Goddess, I Am.

As far as life experiences go, this is definitely somewhere at the top of my list – probably somewhere between traveling for a week in Malaysia and Thailand with only about $80 in my purse and watching Lea Salonga play Kim in Miss Saigon back in 2000. It’s powerful, intense, and completely surreal.

The Husband, he knows a lot about wildlife, and it was he who told me about the whale sharks that migrate through the waters somewhere east of the Philippines. After a bit of research, I found out that we can actually swim and interact with this fantastic fish off the coast of Donsol, Sorsogon, about an hour’s drive from Legazpi City in Albay. Not only that, we can fly straight to Legazpi City from Cebu via Cebu Pacific, so the moment there was a seat sale, I booked our tickets without even batting an eyelash. Yes, I’m a sucker for seat sales.

But I digress. Being the ‘organized’ traveler that I am, I spent months reading through travel blogs and trawling forums to get ready for the trip. I read that although the whale sharks (or butanding, as they are locally called) travel through the Donsol sound between November and June, they are best seen during the dry months of March to May because rain makes the water murky otherwise – quite similar to a pond without a garden pond filter. And since I was celebrating my birthday on the 13th of March, anyway, I figured it’ll make for a great birthday holiday. I also found out that it was a good idea to book accommodation months in advance as guest houses in Donsol are quite few and far between and can get pretty crowded during the peak months, so I had that sorted out as early as November.

Day One

We left around lunchtime on the 11th to catch our 1310 flight. Yes, I know we should’ve left at least an hour before that, but The Husband forgot to sync movies to his iPhone, so we had to wait for that. Thankfully, we found a cab driver who drove like a maniac and got us to the airport in about 15 minutes, so we were able to check in with a few minutes to spare. It was a bit embarrassing, though, because while I lined up at the airport Dunkin’ Donuts, our names got called over the loudspeaker to board the plane, and when we did, all the other passengers glared at us. We took off about 10 minutes early, so really, that was unnecessary.

We would’ve landed early, too, if it wasn’t for the really thick and really scary fog that had the pilot circling around Albay for a full 40 minutes. It was strange because it really was quite sunny and pretty on the way over.

I was told that another 20 minutes and we would’ve had to turn back to Cebu. Thank heavens the fog cleared up long enough for the pilot to land! That really was quite a harrowing experience. I wasn’t sure whether I was more scared of crashing or having to turn back!

It was drizzling when we landed in Legazpi City. Just our luck. We planned a trip for high summer when it was highly unlikely to rain (there’s a drought, after all!), and that’s exactly what happens!

The airport was really small and quite functional. I spoke to the lady at the tourist desk to ask her where we can get the tricycle to the public terminal where the vans to Donsol are, and she suggested taking one of the private vans right outside the airport because of the rain. A van to Donsol costs about P1,500, but she told me we could share with other tourists who were heading our way, so that’s exactly what we did. We ended up with 3 other people, and we were off!

Normally, the drive to Donsol is meant to be quite scenic, thanks to the Mayon Volcano. The mountain was a complete no-show that day, however. The fog was THAT bad. Still, Albay is quite pretty. We passed rice fields aplenty and some of the prettiest cemeteries I’ve ever seen. Now, I’m deathly afraid of cemeteries, no pun intended, but these ones were so pretty, I couldn’t help taking a little peek.

Donsol was a lot larger than I expected. We got to drive around the town somewhat to drop off the other passengers in the van, and it really is quite a pretty town. The locals seemed friendly enough, and I’ve never seen so many foreign backpackers since Thailand.

Our driver drove us straight to the Amor Farm Beach Resort, where we would be staying for the next couple of days. Apparently, this family-owned resort was the first resort ever to be established in Donsol. One of the Amor daughters checked us in and showed us our pretty little bungalow. Now, being staunch budget travelers, The Husband and I have been in some real shitholes in our time, and this was definitely NOT one of those. In fact, our bungalow was one of the nicest places we’ve ever stayed in. I was very impressed by the room and was even more impressed by the bathroom with its faux Greco-Roman tile design. Yes, it was definitely worth the price of P1,800 per night.

After we settled in, one of the resort staff directed us to where we could sign up for the next morning’s butanding interaction tour. It was about a 5-minute walk from the resort, but it took us about half an hour to get there. There were just so many pretty things to photograph! The new 35mm was on a roll! I took photos of everything from cows to flowers to boats, while The Husband did what he does best: bird-watch.

There was a small crowd of travelers when we got to the Butanding Interaction Center. Everyone has to register for the trip, and no one will ever get scammed here when all trips are regulated. The registration fee is P100 for Filipino citizens and P300 for foreign nationals. Each boat costs P3,500, which is divided amongst its passengers.

Everyone’s encouraged to register early because they only allow 30 boats to go out to sea each morning. Each boat carries a maximum of 6 people, and the staff usually groups people together to make up those 6. When we got there that afternoon, everyone else already had their groups, so we were told to come back at 7:30 the next morning, and they’ll find us a group then.

