I have been to thirteen countries since I last wrote in my blog, fourteen if including going back to the USA. That is how much of a blogger I am. Yes, I have been busy, seen much of the world, and experienced some of the biggest events and greatest days of my life, and I have written no words about any of it. I’ll make an attempt now, but how am I to try and recapture even a modicum of all things I have gone through and seen with this time that has passed? I cannot do it, and so you’ll never really know, but let’s peer in through the foggy windows that these words will make, and I’ll share a thought or two
I left Korea and flew straight to Manila, the Philippines. I have mentioned before that it is a dream of mine to take each member of my family on a vacation, just the two of us. My father and I visited England several years ago, where he spent two years as a missionary. My oldest brother Dustin and I went to Australia about two years ago, something I have written in my blog about, and the Philippines, that was for my older brother Dallin. He spent two years as a missionary in those lovely Islands and it has been his dream for the twelve years since to make it back. I was happy to be a part of that dream. Perhaps it is a small sense of pride within me, unrighteous pride, that I have been able to help make such dreams come true for some of those I care most about, and that I do not think those family members would ever have left the US, or even gotten passports without the encouragement I am blessed enough to offer. Of course I wanted to go to the Philippines on my own, but I could not have imagined visiting without Dallin, touring those lands so sacred to him, and him not there. I was as much looking forward to seeing how it was for him to be back, to watch him step off the plane, hear the memories he suddenly recalled, and watch for subtle smiles in those moments it hit him that he was there, back in the Philippines. For that alone, it was a great trip, and for others too. I’ll share some of it with you, if you care to read. I’ll only include a brief account of some of the highlights, mostly taken from my journal.
Wednesday, March 3rd, the year of our Lord two thousand ten.
Today, I am not disappointed in the Philippines…Yesterday morning we took a jeepney to Sabong. It is a 2 ½ hour drive over bumpy roads. The inside was packed as full of people as it could be, with every nook filled in with bags and luggage. The top was piled with fruit baskets, suitcases, shopping supplies, and many passengers. People held on to the back, the side, and one girl even rode on the hood. It was not a comfortable ride, but very much a Philippine experience. In Sabong we hopped on a boat and took a short ride out to the entrance of the famous underground river. It is a huge cave going back 8-12 km with a fresh water river running through it that smoothly and calmly meets the salty sea outside.
Just at the entrance of the cave there is a clear turquoise pool, still and unmoving with fish swimming through the brackish. It is the type of place you pray to see in silence and solitude. We did not have the solitude, but still enjoyed the serenity of the water and the trees that bent and crooked into natural benches to dangle feet from. We walked down the river and the bank past a large rock standing at the mouth right where the water of the sea swooshed in with the current to mix and mingle with the water from the river. The current pushed in lazy river motion drifting onward toward the pool and the cave. We took a small boat up the river in to the cave. The only light was a flashlight spotting out calcite formations in the cave. Some are supposed to look like the Holy Family, the Virgin Mary, giant candlesticks, and one looked remarkably similar to the image stained in to the Shroud of Turin. The cathedral ceilings and rooms housed 400,000 bats that flew and fluttered through the darkness as water dripped in blackness onto our skin. We floated along through this place made for movies and I kept thinking how it would be to swim in the silence and total darkness of the cave’s deep waters. After the cave we walked back to the boat that took us back to the main beach and spotted a lizard as long as I am tall. The beach was a spot vacation magazines photo for their covers. The waters of the sea separated in darkening layers as it moved away from the soft white sands of the beach. Palm trees reach up to the blue back drop of sky fluffed with cotton clouds and shells shimmered in the light glazing down to the beach. We stopped for lunch and walked the small roads and grabbed a van back that winded up and down the mountains and through small villages of huts, and the green mountains covered in forests of vines and palms stood tall around islands and sea-blue and sea-green waters. The whole ride home was an enriching end to an activity full of views and vistas.
