Not a day on the beach then..... (Sunday 28 February 2010)

Following the big earthquake in Chile, the Philippines, along with most other Pacific nations was put on tsunami alert. After the last really big one in Chile in 1960, it reached here and had devastating effects. Buy it wasn’t quite as dramatic as it sounds as the alert was mainly for those eastern islands with coasts that were directly on the Pacific. Cebu is tucked nicely away in the middle. So no real problem, everything went on as usual and even this morning it only got a mention on the inside of the Sunday papers. The main news on the frontpages here is interviews with the presidential candidates for the election in May, all about their health, fashion, personal habits and living style – no mention of their politics.... But being a health and safety sort of a girl I did have my evacuation plan. Basically fill the backpack with the duty free gin, every antiseptic handwash I posess and the contents of the hotel mini bar, Snickers and Pringles included. I reckoned that would see me through 24 hours on the nearest hill if needed! But as you know, thankfully it wasn’t. And at the dreaded hour it would have hit (but I knew it should have been ok) I decided to take the high ground in the hotel just in case. Just happened to be the Oyster Bar built up over the beach on a solid rock foundation about three metres above sea level. I drank a cube and watched the tiny waves lapping the sand as usual – the only likely tsumami today would have been me diving in the pool after the huge included breakfast I had eaten...
But joking apart, I was relieved and happy that the warnings came to naugt.

Tonight I wandered out through the huge gates of the hotel – it was just dark and it really is a bit rough. You get hassled all the time – not in a bad way, but just for trikes, massage, necklaces, business must be really slow. There are very few streetlights, mad traffic and dust everywhere. Crossing the road to go to the Korean Mini market was a job in itself...... Coming back into the hotel I realised just how nice it is. A flash spa, pools everywhere, lovely little bungalow thatched rooms and smart smiley staff.

Tie a yellow ribbon (26 - 27 February 2010)

Have left Moalboal and driven to the big city – Cebu City. I enjoyed Moalboal, but it was a bit quiet, so don’t visit unless you either read a lot or dive! Oh – and speak German!


I am now on Mactan Island just off the Cebu mainland, but the good news is that there is a bridge connecting the two. Every ferry disaster you hear of seems to be in the Philippines, so I was never going to get a boat!


The drive back from Moalboal was the one I did two weeks ago, just in reverse and with a different driver. But coming into Cebu we took a slightly different route – but the sights were the same. Terrible shanty towns, no evidence of any real prosperity and packed colourful jeepney’s fighting for road space with the buses. Until of course you enter the resorts which are a different world. I am in the Maribago Bluewater resort for four days. I needed to move nearer the airport and decided that it would be good to be here, both to visit Mactan and to be able to visit Cebu – a Philippine City. The hotel is very nice, typical resort but low rise, many here for example the Shangri La and the Hilton are not. This one is pools everywhere and a white sugar sand beach with turquoise sea. My favourite is the intercom on the pole under each beach umbrella for you to order drinks or food so you don’t have to walk anywhere! Fab! There is also a little sand island just out to sea that they paddle you to in a little boat or you can swim over at low tide. So all very civilised, guess I’m flashpacking again. The picture in the road outside the resort is, however, a little different. It’s a ribbon development of small “shops” selling nothing but dusty bottles of Coke and the odd sachet of Ariel soap powder dangling sadly across the front. The houses are grim, dark, weatherbeaten wooden structures patched up with driftwood. Just outside the hotel is a taxi (well I use that word advisedly – a trike perhaps is better) stand, a tattoo parlour and a money changer. The trike man’s cafe is not a place I plan for dinner......

So it’s now a typical Saturday night – just had pizza and a decent glass of wine and am now being entertained – no, sadly not the X Factor on ITV but the “dance that’s been around for thousands of years” at the cultural show round the pool. Half naked muscle bound men (so it ‘aint all bad) in feathers and big beaks (I’m sure I’ve seen it all before – was it Mexico or Guatemala?) The staff here are very friendly as I sit on my terrace typing this. The young security guard stops for a chat and asks the usual question about where is the husband. I should learn and just say “at home”. But on hearing there wasn’t one he asks why “as I am such a beautiful woman” (well at least someone thinks so....) I am not looking for a new one. I wonder if he was putting himself up as a candidate – well I suppose it would make a change from all those men coming here to look for wives....


For the last few weeks I have become somewhat bored of German and Dutch voices. Here they have been replaced with Chinese (Hong Kong, I think), Japanese, noisy Korean and Russian. Oh to hear a Brit, an Ozzie or even at a push, an American! I have also been asked if I am German or Russian – does this mean that the state of the pound (dire as usual) means most Brits have stopped travelling.... But does it also mean that the sun has bleached my hair really badly and I have put on huge amounts of weight and dress really badly...... I hope not. And can someone please explain the Japanese habit of taking pictures at all angles, in all places and grinning inanely at the camera whilst holding both hands up with the Churchillian “V” sign.....


