Following our adventures to northern Luzon, we hop on more jeepneys heading for Manila and end up on a comfortable long haul bus once we're down from the mountains. The transportation schedule works out so well that we don't really have to research anything; it all aligns without much waiting in between. People are also quite helpful and they point you in the right direction.
We spend yet another night with Katy and try to figure out where to go next. At some point I'm describing the caving experience to Katy and she asks me if I've ever read Infinite Jest. This prompts the literature geeks to come out in full force and we talk about all the good things for hours. I love talking about books. We run some errands at the mall and Katy buys a copy of Kafka on the Shore, which was the first of many Murakami novels I read. My friend Jen turned me on to this author, and he has since been a part of my life in so many ways. I hope she gets a similar feeling from his novels, as we both certainly did from Wallace.
After one short but sweet night with Katy we head south to Batangas to investigate scuba diving opportunities. We arrive without a plan and just ask jeepney drivers where to go. Someone mentions Anilao Beach and it sounds promising; perhaps I gleaned the name from some cursory reading beforehand. We make it to the beach and I'm a little disheartened by what we find. We wander around for a few hours looking for accommodation and dive schools but the pickings are slim. As the sun goes down and options remain limited, we're concerned that we might be shelling out hundreds of dollars just for accommodation and a handful of dives. One woman shows us a room that's an absolute dump and asks for the equivalent of 75 USD for it. Nobody seems to be very up front about dive pricing either. It's all sort of hush hush, and I notice how this little bit of turbulence is starting to color my entire opinion of the Philippines. I go for a walk and have to laugh at myself for having such a ludicrous thought.
Nicole talks on the phone with the owner of a dive shop (using a local man's phone) while we're sitting at an overpriced backpackers hostel that might be our best fallback option. She hangs up the phone and tells me what she found out. Wait, what? Three dives and free accommodation for about 75 USD each? Dude, did we just luck out again? Even when all the options seemed so bleak, Nicole managed to land us a killer deal. It may have taken several hours of waiting around with those uncertain thoughts swilling around, but eventually everything worked out.
The room is nothing special, but it's far better than the overpriced rooms we had previously looked at... Because it cost us pretty much nothing. We meet the owner, Roy, in the morning and he gets us set up with a vegetarian breakfast and the gear we'll need on the boat. He even has his mother whip up a special lunch for us as we'll be out all day long. I was under the impression I'd be living off of peanuts, but they insisted on feeding us even though we had previously negotiated a lower cost by removing meals from the dive package. It's a funny feeling to go from such bleak prospects to hitting the jackpot.
And what a beautiful day it was. I make a new friend, Louis from Guam, and he loans me a prescription mask that improves the diving tremendously. Louis is a former Olympic archer and it shows: his shoulders are built like he tears apart phone books for amusement.
Despite the choppy sea and overcast sky, the diving is quite excellent. I get a taste of my first drift dive which involves little effort. You just set your buoyancy and let the current push you along, maybe fighting it momentarily to get a closer look at some critter. We spot a banded sea snake and a mantis shrimp among the abundant ocean fauna. On the third dive we explore a wrecked casino boat, the remains of which are now home to many interesting organisms. On the underside of one of the steel girders the fish have curiously inverted themselves, making the ocean bottom effectively their ceiling. Gravity's effect is temporarily subverted when diving. I have fun playing around and inverting my own sense of direction. It's neat to think that going down into the ocean so closely resembles the disorientation one might experience in outer space. Maybe I'll scuba dive up there one day.
Scuba diving is enigmatically exhausting. I guess I haven't yet reached that equilibrium even though I feel relaxed underwater; I may think I'm expending very little energy but perhaps the pressure has an effect I'm not consciously aware of. At any rate, I'll say it's exhausting to justify the inordinate food consumption to follow.