Today, we hopped back on the scooter and rode out with no destination in mind. Far out of town we spotted a path partially leading down to the sea. Near the path sitting on large cement cinders under the shade of trees was a group of Filipino boys. We talked with them and asked where to play basketball and they led us down a narrow path in to a small community centered around a wooden backboard and bent rim court. We played a 3-on-3 game and the whole community came out to watch the two tall Americans playing ball on their court. Every home was built entirely of sticks, no electricity, and only one well to pump water in the center of the community. Dallin and I did not play well on the unfamiliar court, though we did win. We all played in our flip-flops, and back here at the hostel I noticed a bloody blister on the palm of my foot had ripped and torn off all my skin in one thick layer. Dallin and the girls from the Hostel bandaged me up and Dallin laughingly and sadistically doused my foot with rubbing alcohol as I cringed at the stinging. It was well worth it, and playing basketball in the hot and humid sun of a small Philippine village was the highlight of the day. Yes, I am not disappointed with the Philippines today. It has been a wonderful two days, and now I am back at the hostel and blessed with the company of two attractive blonde galls from Germany.
Friday March 5th, the year of our Lord two thousand ten.
Today I surely must write, for I have swum with gentle giants…We arrived in Donsol, Sorsogon at4:30 a.m. and found some straw and bamboo umbrella hut on the side of the road with a wide bamboo bench we both slept on. When we woke, we walked further down the road and registered for our highlight activity in the Philippines, and were soon on a boat out spotting or Butanding. Butanding is the local name for whale sharks. We hoped to spot a couple and jump in the water to swim alongside them. We were fortunate today. I swam with nine separate whale sharks. The largest was 30-35 feet long and had it swung its tail, it would have hit me. Even the fish that suctioned on and fed on the skin of the shark were large. Their mouths were bigger than I am. I swam atop them and beside them, staring down to their white spots and giant fins. This is the biggest reason I came out to the Philippines, and today, I have swum with Butanding, the gentle giants of the sea, with only blue water between me and their massive bodies. My body aches now from sun burn with my skin tight and stinging, but I have seen whale sharks, with me myself below in the blue waters. I have been close enough to touch their thick and fatty skin.
It was a grand day indeed. While nothing else this day cold top that, still there were pleasant moments. We walked the small town and came out to a village on the sea just as the sun was setting behind the mountains of other islands. We looked and saw a small thatched hut standing tall on long bamboo rods that rose out of the water. A bamboo bridge journeyed out to the hut that stood above a small lagoon, its reflection clear in the calm water and the orange sun behind. It was a remarkable scene…
We walked along the beach as the sky grew from sunrise in to dusk with the pink and orange of horizons whispering down to the grey sea shimmering dark in the night. Locals sat out in the sand enjoying the scene or flew kites high in the air, or did back flips off the sand. Bats zigged and zagged and twittered in their feasting hour and men with tight nets fastened tightly to bent sticks waded in the water for an evening’s fishing find. I cannot help but think the scene we saw this evening is the exact scene we would have seen 200 years ago, a small fishing village of bamboo and palm huts sitting serenely seaside in tropical Donsol. Everything I have seen screams out island life and tropic. It is a journey and I am only weeks into it.
Wednesday, March 10th, the year of our Lord, thousand ten.
... Dallin has been popular here. He’s popular everywhere he goes, though speaking Tagalog gives him extra wow power. We’ve both gotten a lot of attention from women and lady boys, and had people develop crushes on us…In most of the country people shouted out to us…They all seemed happy and excited when we shouted or waved back, and they loved when Dallin would speak Tagalog with them. It’s been fun for me to watch him. I never imagine him as bi-lingual, but he is, and I can tell he loves speaking it again. One thing I have enjoyed here is seeing how Filipinos really live. We have gotten in to the small neighborhoods and communites and talked with them, ate with them, and stayed in their homes. It is a filthy country, the neighborhoods, streets, and homes are layered in dirt and the homes are shared with ants and flies and giant cockroaches. My white t-shirts turn in to a dusty gray in only hours. The dirt and filth is part of the charm. I would not want to live here, but am glad for the visit and my experiences here.
