the next corner.

Our guide, Junaida/John/Bjorn, whichever you prefer.

Pinnacles! From here, you can see to Brunei. And they can probably see me in the dayglo too.

I reckon it looks a bit like those famous ones in Madagascar with the lemurs hanging out at the top. They’re on the list.

The way back down was boring. It’s tiring on the legs and knees and requires constant concentration not to come a cropper on the slippery tree roots. I proposed a zip wire or some paragliding.

The only fun bit of the way down. And some knobbly knees.

Still, you can distract yourself with the omnipresent wildlife. John was an expert at identifying the animals and showed us spots where wild boar had been foraging, the sound of a hornbill flying, the cry of a flying lizard and some real live delights, both here and on a nightwalk from the camp later on. The biggest was a cool Red Leaf Monkey, about the same size as a baby Orangutan. About eight of them were just hanging out in the trees at the side of the path having a lunch of fruit. They looked like skulls with a shock of ginger hair. Love.

Red leaf monkey

Excellent millipede

Dinosaur leaf bug thing

Nearly dead lizard

Tree shrew, if you look carefully. Big into cakes.

Mad snail with shell 'wiper blade' tentacles. They still don't know much about this fella.

Tree frog

Armoured millipede or centipede. I can't see.

Funky spider

Tiiiiiny yellow snail

Lickle lizard

Got mildly obsessed with butterflies over the course of five days. There are just so many here, it’s hard not to. Bit tricky to take photos of because, unlike moths, they sit with their wings closed but they like to drink wee so if you hang out by the drains, you’re winning.

My favourite and the most fluttery.

By the time we arrived back at camp, there was still plenty of time for dips in the river and to get munched alive by sandflies. Day 3 of the not-really-three-days trek involved a simple retracing of steps through the jungle back to the river and onwards to the park HQ for a slap-up noodle meal and full-fat coke at one of the two river-front restaurants ahead of my flight.

Wham bam, thank-you Mulu.

Waterworld

With an evening to spend in KK, I made a trip over to the water village across the sea from the gleaming waterfront with its modern new malls, expensive apartments and swanky bars. The tumbledown ramshackle of huts and walkways is home to a large number of illegal immigrants, many of them Filipinos, and harbours a bit of a drug problem, apparently channeling quite a bit of amphetamine into the country. Few people have a job. I’m not strictly sure why the government tolerates it and its supposed to be quite dangerous to go there alone as a whitey, especially after dark.

The houses are built of scrap or rescued bits of timber and bamboo hacked from the island. One bloke was wading under the walkways with a bundle of wood as we walked along.

‘What are you building?’ I asked.

‘This is my house!’ he beamed back.

As is often the case with these dangerous places, it was one of the friendliest I went. I probably could have done without the protection of my trusty Malaysian sidekick. All the kids were messing around in the water, shouting hello and slithering onto boats to wave. Men doing odd jobs on their houses or repairing the boardwalks warned us to be back on the boat before nightfall. Ladies either waved shyly from behind their children or determinedly ignored us to carry on washing clothes.

Water village with stilted mosque

Water village gangway

Piles of rubbish

Colourful

The shore on the island that the village has attached itself to is little more than a rubbish dump. All the crap is either washed up from the sea or deposited there by the villagers themselves. They don’t seem to care. Life continues in, around and on the rubbish.

Kids were playing with toy cars, the young – and pretty trendy – teens were playing volleyball, mixed groups were playing some sort of gambling game that involved making a small pit in the sand and seeing who could chuck coins in or closest to it. A few of the children were on the beg for ‘one ringitt’ but mostly they were just curious at the alien visitors.

Volleyball

Gambling game

I wanted to know more. I wanted to talk to more people. I wanted to take a million photos but night was falling.

Big fan. Photo project waiting to happen.

I took the road less travelled by…

…and it was a bit shit.

To elaborate.

I bid the Philies farewell and landed in Kota Kinabalu on the Malaysian side of Borneo. The island of Borneo is divided into several sections which belong to Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei respectively. The Malaysian section is then sub-divided again into the broad regions of Sabah, to the East, and Sarawak, to the West.

I landed in the capital of Sabah, an old stronghold of the British Colonial days. A British company took over in 1881 to exploit Borneo’s wealth of natural resources, especially timber, tobacco and rubber. According to proponents, “the company established a foundation for economic growth in North Borneo by restoring peace to a land where piracy and tribal feuds had grown rampant. It abolished slavery and set up a transport, health and education system for the people.” Then they shipped in Chinese manpower to supplement the indigenous workforce of less than 100,000 people – not enough for the donkey work they had planned. It technically became a protectorate of Great Britain in 1888 but practically was still administered by the economic concern.

“The British, they didn’t rip us off,” one elderly man told me. He offered a lift in bus-barren Sabah one day and turned out to be an oil plantation manager. Probably in his late 70s with onset Parkinsons, he told me that he still remembered the days before the end of colonisation, and fondly too. His father had been the headmaster of a school and was a stickler for good English grammar amongst his pupils, evident in this gent’s perfect spoken English. “You gave us a good education system, schools, transport, healthcare, administration – everything we needed. We had it in our hands, and we thrrrew it away.”

Anyway, modern KK is a pleasant city with lots of diversions. I spent just over a week kicking around, checking out the spangly new library, fish market, hawker stalls, graffiti, pools, viewpoints and shops.

Gaya Street, backpacker central, at sunset. Also the location of the Sunday market. Where I nearly came home with a Beagle puppy.

Sunset from Signal Observatory

I...spy...ink! From the window of the new library at Suria Sabah, a glimpse of a street artwork.

And on closer inspection...