I also have to admit to a tech failure last night. Going to bed, I could turn all the lights off except one in the corner which was shining directly in my eyes. I looked everywhere, tried every switch but to no avail. It was no good, and I couldn’t find the eyeshades I had brought from the plane for exactly this eventuality. So I thought laterally – now I know it’s not a good picture, but imagine me with a pair of black knickers wrapped round my head to keep out the light.... It worked. But I felt foolish this morning when I asked the housekeeping lady how to turn it off. She just made sure the wardrobe doors were shut properly.....


And now the yellow ribbons – no I haven’t been kidnapped. As I got nearer to Cebu city, every tree, telegraph pole, roadside plant and lamppost was festooned with huge amounts of yellow ribbons. I ask what it all means and am told that it’s for the forthcoming elections which are in May, the same time as I think ours might be. Perhaps someone should suggest this to Gordon Brown – trees festooned with red, blue and yellow ribbons would surely cheer up the nation in the grey weather!

It does what it says on the tin (19 February 2010)

I gather my courage today and decide to brave another trike ride to go and see the famed White Sand Beach. The trike called for me by the hotel seems even smaller and older than the last one, but I squeeze in anyway. One of my concerns was whizzing along the main road with the mad buses overtaking, but no, we take a back route that keeps me from mad buses but of course along an unmade road all the way. I brace myself with my feet against the front (avoiding the big rust holes) and hang on to the roof for dear life.


Our route takes us through more village areas. The houses here are even smaller, most no larger than the summerhouse in my garden and on small stilts. More kids playing around, chickens, goats, but also the flutter of a lace curtain in the breeze, interior design is obviously important here. One tiny hamlet has a big church. On we bump through banana plantations to arrive at the entrance to the beach where I have to fork out 5 peso’s entrance fee. Bearing in mind that 5 peso’s is about 3p it’s hard to imagine that the cost of the labour to collect this adds up to anything like profit. But we go on for another couple of hundred metres and are now asked for 10 peso’s – I think the is the trike park fee.

And there the beach is, exactly as described on the tin, a long, deserted, sweeping crescent of almost white sand. There are a few tumbledown restaurants and not much else. The water is clear and turquoise and I find just one small resort. But lovely for a wander up and down and to take in the view of Negros, another large island across the water. There are a few clouds today and as they pass over they make the volcanic mountains of the island look dark – almost like Scotland.


I was puzzled as to why such a beautiful long beach was so underdeveloped when Panagsama, which has not much of a beach to speak of was, so much more developed. I visit the basket lady at the bottle museum and book exchange and ask her. She was still making baskets by the way.... Apparently until the great typhoon of 1984 (followed by one almost as bad in 1992) that destroyed it, Panagsama beach was the same as White Sand, a long sweeping crescent. But when they rebuilt they built the new buildings too close to the shore not giving it room to recover. And so far there is not enough business to develop White Sand as well. So it stands empty apart from one lonely trader trying to sell pearl earrings. There was me on the beach and one guy just coming in from snorkelling. When I turned down his earrings the trader went straight to the snorkeller who was still in the water in his wetsuit – the trader seemed surprised he wasn’t interested in said earrings! But it did surprise me in one way, I hadn’t realised that Cunard had launched the QM3, but there it was in all its glory, awaiting its passengers!

The basket lady also tells me about the effect tourism has here. Simple things that we wouldn’t think of. Because tourists have more money they are willing to pay more for things and it puts the economy out of joint. Take fish for example – because the tourists like to eat it the price has gone sky high and the locals can’t afford it any more. I always thought that eating locally caught fish was a way to help a local economy, but not here... But even with high prices, the fishermen still don’t make too much money and the tourists provide the market for them to get their daughters into prostitution. I’m told that a lot of the once fishermen have now got big houses as a result of their daughters profession. It’s obvious for all to see, yet more large Germans arrive today holding hands romantically with their small Filippino girlfriends.


They also tell me the problem with education – it used to be free but no longer. Few parents can afford to put their kids through anything but basic education and even more girls end up in prostitution or going abroad as domestic workers. The Philippine economy is also in a bad way – power and water are in short supply. Last week they started turning the power off for an hour every day, they think water might be next. It’s hard to see a way out of it all.


But White Sand Beach was beautiful, it was all that was advertised – it did what it said on the tin!

