Hello...Hello...Hello!!!

Left yesterday to get to Caramoan…actually paniman. I had originallydecided to go to caramoan, but I talked to a nice man at an outdoorshop in Naga and he said caramoan was actually 15 minutes from thebeach, so he got me a homestay with a family in paniman which is onthe beach and about 30 minutes from caramoan. What awesome luck!! Toget to the caramoan peninsula I took a bus to sabong port, then road abanca (boat) for 2 hours to guilijo port. Both the bus ride and boatride were quite beautiful. The boat ride passed by goregeouslimestone cliffs and karsts covered in jungle with beaches everywhere. I didn't feel like sitting down in the seats so I sat up on the roofwith a few other Filipino men. They all fell asleep, so I turned onmy ipod and sang aloud (foreshadowing of what was to come) to songsincluding calypso by john denver and come sail away. Arrived aguilijo port and since it was a shallow harbor, smaller man-poweredbancas came out to pick us up. I then took a trike to caramoan (wefit 8 people on it!! With bags), and then a trike from there topaniman. Paniman is a cute little fishing village right on the oceanon a long beach. Right now the beach is a bit littered with coconutsand leaves due to the northeast monsoon winds that are starting to diedown as summer approaches (march), but very gorgeous nonetheless. Theonly thing on the beach are fishing boats and fisherman untanglingthere nets. And out to sea is postcard view of lots of karst islandsjutting dramatically out of the ocean. After I found the family Iwas staying with, chowed down on a coconut, and settled in, I headedout to wander the beach and the small town. Let me just say…what anAMAZING place! Topping even the scenery of the islands and the quaintbamboo and thatch huts are the people. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONEwould yell out Hello! even if they were far away. Old women sittingoutside their houses, old men without teeth, fisherman, and the youngkids. I have said hello so much in the past week that my unconsciousbrain now controls that function much like my breathing and digestion. The kids and the kids with their moms were the best. Some wouldboldly come up and yell hello and then ask my name. They'd laugh,they'd jump, they'd fall to the ground, they'd give high fives, gigglewildly. Lots of different things when I'd respond to them and talk tothem. Then there would be the shy ones who would run up, say hello,then quickly hide behind older sister or mom before peaking theirheads out and smiling and laughing and maybe running out to touch meand then running back. But seriously everyone in the town would comeout to say hello and wave and smile. So genuinely friendly. It'sdefinitely not a tourist place as there are no bungalows or hotels formiles until you get to caramoan town. In fact, I have only seen onewesterner since I left the manila airport, and that was an Americanman now living in the Philippines who asked me if I wanted a ride whenI was waiting for the boat at sabong port b/c I was just mindlesslywandering the road waiting for the boat. The town is a 100% fishingvillage and that is what everyone does here. The kids came out in droves to say hi and smile and laugh and giggleat me and with me. By the time I had walked as far as the daylightwould let me on the beach, I had a huge herd of children followingme…laughing, flopping on the floor, yelling Trabis, Trabis, Trabis.And they all wanted their photo taken. Something that was nice for meb/c I tend not to take too many photos of people here in asia b/c I amshy and try to be respectful. It bothers me the tourists who juststick their cameras right in people's faces. I try to ask before Itake a picture (or do it secretly), but sometimes I'm too shy to ask.But these little kids were always asking for their picture. They'd dofunny poses and then when I'd show them, they scream and laugh andfall to the ground. As night had fallen, I was walking through thevillage, and people would invite me into their yards to say hi.Everyone was shouting from their houses, hello, hello. And othersgiving me warning of where the wells were so that I wouldn't fall in.One nice guy invited me to basketball (basketball is the Philippinesmajor sport which is a welcome break to the soccer world that iseveryother place besides the us). I wasn't so hot as I haven't playedin a while, I think the ball was women's size, it was covered in sandand fish guts, and it's hard to make jump stops in sandals, but evenharder to do as the locals do and go barefoot. But I was a blockingand rebounding machine being for the first time in my life the tallestguy on the court. I had quite a cheering section with all the littlekids yelling my name. After that, ate at my host families' daughter'shouse. A huge meal of stew, rice, and some sort of vegetable. Myhost family (which includes grandma, grandpa, daughter (Robbie),daughter's husband (islaw), son (randy), and a handful ofgrandchildren) all spoke pretty good English, which was very nice.They were incredibly friendly and the kids loved to watch me,especially eating (with that left hand), from the