Stencil gem

The Filipino market on the waterfront is a particularly nice place to hang out at the evening. As in many temperate cities, the promenade tends to be a popular place in the evenings for families, friends and couples to walk, play and eat. As a result, a semi-permanent market has grown up here, a patchwork of awnings under which you find a cluster of street restaurants selling delicious, freshly-cooked seafood. You come, you pick your fish, you weigh your fish, you tell them how you want it cooked, you sit, you wait, you eat your fish. £4 will get you a veritable feast.

Seaside promenade

Fishies, ready for dishies

Lobster bugs

How would you like that?

The dining room

Little sister was in Sabah for a few years working as a dive master, and her former bosses are still here. I linked up with them a couple of times and witnessed a chink of the expat scene. Very nice it is too, with a mix of people from all over the world. Better still, they really seem to make an effort to integrate. Inter-marriage between nationalities and cultures is common; foreigners feature in the local soaps speaking fluent Malay. When expats settle, they settle for the long-term. Through them, I went along to the opening of the latest art exhibition – this time promoting Indonesian talent – at the funky El Centro bar.

After a week, I was ready for more Sabah highlights, which according to the tourist literature include Mount Kinabalu, Sipadan, Kinabantangan river (for wildlife spotting including pygmy elephants for the lucky), Sepilok orangutan sanctuary and more.

I’m lucky enough to have been to Sipadan before so I checked that off the list. It’s still one of the most supreme havens for aquatic life in the world so if you haven’t been – go. You can see rays, turtles, sharks, corals and a gazillion fish just by turning your head. It’s under threat from the standard environmental threats posed by humans everywhere, but particularly growing Chinese wealth and their penchant for grinding up bits of animals in their food and medicine. A staggering 40 MILLION sharks are killed each year for their fins, just so people can indulge their love of shark-fin soup. What’s wrong with the rest of it too?

Luckily, those in the region realise the value of the underwater ecosystem (many of them make their living from it) and so staunch preservation campaigns are in place, almost everywhere you look. It’s refreshing to see in a place that has known more than its fair share of dynamite fishing in the past.

So, knocked Sipadan off the list and heard that the orangutan experience is slightly more authentic elsewhere so discounted Sepilok too. Kinabantangan was a 6 hour bus ride each way so I binned that off too. When looking for information about where to go in Sabah, the only activities available seemed to be organised tours. What’s more, these tours average at about £40 a day, three or four times the Asian norm. ‘No’, thought I. ‘I despise trailing around in a tour group; there must be another way.’

There isn’t, as I was to learn.

I set off for Kinabalu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (for all that means, two-a-penny as they are), popular climbing mountain and half the height of Everest. A Climbathon is hosted in October every year where competitors try to scale and descend the path in the quickest time possible. Current record is held by a Spaniard with a time of 2hours 38minutes, but he had an Italian hot on his heels who came in just 40 seconds later.

There’s a Via Ferrata at the top, touted as Asia’s highest. But it’s a poxy 2A, essentially a walk while clipped on to a wire, so I rejected it as a reason to try harder for a permit.

Climbing the beast generally involves staying overnight at the hostel and climbing the last 3 hours in the wee small hours of the morning to arrive at sunrise. It could easily be done in one day in my opinion, granted a long day, but the weather tends to close in in the afternoons meaning that morning is best for clear skies and good snaps. Permits are required and numbers are limited to 200 a day. It costs a giddying 550ringitt (over £100) to get the permit and stay one night. There is always a waiting list and park authorities recommend that you book your climbing permit a few months in advance. Five years ago it cost 180ringitt – market forces in motion.

Needless to say, I didn’t have a permit when I rocked up one morning but you are allowed to climb up to the halfway point at Liang Liang on a day pass. The path is basically a stone staircase and, though relentless and sweaty, not particularly challenging. We managed to get to the 4km halfway point and back down in three easy hours.

The cloud forest was beautiful, with moss-covered trees, orchids and loads of pretty succulent plants to look at but, well, I’ve been spoilt in my adventures and I believe I have seen better mountains and less crowded paths.

Kinabalu Valley

Cloud forest

'Dance or I will shoot'

I had taken one look at the map and seen it sprinkled liberally with national parks and towns with odd names. ‘There MUST be other cool stuff to see off the beaten tourist trail?’ I whinged. I decided to forswear the tours and beat my own path. The Crocker range of hills has been designated a national park and runs parallel to the coast, more or less, with KK. Kinabalu stands just up at the top, Tenom at the bottom; there are a number of little towns ringing the park and a train track running from Tenom back up to KK. This, I decided was my adventure.

Coming down from the mountain, I tried to catch a bus to nearby Ranau in search of digs for the night on the way to Poring hot springs. I stood in the drizzling rain for over an hour. Buses came, buses went. None stopped. I should have recognised the signs.

“Are you still here?” bellowed one tour coach driver after an hour. “Just hitch! The local people are very helpful.”

Sure enough, after failing to catch a ride on the near non-existent public transport, I flagged a lift to Ranau with two Celcom (the national mobile network) workers on a tour to check network strength within minutes. Success! Also managed to find a hostel with minimal fuss, despite the scaremongers declaring that it was half-term so everything would be fully booked. It came complete with a friendly hostel manager browsing hardcore lesbian porn at the front desk. He told me that he was employed by the government. Everyone seems to be employed by the government but many moonlight on the side as hostel managers, bus drivers and restaurant owners. What the government strategy behind giving everyone a bit-part is, I know not.

“You can take the bus from outside the bank,” he told me. “Five ringitt.”

You can’t take the bus from outside the bank. All the bus drivers insisted that there was no service to Poring but that I could take a charter bus for ten times the price. <Sigh>. ‘The villagers don’t ever come to town?’ I asked. After some wrangling, we settled on twice the going rate. Tourist tax.

I was underwhelmed by the hot springs – though they were very hot. Malaysia has dictated that they are best enjoyed as a series of concrete bathtubs set into the floor. You run your weird bath, you soak, splash around…that’s it. Other attractions are co-located, including an orchid garden, canopy walk, small swimming pool and slide complex but, meh. Not that impressed. Good for soaking mountain-weary legs but that’s all I got to say about that.

