EK in the PH (P A R T 2) : The Strand

B e a u t y  S l e e p . . .

Waking up in that bed, no plans, no agenda, was beautiful and I would have stayed longer, but for Kristen. She was up and excited; shaking me awake with the two words every man wants to hear in the morning: “Free breakfast . . .”

With nary a second thought, I put on some form of decent attire and waddled after Kristen into the steam of the tropical morning and the lushness that was our first stay on Boracay: The Strand. 

Once out the front sliding doors, we were greeted by all manner of greenery and fronds, most of which I missed, my eyes being only half-open, listening for Kristen’s footsteps to find my way to the breakfast bodega. This path went off of our porch, past the main office and to a larger, white-stucco, two-story building with tiers of thatch and wood. 

The path went through a lawn and came to the deck of the building, a light stain of lacquered wood with matching tables and benches built into it. Off from this deck was the kitchen with a plain, black screen door. The same sort my parents have on their house in Texas, the kind that screeches "WOOOOORRRRR!" like you’re strangling that magical goose, only smaller. 

We sat on the far end of this deck, from which we could see the pool. Kristen, working from a theme of raw enthusiasm, was very excited for the pool. I, working from a theme of “Why am I awake,” was excited for breakfast.

(The humidity from the early morning catching the camera off-guard and not allowing any time for the temperature of the lens to adjust. Kristen is not always a patient woman.)

While we sat, a little woman came out of the screen door and brought us a menu. The menu consisted of the following:

   >Filipino Breakfast:

      Corned Beef with Potatoes and Onions

      Beef Tapas

   >More Filipino

   >The rest of the food you don’t care about.

I ordered the corned beef and Kristen ordered the basic Western breakfast and we both sat back and considered the transaction completed, thanking the woman in our chipperest voices. We were delighted, then, when the woman returned with fresh mango, cut into cubes and kind of peeled back, still attached to the rind. She also brought placemats, silverware, tea, and mango juice; in case the fresh mango wasn’t enough to sate us. 

We looked at each other confused, as we had ordered corned beef and Western breakfast. We thought she had perhaps misheard us and assumed we were on a mango-only diet. Nonetheless, we ate these happily and played along. I even poured some tea, even though I don’t normally drink it. Our food came out and we began to sing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah at the top of our lungs, or would have if we weren’t busy opening our mouths and pouring our plates into our stomachs without chewing while the friendly Filipino hostess covers her face with her hands and retches in horror.

I learned that corned beef is delicious and that the Philippines is the greatest country on Earth, if only for its breakfasts. Kristen was at first disappointed by the normality of her breakfast, but quickly learned it could be improved by stealing my corned beef while I took her bacon. 

Such are the mechanics of modern marriage. After eating, we went back to bed.

And we still couldn't believe the surroundings of our first few hours out in the sunlight of the location at which we were staying.

*   *   *

O u t  a n d  a b o u t

When we finally emerged, it was time for the beach. The light was dim and the day was cloudy, but we thought we’d make the best of it.**

**I should probably note at this point, that I grew up in Southern California, where going to the beach is a constant thing, not a one-time trip. On special Saturdays, my family would load a cooler with bottles of water, sandwiches, Doritos, and grapes, drive west from Lakeside until we hit the Coronado Bridge and then cross over onto Coronado Island. We’d drive across the island until we got to the military base and show our ID’s, drive down the main street with the theater and the Del Taco, make a left and drive passed the military chapel and the golf course until we hit the sand beside the Navy Lodge, where we stayed the first days we ever spent in San Diego. Then, we’d unload and run across the hot sand as fast as we could with the cooler, blankets, umbrellas, and chairs, until we hit the water, dropped everything for our parents to sort out (not really, we helped) and ran into the water. But before we did all that, we put on sunscreen because we weren’t idiots.

On Boracay, however, all those good lessons forgotten, we marched blithely to the ocean and burned.