safety of papa'slap.The power in the town came on about 7pm and that means karaoke…or moreaccurately videoke starts. Videoke is hugely popular in thePhilippines. Remembering from my last trip here, the towns are fullof videoke bars and one or two people only are often just singing infront of them. You pay a few pesos and you choose your song. Theyalways have a video in the background playing while you sing—somethingcompletely random. Usually it's nature, or cities, or scenery, butthis one that the family headed out to was hilarious. Very scandalousshots of swimsuit models at swimsuit shoots. But they weren't justposing, lots of rubbing of their bodies, etc. The video is only solong, so you see it many times and my favorite was the swimsuit modelposing in Kenya with giraffes and jumping maasai warriors in thebackground. I sat down and they picked out a song for me…KellyClarkson's because of you. "It's American idol, like you" Ha, onething for sure is I can't sing, and I butchered the song as I don'treally know it too well. But it doesn't matter b/c the Filipinosaren't too good at the English songs either. I definitely drew acrowd and after singing a few more songs I think half the town wasthere watching and clapping. An older gentlemen with his shirt tuckedup and big belly hanging out (they do this to stay cool), came in andslapped down 200 pesos for us to enjoy. That meant songs for thewhole night! Before the night was over I had sung don't stopbelieving (journey); we didn't start the fire (b. joel); piano man (b.joel); lay all your love on me (abba—of course I had to sing abba b/cthe Philippines is the first place I began to appreciate them (andgreatly disturb yosh) as the filip inos love them); stacy's mom(fountains of wayne); take me home country roads (j. denver); friendsin low places (g. brooks); winner takes it all (abba); money, money,money (abba), down under (met at work); all out of love (air supply);in the end (linkin park); all the small things (blink); sail away(styx); a rod stewart song I can't remember the name; and Californiagirls (beach boys). Wow, I've never done karaoke like that. Thegirls and pickles at the house of sin would be very proud b/c Iusually required a duet with pickles the elder at the pirate bar whenwe went to karaoke nights. The crowd was loving me there and Iappeared to be the guest of honor. They were always wanting me tosing, and when I would they'd get up and dance. They'd introduce meto all new people coming in as their new great friend. Every songthey'd dedicate to me and put their arms around me as they sang. Andof course they never let my glass of red horse or san Miguel getempty. By the end of the night, I had somehow had achieved thehighest score of the night on a song (money, money, money) with a 98.Somehow the computer gives a rating out of 100. I personally thinkit's very, very generous. As I went to bed that night I wasdefinitely feeling like royalty in the cute little fishing town.The next day was the day to do the island hopping. It would cost 40bucks to rent a boat for the full day, which was a bit out of my pricerange. This is when it would be nice to be travelling with others asup to 8 people can ride in the boat. So I was able to negotiate adeal to get a small canoe banca for 10 bucks. But in the morning itwas a bit stormy (the only possible negative thing about jumpingquickly to the Philippines to see lucas is that it's not quite summerhere so the northeast monsoons bring in some bad weather, big wavesmaking snorkeling not so good, wind, and it's not mango season yet,but it starts to die in February I think as march starts the summer,so it should be ok) so the family had randy take me out in his fishingboat for half the day for the 10 bucks. Which was fine by me, it waswindy, (but not rainy) so the canoe would have been difficult Wepowered out towards the islands with waves crashing in until we madeit to the calm of the islands. The first island, maglipan wasgorgeous. Had a nice white sand beach (of course all to myself).When we arrived we climbed up the razor sharp karst rocks (anyone whoknows what karst is knows what I'm talking about) to about 100m abovethe beach and looking down on the other side was a hidden, secretlagoon. The karst, which always has tons of caves, had a cave underthe island letting in the ocean. I climbed down to take a closerlook. I shouted up…Randy, can I go for a swim. "No" why not"dangerous" why dangerous. "I don't know" I scoped it out. Itdidn't appear bad. No currents, no sharks. Locals can sometimes havethe perception that westerners can't do anything outside of drinkingand sitting in luxury hotels, so they'll often tell you totallypossible things are impossible (examples I've had so far…biking towaterfalls instead of taking a motorcycle or bus, walking to towncenters from bus stations, doing certain hikes), or they'll havesuperstitions. So I jumped in anyways and Randy didn't seem to care.In fact, he said he was going back down to get a smoke. As I wasswimming around there was a sudden loud splash and I saw it was quitebig out of the corner of my eye. I looked around to see if randy