Emboldened by the hitchhiking encouragement the day before, I hitched a lift back into Ranau and jumped a bus to Keningau, recommended to me by a Malaysian friend. It’s a fairly big market town but has little in the way of attractions.

No, I thought best to press on to Tenom. It is the last station on Borneo’s only stretch of train-track, established by the Brits to get the tobacco crops out more easily and still used today for passenger services. It stands at the foot of the tantalising Crocker Hills, in the heart of coffee country and is the traditional home of the Murut tribe, the last one to ban headhunting. It has a Murut cultural centre, agricultural museum, orchid garden and whitewater rafting within 10km. You’d think it would be *ripe* for tourism, no?

You’d be wrong.

There isn’t very much in Tenom at all, less still information and dream on if you want a hostel. The best you can dig up in the way of accommodation is a crumbling, damp, crappy B&B. You can look at the beautiful hills but “no one goes there!” I was told when I asked about hiking in them. The only way? A private tour. Arranged from KK. I felt like Tantalus himself.

Tenom, and a glimpse of the Crocker Hills.

There isn't much in Tenom but it does have this pretty statue celebrating a Murut hero who stood against the Brits, I believe.

I spent a boring night wandering around Tenom’s limited sights, watching footie practice on the square, supping the locally-grown coffee and watching ‘The Expendables’ (shocking film) in a cafe with my friend Mohammed. Friend in the sense that he wanted me to pay his mate a lot of money to drive me around in his car for the day. I’d asked him for information to see if I could find an ‘in’ to the Murut culture or a hike in the hills. He came back offering a drive to a coffee farm and the agricultural centre.

The following morning I figured that I might as well at least *try* to see some Murut action so I duly trudged off to the bus stop for the 10km journey to the ‘cultural centre’, a tourist honeytrap with a massive fake long-house and a small museum. Getting there involved the standard ‘there are no buses, you’ll have to charter the minivan’ fiasco but I arrived with relatively little fuss.

It’s not the authentic experience of a smokey, rickety old long-house, men in loin-cloths and heavily tattooed women that most tourists hanker after. However, there were no other tourists there when I showed up so I was at my leisure to peruse information about the significance of different carvings on the longhouse pillars (you can carve patterns that mean, for example, you’ve had a failed affair, so people don’t ask awkward questions. Sweet!), marriage rituals, burial practices and Murut party times. Turns out they all like to drink and smoke.

I had just wandered in unaccosted to one end of the longhouse but at the other end was a drumming sound. A bloke approached asking me what I was doing and I thought I was about to be kicked out. He turned out to be the co-ordinator of a cultural dance and music workshop going on that weekend to improve the local kids’ dancing and musical prowess ahead of April’s festival. I was invited to sit and chat about Indonesian house maids and acting in Malaysian soaps over a coffee with the lecturers before the youngsters put on a dance demo, just for me. Delight! Then, horror of horrors, it was my turn.

They chose to introduce me to the dance that is a bit like playground skipping. Two people sit on the floor facing each other holding the opposite ends of long sticks. They smack these poles together in time to the music and the dancers must move their feet to place them between the sticks at appropriate times. I suppose a bit like that game where you spread your hand on a table and stab in the space between your fingers with a knife at increasing speed.

Like your first aerobics class, I was all over the shop, to the amusement of the class. But I didn’t lose a foot so all’s well that ends well.

Supian (the co-ordinator) needed to run some errands in town so offered to drop me back. Not before he showed me into the show longhouse though. This is used for the dancing competitions and features a special jumping section in the middle. A what? Well, a square hole is cut into the wooden floor of the long-house. Beneath this hole, long pieces of bamboo – the length of the building – are laid. A piece of rattan the same size as the hole is placed over the bamboo sticks. Hey presto! A natural trampoline.

The aim of the game during competitions is to see who can touch the highest marker on the ceiling above.  I reckon these were 2-3m above the ground. Good game.

Dance show

Team dance

Trampoline

Since we were in town, Supian and his pal Arnold introduced me to another Malaysian mainstay – the lottery. For some reason there are shops absolutely everywhere under about five different companies. Malays love a bit of a gamble and prizes can be several million ringitt for a wager of one or two. I didn’t win.

Next. The train. Oh, how I love a train. This one was particularly special as it’s the only one on Borneo. It’s just been started up again and essentially runs in two stages, from Tenom to Beaufort, across the jungle, and then from Beaufort to KK. There are two services a day from Tenom; I went for the Satruday afternoon one along with half of the town, or at least that’s how it felt when all of us waiting on the platform squeezed into the two dishevelled carriages that arrived. Hell, one was a luggage car adapted for passengers with the addition of a bench. There is no air conditioning other than open windows. It costs 2.85ringitt. Utterly brilliant.

Station master stand-off with the train

North Borneo railway. All aboard.

For several hours, the train snakes slowly along the side of the river with the white waters off to one side and dense jungle and the odd station off to the other. It’s stunning. The locals aren’t backwards by any stretch but they obviously don’t take the train much and there were still audible gasps of delight as we went through a tunnel and everyone craned to have a look at a dam we went past. I mimed interaction with the locals, who spoke only Malay and their local dialects, becoming adopted by an elderly lady in the process.

After two stops a massive group of tourists got on the train, fresh from a round of white water rafting. They noisily filled the train and, when we were required to chain trains at one station, ran down the platform to bagsy all the nice seats before the locals could get there. Having been on the train from the very beginning, I felt some solidarity with the elderly folks and families ousted out of their seats and sided firmly with the Malays. One girl had her bag on the seat next to her while eight people crammed themselves into the vestibule, including a toothless old man. That was too much. I made her move it and beckoned the old fella over.