Betwixt the burnin’, we swam a bit, me paranoid about the stuff we left on the beach, Kristen worried I’d never stop worrying. Our stuff was fine, but it was not long before we were approached by the first of many, many, many solicitors. The first was Joben, a short, healthy-looking man with sunglasses and a bit of scruff. He seemed sincere and friendly enough when he approached us, showing us a laminated card with a grid of pictures and ocean scenes, filled with happy tourists living out the greatest dreams of their lives. This card would, over the next nine-odd days, become very, very familiar.

During our stay on Boracay, we were approached by many sellers offering any number of things: necklaces, waterproof wallets (I bought two of these during our trip, both of which broke, luckily only soaking a bit of money and not a phone), windsurfing, more boats, and massages. If someone had gone up and down the beach offering decoy tourists and cloaks of invisibility, they could have made a killing. As it was, I just ended up doing an hour or so of very poor paddle-boarding, while Kristen lay out on the beach and the seas grew rougher from the imminent storm.

After a few hours spent in the sun, sand, and clear, clear water, we headed back to our slice of paradise, The Strand, catching Joben again on the way. There, he promised to meet us tomorrow to plan our trip. We found we were horrifically sunburned, but still in that beginning stage when you’re “just a little pink.” Forgetting all we had learned previously in life and from the ancestral knowledge of our forefathers (my grandparents live in Phoenix), we took our new colorful skin plumage as a sign we were on our way to transforming from pale, pasty, Byronic figures from vampiric lore, to healthy, fresh-out-of-the-oven, human people with laugh lines from smiling as we lifted our pina coladas to our open gobs.

This optimism in the face of reality sent us back out onto the beach on our way to dinner. We walked down the beautiful white sand beside the bright blue (really, very blue) ocean, unheeding of the foreboding clouds of sunburn and paying too much for things and also, very literally, of a typhoon.

Look at this sunburnt moron.

It was a longer walk that we expected so, after twenty minutes, at the suggestion of a random shopkeeper, we took a tricycle for about two minutes to D’Mall.

D’Mall is a mall (makes sense, right?) built around someone’s idea that Boracay doesn’t have enough alleyways, and that, if it just had a sort of maze of them, people would really enjoy visiting the beautiful, tropical island. We were confused and delighted by D’Mall during our stay in Boracay, as we never were really sure where we were going or where anything we wanted to get to was, but also were strangely okay with this. We wandered down D’Mall (which probably feels as stupid to read as I promise it does to write), and came, at last, to Hama, a Japanese restaurant.

We were very excited about this restaurant, and, narration being what it is, visited probably more than is polite when you are supposed to be “trying new things” and “sampling local cuisine.” So excited were we for this place-which we had looked up only an hour before-that I ordered a “rhum and coke” (local spelling for that one, as rhum is to the Philippines what soju is to Korea) and Kristen, a Fuji sunset. 

While we waited for our food, we sipped quietly at these, feeling the first stirrings of cheer for our vacation. We were free, free I say! We had made it to the island, found our hotel, played on the beach, and now we were having a nice dinner at a restaurant that served fancy cocktails. This was what we’d been after.

And sushi, lots and lots of sushi.

During this reflection, I began to realize my drink was very strong, so, after I’d finished, I ordered another. By the time all of our food arrived, even the extra food I’d ordered for no apparently reason, it became obvious to both us, and our waitress, that I was drunk. This is my warning to friends and family visiting the Philippines: The Booze is VERY STRONG. BE WARNED. At one point, the waitress brought us a free bag for ordering more than forty dollars worth of food and I waved her away because I thought she was selling it to us. Kristen apologized and eyed me in that malicious way she does when she knows I am loose and at her mercy, her enormous plaything. We finished what food we could and I paid the bill with a very fluid signature. Kristen, to her sweetness, took me home and flopped me into the bed where, at some point, I fell asleep.

*   *   *

D i a  D o s 

It rained all day.