Pilates on the way to the big city (17 February 2010)

Today I decide to take a trip to the “city”, Moalboal. That’s what they call it here. The bit of Panagsama beach where I am is the village, the bit further along the beach where there are a couple more small hotels and the odd restaurant is called “downtown”. I was expecting a lot. But when I got there I realised that definitions of city are quite different here! Moalboal is tiny,

a one street town on the main road round the island. It’s still on the sea and there is a wharf area where the fishing boats come in. This also doubled as the meat market which I could smell and see but didn’t investigate too closely. One distant look at the slabs of meat out in the open heat being protected only by a white carrier bag attached to an old wire hanger attached to a slowly whirring fan was more than enough to keep me away... Apart from that there is a market, a municipal centre, a church and a school.

The market was mainly fruit and veg – and whilst small had the usual range of colourful wares, beautiful fruit, bright red chilles of every size, and was nice to walk around. The stalls outside the market looked very colourful too – the sachets of soap powder and shampoo (looks like they can’t afford full size product) festoon the outsides like bunting.

The church was interesting. It’s just the facade of a grand old white building – no idea what happened to the rest of it, perhaps one of their regular cyclones saw it off, with a new modern one storey church built next door. The school was there too with the students all dressed in red and white sailor suit uniforms – like all of these countries I have no idea how they keep the uniforms so white and bright with the limited facilities they have. I discovered that it’s hard to spend money here – a bottle of coke in the shops was 10p and apart from that there was little else to buy. I wasn’t in the market for pots and pans and there were no clothes stalls to be seen. The only one thing I wanted I couldn’t get – I was after mozzie spray but they only have lotion and in tiny bottles. And certainly no ATM. There were a few pawn shops and a couple of Western Union offices for sending and receiving money – not sure whether this area is a net sender of money due to the tourist economy or a net receiver from all those poor girls who end up working abroad as domestics in the Middle East...


The big thing around here is cockfighting, when I saw so many of them I just thought they were f******g big chickens everywhere, but couldn’t understand why they were tethered and each had their own little hut. I just thought they were being extra kind and protective of their animals – until today when we drove past the entrance to the Moalboal Cock Fighting Arena and I realised it was just the opposite.....

 But what of my Pilates? Moalboal is about 7kms away and too far to walk in this heat, so I take one of the local trikes – the motorbikes with the sidecars. They don’t feel too substantial and look like they’re made of metal no thicker than a coke can. What I hadn’t taken into account was the state of the roads – just bare coral with deep potholes and bumps everywhere. I clamber into the small space made for people much smaller than me and brace myself against the floor, the sides, anywhere I could get hold of something solid to stop being ejected. It was an effort to stay on board but perhaps I can look at it as a new way of Pilates – I certainly needed to exercise my core! I was thinking of taking a trip to White Sand Beach soon – but at about twenty minutes each way, I’m not sure I have the strength!

A basket case? (14 February 2010)

On Valentine’s Day I wandered about and came across Naomi’s Bottle Museum and book exchange, and having plenty of time for reading decided to investigate. I was alerted on the approach by the trees which were festooned with old bottles – and I don’t mean antique, just finished gin and whisky bottles. Each contained a small scroll and was fastened to the trees with a red cord. The garden was equally full of bottles planted in beds as if they were rows of flowers. I go in to find a dusty room full of piles of dusty books, old bottles, home made dolls, lines of poetry and little pink baskets. Loads of them, everywhere. The lady sitting there making the baskets looked quite normal and we got chatting. I assume this is Naomi, and she tells me that the man in the background using the ancient computer is her husband. She was born in Moalboal but worked in the “corporate world” (her words) for 30 years in hotel management and General Foods in communications. Her daughter is a law professor in the University in Cebu and as she is now settled she and her husband decided to come back to her home village. I ask her about the bottles and she tells me that they all contain scrolls with messages of love ...... and as it was Valentine’s Day she would present me with a scroll which I duly take, quickly pick a book then make my excuses and leave.

But today, having finished the book I take it back to exchange it. There is Naomi sitting patiently making up yet more of the tiny pink baskets. We have yet another very sensible conversation and she tells me all about the village, its 700 families, people she has met and so on. All very normal except she continues to weave her tiny pink baskets. She tells me that she “spreads happiness through baskets”. She then offers me one as another gift. On the way back I ponder – do all women who have worked many years in the “corporate world” eventually turn into basket cases – I leave it to you to decide......