I have been to thirteen countries since I last wrote in my blog, fourteen if including going back to the USA. That is how much of a blogger I am. Yes, I have been busy, seen much of the world, and experienced some of the biggest events and greatest days of my life, and I have written no words about any of it. I’ll make an attempt now, but how am I to try and recapture even a modicum of all things I have gone through and seen with this time that has passed? I cannot do it, and so you’ll never really know, but let’s peer in through the foggy windows that these words will make, and I’ll share a thought or two
I left Korea and flew straight to Manila, the Philippines. I have mentioned before that it is a dream of mine to take each member of my family on a vacation, just the two of us. My father and I visited England several years ago, where he spent two years as a missionary. My oldest brother Dustin and I went to Australia about two years ago, something I have written in my blog about, and the Philippines, that was for my older brother Dallin. He spent two years as a missionary in those lovely Islands and it has been his dream for the twelve years since to make it back. I was happy to be a part of that dream. Perhaps it is a small sense of pride within me, unrighteous pride, that I have been able to help make such dreams come true for some of those I care most about, and that I do not think those family members would ever have left the US, or even gotten passports without the encouragement I am blessed enough to offer. Of course I wanted to go to the Philippines on my own, but I could not have imagined visiting without Dallin, touring those lands so sacred to him, and him not there. I was as much looking forward to seeing how it was for him to be back, to watch him step off the plane, hear the memories he suddenly recalled, and watch for subtle smiles in those moments it hit him that he was there, back in the Philippines. For that alone, it was a great trip, and for others too. I’ll share some of it with you, if you care to read. I’ll only include a brief account of some of the highlights, mostly taken from my journal.
Wednesday, March 3rd, the year of our Lord two thousand ten.
Today, I am not disappointed in the Philippines…Yesterday morning we took a jeepney to Sabong. It is a 2 ½ hour drive over bumpy roads. The inside was packed as full of people as it could be, with every nook filled in with bags and luggage. The top was piled with fruit baskets, suitcases, shopping supplies, and many passengers. People held on to the back, the side, and one girl even rode on the hood. It was not a comfortable ride, but very much a Philippine experience. In Sabong we hopped on a boat and took a short ride out to the entrance of the famous underground river. It is a huge cave going back 8-12 km with a fresh water river running through it that smoothly and calmly meets the salty sea outside.
Just at the entrance of the cave there is a clear turquoise pool, still and unmoving with fish swimming through the brackish. It is the type of place you pray to see in silence and solitude. We did not have the solitude, but still enjoyed the serenity of the water and the trees that bent and crooked into natural benches to dangle feet from. We walked down the river and the bank past a large rock standing at the mouth right where the water of the sea swooshed in with the current to mix and mingle with the water from the river. The current pushed in lazy river motion drifting onward toward the pool and the cave. We took a small boat up the river in to the cave. The only light was a flashlight spotting out calcite formations in the cave. Some are supposed to look like the Holy Family, the Virgin Mary, giant candlesticks, and one looked remarkably similar to the image stained in to the Shroud of Turin. The cathedral ceilings and rooms housed 400,000 bats that flew and fluttered through the darkness as water dripped in blackness onto our skin. We floated along through this place made for movies and I kept thinking how it would be to swim in the silence and total darkness of the cave’s deep waters. After the cave we walked back to the boat that took us back to the main beach and spotted a lizard as long as I am tall. The beach was a spot vacation magazines photo for their covers. The waters of the sea separated in darkening layers as it moved away from the soft white sands of the beach. Palm trees reach up to the blue back drop of sky fluffed with cotton clouds and shells shimmered in the light glazing down to the beach. We stopped for lunch and walked the small roads and grabbed a van back that winded up and down the mountains and through small villages of huts, and the green mountains covered in forests of vines and palms stood tall around islands and sea-blue and sea-green waters. The whole ride home was an enriching end to an activity full of views and vistas.
