the sea is wide

 

i went full on snorkeling for the first time in years on sangat. the clear glass of the ocean at early(ish) morning made it almost impossible not to.

you could see straight to the corals

i don’t regret not going for my diving certification there, but it is something i’m going to have to do. snorkeling is enough for now, however.

while there on the island, the resort was full but it all still felt rather.. isolated. partially that was due to gazing out and seeing ocean and islands and a few scattered boats. and partially because the only time we really saw other people was during meal times.

meals at the resort reminded me of being in training for peace corps. during the days when the entire training class would be staying at a hotel, our meals were communal affairs that never had enough food. this was because some people kept imagining it was like country kitchen where everything would get filled back up. infinite food is not a concept at peace corps training sites, nor apparently at island resorts. if you were more than ten minutes late at either place, you could count on the main dish of the most pleasant meat being long down the gullets of the other trainees/vacationers. there would be sad salad left (or, in pc training, tongue jello. yum)

at the resort, we got in the habit of arriving a few minutes early for meals. at night it wasn’t so bad because you could get a beer or several in the bar area and watch people play pool whilst trying not to stare in the general direction of the buffet table. i would carefully monitor my intake and not have more than one beer or one glass of wine, as we hadn’t eaten since lunch and i’m kind of snacky.

and during the morning, waiting for breakfast was all right as well as most people didnt’ get up super early and there was always ‘coffee’ and tea to keep you occupied.

but lunch. the wait for lunch was torture. not due to hunger, but just trying to gauge getting there early enough to get food but not so early as to have to wait around with nothing to do. you could swing on a hammock or stare out at the water, but you couldn’t go swimming nor for a stroll down the beach lest you miss the unveiling of the food. and it was lunch, so while you COULD drink, you didn’t because really, you couldn’t.

luckily the food was overall excellent and so the wait was worth it. all the ladies kept talking about how they were eating so much and oh! they couldnt’ believe they’d had so much to eat and blah de blah de blah. maybe it is because they are thin and i’m a fatty, but i was thinking to myself, ummm this isn’t an inordinate amount of food here. i’d compare our plates and think, how the hell much do they eat at home? i pictured cracker-sized slices of bread with thin scrapings of hummus on top and an olive and them patting their stomachs and saying, dear lord! i’m stuffed! while i’m all waiting anxiously for lunch and halfway through thinking, as i lick my spoon, what are we going to have for snack???

the time between meals was spent, as mentioned above, snorkeling or sea kayaking or swinging from a hammock reading trashy novels. the sea kayaking was good but it made me realize how ultimately weak my actual physical body is. holding my self up without a backrest made my lower back ache. and my arms hurt. so i tried to paddle my kayak while laying down on it. which worked for a while, but then my neck would ache with trying to hold my head up to see where i was going. so then i tried to paddle while laying on my back without actually watching where i was going. so i kept heading out to sea and then i’d have to paddle back toward the island so that 1) i didn’t die from the sharks that so obviously lived more than 100 meters from the island and were waiting patiently to pounce and 2) i could see the pretty corals and 3)i wouldn’t have to paddle quite so much to finally get home.

we paddled a fair amount around the island and probably could have gone further if we’d brought water and if i wanted my arms to fall off. either that, or i was going to have to live somewhere on the island, likely the next place we stopped for a break. my friend that i was paddling with is a total girl scout. she loves the outdoors and hiking and can stare at fascination at moss for hours. she’s a little touched in the head. i’m not sure how i keep ending up doing outdoor adventure things with her (sea kayaking, snorkeling, death-defying wet flip-flop rock climbing, paintball). i think we go together because she needs someone to go with and i need to get off my ass now and then.

then of course there were the other people at the resort that we talked to between, during, and after meals. some of them flitted in and out with almost no impact. others i only heard about, such as the lady traveler who decided that everyone should become acquainted with the talents of her waxer, while at the bar. or the gentlemen who were big big fans of the gentler sex before they actually completed puberty. there was a british gentleman there whom i shall never forgive for teaching a friend and a small child how to make a honk honk sound. for days i heard “where’s the honk-y guy?” during any/every lull in conversation. there was the man from an unknown eastern european country who had somehow attained a pair of tailored daisy dukes at some point in his life and was loathe to give them up, under any circumstance. we chatted a fair bit with two doctors from the states who were on holiday from stressful doctor lives. normally i enjoy doctors, having lived with several while getting my degree, though i think they are too serious about their jobs. not that they shouldn’t be, but sometimes it gets a little old having to be impressed. oooh you pumped a guy’s heart with your hand and brought him back to life! oooh. blah blah blah. but one of this doctor pair made a very favorable impression on me when he was talking about something to a friend. they were in some conversation i wasn’t paying attention to when i heard a ‘wwwwhhhoooooooossssssssshhhhhhhh” sound being made. i looked over and was all, um, what are you talking about? he explained that he was making the sound that this machine makes that cleans out the bronchial tubes. i asked if that was really the sound it made and he said yes and made it again! i’m not sure if it was the beer, the delight on his face in making the sound, or the unexpectedness of some pulmonologist/internal medicine type making a lung suction sound like a 5 year old, but i found the whole thing completely charming. hysterical. that’s the kind of doctor i like. what do you like about your job? this machine that makes a cool sound like this: wwwwwwhhhhhhhhoooooooooossssssssssshhhhhh” Awesome.

