An Awful Lot of Cobbling

Beached fishing boat at Emerald Playa

I’m reading Sweet Thursday over again. It’s my new favourite book. There is so much to it and I seem to be using it as a kind of handbook. I’m reading it on a Kindle. A goodbye gift from the kind hearts at work. But there’s more to this Kindle too, like highlighting and note-making, and John Steinbeck is going to see to it that I learn it all.

Things keep happening that, I’ve decided, are telling me I should leave Palawan. In fact, I’ve now decided that the visa blunder and Ramon, the phantom typhoon, were both signs not to have come here in the first place. And since then there has been the man-baby/bag-in-face flight, the Ninoy Aquino airport bedlam, the absent pre-arranged pick-up, and the data-only SIM card that meant I couldn’t call the absent pre-arranged pick-up. Not to mention the relentless army of ants in the bathroom and beyond. Sweet Thursday says, much more eloquently than I’m about to, that we often don’t notice the signs until a thing has already happened. But is suggesting we cobble together random incidents in order to imagine we could have seen her coming. I’m doing an awful lot of cobbling.

Not long after I had got back from the beach hotel on Friday evening, there was a power cut. My tech was exhausted from pool-side googling (dive shops and accommodation in Palawan alongside flights out of Palawan). And, in the absolute pitch darkness and heavy evening heat, the Jungle Guest House felt very jungle and not at all guest. It was the kind of darkness that your eyes never adjust to. I went outside but the mosquitoes chased me back in. The cicadas were in full voice and on another day I might have found it exciting. Or maybe even romantic. But on this day, the total and complete darkness had me feeling trapped. This was clearly another sign. My saving grace was a bedside candle. And I gave myself a point for having packed a lighter and a head-torch. For supper I ate the cashew nuts and the emergency Oreos I’d bought in Vietnam. The ants must have been thrilled.

Yesterday, I didn’t go to the Underground River, but spent another day pool-side. I decided the river could wait and besides, I had some thinking to do. I was the only one there for most of the day, which felt odd, but I went ahead and settled into a shady spot under a palm tree. It is undoubtably a beautiful place and I felt at odds with myself for not wanting to be there. And then on the 10 minute walk back to the guest house I encountered so many lovely village-life moments and interactions that I really had to question why I was feeling so allergic. Isa, one the guest house staff, was there when I got back and told me it was her 19th birthday. Two of her friends from college had come to visit. She said they had no money and Isa had to work so there would be no real celebration. But we all sat and chatted a while and it was lovely. They were lovely. But it didn’t cure my allergy.

I’m moving into town today but I’ve more or less decided that I’ll leave the island that has been consistently voted the most beautiful in the world without seeing much of it. I can only conclude that I’ve run out of steam. Palawan requires bopping around quite a bit and, other than the very expensive resorts, it seems to be all group tours and island-hopping. My fear of missing out is burning away but whenever I begin to direct my planning towards staying on and making the journey to the north, I find myself uncertain. And then overwhelmed. So what I think I’ll do, is pay the fee, change my Australia flight to a Bali flight and head straight from the airport to Ubud. On Friday.

This is going to be a post of two parts. That was Part One. This is Part Two:

This afternoon I arrived at Bahay Ni Takeshi Guest House right smack-dab in the middle of the town of Puerto Princesa. It is owned and run by a beautiful Filipino lady named Marifi, who has lived most of her life in Japan. The guest house is also her home and built on the site of the nipa hut where she was raised by her grandparents. It is just lovely. On the trike journey here, the dirt roads turned into paved ones and, for the first time, I could see just how far out of town I had been. And not just in miles. And when Marifi sat me down on the terrace outside my new room and handed me a fruit juice, I nearly burst into tears. Well, you already knew I was a sap.

We chatted a bit and I told her where I was with it all. But she seemed somehow to already know it. She then drove me over to the Dive Puerto Princesa dive shop where she introduced me to Eliza. I’m diving tomorrow morning at 8am. It was all so easy. Later, at sunset, she suggests I head into Baywalk Park for food and to see the town come out to play. So that’s what I’ll do. But for the moment, I’m sitting on my first floor terrace over-looking the garden. Marifi has hired it out for a one year old’s birthday party. It’s quite the do. They’re singing Happy Birthday and about to slice into a whole barbecued suckling pig. And this dear little one year old, in a rainbow tutu and a unicorn headband, hasn’t a clue what all the fuss is about.

I told Marifi that I wished I had come here first. What a different experience it would have been. She has told me to give it a couple of days and think about not leaving. But instead says I should go across the island to Port Barton. She says it’s her favourite place, that the beaches are beautiful and the sand is like cotton. And that there is good diving there too.

“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” ― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday