BACK TO EARTH, WITH TAN LINES
(Conclusion, Dos Palmas)


At the ungodly hour of 5 am, we were jolted awake by the Dos Palmas' wake-up call. Either they were concerned we would miss our flight back to Manila, or they were all too eager to get rid of demanding guests like us. After a quick breakfast and some fond farewells to our fishy friends, we were hustled off to the banca.

I realized that for you guys who have been following this Dos Palmas series intently (meron ba?? ;-D), the Part 1 post might have given you the impression that we were a pack of malcontents who would rather have gone to Boracay. Well, truth is, we all enjoyed this trip quite immensely. Let me count the ways:

- the staff was unfailingly polite and accomodating with regards to our oddball requests (bread, bread and more bread for our fishy friends!!). Although i'm sure R.C. is still sore that they couldn't serve the chicken barbeque all the time.

- the breakfast/lunch/dinner buffets were consistently very good. I still salivate over the mango rice and leche flan up to this day

- their gumamela (hibiscus) welcome drink was a particular hit with us. We even ordered it during meals (at PHP70/glass, take note). Fortunately for us, a group of Aussies came over on Friday and some of them didn't drink their allocated glass of welcome drink. We were all too happy to swoop in and be re-welcomed to the resort!

- given the international incident which had happened at this resort a few years ago, Dos Palmas is quite diligent in ensuring their guests' safety. A group of 3 or so security men keep watch all night (which, incidentally, was another reason we couldn't catch any fish), and one of them told me they have this radar which would alert them of any strange vessels going towards the resort.

During our island-hopping tour, R.T. whispered to me that the sack our security guy was carrying contained a gun. At some point, my curiousity got the better of me, and i asked the guy if this was indeed so. He gave a half-embarrassed laugh, and assented. He even took out the M16 rifle and unclipped the ammo magazine and let me hold it.

So i guess here's where the story ends.


(EPILOGUE:

R.T. shared with us the superb photos he had taken, and is presently thinking of purchasing a waterproof casing for his digicam.

R.C. continues to bask in the glory of his prescient purchase of the rubber ducky. He can be seen prowling Rockwell and Greenbelt during weekends, looking for new buys in preparation for our upcoming trips to Bohol, Cebu, Baguio, Boracay and Hong Kong.

G.U.S. looks forward to testing more sunblock during the next beach outing.)

HAIL, HAIL THE RUBBER DUCKY!
(Part 5, Dos Palmas)

So you and your barkada are all on the beach, wearing your Billabong board shorts and ready to jump into the water. Then you realize, where do i put my cellphone ("you mean you didn't leave it in the room, you dimwit?"), wallet ("you moron, why didn't you leave it in the room?"), digicam ("ahh, ohh...[indecipherable mumble]), sunblock and other stuff?

Wrapping a towel around your possessions and placing it on top of your sandals might be a neat solution, but there is a much better one. Hail the rubber ducky!!

This waterproof bag proved to be a godsend during our trip, and it was all due to R.C.'s amazing insight and penchant for pump-priming the economy with retail therapy. In simple words, super hilig talaga niya bumili ng anu-ano (he will shop till the day after tomorrow).

Seriously though, this was a wise purchase on his part. The rubber ducky actually floats (just like a real duck, or am i belaboring the obvious?), so unless you put three kilos of cement along with your stuff (especially R.T.'s brand-new, not-yet-fully-paid-for-because-its-on-installment-due-to-credit-card-promo 5.0 megapixel Cypershot digicam) inside it, there's no fear of your possessions getting submerged underwater.

Believe me, we threw it into the pool, put it into the water while island-hopping, etc. and it kept right on floating and our stuff remained dry. Really waterproof, as advertised.

We plan to nominate it for next year's Consumer Choice awards. Hmm...what's a good category? Ahh, Best Product named after an Animal, perhaps?

FELLOWSHIP OF THE FISH
(Part 4, Dos Palmas)

While we were still planning the trip, i was resistant to the idea that we stay at the bay cottages. What was so hot about staying at a cottage standing on stilts out in the open water? What if the high tide rose and rose and drowned us in our sleep? Or a wayward shark decided to ram the stilts and have us for a midnight snack? And so on.

As i was outvoted by my friends, we eventually did stay at bay cottage no. 8. And it turned out to be one of those small serendipitous things that spell the crucial difference between a so-so vacation and a truly enjoyable one.