the whole trip was rather magical. sure, there was some bickering. sure, i was mildly afraid of the sea life and that i was going to be macheted. but over all, amazing. i feel the need to go back very soon. maybe tomorrow.

come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me

Due to a cosmic convergence of multiply international holidays, I was blessed with a five-day weekend. Not having experienced nearly enough of the famed beaches here, I booked into an island resort. Soon after, a group of my colleagues did the same, as they couldn’t think of anywhere better to go.

We arrived on a gorgeous Thursday morning after a 45 minute jeep ride and a 45 minute boat ride through scattered islands past fishing boats. By the time we got there, we were starving, but had an hour to kill before lunch (meals were served at specific times–8am for breakfast, 1pm for lunch, 430pm for snack, and 730pm for dinner. if you were hungry at other times, you were out of luck unless you’d brought your own.) so my friend and I were shown to our villa. 

Initially when I’d booked my cottage, I’d opted for a beachside cottage. Basic, on the beach. She’d opted for a hillside cottage that was about $11 less a night. Based on the description on the website, I’d anticipated that the hillside cottages were actually on a hill and my sheer laziness and horror at the thought of having to climb up and down hills to reach my meals was what prompted me to spring the extra bucks for the beachside. On arrival, I discovered that the beachside cottages were about 20 yards at most, sometimes 10 feet, from the hillside cottages. And it was all on the flat. You could see the beach from the hillside cottages. The only difference was your cottage on the hillside wasn’t in any danger of being swept into the ocean as the beachside cottages were.

Anyway, the day before we flew out, the owner of the resort contacted me and my friend and offered us the villa for the same prices we were paying. The villa could sleep at least six people, had a fridge, a private beach, its own kayak and could only be reached over a rickety bridge stuck magically to the side of the rocks around a point on the island, or via kayak. We chose the villa. 

It was amazing. It had been built around the natural features of the hillside and was tucked in amongst some rocks. You could see the beach from the villa, but you couldn’t see the villa from the ocean. It was three stories, the first being an open area with four hammocks hanging from the rafters, a picnic table, and a low slung bamboo couch. Going up a few steps, there was a rock landing with a cave entrance. In the cave were steps leading down to the shower area, where three shower heads at foot, shoulder, and above-head level were cleverly hidden in the rock formations. Up a few stairs from the entrance to the cave was the entrance to the second floor of the villa. Immediately off to the entrance was a flat rock perfect for sunning or doing yoga. Inside the villa on the first floor were two spacious bathrooms with running water, a fridge, a twin bed and a double bed. Going up a precarious third flight of stairs found you on the top floor with a bed that was so enormous it can only be called an orgy bed plus a hammock and a tv with a dvd player. The entire villa was constructed of bamboo, rock, and nipa leaves and was thoroughly gorgeous. We ran around chattering like magpies over our good fortune.

The private beach for the villa was a bit rockier than the beach at the main resort, but if you swam out and around the point, you saw the most beautiful corals. I became rather addicted to snorkeling while there and would paddle about for a while, staring at the pretty electric blue fish and flailing madly from the moray eels that were snuggled into coral caves with only their beady eyes sticking out (hey, they look mean and i wasn’t entirely convinced that they wouldn’t try to eat me). After a while i would get out, go rinse off in the shower and fully intend to read my book or go eat a snack when, walking past the water I’d think, oh I’ll just see what else is down there now. Once I just wrapped my sarong around me and tied it up over the bathing suit, slapped on my snorkeling gear, and snorkeled all the way to the other beach, figuring that I’d kill two birds with one stone. Except I did this when the tide was moving away from the beach with a bit of strength so about halfway through I imagined myself in a somewhat less dramatic version of the movie “Open Water” and less romantic as well, as it was just me and not me and my lover/husband. 