wasplaying a trick on me, but he was gone. It creeped me out a bit, so Ididn't stay in much longer. As I was drying off I saw a lizard, abouta foot long jump off a rock and run across the water. Perhaps it hadbeen that. When I got back to the beach, the captain had climbed up acoconut tree and brought down three coconuts for me. He cut it openso I could drink the milk, then he fashioned a spoon out of the huskso I could eat the flesh. Spent the rest of the time at that islandsnorkeling with some decent corals. The next island, Layos, wasequally beautiful and had a beach that faced both the calm side andthe rough wavy side. Randy informed me that they often camp here inthe summer when tourists come. I wished I had been there in thesummer for that, but hopefully I will find some place to camp on adeserted island this trip. We made our way to the third island. Thebeach was gorgeous—palm covered and gigantic karst cliffs framing it.Randy said there was a beautiful lake just a little walk away. Ijumped out all excited to go check out the lake when I noticed a whiteguy come out of the palms. He exchanged some words with randy andthen talked to me. Apparently they were setting up the area forfilming of Israeli Survivor (can't believe anyone is still doing thatshow!). He was quite rude and said we couldn't be there even thoughthey weren't filming for another month. Apparently they had boughtthe rights to several beaches and islands in the area. He said Icouldn't take photos (I did as we were leaving), and that we had toleave right away. If I actually watched survivor, I would definitelyboycott it with as rude as he is and considering they think they canjust buy the rights to a whole peninsula for 6 months and not let anytourists in. IT also meant that we couldn't go to gota beach whichaccording to my lonely planet is one of the prettiest beaches in thePhilippines. We did boat by it however, and my island beaches werejust as good I think. When we got back to paniman that afternoonthere were three other Israelis there, and they were much nicer. Itall started to make sense. People had been asking if I was Israeli,if I was a survivor and I couldn't understand. And they keptmentioning Israel. And at the end of the village there was a workshopthey showed me, but with really weird things, including some giganticfunny painted balls on towers. I couldn't figure out what they werefor, but these guys told me they were for some of the games insurvivor. Had a very fresh fish lunch and then randy and I canoed upa river until it disappeared into the karst as an underground river.The water coming out of the mountain was a gorgeous blue and quiterefreshing for a dip. We snuck into an area nearby that was markedoff by yellow police tape as survivor filming areas and then climbedup the mountain to a huge cathedral cave. I said a sad goodbye andinstead of taking a trike back to caramoan town I walked the 8kms b/cit was quite beautiful with the mountains soaring behind bright greenrice paddies. And of course everyhouse I went by on the way tocaramoan people came rushing out to say hello. and "Hi Mr. American"Apparently news travels fast, and they all new that I was American.At one point I got invited into a school . Yes, school on a Saturdayon valentine's day. They had a big exam coming up and it was reviewtime. Again, cute laughing kids and a wonderful teacher. Furtheralong the path, I met a nice man who didn't know English too well, buthe invited me to spend the night in his house with his family. Idefinitely would have if I wasn't still 4kms from the town and Iwanted to get down there to catch the early ferry the next day.Right on the outskirts of town there was a huge gathering of bikes,trikes, and jeepneys, and I heard a lot of cheering. I went to checkit out and it was the regular weekend cockfighting. It wasinteresting to watch as the men really get into it, and bet outrageousamounts. I had always wanted to see a cockfight ever since my veryfirst assignment in college. As a scared little freshman I had megsimonton's English as my first class that Thursday. We had to read anaccount called something like the life of a Balinese cockfight thatcompared the cockfight to actual Balinese culture. We then had to dothe same thing (I compared mountain bike racing to Colorado culture).At that time though in the beginning of college, I was feeling asthough I had been thrown in head first into a raging river and couldhardly breath. So it never even registered with me that the article Ihad read took place in Bali until much later. After I realized ittook place in SE asia, I always wanted to watch one to see howaccurate the author was. Of course in Indonesia cockfighting isillegal, so it's a different feel I think than here where it's legal.It's quite violent, though, I will say that. And of course met somenice people at the fight and on the walk back to town.But, wow! What a great trip to paniman and the caramoan peninsula.Gorgeous scenery, a quaint fishing village (just as authentic, if notmore than anything in Burma as they had nothing to do with tourism,only fishing), and the nicest people and funniest kids.