We had breakfast again in our little temple of Filipino cuisine, Kristen taking on the corned beef this time while I tried the mysterious “beef tapas” which I would continue to eat for the remainder of our trip. We saw Joben briefly and both parties made apologetic gestures centered on the general theme of “It’s raining.” We also gave him a bit of cash “for the boat” and promised to see him early the next day. Once saying goodbyes, we then walked up the hill, away from Joben and the beach as well as our beloved, The Strand, towards the main drag. Now, we were in search of taxis to take us to D’Mall, but were so thoroughly soaked already that we found ourselves standing in a woman’s small, roadside restaurant thinking it was a doorway. She smiled, understanding we were just there to escape the downpour, which hadn’t started suddenly but had rather built up slowly. Thus, we decided that we were too wet to continue and then escaped her little crockpot and corn stand and ran back to The Strand, stopping to buy umbrellas in a moment of common sense. I changed shirts, something I had been growing accustomed to over the last few days, and we journeyed back out into the maelstrom.

We caught a cab (trike, rather) and stopped for some cash at a nearby hotel. I was skittish of most ATMs, as I’d read online some can be scams and take your card and leave you penniless and bereft of dignity somewhere unpleasant. The one at a hotel, The Ambassador, didn’t work for a moment, I think because I had pressed something wrong accidentally, but when I tried it again, gave me a bit of cash. I tucked this away in my first waterproof case, hereafter referred to as Soggy.

We made it to D’Mall, only a little surprised to see so many other tourists out when the weather was so awful. Most of the paths in D’Mall leading from one shop to the next were made of bricks for whatever reason, and now there were large patches without. These had blossomed into lakes and lochs, which some inventive traveler had set additional bricks and bags of sand in so the visitors could hop across them, still soaking their feet, but giving the impression of doing something constructive in the process. I took my shoes off, since I’d only brought a pair of Vans for the trip--my old flip-flops still broken from our last camping trip. I wasn’t wearing any socks, so it wasn’t so much an issue of my feet getting wet so much as putting my feet in filthy water with no sort of protection on them. To combat this, I bought some cheap flip flops, which rubbed the skin off of my feet like my father with a belt sander if I tried to get a tattoo while I was still in high school. TOO HARSH?

Happily, then, we strolled through the stagnant, standing water, hopping around to get lunch like crazy frogs. For this, we chose Tres Amigos, a Mexican restaurant which looked promising only because we love Mexican food and the glimmer of hope was enough to endear us.

This decision was made only after some heavy discussion on whether or not we should return to Hama, our home away from home. We sat down and ate our lunch, a burrito for me, fajitas for Kristen. We had a quick chat about this or that, savoring the Wifi as we had been informed that the Internet was down when we finally got around to properly checking in at the hotel the day before. This also constitutes our only argument of the trip--much better than last year, a minor one--involving my feelings being hurt for a moment while we were shopping and Kristen becoming crestfallen at the change in my mood. We talked about this and things got back to normal, through the course of the meal--though it was, for the most part, mediocre (the meal, not the reconciliation). The margaritas were bland and not near as boozy as the rhum and coke that had floored me the night before. The food was good enough, though Kristen’s was much better than mine.

We left in search of sweeter flavors and a bit of calm, though we did take a blind alley and bought some personalized trinkets for our friends and family. We wandered up and down the alleys, splashing along until we hit the waterfront. Here, the shops had installed huge panes of plastic, both along the open areas of their shopfronts and a few yards ahead, near the shore. These were meant to prevent an excess of wind and water deterring the customers from doing what’s customary. They also served to drive the water around the seating areas, out into the street and onto passersby. To escape this, we ducked into a café, Café Del Sol, and ordered two lattes and some cookies. We also used this opportunity to nick some maps and brochures from the front of the café and peruse them. These gave us a good idea of all of the restaurants and hotels there were on they island, as well as being the handheld version of a normal solicitor, with pictures of windsurfing and massages printed in living color beside the map. We sat there for a while, water dripping from a crack in the caulking above us, sipping our lattes and saving our cookies to eat with ice cream later. After a while, we took a walk down the beach and then retired to our hotel for a nap. The rest was just as restful as one would hope from a vacation and after a mild row. We even had time to do some reading of 1984, a book we started together to fill the ample free time of glorious vacation. 