Today, we hopped back on the scooter and rode out with no destination in mind. Far out of town we spotted a path partially leading down to the sea. Near the path sitting on large cement cinders under the shade of trees was a group of Filipino boys. We talked with them and asked where to play basketball and they led us down a narrow path in to a small community centered around a wooden backboard and bent rim court. We played a 3-on-3 game and the whole community came out to watch the two tall Americans playing ball on their court. Every home was built entirely of sticks, no electricity, and only one well to pump water in the center of the community. Dallin and I did not play well on the unfamiliar court, though we did win. We all played in our flip-flops, and back here at the hostel I noticed a bloody blister on the palm of my foot had ripped and torn off all my skin in one thick layer. Dallin and the girls from the Hostel bandaged me up and Dallin laughingly and sadistically doused my foot with rubbing alcohol as I cringed at the stinging. It was well worth it, and playing basketball in the hot and humid sun of a small Philippine village was the highlight of the day. Yes, I am not disappointed with the Philippines today. It has been a wonderful two days, and now I am back at the hostel and blessed with the company of two attractive blonde galls from Germany.
Friday March 5th, the year of our Lord two thousand ten.
Today I surely must write, for I have swum with gentle giants…We arrived in Donsol, Sorsogon at4:30 a.m. and found some straw and bamboo umbrella hut on the side of the road with a wide bamboo bench we both slept on. When we woke, we walked further down the road and registered for our highlight activity in the Philippines, and were soon on a boat out spotting or Butanding. Butanding is the local name for whale sharks. We hoped to spot a couple and jump in the water to swim alongside them. We were fortunate today. I swam with nine separate whale sharks. The largest was 30-35 feet long and had it swung its tail, it would have hit me. Even the fish that suctioned on and fed on the skin of the shark were large. Their mouths were bigger than I am. I swam atop them and beside them, staring down to their white spots and giant fins. This is the biggest reason I came out to the Philippines, and today, I have swum with Butanding, the gentle giants of the sea, with only blue water between me and their massive bodies. My body aches now from sun burn with my skin tight and stinging, but I have seen whale sharks, with me myself below in the blue waters. I have been close enough to touch their thick and fatty skin.
It was a grand day indeed. While nothing else this day cold top that, still there were pleasant moments. We walked the small town and came out to a village on the sea just as the sun was setting behind the mountains of other islands. We looked and saw a small thatched hut standing tall on long bamboo rods that rose out of the water. A bamboo bridge journeyed out to the hut that stood above a small lagoon, its reflection clear in the calm water and the orange sun behind. It was a remarkable scene…
We walked along the beach as the sky grew from sunrise in to dusk with the pink and orange of horizons whispering down to the grey sea shimmering dark in the night. Locals sat out in the sand enjoying the scene or flew kites high in the air, or did back flips off the sand. Bats zigged and zagged and twittered in their feasting hour and men with tight nets fastened tightly to bent sticks waded in the water for an evening’s fishing find. I cannot help but think the scene we saw this evening is the exact scene we would have seen 200 years ago, a small fishing village of bamboo and palm huts sitting serenely seaside in tropical Donsol. Everything I have seen screams out island life and tropic. It is a journey and I am only weeks into it.
Wednesday, March 10th, the year of our Lord, thousand ten.
... Dallin has been popular here. He’s popular everywhere he goes, though speaking Tagalog gives him extra wow power. We’ve both gotten a lot of attention from women and lady boys, and had people develop crushes on us…In most of the country people shouted out to us…They all seemed happy and excited when we shouted or waved back, and they loved when Dallin would speak Tagalog with them. It’s been fun for me to watch him. I never imagine him as bi-lingual, but he is, and I can tell he loves speaking it again. One thing I have enjoyed here is seeing how Filipinos really live. We have gotten in to the small neighborhoods and communites and talked with them, ate with them, and stayed in their homes. It is a filthy country, the neighborhoods, streets, and homes are layered in dirt and the homes are shared with ants and flies and giant cockroaches. My white t-shirts turn in to a dusty gray in only hours. The dirt and filth is part of the charm. I would not want to live here, but am glad for the visit and my experiences here.
I close my eyes and and envision the younger two of my sons slowly surveying this tropical paradise with one another. It both warms and soothes my mother's heart. I give thanks for your generosity and the huge part you played in Dallin's opportunity to return to this place of such wonder and importance to him. I thank you for taking us on a small part of the adventure with you. It's been a looooong time comin. But, worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed your tripping notes and adventures in the world...what an escape! I love that your mom is now in St. George as a snow bird so we can have mild adventures compared to yours. Check out my blog today for our tripping, tomorrow will be the labyrinth day...
ReplyDelete