When we got to Beaufort, they all piled onto waiting coaches to go back to KK. I stuck around with the intention of getting the train back to the smoke in the morning and checking out the proboscis monkeys and fireflies at the nearby Klias wetlands by night. <sigh>. That is not possible. There is naturally no bus to the wetlands, you have to charter a minivan. There are no tourist facilities there, you have to arrange any mangrove trips with a tour operator. Back in KK. There was no tour available that night.

Thwarted, I stamped my feet and gave up. There was no transport back to KK that night so I booked into a passable cheap hotel, chatted to the local bus drivers (off duty smoking fags by the mosque) for a bit, called into the hawker market for an evening feed and wandered off to watch a Malay soap, narrowly avoiding being bitten by a territorial dog on the roadside. Not a shining impression of Beaufort, let it be said.

Still, the next morning was Sunday so I got up and enjoyed a sedate Chinese breakfast before boarding the second train back up to KK. This one has had an amount of investment. Compared to the Tenom train, it’s dazzling with added aircon. But what it makes up for in comfort, it lacks in charm and scenery. The trip back up was uneventful and a bargain at less than 5 bucks.

New, possibly improved.

I rolled back into KK not wholly satisfied but not disappointed with the solo adventure. Memo to self: Sabah – tours.

Scrumdiddlyumptious

Lemongrass House is a small Thai essential oils cum posh toiletries outfit based in Phuket and makes the most heavenly (yes, I just used ghastly beauty ed jargon) smellies. Bec introduced me to them a couple of years back so when we were back in town in January we beelined for the shop to stock up. I love the massage oil for slathering on and ousting the backpacker grime for a short while.

Fig tea oil. Don't knock it til you've tried it.

another 'mazin scent. Thai grapefruit, essentially.

At the moment they supply a handful of posh spas around Asia but – from the horse’s mouth – they’re currently in negotiations to launch flagship stores in major cities around the world. When they do, you can be sure that the reasonable £3-5 pricetags for bottles of wonder will disappear so get ’em while you can.

Fascinating facts: part 5

– The Netherlands produces 13,000,000 kilos of cheese per week

– 75% of the entire world’s flower bulbs come from the Netherlands

– A tarsier’s brain is the same size as one of it’s eyeballs – 16mm in diameter.

– Proboscis monkeys live in a harem arrangement of one bloke to around 20 ladies.

– Half the world’s population live in cities, estimated by the UN to rise to 70% by 2050.

– The Maldives calculate the value of their sharks to the economy at US$33,000/year. Alive.

Proboscis monkey. How about that for a nose? (Half-inched pic)

Get the flock outta here

With 7,107 islands, I don’t think you’d ever be finished with the Philippines. I could spend many more moons exploring the hinterlands but the authorities only grant a 3-week visa on arrival and Air Asia had seen through my fake onward flight booking and made me book a flight to coincide with the visa expiry. I couldn’t be arsed to change it so I left my itinerary, as usual, in the hands of fate.

That meant getting back over to Cebu, one of the country’s transport hubs, and working out the route northwards to Manila. Investigations revealed that I could fly any time in the next two days…or take a 24-hour ferry. Now, it’s actually cheaper to fly but I figured that the arduous boat-ride was a rite of passage in the quest for a true Filipino experience. As luck would have it, there was a boat scheduled for departure at 9pm, just a few short hours away.

Headed down to the port after finally extracting ticketing information from a combination of sources, bought my passage and setted in to the waiting room at the terminal. 9 o’clock came and went. ‘Should we be boarding?’ I cautiously asked one of my fellow waitees at 8.45pm. ‘The boat isn’t here,’ he grinned at me. It wasn’t for another two hours that we were invited to embark. Out of our control so may as well settle in for the long-haul.

It turned out that the only tickets left were in steerage, where I found myself in a gargantuan room filled with bunks, families and boxes of cargo. No one but no one travels without taking with them a few boxes trussed up in string.

Many many bunks

These are no paltry sailboats, they’re full-blown passenger ferries. Depending which boat you get, some have swimming pools and basketball courts to entertain passengers for 24-hours. Without fail, all have a karaoke bar that blasts out at full volume from 8am, and a ladyboy live band by night, not forgetting the livestock pen for animals in transit, lest you miss the two most familiar sounds of the Philies (roosters crowing and 90s ballads being butchered).

There were just three white people on the boat, and I was the only girl, causing much giggling, staring and curiosity from everyone else on board. The staff quickly learnt my name and constantly called it to check I was ok. It was a friendly curiosity, not hostile, so I became inured to it fairly quickly.

Made friends with Pol, a Filipino from Maya (the jumping-off port for delectable Malapascua) who was taking a fighting rooster up to his cousin in Manila and stopping in for a week’s visit. Chatting with him over the course of the journey I learnt a lot about student and family life in the country, as well as hearing yet more terrifying stories of why you shouldn’t linger in Manila. He told me that twice he’d been robbed at knifepoint in the jeepneys and on one occasion they slashed his clothes to get at his tuition fees.

Of the two other whiteys on board, one was the lovely Donald, a consultant from the UK who had been coaxed out of retirement for a project in Manila for a month. He was taking a long-weekend tour in the South of the country and had splashed out on first class. He invited me to join him in the first-class section of the canteen for meals and also to watch sky TV away from the screeching karaoke. Wonderful.

First class. A bit different.

The other… Well. He was an American and approached me in the terminal before departure, dressed like an airline pilot with a grey overcoat over his arm and John Travolta sunnies on, to ask me some mundane questions and launch into a boring monologue about his life, as Yanks are prone to. He casually mentioned that he was working as a Buddhist missionary in the Philippines and had been for four years, talking in passing of his wives, medical training and military experience.

‘That’s nice,’ I said, before turning to my Filipino friend to check if we were boarding. American man drifted away.