We then coated ourselves in aloe vera until we hoped we’d turn green. We had dinner at the restaurant at The Strand, under some thatch beside the pool. I had some delicious chicken with rice, Kristen had some pork, also with rice. Then went back to our room, re-shellacked ourselves with aloe, and went to sleep on our stomachs, trying not to touch anything with our skin.

*   *   *

T h e  W e e k e n d

The previous night, I went to bed in pain, which was not the best state to look forward to the new day. I was anxious about the cliffs and the diving and the boat and the weather and whether or not I could survive moving with my day-old sunburn. Also, Joben was coming around 9, which was early because vacation. Despite these feelings, we got up at 8 and went to the hut for breakfast (corned beef and #beeftapas4ever). We were sitting and scanning the horizon and thinking it seemed a nice enough day when a strange attitude came over me. “Why not?” I remember myself saying and, “let’s do it.” Kristen was demur with her agreement, but things just started rolling when Joben arrived at the Jurassic Park gate to our hotel (which, I should mention, had a guard that prevented him from entering, otherwise he’d have knocked on our door night and day to get us parasailing or helmet-diving).

We got up from our breakfasts and quickly threw on our swimsuits, me stuffing Soggy in my pocket with a bit of cash, Kristen grabbing the camera and the beach bag. To make our parents proud and save our already-crispy skin, we took the extra two minutes to coat ourselves in sunscreen while Joben and his brother chain-smoked at the Jurassic Park gate next to the trike. I came out first, grabbing complimentary towels from the office and leaving our hotel key with the concierge (normal occurrence here, to prevent any loss or frustration. Any time we went out, we left the key with them. Unless we played to stay out past 10, which we never did). As soon as I reached the threshold out on the open street, Jeshua (Joben's older, very serious brother) came over with some flippers asking if I wanted to rent them. Remember, in my mind, we were just doing cliff diving. Kristen had said the first day that we met Joben that she didn’t know how her stomach would hold up on a boat, as she and her sister had had a strong bout of sea sickness in Hawaii several years before. This was our crutch for backing out of things if we needed to.

Going along with Jeshua's offer, I asked how much the flippers were (I had already “rented” goggles from them for 100 pesos each (a ripoff, we would soon learn and would then have to haggle more often in the future). The flippers were 700p, a ridiculous amount by Filippino standards, though only $14, USD. I shook my head and he withdrew the accursed flippers. The sight of them left me wondering what we’d actually signed up for that day, but before we could discuss it, we were off to the opposite side of the island: a stretch of land, Bulabog Beach. Not the prettiest name for not the prettiest beach. Where White Beach (the main beach of Boracay, attached to D'mall and very popular with tourists and cameras), was pristine, Bulabog was just priss. The beach was nice enough, grassier than White, but the real issue was with the reef. A few yards out was a great forest of kelp, which discolored the otherwise azure water, and further still was the coral reef, full of fish and more fish. Sitting above these, were a fleet of tourist vessels, each a different theme of blue or red with a title somehow related to the fact that they sat on water which had a lot different names but was, in fact, just salty.

We left the trike and walked out to the boat, captained by two nice looking older men. Joben hopped on with us and we pushed out from the beach, first using a long bamboo pole, then (after a struggle) using the motor. Past the reef, we were on our way, headed south to our first stop, cliff diving.

Cliff diving in Boracay is done on an “extreme sports center” called Magic Island. This sits next to Crystal Cove, which we would visit with little fanfare a few days later. In any case, the magic to Magic Island seems to be that people can buy booze and jump off a ten meter height in a manner of steps. 