Towels on the sunbed at dawn (11 - 13 February 2010)

It was a welcome relief to get to Marcosa’s Cottage Resort in the very small village of Panagsama, one of the 14 districts of the small town, Moalboal which is on the on the south west coast of Cebu island. It’s a tiny little resort strung out along the coast – I say coast rather than beach. I knew this before I came – there is not much beach here, but what there is is called Panagsama Beach. A cyclone took it away a few years back and the sand is only slowly returning. The seaside area is lined with the small resorts. It looks like this started off as a small fishing village and has grown up into more of a resort as the years have gone by. There are no big hotels here just small independent ones and I am staying at a rather nice one – made up, as the name would suggest, of a number of little detached cottages. It’s sparkly clean with a nice pool, aircon and within budget for a change at £23 a night. The streets are not tarmac, just bare coral with bits of sand and the walk through the village takes you past small mini market shops selling the usual water and toiletries together with a few clothes and t shirts. The t shirts look new but the clothes proudly displayed on the hangers have the look of things that tourists have left behind.... There are a few bars and restaurants as well as quite a few diving places which is what seems to drive the economy here and that’s about it. But a lot of these places are closed down, as everywhere, I think the tourist economy here struggles. The dive boats are rather odd looking catamarans that look like great white spiders out on the clear sea. It’s a long time since I’ve been as far away from an ATM, I think the nearest one is about 30 miles away! But it seems a peaceful place with the transport being the small brightly painted motorbike tuk tuks to take you out of the village, the people seem nice and apart from the odd little girl trying to sell you a necklace you are not hassled to buy anything at all. 

I wandered off the main seaside bit today to the houses behind the touristy bit. The houses are mainly very small thatch affairs each with a few straggly plants growing around, together with children and chickens, it looks like they just scrape a living. I’ve also been trying some of the local food – Bam –i and adobo but have so far resisted the dried fish with egg for breakfast!

Most of the other people staying here seem to be Germans – I haven’t heard one English voice yet, so obviously I will need to be up early to get that sunbed.......! And I think the taxi driver got it wrong when he said the Europeans come here for the warmth – four large older Germans arrived today with four young Philippine women in tow......

Another new pin - Cebu (11 February 2010)

After leaving Curacao on 8 February at 6.30 am I finally arrive in Moalboal in Cebu in the Philippines on 11th February at 3pm – bit of an epic journey, but the Cathay flights make the second half and longest half very easy. Can highly recommend! I decided to bypass Manilla, the capital, as it has a really bad reputation both for crime and terrorism and fly straight here. We saw enough guns in Central America to do me for some time....

Cebu is one of the larger Philippine islands and its main economy is based on tourism and furniture.... not sure why - unless the hotel I am in doesn't use the best available!  (see pic)On the way from the airport to Moalboal where I am staying, we skirt Cebu city (I will visit it later on) and it looks at first sight more third world than I had imagined. But we are travelling through the dock area so that may have something to do with it. Shanties are piled up around the place and the dusty streets are lined with small dark workshops. Cockfights take place on the pavements. The jeepney’s that I had expected (old US jeeps tarted up and highly decorated) were nowhere to be seen, instead they seem to have morphed into a second generation version which are larger open sided vans, but still highly coloured and decorated in various ways, most of them imploring God, Jesus or Mary for a safe journey – they may be better off looking towards their driving style.... There are also multitudes of the Philippine tuk tuk, motorbikes with a sidecar stuck on the side and again highly decorated but all seeming to sport tens of big yellow lights.. The journey was about 2 ½ hours and I had wimped out and ordered a taxi to bring me here, looking at the bus driving I was glad!


Once out of the city area, across lots of flat reclaimed land that will be developed as and when the economic situation improves, we slowly make our way across the hills. Lots of the road is in bad repair following numerous landslides, and the hills in many places bare of any trees gives a clue why. Along the way we pass through a great market held every Thursday selling livestock, vegetables and all manner of machinery. It’s held weekly and is all the local mountain villages who come for the weekly trade. But this impedes our progress more as we get stuck behind large open top trucks laden with people, baskets and cows. Luckily my cab driver takes a safer way of overtaking than the buses who pull out regardless of what is on the other side of the road....


The taxi driver is a nice man and we stop for a cold drink on the way. The stop is in a shoe making area and along with the coke and ice cream stalls are rows and rows of shoe stalls. A big display of a huge shoe greets us as we drive in – it was submitted to the Guinness book of records as the largest shoe in the world, but they turned it down as it wasn’t a pair....


The driver also gave me an insight into some of the culture. I commented on the number of schools we passed – the whole route seemed to be schools and churches – and he was telling me how important he feels education is. Especially for girls as they want to learn to be nurses so they can work abroad. Also so they can marry a foreigner.... According to him there are five girls for every boy here (not a statistic I think can be right) but it means they have to look elsewhere for marriage partners. He also gave me an insight into tourism, the Europeans, he said, come here for the warm weather, the Americans come here for “matrimony”....