The resort also advertised a nature trail. I like nature trails as it gives me a confined space to work with in nature. The nature knows where I’m going, I know where I’m going, it all works out. So I convinced two other ladies in my part to go on the trail and while they were getting their sunscreen, I went to find out where the trail began. The girl behind the counter said she’d get the guide. This perhaps should have been my first clue, but I assumed he’d just show us the start of the trail. A sturdy guy came out with a machete and said, OK! Let’s go! The machete also disturbed me a little and as we were walking to the mouth of the trail I whispered to my friend that this was like the beginning of a horror movie. 

I’m kind of psychic.

We walk to where Nonnie (guide) said the trail started. I didn’t exactly see a trail nor a marker nor anything that would suggest a trail. What I DID see was a steep hill covered by rocks that we had to climb. Keep in mind that we were all kitted out with flip flops, swimsuit tops, thai fisherman pants (in my case) and sarongs (my friends). I kind of asked Nonnie if this was just the beginning, that it would get flat after we went up. He laughed and said yes of course. It will get flat. Then we go back up! And down! and then flat again.

We start clambering up the rocks. I like to give running commentary when unhappy or scared for my life, so while I don’t remember exactly what I said, I know I was able to keep everyone amused. The first set of rocks were smooth and relatively easy, but as we went further into the jungle, the rocks became more and more jagged and the clambering a bit more difficult. My commentary became more pronounced and one of my friends, who also doesn’t enjoy impromptu rock climbing expeditions in flip flops also joined in. When we finally climbed down from the cliffs of despair, we entered into a mangrove swamp. We start slogging through the muck and begin musing on if there are snakes on the island, if they would be poisonous and then notice that when we yank our feet out of the mud, our flip flops don’t always come along for the ride. Our progress through the mangrove swamp is halted when we look around and actually SEE the beauty of the tall plants and how the sunlight filters through, giving a whole Lost World effect. We continue on and discover that with our wet and slippery flip flops we are now to climb another series of jagged rocks. This time, for added benefit, we will have to reach across crevasses and angle ourselves over tree limbs. Not being blessed with stretchy joints nor length of legs, at one point I have to do a Mission Impossible pose under a fallen branch and over a rock with pretty much no flat or reasonably smoothed portion. We make it through the labyrinth and come to a ladder to go up some more jagged rocks.

Except.

The ladder is of course broken. Nonnie giggles and says, this ladder is no good. We’ll have to go up this. This is two rocks that are close enough together that one can kind of shimmy up, while stablizing oneself on a few sticky out pieces. Looking up from this first level of hell, I see the second level of hell above is much the same. At this point, I decide I’ve done enough and that the cave of swiftlets (where the nature ‘trail’ is supposed to lead) is not worth my losing a limb or having to be stretchered out or anything of that nature. They leave me where I’m sitting with strong admonishments not to head back without them.

Knowing that they are going to the cave and then to the beach beyond, I settle myself in for a long wait. 

Five minutes after they leave me, I hear machete hacking and momentarily wonder if Nonnie has gone insane and is going to come back for me. Then I realize that I didn’t hear any screaming so it was probably okay. 

Thirty minutes later I hear movement and coughing and see Nonnie’s grinning head above me. They make their way down to my landing. They reached the cave, but never saw any birds or the beach. The hacking sound had been Nonnie cutting down a tree to lay across a crevasse because the bridge that was there had rotted away. The first tree was too big for him to carry, so he left it there and cut down another tree. Then he laid the smaller tree across the crevasse, put one foot and one hand on either side of the rock walls, and spidermanned his way across, occasionally resting a big toe on the good tree. At this point, my companions kind of looked at each other then asked if they were going to see the birds soon.

Birds? What birds?

The birds in the cave.

There are no birds. Only big mosquitoes.

Hearing this, one of my friends decided to stay put and let the other one carry on. Who then decided that with two of her friends pooping out on the trail, she wasn’t going to continue by herself. So they all trooped back.

We made our way back through the jungle, the mangrove swamp, up and down the treacherous rocks, planning how to fully describe our nature trail experience. We decided that the cave had been awesome, the trail easy once you got past the initial ascent, and truly worthwhile.

You know, we described oppositeland.

Next time, in another installment of our exciting saga: kissing frogs, kayaking in an aquarium, fascinating strangers

Preparing to solidly dominate the middle

I’ve recently suffered humiliating defeats at the hands of other young folks who make the city their home. Paintball and dodgeball … Paintball I never seemed to actually shoot my gun. Weird how you never see the targets when you’re simultaneously hiding from them. Odd. Dodgeball.. Ducking and yelling oh god when faced with twin fire power… Again. Weird how that doesn’t work in assisting the win.