It was already near sunset when we got back to the resort. We walked to the beach and watched the beautiful Donsol sunset. The water was so calm that you can almost ignore the fact that it was raining just a few kilometers away across the sound.

We realized that we haven’t eaten anything since we left, so The Husband and I then had dinner at the resort’s restaurant. The food was mostly Filipino, so he settled on the safest thing on the menu – fried chicken and fried potatoes – while I had pork sinigang with rice.

Unfortunately, the food wasn’t all that good. His fried chicken was bland, while my sinigang was quite dismal. We ended up feeding most of our dinner to the resident puppy, instead (who we decided to name ‘Patch’, for obvious reasons).

After dinner, we went back to the bungalow and ate almost all the sweets and chips we brought with us to make up for the disappointing dinner. Beat after a long day of traveling, we decided to turn in early.

To be continued…

More photos of the trip can be found on Flickr.

Last Saturday saw me and my man at the cinema in Central World Plaza to watch The Incredible Hulk. It wasn’t a particularly exceptional film, but it wasn’t bad either. I enjoyed it anyway because of two words: Edward Norton.

But I digress. The film ended about 10 PM, and we left Central World shortly thereafter. We walked about a couple of blocks towards the Pratunam area to catch our bus home. Right in front of Platinum Mall is a rather narrow walkway, so we had to walk single file. I went first, my man brought up the rear. Walking towards us from the opposite direction were 3 Thai men. I didn’t think much of it.

When I was level with the first guy, he sort of leered at me, but I ignored him. I’m used to dirty leers and jeers from men, and I’ve found that it’s way better to simply ignore them and not give them the satisfaction of my attention. From what I gathered later, he made a gesture which led the boyfriend to think that he grabbed me. Naturally, my man reacted and gave him a nasty look. The next thing I knew, all 3 men have jumped him from behind, so he didn’t really get a chance to defend himself. They were all fists and elbows and knees, muay thai style, while my man fought to stay on his feet as he tried to get them off him.

At this point, I was screaming for help at the top of my lungs. It was surreal, like something out of a movie. I wasn’t really thinking at all at that point, so I acted on instinct. I hit and poked the men randomly with my trusty umbrella (one of those pointy-tip ones). I must have hurt one of them because he moved as if to strike me across the face. I sort of cowered and waited for the blow to come, but it didn’t. I think he still had some decency left not to strike a woman.

At this point, my man already managed to break free from their clutches, so I took his arm and dragged him away towards the crowd gathering. The men started walking away in the opposite direction. My man tried to tell a security guard who was in the crowd to call the cops. The man just sort of gaped at us with his mouth open like an idiot. Upon hearing the word ‘police’, one of the 3 men came back (the guy who was walking first) and threatened my man with something from his pocket. I imagine he had a knife in there or something.

There was a cab parked at the curb and the driver was gesturing at us frantically to get in, so I dragged the boyfriend into the cab. At this point, the adreline had worn out. I was shaking like a leaf and quite hysterical. My man had about 5 nasty bumps on his head. I wanted to go to the hospital, but he and the cab driver had other plans.

We drove around for about 5 minutes looking for a police outpost. We found one just past a BTS station (I think it was Ratchethewi). There were about 5 policemen milling around at the sidewalk. The cab stopped, and the boyfriend told me to stay inside while he and the driver dealt with them. The moment they saw the driver and my boyfriend with his torn shirt and head bumps, they literally scattered and disappeared faster than non-existent electronic cigarette ashes.

There were 2 policemen left who didn’t want to help at all. They kept shaking their heads and putting up their hands. But the cab driver was adamant that they help us and my boyfriend told them he was working in Bangkok as a teacher, so after about 5 minutes of talking, they finally decided to do something about it. We gave the cab driver some money for his trouble and got into the back of the police cruiser. We then drove back towards the scene of the crime.

Of course, our attackers were nowhere to be found by then. My man, heroic as he is, jumped out of the cruiser and ran out towards the direction they were headed. The cops didn’t move at all. I had all sorts of scenarios in my head, that the men were lying in wait to stab him and stuff like that (shoot me, I’m female), so I started to get hysterical again. I practically screamed at one of the cops to go with him, so he did, probably to get away from the shrieking banshee that I was turning into.

Needless to say, they didn’t find those men, just as I expected. The police dropped us off and waited for us to get into a cab safely – probably the only thing that they actually did right that night. I’m just thankful that we got out of the harrowing situation with nothing more than a few bumps, one missing umbrella (my boyfriend’s), and a bent one.

That was by far the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, including getting mugged at knife point back in university. Almost a week after the incident, I still find myself shuddering at the memory of those men pummeling my boyfriend’s head. It hurt me so much that they hurt him for almost no reason at all.

A friend asked me how I could’ve had the presence of mind to hit them with my umbrella (Mary Poppins style, as it had come to be known). She said she would’ve either run away, or fainted. I personally don’t think so. When someone you love is under attack like that, you just can’t run away. Instead, you’ll do everything you can to stop it, as futile as it may seem, regardless if you’ll end up putting your own life in jeopardy in the process.

Some people would probably call that stupid. I call it love.