Friday afternoon the four of us (a co-worker, two German friends, and I) took off for the long voyage south. Even though we stuck to the Great Southern Highway, it took us 10 hours to go 300 km. Common hazards included trikes, pedi-cabs, pedestrians, dogs, chickens, pigs and potholes the size of small US states. For those unfamiliar, a pedi-cab is a bicycle with attached side car, traveling down the highway at 10 kph with no tail or head lights at night and driven by someone dressed all in black. Also, our windshield was tinted dark. Suffice to say, it was an adventure just getting there alive.
We arrived at the first stop: a wakeboard cable park. $4 for equipment rental, lesson, and one hour on the water: you can't say no to that. I decided to stick to kneeboarding because I didn't want to know what it feels like to go from 0 to 30 kph and back again in the span of half a second. I also did not want to know what my arms would feel like the next day. The down side is that kneeboarding doesn't nearly look as cool as wakeboarding so all the pictures of me have been conveniently "lost".
Next came a 4 hour drive to the whale shark capitol of the world. Amazingly enough, 15 years ago no one knew that whale sharks lived in the Philippines except for the villagers who occasionally hunted them (named Buntanding in the local dialect). Even more amazing, the locals agreed to stop hunting them as long as the tourists supplied income. From fishermen to tourist guides in less than a generation!
To see the whale sharks all you have to do is get on a boat, float a 100 yards or so from shore and wait for a giant shadow to cruise past. Then hurriedly throw on your snorkeling equipment, dive into the water, swim a wind sprint to the shadow, then kick like mad just to keep up with the beast. The last is the most difficult, not because it is tiring or even possible, but because the first sight of the shark completely shuts down your mind: snorkelers literally stop mid-stroke to gape as the shark sails past. Then they pull their head out and sputter something about "fish", "large", and "fast" interspersed with gleeful gibberish. And so the day ended, no one eaten or even slightly gummed (as I imagine whale sharks and senile great whites would behave), and everyone reminiscing with great flourish about the race to the dorsal fin but never quite getting there. Needless to say, I will be going back and this time the weather will be better, the water clearer, and the stories fishy-er.
From the whale sharks we headed East to go island hopping. We actually never made it to the isles because our short cut became the long cut which then became the impassible goat trail of doom. (Later it became worse.) At one point we got stuck in a stream, mud, pebbles, and grass: one tire in each and at the same time (we are an equal opportunity road destruction team). Now we were stuck in the sticks with the immediate population density comparable to Jupiter. A passing motorcyclist (the second such sighting of the day) offered to get a few people to help. So a village turned up to help us out; and it took a village. I bit back the urge to yell:
Push! You scurvy infested bastards, put your back into it! Heave! My grandmother can lift this car , you rum-swilling bettle nut-chewing ingrates!
What can I say, the mood was right. Instead I cheered when the car broke free and learned what an offroad car with no mud flaps can do to the idiot behind. I was "peppered pretty good". Eventually we had to turn around when the third motorcyclist of the day caught up and warned us what we were getting into.
One last stop at the most luxurious spas in the world: deep in virgin jungle, natural hot springs, and magic in the air.
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