And boy did it follow. Nicole and I pack quickly to catch the last jeepney out of Anilao, but Roy and his friend Lee approach us with a better idea. It turns out Lee lives in Tagaytay, so they propose that we join them for dinner and simply hitch a ride with Lee after a nice meal. I'm blown away by their kindness, especially after feeling like a cheapskate. We enjoy some of Roy's mother's home cooking: potatoes, eggplant, green beans, and rice served with sides like kim chi, pickled radish, seaweed, soy beans, and sesame leaves. They show us how to peel a sesame leaf and form it into a makeshift rice pouch in one fell swoop. Now I must say that the sesame delivery system is both efficient and delicious, and this meal leaves me craving more delicious Korean food in the future.
We make our goodbyes and enjoy a swift ride directly to Tagaytay with Lee. Although not well versed in English, his skills are good enough to have simple conversations. I ask him about his relation to Roy and the dive center. He explains that Roy took over the family business when his father died suddenly due to a heart problem over a year ago. Having known the family for some time, he frequently dives, windsurfs, and fishes out of their beachfront property. Having learned more about the close family atmosphere, I feel even more honored to have come into orbit with such a cool place. And out of sheer luck. Of course.
Lee drops us off in Tagaytay and we begin the usual hunt. I previously made note of a cheap hostel, but upon arriving to the correct address we find that it is just a large house with no visible signs of life. It's already a bit late, perhaps 10pm, so we imagine the inhabitants might just be sleeping. The place was listed as a 24 hour hostel, but something about the scene just doesn't add up. We give up on that prospect, and fortunately find short term apartments for rent directly across the street. Nicole gets us a bargain price from the homeowner, and she shows us to our new digs. This home is a proper home, rife all sorts of items you might procure when "making a house a home." The antique furniture and family portraits remind me a little bit of my own parents' home, too. We have the upper section of the house all to ourselves. Two beds in the living room, a small dining area, and a partially operational kitchen. Many of the attached closets are now used for storage of personal items. Our landlady explains that this part of the house used to be her daughters before she moved away. I like looking at the family portraits, identifying our landlady at various points in her life. There's a photo of her in front of the Eiffel Tower, photos with a woman I guess might be her daughter, and various others. She's at least in her thirties for most of the photographs I can find; I wonder where the others are. Of her childhood, or even more current ones.
Maybe they don't take so many family photos anymore, and I can relate. My mom has oodles of photos from my childhood, but with the onset of digital photography and the internet, there seems to be a bit of a gap in the record. There are other factors, like our natural dispersal from the household, the center. And now there are certainly photos of the family, but it seems like they're scattered to the winds of various e-mail server farms. I might come across a few attached to messages, but they certainly lack a unifying location. Which, I suppose, is the case for ourselves at the moment. Laura is at home but Steven and I are out and about. As for the extended family, our meetings are far and few between. So it goes. At least we still have these electronic means to get in touch. It feels a bit watered down, but it's something.
Tagaytay turns out to be a bit too expensive for me, so being the cheap bastard I am we lay low and catch up on rest. I don't know why, but diving all day seems to take a lot out of me. Nicole sleeps in one morning and I make my way down to the shoreline to see if I can hire a boat to the volcanic cone. Traveling in a pair really cuts the cost of most things, and I'm reminded of this when I try to go solo for the day. The tricycle rides to and from the shore were reasonable, but the boat alone was close to 40 dollars. As cool as it would be to hike up a volcano, this exceeds what I'd be willing to pay for an unguided hike. I'd rather spend that money on diving or climbing, but admittedly I had to pass on something that could've been special. My only consolation is that I didn't have to witness the horses carrying people up the steep terrain. I understand that beasts of burden aren't many levels apart from simply owning any animal as a pet, a practice I'm quite familiar with, but somehow the idea of monetizing their labor puts a sour taste in my mouth.
So I spare myself that thought for the time and just spend the day walking around town. As comparatively modern as the Philippines is, the smog/exhaust regulation of vehicles is deplorable by my exalted standards. For some reason I could tolerate it better in India when it was far worse, but now the ubiquitous fumes seem to make me feel ill in an instant. It might also have something to do with the fact that sidewalks don't really exist in most cities, resulting in my lungs being in closer proximity to exhaust pipes than I'd prefer. While the walking exploration isn't the best, it's still nice to be out and about.
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