These jumps are scaffolded to the volcanic cliffs by a series of appendages and platforms, reminiscent of the movie Hook. They are separated into two sides, high jumps and low jumps. High jumps, the seven, nine, and ten meter jumps (22, 28, and 32 feet, respectfully) were cordoned to the far side from the entrance and these dropped into deep water to give you a chance to really regret your decision on the way down. 

The low jumps, in my opinion, were much scarier, as I touched the bottom after going off of the higher of the two (this while contemplating if I could attempt a dive).

We arrived at the island and docked, leaving the boat with our things and making for the entrance. Our ship decoupled and went out into the open water, to cast anchor and wait until our fun was finished.

We did have a bit of fun and I tried to be nice to Joben who took our pictures as we jumped off the makeshift diving boards. Kristen managed the seven meter jump, but only by leaping courageously from her tush. 

After that, she tried the shorter jumps and thoroughly enjoyed them. I, on the other hand, in a feat of bravery that would stand until Kristen went parasailing a few days later, jumped from all of the highest jumps. This after I had been up during the night, asking myself why we even have skin in the first place and terrorizing myself at the thought of falling from heights. Several years ago, I had gone to a waterfall in Yosemite with some close friends. This waterfall had a slide behind it, called something colorful like “The Devil’s Slide” or “You Gonna Die” or “We Hid Spikes in the Water” or something. The area was shaped like a stone bowl, with a boulder on one side for jumping into the spring, and a slop on the other for sliding. This slope had a lip which you sort of scooted over as you went down, clearing any malicious outcroppings on your way to the drink. I climbed up this ridge, following in the footsteps of one Scott “I ain’t afraid of no slide” Allen, but, when I got to the top, I choked, like a boy with a ramen noodle threaded through his nostril and out his mouth who just realizes the error of his life choices. I climbed back down, to my great shame, never having bested the Devils Sachée Case or whatever you call it. On Magic Island, though, I was king.

Eventually, we tired of falling off of things and Joben called the boat back. In a fit of inspiration, I ran all the way back to the top jump (ouch ouch ouch) and jumped off while Kristen caught the angle from the ship.

After my stunt, we shipped off and headed back to the reef for snorkeling. This was fine for us, as we were feeling refreshed and energized from the water. Kristen’s stomach was also oddly serene, which made me happy to see her enjoying the trip.

The snorkeling was lovely, though, sadly, there are no photos as we were both in the water and trying not to touch anything. Some highlights though: saw an eel that was black and white, a lot of pretty fish, a sea snake, and then got the eff back in the boat.

After the swimmin', we went a bit further up the island to another beach (which Kristen most likely remembers the name of but I do not (Illigiligan?-YEP!)) for lunch. This new beach was much more secluded--nearly desolate compared to White Beach, though the sand was much coarser. The main attraction for this beach was a small orange eating area nestled amongst a great deal of rocks. All along the beach, boats were parked and sitting empty while children played around them and their captains sat smoking while their fares ate (presumably they ate too, we just didn’t witness it. All we saw was Joben with a bit of rice on his cheek when he collected us to return to the boat).

We were lead to the eating hut and seated facing the sea. A menu was brought out for us to peruse and shortly after, a platter of fish--in their full forms, their glassy eyes staring up at us appetizingly. This, we were told, was the huts specialty: grilled fish with peppers and onions inside. We ordered it (though it was expensive (though not really, nearly what our boat tour cost) because to order something else might be offensive, seeing as we had greeted our fish and met his fishy family. 

We ordered a bit of garlic rice and some smoothies to go with it, but I’m afraid I tucked into the rice as soon as it arrived, so it wasn’t its best for our photography. The restaurant itself gained more custom as we waited for our food. An older Australian couple was seated over Kristen’s shoulder and given the same sort of aquatic runway show as us, but they had to decline, as the woman was deeply pregnant. The hosts seemed put out by the dismissal of their most expensive product, but catered to them nonetheless.