The next morning I awake and he’s standing at the end of my bunk.

‘Oh! Good morning!’ he said, with mock surprise, and asked how I slept. I am at this stage still sleepy and amused but a bit annoyed that the student ferry staff on board have been circulating since 6am with trays of convenience items for sale, bellowing their produce at the top of their voices. This continued until lunchtime. I lost count of how many times they came to ask if I wanted to buy souvenir mugs, toothpaste, bog roll, sandwiches and cakes.

Back to creepy Yank, he starts telling me more about his life. Seizing the wife references, I asked him how many he had had. “You don’t wanna know!” he grinned. With that rubber face, I’m going to guess he can only have conned a maximum of three desperate women into marrying him. Then he starts telling me about all his training and careers, including time with the French and British embassies curiously, alluding to properties across the world and a love of flying. He produced an exercise book with his CV details written neatly into it for me to examine and I start to suspect that he’s mad.

Despite working at the embassy, he had never been to Britain. ‘Why?’ I asked.

‘See this ring?’

<points at gold ring with square black stone>

‘They won’t let me in with it. It means I was happy once.’

“We don’t stop happy people from entering the UK,’ I frowned, confused, before he continued to witter cryptically about Princess Diana, plastic surgeons and conspiracy theories.

As soon as he wandered off for a cigarette, it was universally agreed by those in the surrounding bunks that he was loco.

Later he was walking past again and tried to engage me in conversation: ‘it’s cold in there (referencing the arctic AC blasting out). Not as cold as in Britain though, eh?’ <lowers head, raises eyebrow>

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve not been there for ages.’ I lied, picking up my pace and running down the corridor

‘Oh yeah, a year or m…’ I heard him start as I fled. Classic!

Time passed with little incident in reading books and writing letters, broken by mealtimes and perambulations about the ship and before we knew it, it was 10.30pm the next day and my pals were dragging me out on deck to watch the captain park up.

Docking

My young pals. One has a 2-year old daughter, though he looks scarcely out of school. Note to self - always wear eye make-up.

Pol’s stories of Manila had reinforced my fear of spending any more than the bare minimum of time there. Luckily the lady in the neighbouring bunk was heading up to Angeles on the bus, conveniently close to my final destination Clark Airport. Not, Air Asia, Manila as you say in your booking programme. She grabbed me by the wrist and bustled me through Manila with ease to deliver me a few hours later in Dau. Yippee!

From here it was an easy jeepney to Clark. I foolishly thought that ‘Clark terminal’ meant Clark airport, but it doesn’t. It means a bus terminal 10km short of the joke of an airport – actually an airstrip in the middle of a former military base –  and for an unknown reason buses and jeepneys don’t run near it. No matter, for a friendly chariot awaited in the form of Ariel, a local bloke who runs the air hostesses between town and the airport all the time. Hitched a lift and waved the Philippines farewell.

“Hey everybody! Come see how great I look!”

Behold the pretty, revamped blog. In the words of Ron Burgundy... "Hey everybody! Come see how great I look!"

 

 

 

A rolling stone gathers no moss

“If I don’t leave now I’m never going to leave,” I declared as I was baited into staying Duma-side by one last lechon (suckling pig) feast.

Abandoning the fattened piglet to the birthday hoards, I fled for Cebu across that lovely Liloan crossing again and jumped a bus up to Moalboal, a pretty little spot famed for good diving, and indeed some canyoning through expat company, Planet Action Adventure. I didn’t go myself, but it was nice to know I could. Most divers come to see the shoals of sardines off Pescador island but there is a nice white sand beach up the coast and plenty to see in and around the village too. I happened to journey with Norwegian-Spanish bloke Andres who travels for about five months of each year when perma-frost prevents him from working in landscape gardening back at home. Interesting man. We spent ’nuff time pigging out in the local restaurants and eateries.

The view across the water from Moalboal to Negros. Pescador off to the left.

One morning I ventured up the coast in search of the White Sand beach and came instead upon a rudimentary shipyard with a bunch of kids playing around on the beach in front. There is nothing that kids love better than to have their picture taken by strange long-noses so we whiled away some time taking many photos. They also used the opportunity to get close and touch my skin, finding it endlessly fascinating. Lovely little gang.

Washed up tree trunk. How much more fun can you have?

There was a lecherous vibe I didn’t quite like about Moalboal and a vibe that I’ve been consistenly getting on this trip to the Philippines, a complete curveball based on last time. Those seedy expats have moved in looking to buy hot young wives – not all, I hasten to add. Some are nice normal blokes with happy wives and good businesses – and they just bring the tone down a bit. Perhaps I judged the place on the deeeesgusting German man who sat on the veranda of our guest house chain smoking and coughing for the entire day. Like many in his shoes, he’s been through a few wives since he’s been in the Philippines but seems to have been careless with the last. On the morning that I was leaving at 6am, he materialised from his room with the kettle for coffee, wearing only some baggy Y-fronts, a curled lip and a lascivious look. <Heave.>

From here I headed North, to the very North of Cebu where the small island of Malapascua lies. It is a gorgeous, sugar-sand island of 5,000 people and has become something of a popular destination in recent years. I would estimate that there are 15 resorts, plus a profusion of shacks/home stays to stay in around the island. One of the resorts sells rum and cokes which decrease in price the more measures you add in because, I think, rum is cheaper than coke. Excellent if you’re into throat-skinning triples but also good for those who prefer supping doubles.

Sometimes the obvious contrast between rich foreign resort and poor village shack – without even electricity – was a bit stark for my liking. There isn’t a medical service on the island and one lady, Roqueza, was telling me casually in conversation how two of her children had died for want of medical attention. Her one-year-old daughter fell out of a hammock and sustained fatal head injuries while another son got diarrhea (well difficult to spell) and died on the boat over to the mainland to get help. Tragic, although, in their defence, the dive shops did all they could to help the little girl with the oxygen facilities they had. Also by the same token, the tourists supplement women like Roqueza’s income as she provides massages and manicures on the beach, earning her 2-300pesos a time. With her husband earning 200 pesos a day in construction, it makes a big difference.

