We had travelled from Puerto Galera to Batangas City by a large Banana boat. This ride across the choppy seas takes an hour, and this day the clouds morphed into rain and then into the gray white capped sea. Gray and foggy and rainy as far as the eye can see and I stared out into the waves.
A banana boat is a long slender boat with a ‘v’ shaped hull. The bow and stern curve up like the toes of a genie’s shoes, which I assume gives the boat its moniker. Bamboo outriggers on each side give the boat stability.
I was watching the outriggers on the starboard side as a wave would lift the boat and the bamboo would hover ten feet above the trough of the wave, then we would crash down and the outrigger would spray like a water ski, and I was transfixed by the motion of the waves and the sound of the motor when I saw the fins.
Dolphins. Big ones. Not the little ones fast as lighning under the sea, not the cheery Flipper, but these big dolphins that looked more like whales and they stuck their heads up and dived under the boat and they were gone. A few minutes later and I flying fish skimmed the surface and disappeared. A flock of birds in the distance and we pass a barge and we head into the docks.
Getting out of the boat is tricky, as a small gangplank is connected to the boat, with a railing on one side. The sea here is rising and falling 8 feet and the plank is about 25 feet long. So we carry our bags through the down pour and brave the gangplank ‘Fear factor’ style. Then it is through the gauntlet of taxi and van drivers who want to charge 5500 pisos for our team to travel to Manila.
The gang of drivers tell us the buses are not running because of a typhoon and the only way to Manila is with them. How far can I throw these guys? These days I can’t throw much very far and that is how much I trust them, but eventually we talk them down to 1800 pisos, and I thought it was a deal, a great deal, but our budget managers nix this, so we finally find the bus in the distance waiting to be filled.
We load the bus and watch the movie while vendors try to hawk ‘cheeseburgers’, and fool that I am, for 30 pisos each, I bought 2. Sixty cents for a burger from a street vendor? What was I thinking? These has no cheese and I was assured by a few that the little piece of ‘meat’ was indeed beef and not ‘aso’, so I ate it and it tasted ok, though not fulfilling and then I decided that I was scared of the sandwiches and gave the next one to one of the vendors who was selling peanut brittle.
The peanut brittle vendor took the sandwich and we all bought the brittle, which I took a bite of and then gave to a little boy who was selling some biscuits and looked hungry. The peanut brittle was too caramelized, tasted like burnt cookies, and I was hungry and irritable but the bus had AC and we were off and I was asleep.
Travelling is not restful. That sentence should stand by itself, because it always seemed to be a hassle at home, to pack our bags and pack our Exterra and pack the dog and buy some snacks. But at least at home it is just us and we can choose the music or silence and it is only our schedule and the traffic that stress us out. On our travels here I usually try to read, but this day I am too tired and irritated to read, or to pray and I choose to dwell on every available irritant.
Travelling here is always a battle. Are the people charging a ‘skin tax’? Are we charged 5 times the price because we are white? The driver doesn’t know English, and this rubs me the wrong way, even though I am in his country. The vendors can’t take a simple ‘no’ and stay in my face until I start running my mouth and trying to make them laugh, and Josh can have fun with this with the best of ’em, and we try to out do each other with our outlandish comments.
Then we take the wrong bus and we aren’t sure where we are really heading and somehow we get in the Jeepney going the right direction, but then the driver is not sure where we are going and we decide to unload in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the street, we say excuse me and sorry as we bumble and stumble over the other passengers in the Jeepney and bucket brigade our packs out the back.
Now I am pissed. We could have spent an extra 6 dollars each, I don’t even know how much these travels cost the team, but I am angry at our decision making because we have travelled all day to save a few dollars and I feel that angry sweat and the pressure in my veins and I just don’t want to talk to anyone as we stand in the middle of nowhere.
Leah finally makes contact with the person we were supposed to meet and somehow through taking the wrong buses and being pointed in directions by people who don’t know English, we have been dropped off 100 yards away from our contact’s house.
The Burdicks take us in and feed us Spaghetti, American Spaghetti. I have never been a huge pasta fan, and the pasta in some of these countries makes Spagghettios a gourmet dish, but Kim Burdick’s spagghetti makes the irritation disappear.
The joy in the Burdick’s house is tangible and they are really excited to have us. They have two Dachsunds, one a 10 week old, and we play with the dogs and drink coffee and the world is set right again.