Anyhow, after two times being arguably the worst person out on the field, I noted the upcoming gokarting activity with equal parts excitement and apprehension. My main thought was, I can’t suck AGAIN. I can’t. Even if no one else notices that I suck, even if no one else cares. I can’t suck again. My pride won’t let me suck again.

So I decided to practice in advance. Two of my friends and I went to the gokarting track today to have a few practice rounds. On the way to the gokarting track, my one friend M told me that he had some experience in gokarting. As in, he had driven in a league. A league. I had no idea they even HAD gokarting leagues. He asked me if I would like pointers as we drove, or perhaps for me to follow him around the track to get an idea of the technique.

Ummm… Technique? There’s a technique? You don’t just slam your foot on the pedal and go hell bent for leather? Hmmm. Interesting.

Then we get to the track and are waiting for our other friend T. While waiting, M asks if I want to walk the track. Ok. Sure. So we’re walking around the track and he’s giving me all these hints about how around this corner I should slow down but around this next corner I should go at half-throttle. Not enough people go at half-throttle. They always go at full throttle. Sometimes you should just go at half throttle. At which point I have to ask what throttle means.

T arrives and we go pay. Then we head into the briefing room for our safety briefing. They have a huge rack of different colored racing outfits. Unfortunately, the boys were reluctant to put on racing outfits, even for a photo op. I tried but was unable to convince them to put on the outfits even for a brief second. We get our helmets and balaclavas and head out to the track.

My initial plan before actually starting to drive was to put my foot to the floor and go as fast as possible. Nothing to lose! However, in reality, I was a bit… conservative in my driving. We ended up driving three ten minute rounds. My first ten minute round I was trying to go fast but at the same time, the faster I went, the more the car vibrated over the numerous bumps and the more I saw my car flying out over the ramp or plowing through the fence onto the highway. So as I’m trying to go around the curves without flying off into oblivion, M comes up behind me, bumping my car and laughing maniacally. He gets the blue flag (the stop doing that flag). Both boys pass me multiple times. The stats of our first round show that I circled the track 4 times and my best time was around 94 seconds.

Second round, got up to 7 times! Yee haw!!!

Third round? Why I went around 8 times and the best time was 77 seconds! Woohoo!!! I was taking the corners like a speed demon. All my fears were gone! I was lifting up in my seat every now and then trying to keep going faster and keep from being passed far too many times by M. He only passed me once, which was awesome!

So I still completely sucked as compared to the boys. I was ten seconds behind M’s time and 6 seconds behind T’s time.

However, this means I didn’t end up having to post these humiliating times in front of a large group of people who’ve already seen my rockin’ abilities at dodgeball and paintball.

Hopefully this will pay off next week at the real tournament. I need my skills to match my bravado. I plan on wearing driving gloves (legitimately! I got blisters today!), sweet sunglasses, and an attitude the size of the Grand Canyon.

I will come in the middle of the pack!

I will (fist shaking furiously at the sky)!

Cower Ball

In my neverending quest for self-improvement, I recently played a round of dodgeball. Not that I’ve never played before. Like most people, my childhood memories are rife with memories of balls flying at my face, smacking me in the head, desperately praying that once out, no one will catch the ball to bring me back in.

P.E. wasn’t my favorite.

However, as a new gal about town, I’m keen to meet people and having recently made the decision to start training in case I found out I’m a member of an elite fraternity of assassins I decided that being able to power balls at my enemies whilst taunting their lack of skills fit in with this goal.

Besides, they were encouraging the use of costumes and team names. I love costumes and team names. Secretly I was hoping for either Team FREEDOM or Citizen’s Arrest.

Sadly, the organization beforehand started flagging right away as everyone I knew was either out of town or reluctant to trek out to another area of Metro Manila for the dodgeball. I’m not sure HOW someone can decide that a 30 minute drive is too far to go for dodgeball glory, but that was the decision some of my compatriots sadly came to.

I ended up deciding to meet a group at a gas station and then taxi over to the final destination. Being new to the city, I had no idea where this gas station was, but was confident that the taxi driver would.

That was dumb. I went through three cab drivers who all looked at me like I was mildly insane and kept repeating the names I was telling them with a quizzical air.