Malapascua beachfront

The other beachfront: Bounty Beach

What *are* these?

Tanduay sundowners

The island is famous for the thresher sharks who live here at the Moad Shoal. They’re quite deep-water creatures with big, bulbous eyes as a result and tend to live at about 200m. Each morning they come up to a cleaning station at 35m, just before dawn, to allow a certain type of fish to eat the parasites from its gills. It’s a perfect symbiosis, which is also seen in other fish who are allowed by sharks to nibble the meat between their teeth. Threshers use those mental long tails to herd and stun their fishy prey on the hunt. They look awesome.

Picture stolen from Thresher Shark Divers.

One drawback is that I am only Open Water certified so should only technically go down to 18m. The sharkies come up to 25-35m and none of the proper outfits down on Bounty Beach would take the risk. I needed a cowboy. Luckily I found them in the form of the ironically-named Safety Stop who were also very safety-conscious when on the dive proper. Fun&Sun are another dive shop rumoured to be more lax about the rules whereas Thresher Shark Divers are reputed to be one of the most professional. Their shop is certainly a shining example and sells Fray Bentos pies to those Brits who are missing a gristly slice of home.

At 5am one morning, we mustered at the dive shop and headed out on the open waters with probably another 40 other divers on different boats. Everyone heads on down to 25m to sit on the bottom and wait in a neat line. Unless you have camera equipment in which case you roam around like a nut job looking for decent shots, knocking people and regulators out the way as you go. We were lucky and within 5 minutes of being underwater, the threshers had done a fly by for the masses. Very decent of them. Lovely dive and back on the surface before 7am ready for a hearty breakfast.

Pre-dawn

Toy camera tanks.

Another day I went for a lame jog around the 3km island to visit the other villages. The resorts have their place, but it was marvellous away from them. Arriving at the basketball court, I watched a few minutes of the latest match and was mumbled at incoherently by a wasted fisherman whose work for the day was done before 11-year old Kati attached herself to me and guided me on an impromptu tour. I shot some hoops with another band of basketballers and met people building boats, fixing nets and threading bait for the following day’s haul. Elsewhere people were hauling water from wells, washing clothes, singing karaoke, drying fish, riding around on bikes or – for the kids – rolling tyres down the dirt tracks.

Hoops

Baiting

Bet this dress makes a little girl somewhere on the island very happy.

Real village, complete with fire.

I went to the beach to watch a sunset, one of those rare ones where the burning disc sinks over the line of the horizon. Last one I saw like that was so memorable I can even tell you where and when: January 2003, Palolem, India, sitting next to Loin Cloth Man. As you’d expect in the world’s 12th most populous country, and one that doesn’t know a condom from its elbow, it wasn’t long before I was accosted by a rabble good natured kids. They *love* having their photo taken and showing up for the foreigners.

This little chappy wanders along selling his mother's deep-fried banana rolled in sugar for 6 pesos. Delicious, like banana doughnuts.

Beach imps

Little lady

Much as I loved Malapascua, my Filipino visa was running out and Air Asia had already stung me for a flight out from Manila so I left on a high and took a boat back to the mainland, dusty bus and trike combo to the port of Haynaya and then the slow boat (an hour for really not very far at all) over to Santa Fe on Bantayan. The island had been recommended to me by many locals so I thought I’d go check it out.

Boat to Maya, on the way to Bantayan

Beach bee!

I’m not *quite* sure why the Filipinos love it so much. Sure, the island has lots of beaches, but so does the rest of the country, and they clean many of those. Regardless, I was quite taken with the little town of Santa Fe itself, even if getting there from the port and finding accommodation stressed me out in the extreme. In India, for example, you get used to being confronted by a crowd of aggressive touts at the end of each bus or train journey, and you learn to use and abuse their services as best you can. In the Philippines, that doesn’t happen normally. They’re so laid back that trike drivers will give you directions even if you tell them you’d rather walk the 15km to your destination.

Not so in Bantayan. Possibly because of higher levels of poverty, the crowing over the white tourists at the port is out of control. Firstly, before you’ve even docked, porters run – literally – onto the boat and make a scramble for your bags. If you politely decline, you often have to prise your bag back off their back anyway. Then when you get to the pier proper, the trike drivers (again, the fact that they are push bikes, not motorbikes is perhaps a sign that they are poorer here), all of them, follow you at close proximity for the full 750m green mile, badgering you to take up their trike services or go to their resort. Being as it was that I was flying blind and had absolutely no idea where I was going, what the attractions were or what day it was, making a call was a bit more difficult. I tried to ask a few questions of the port people but they didn’t have any idea what their island could offer either, plus the trike drivers followed me to these people too, hassling and getting in the way at every turn. I was moody.

Unfortunately, you pretty much need a bike wherever you want to go so I relented. Monsieur le driver dropped me at a couple of scabby resorts on a nice beach just up the road and a bit of hunting around led to a very pleasing guest house named Juanita’s. I was drawn in mostly by the crap, hand-painted sign on the roadside and was not disappointed by cute, newly-refurbished rooms and landscaped yard, even despite the lady caretaker who took a full two days to crack a smile.

The little town of Santa Fe is very pretty and laid back. It has an old school marketplace and clutch of casual local restaurants, resorts and bars. The large church is a central point in the town and there is a tennis club on the main square. On arrival one Sunday afternoon, the local women’s volleyball league were playing matches in the town sports hall, men were napping, splayed across their tricycle seats and the church bells were clanging belligerently. If anything would put me more off going to church, it is that discordant, high-volume hullabaloo.