We sat for a while, very happy with our choice to come to Boracay at this point in the stay. We were enjoying the sun; our grievous burns having faded from forest fires to matchsticks. We had loved playing in the ocean and swimming with the fish and generally being doted on as tourists, rather than as foreigners or zoo oddities. The food was good and the view was lovely.

While we sat, we happened to see another foreign couple, and, not remembering we weren’t in rural Korea, where one greets every foreigner as a dear friend just on principle; we greeted them and they came over. We had short conversation, not unlike someone firing off shotgun rounds at a steel wall and then running over to try and collect all the bits before they cool. To say the least, we were excited to chat with them and strike up easy and comfortable conversation. Eventually our food arrived and they continued on their little walk, but they would haunt us for the remainder of our trip. We literally saw them every day after that first meeting but we never again stopped to address our common familiarity with one another. No, we pretended not to see each other to the point that it became awkward that neither couple had greeted the other, though we had visited every landmark in anonymous tandem. We couldn’t bear the shame of addressing our rudeness, which I believe will haunt us to our dying day.

Then we had lunch. The fish was delicious. The scales were blackened on the outside (where the scales tend to loiter), but wonderfully not fishy on the inside, with the flavors of the peppers and vegetables to color the taste. We took to it with the ease and tranquility of two crocodiles taking hold of an antelope from either end and wringing the meat from it like a shamwow. We have been tested by the furnace of Korean cuisine when it comes to fresh fish, so we are old amateurs at deboning a freshly cooked fish, particularly when it comes to the little, translucent bones that try and hide, only to lodge themselves in your throat when you think you’re safe and can consume your meal with dignity.

When we finished, we set about paying the woman, who sent us to another woman, as her job was predominantly to bring the fish platter to people’s tables to give them the show. After that, we hopped on the boat and made for Bulabog. In between our beach lunch and our destination, we were caught in a sudden squall. We covered Kristen and our camera in nearly all of the life jackets and towels, at first to protect them from damage, but after a while just for fun. The rain came down like the bits of code in the Matrix, wiping out our visibility and turning the landscape into an indiscriminate wash of grey and dark grey.

After a while, the rain abated and we made it to shore, thanked our captains, and took a trike back to The Strand with J-dawg, whom we quickly paid, lest he offer us more activities that day.

Once in our room, we took a quick rinse and went down for a nap. Like the babes we actually are.

Once we woke, we walked down the little alley and out onto our little stretch of White Beach. There was a restaurant tucked into the cliff side with a narrow concrete pathway leading from its doors around a shallow cove to Diniwid Beach. We had ordered Long Islands from the restaurant on our first outing with the beach and it had been decent enough that we thought we’d give it a try for dinner.

The restaurant was decked out like a Margaritaville, but with some sense of dignity and native pride. There was bamboo and boat oars and light music and we sat in an open seating area looking out at the sea. The restaurant was desolate, excepting a waiting and a manager sitting in an office off of the main restaurant floor. This was the off-season for most of the island, as the main brunt of the tourists had already come and gone in early April, before the typhoons and stormy weather had any chance at kicking up. It reminded me of the camp we had worked at when Kristen and I first met, where the main business was during the summer months and the autumn, winter, and spring was spent in a sort of relaxing tedium, without all of the rigmarole of the peak capacity.

Our meal was very quite, just Kristen and I and a tabby cat who came and sat down under my chair, laying on the dark lacquer with his paws under him. 

When our food came, he meowed so I fed him bits of my chicken. Kristen tried to give him a bit of cucumber, but he wasn’t as into it.

After a while, we finished our food and walked on the beach for a while, before calling it a night.

It felt very restful and nice, talking about the day as we fell asleep later that night, with the feeling of still being rocked by the ocean as we lay in our bed. Yes, The Strand was our bit of paradise and we were almost forlorn to leave it soon enough . . .