It was already hot, I hadn’t slept the MOST the night before, and I’m three months in to my new life. All the ingredients for a tantrum. So after I slammed the door on the last cabbie, I texted the organizer for my team and said I couldn’t find a cab that knew the directions so I wasn’t going to go. She called to talk me down out of my tantrum, told me the directions to give to the next cab driver, and reiterated that I’d already signed up for the team. Took a deep breath, beat down my inner two-year-old, and went back to find a cab and get to the meeting place.

It was of course only 10 minutes away. Bah.

It was a car full of ladies that was heading out from the gas station. Everyone kept talking about how they’d either never played dodgeball or hadn’t in so long that they weren’t thinking they’d do so well. I participated in this conversation as well. As would later come to light, I was the only one not lying about my lack of skills. I even went so far as to inform everyone that while I would talk trash and brag about my abilities endlessly before the game, I would ultimately end up not being able to throw, catch, or dodge effectively. Everyone laughed and I suspect did not take me seriously enough.

We arrived at the sports club. It was huge and sweaty and filled with badminton courts and a smaller area with people doing capoeira. Everyone milled about chatting and finding their teams. Two teams had played before, or were made up of people who had played before in the previous tournament. There was one guy, John, who towered over everyone as they whispered about his strength and speed. When trying to determine our team name, everyone was floating ideas and no one was very taken with Team FREEDOM or Citizen’s Arrest. I don’t know why people don’t like superb ideas, but there you go.

We ended up picking the name 90210 because Nate (who ended up defecting to another team) has this idea that he is like Dylan. I was all, you’re totally more Steve Saunders. I claimed Kelly, mainly because I love bike shorts and floaty tops. Though on reflection, I think being Donna Martin could have been good if I could have been able to get people to chant ‘Donna Martin Graduates! Donna Martin Graduates!’. Maybe that’s my team name for next time. Even if I have to be the only team member.

Our first game set the stage for the continuing magic. It was a practice game. I did the athlete’s jumping up and down and clapping and cheering beforehand. While other people were really stretching, I did mock stretching and a bit of strutting around. I suspect one of my teammates did not appreciate my enthusiasm. Each of the sets were three minutes long. Three minutes doesn’t sound long, but I tell you what, getting pummeled by balls makes three minutes feel more like four.

As part of my plan to psych out the competition, when facing my opponent across the court, I would bend down into the runner’s stance and wait to catch their eye. First, I would do the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture. Then I would point dramatically at them and then at the ground in the classic ‘You’re going down’ gesture. Finally, I would slowly draw my index finger across my throat. Steal their confidence and you’ve got their game, man.

Sadly my abilities did not match my bravado. Notable was my inability to reach the balls in the center of the court before anyone else. Then I would be so incredibly focused on the ball directly in front of me that I would miss the ball to the left and the right until I had already started to back up from the line. Yes, this happened every single time. The balls were light foam with an underlay of wire to give them shape and a small bit of heft. This heft didn’t help me to heave them across to the other side. Throwing the balls to the waiting arms of my opponents became my specialty. And every single time it would take me a minute to remember that I was then off the court. The only reason my absence from the court truly mattered was that the goal was to pick off all members of the team.

There were a few times when I was the last person left on the court by reasons I still don’t understand. One time, I didn’t realize I was the last person and was holding a ball, facing two men running toward me with their balls. At this point I had a few options. Two of them, one of me. I could have thrown my ball at them as hard as possible and run toward the back at a diagonal to get away. I could have tried to catch at least one of the balls they threw to try and get one of my teammates back in.

So I took the third, wiser option of miming a turtle. I may have rather loudly said, oh my god no, and then cowered down, hiding my head behind the ball. As I was ducking my head, I saw one of the gentlemen laughing and gently toss the ball in a gentle arc toward my legs. Impact. I can’t decide if I appreciate not having a ball drilled into my leg at top speed or if I’m insulted that he knew he KNEW that I wouldn’t even try to catch it and so figured it was an easy lob.

I also got hit in the crotch. And the few pictures I’ve seen of myself from the event… Not attractive. They are ALL of me getting hit by the ball and looking irritated and a little surprised. Like, what the hell is this BALL doing hitting me?

Perhaps my least dignified moment came when the organizer of the event came up to me and said, okay! Playoffs! Your team is up now!

And I said, what?!? How the hell are we in the playoffs?!!!! We are the worst team ever! We shouldn’t be in the playoffs!

Though with only four teams playing, everyone was in the playoffs.

Unfortunately, we were unable to rally and we ended the tournament not as victors. Wait, that’s not entirely true. We had the moral victory. We were the only team that never drilled anyone in the crotch or the breasts. We didn’t have to resort to dirty tricks to try and win. We may have lost, but we kept our gentility.