However, it turned out that it was part of the Lent procession of the cross, which solemnly marched amid swarming villagers through the town, stopping at a series of impromptu Jesus shrines along the way. I watched with interest as I enjoyed happy hour street-front beers.

Bantayan’s main economic activities are fishing and chicken farming. 1.4 million resident chickens on the island produce 1 million eggs daily. How about that?

Took a scooter one day to go for an explore around the island. Mostly it’s a bit average in terms of tourist sites and the beaches on the East shore were covered in flotsam that had swept in from the sea and not been cleaned up for some time. Randomly, a lot of shoes. Who is dumping all these shoes at sea? A couple of little barangays were special and worth a mention.  Baigad is a beautiful little village of rustic huts, smokey fires and lush mangroves. Okoy is a cute town with its very own plaza, health centre, children’s park and beach park. The roadside within the barangay boundary is lined with colourful flags in an array of colours. Sitting alongside one of the roads was a young boy painting small boats in yellow with blue stripes down each side.

‘What are you making?’ I asked him.

‘Ships,’ he smiled shyly, ‘to beautify our village.’ Melt.

Santa Fe beach

 

Dirty old men, pushbikes and whalesharks

After a breakfast of spicy sardines and browsing the net for information, alongside 40 or so truants playing World of Warcraft, I plumped for Camaguin as the next port of call. It lies between Bohol and the will-they-won’t-they-kidnap-you land of Mindanao. I was desperate to go to Mindy as it looks uncrowded and like it’s got some beautiful spots for the intrepid. I met a few super-friendly people from Davao and Zamboanga who insisted that it was safe and fun. However just last year a few crazies blew up a karaoke bar in Tacurong. The FCO has it highlighted as a major danger zone but they have alarmist prognoses for pretty much everywhere except Hyde Park. I could get no consensus from travellers and locals on safety and the likelihood of the Islamic separatists playing silly buggers with bombs again.

According to the locals, there are two groups of bombers and kidnappers at work – the mafia and the separatists. The separatists want mostly-Muslim Mindanao to become an independent Islamic state. However, this being the hub of organised crime also means that there is a concentration of wealth here. So the government doesn’t want to let it – and the revenues – go. This is second-hand information, by the way: Don’t quote me on it.

Camiguin lies between the two, is alleged to be like Siquijor (my favourite island yet) with fewer tourists and seemed to be a pretty happy halfway house. So off I trotted on the jeepney to Jagna, a different jumping-off port to deliver you via the waves to the next island. The bus hugs the coast on the way around, passing through some beautiful towns and fishing villages. The Spanish influence is still very much visible in the form of old churches and convents that seem to have reached an equilibrium of tropical decay. Often they’re streaked with black mould and would look a bit creepy were it not for the many pious locals who fill them to bursting on Sundays and during festivals. Often they pop by during the week to say hello to their favourite saint too.

That’s not the only remnant of the Spanish colonisation. Tagalog itself is scattered with directly-lifted Spanish words and there are two dialects – one in deepest Mindanao and one right up in North Luzon – where approximately 50% of the lingo is still Spanish. Except that they don’t use tenses, only infinitives. Would like to hear that in motion.

You’ll also notice see some of the American legacy in play. The Philippines had a major role in the Americans Second World War, Korea and Vietnam campaigns and for a long time was viewed as the 51^st state. From this period of influence, you’ll find that everyone speaks English to greater or lesser degree. The yanks decreed that English be the medium of tuition in schools and so everyone has a very good grasp on it. Basketball is also the sport of choice. People play it at every opportunity on any scrap of village land.  You’ll also see a fair number of American servicemen who’ve set up home with their beaus from their time over here and notice a number of Caucasian-filipino mix children. Many families, granted not the foreign-mix ones, often have 12 or more children.

Remember how I told you last year that the church here was strongly opposed to the Reproductive Health Bill? Every sperm is sacred, and whatnot? Check out Time magazine’s appraisal of the policy.

Duly, I settled down with my book (read the Dragon Tattoo series in a week: Riddle me why Trouser Snake winds up with Figuerola, of all people?) for the two-hour lumber up the coast. Arriving, I discovered that the ferry only goes every other day, and not today. What’s more, the onwards ferry back to Dumaguete seemed barely to have a schedule at all. I settled back down on the bag for some cookies and another think, chatting at the same time to the tourist police and a toothless old man of excellent conversation. Unsure whether I would be able to get to Camiguin and then on to Duma in a reasonable timeframe and without retracing any steps, I pronounced this a scenic wild goose chase and scurried back to the ferry at Tagbilaran. Filipinos cut their nails in the strangest places. An activity that I like to confine to a bathroom, a mother sat behind me on the boat clipping her daughter’s toenails and a waitress, bored on shift in a café, decided to cut her fingernails at the serving counter.

Later that day, I arrived back in Dumaguete. As I walked from the port to my lodgings, I noticed an obese man sitting outside. I recoiled in disgust as I watched him prop himself on a wall, his gut hanging down to his knees, legs spread, and light a cigarette. Telling myself off for being a fattist, judgemental bitch, I then rallied to smile and bid him a good evening.

A short time later, he appeared in the café with young, not unattractive Filipina girl, loudly offering her a drink to ‘calm her nerves’ before disappearing. I say ‘disappear’; a 30-stone man doesn’t just disappear. He waddled off to his room with the poor, trembling girl trailing him. A short time after that, a ruckus broke out and the staff were summoned to deal with the weeping hooker who had called the police. Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines so the filth didn’t do much about it, except for give Heinous Fat Man a rap on the knuckles and send the girl on her way. Luckily for her, I don’t think enough time had elapsed to ‘do the deed’.

It turned out that he had bought her services from a tricycle driver (yes, you do have to question how he ever got into a trike) who had taken the cash. She claimed that she had never seen any money and asked him to pay again. He refused. I’m reading between the lines here, but I would guess that she took one look and thought ‘he has to at least double the money’. My God I know I would have. I’m not on the game but I would say a ballpark £500,000 would be required before I’d even let him take his clothes off.

Anyway, this incident got me thinking. I have seen many more of the old, gross Westerner: pretty, young filly combination on this trip, a spectacle that I thought was confined to Thailand. I know that I find it distasteful, nay repellent, when I see these couples but hadn’t given much thought to why. My own narrow-minded prejudice? Are they happy? What difference does a few years make? What business is it of mine?

I discussed it with a few people. Of course, there are a few couples who appear well-matched and happy (more often of similar age) but different nationalities. Hats off to them. These are genuine partnerships may they flourish. For the most part, the Western-Filipina couples are pretty younger things paired off with ugly, old men – with money. A lady who I spoke to said that of her friends who had married foreigners, most ended up unhappy and regretting it. Cultural differences are, from those I’ve spoken to, the biggest problem to overcome as many foreigners simply don’t bother to assimilate.

Many of the men are looking for a Filipina wife to secure a property purchase with benefits (foreigners are not allowed to buy property without a Filipino proxy or a registered company). Others are looking for hotter totty than they could otherwise dream of, a home in the sun and some companionship. I see it as a long-term hooker lease.

But, by the same token, the men must be desperately lonely. Perhaps they can’t find anyone back at home and have sought relief and some sort of happiness in a tropical ladyfriend. How is it different from the (almost) accepted young playboy bunny-octogenarian billionaire combos back at home. I just wonder how much contentment can come from an almost entirely economic transaction. The blokes have got fat Western bank accounts to match their beer guts and the wives are often supporting families and relishing the prospect of a lovely new house. Frequently they look miserable in the company of their husbands at the bar or strapped to the back of a bike. I’m told that many continue affairs with their Filipino lovers and wait for the old dude to croak it.

You can’t really blame the women either. Nice house, economic security for them and their families etc.

I can’t decide what I think but my instinct remains with ‘gross’ regarding long-term sex tourism. Then again, perhaps in 30 years time I’ll be in Madonna’s shoes so I’ll stop short of issuing a damning conclusion.

Where was I? Oh yes, back in Dumaguete I had time to explore further. Santa Catalina Street is a funky hangout with a great collection of cafés and restaurants geared to younger, hipper students. I loved Café Nortier and Jutsz restaurant, plus Mamia down on the boardwalk for cakes. Hayahay is still one of the premier nightime destinations but it has been supplemented by the new Tiki Bar, also on the seafront but with slightly better live music. I tried lechon, roasted piglet, and grilled yellow-fin tuna jaw in a pleasant break from grim national culinary specialities. Then I tried blood soup and all was restored.

Dumaguete boardwalk. Typhoon-wrecked ship and family enjoying sunset strolls.

The Filipinos love a good jumble sale so I honed my shopper’s elbow in amongst the giggling ladies at one down on the square and then again later at a giant haberdashery emporium. This is probably in large part because wages here average between 100 and 200 pesos a day. That’s about £150 a month. To put that in context, a cheap private room will cost a minimum of 500 pesos, although you can get a bowl of noodles at Chow King for 50. Took my chances with a 50peso (about 70p) haircut staffed by outrageously camp students and, despite erring on the side of caution, was pleasantly surprised with my biannual haircut. Little sister’s wedding approaches so I had better, I suppose, begin the great scrub-up.

One day I took peddle bikes with my new friend Helen to Dauin, 16km down the coast. Just as well it was flat cos the fold-up hunks of metal were one-speed wonders. I looked like a monkey on a stick but it did get us lots of cheers from the locals. This is how I imagine celebrity must feel. The route we took snaked down the waterfront and past a wonderful-looking art workshop. Once on the highway, we took our chances with the Ceres buses and lorries that zip past at fairly regular intervals at high speed, beeping their horns in lieu of, say, giving the cyclists some spaces. I shrieked on more than one occasion as they missed me by inches, and yet we still decided that it was safer to cycle here than in Bristol. Going at a slower speed allows you to see all the fine furniture workshops along the way, boutique dive resorts and a coconut processing plant. Oh, to be allowed in to see what they do with them all.

Dauin beach

Another day, we went on a whale shark quest to Oslob on the neighbouring land-mass of Cebu. They run many organised trips from Duma but it’s more fun and often cheaper to go under your own steam. We nipped up the coast to the port of Sibulan and jumped a boat to take us the half-hour journey to Liloan. On arrival, a bus was waiting to take us straight up the coast to Oslob. It’s a bit of a circus at the whale shark site and not remotely environmentally friendly. The local fishermen and barangay officials have established a slick operation that relieves you of your money, plops you in a bangka (little boat) and shoves you in the water with the whalesharks while they feed them shrimp and guide them along the shore. 60% of the cash goes to the fishermen, 30% to the local government and 10% to the barangay.

Ferry boat

Liloan

Flotilla chasing sharks

Now, it is on their natural migration route but there are a few problems with this practice. The first is that they overfeed the poor buggers all the wrong food. Whalesharks – the ocean’s biggest fish – are filtration feeders that eat plankton. I liken lobbing shrimp down their gullet to a fast-food habit in humans, not unlike many Filipinos. It may not disturb their route, but it does upset their migration schedule. Then, despite rules to say that you mustn’t get closer than 5m or touch the fish, there is human stupidity combined with poor visibility. I nearly kicked one in the face as it was lured past my spot in the water.

All that said, they are majestic, marvellous creatures. We saw three fast-food junkies who were about 4m long and looked like car ferries as they scooped past with their mouths open. They have dull and light grey patterns of spots and stripes and are incredibly graceful given their size. Scuba divers make a mockery of the elegant underwater seascape.