Why? Because the clear waters beneath the bay cottages were teeming with fish, lots and lots of fish. And they weren't the Nemo-type fish better suited for aquariums. . .these were real fish that you could actually eat, and
there were schools and schools of them frolicking in the water with nary a care in the Neptune world. (well, at least it seemed that way)

Pretty soon, R.C. got into the habit of asking the Dos Palmas staff for leftover bread, which we broke into little bits and started throwing into the water to feed the fish. Some of these guys literally leap to the surface and gulp down the bread, while others are more poised, and simply take a quick nibble at the floating bread.

At times, two or more fish collide with each other while in pursuit of our bread, which proved quite entertaining. To liven things up even further, we throw many bits of bread into the water simultaneously, and watch as around a dozen or so fish converge on the morsels. Wow! And just for kicks, once or twice we threw in a whole slice of bread, and the fish all furiously swam towards it, each one biting off his or her respective chunk. Talk of an underwater stampede!

There is just something oddly therapeutic about feeding the fish, its like time slows down. Eventually, we were feeding the fish in the morning, then whenever we were in our cottage during the afternoons, and then late in the evening after dinnertime. I think nabondat sila [they stuffed themselves to the gills], since during late nights they sometimes refused to bite into the bread anymore.

To illustrate how extreme this new hobby grew, i was soon taking bread rolls from the buffet spread just for our fishy friends. Then we noticed that some types of fish were slower than others, and thus always getting left behind in the race for the bread. So we tried aiming the bread bits very close to them, with positive results. Ahh. . .it's a great feeling knowing you've done your good deed for the year, haha :-D

Then yours truly hatched an evil plot. Why don't we catch the fish and have them cooked? We could spread some sunblock on the bread before throwing these into water, and as the fish gobbled them up, they would get dizzy from the chemical smell and weird taste; thus, easy to catch! Unfortunately, this brilliant plan didn't get off the ground, due to the inconvenient fact that Dos Palmas strictly prohibited anyone from catching the fish. Darn!

One sunny morning, we noticed that some schools of fish were gathered together in circles (see photo above). What could they be doing? We tried throwing bread in their midst, to see if they would pursue it.

Nope, they weren't biting. Absolutely nothing could disturb them.

So, what could they be doing? Were these fish all part of one big family, and it was their weekly Sunday morning get-together? What were they talking about? The latest weather report? The new neighbors two nautical miles away?

Not about those three bums throwing all sorts of stale bread at them, i hope.

HIGH TIDE OR LOW TIDE?
(Part 3, Dos Palmas)

Pop quiz: The Philippines is an archipelago comprising how many islands in total?

If you're a smart aleck like me, you'd ask first, "High tide or low tide??"

So, here we were on this glorious day, ready to check out a few of the 7,107 islands, of which around 15 or 16 were set in Honda Bay. First stop was Islang Puting Buhangin (Island with White Sand), which is normally inhabited only by a caretaker. The Dos Palmas staff had arranged a picnic lunch for us here, which turned out very well. The food was delicious (the unicorn fish, in particular, was quite succulent!), and the scorching sun was tempered by the strong breeze. And best of all, this island has a long winding sandbar, so you could walk out to the open sea all the way to its end, at which the water is approximately waist-deep.

Then we took the motorized banca to Snake Island, which had a very long shoreline (3.6 km, if memory serves me right. By way of comparison, Boracay is around 1.7 km). The sand was on the brownish side, but the water was very clear.

Next was Pandan Island, which has this charm which i'm unfortunately not quite able to describe. A resort is being built on this island, so i guess Dos Palmas will have stiff competition in a few years' time. We sat inside a nipa hut and just took in the breeze. Then feeling thirsty, we ordered one buko each from the locals. Talk about freshness! They climbed the tree, fetched our coconuts, and split them open with a bolo right before our eyes.
All for just PHP20 each (Dos Palmas charges PHP70 per).

Last stop was Starfish Island, so named because of the numerous starfish lying around. Unfortunately, that was its only selling point, as this place looks like a dump; and to add insult, it even has a billboard charging PHP30 entrance fee! To whoever owns this island, get real, man.

(Note: We had assumed all along that the national government owns all these islands. Not true, after all. According to our boatmen, some are privately-owned)

Photos: (top) Pandan Island
(bottom) Islang Puting Buhangin

A LITTLE MORE SUNBLOCK ON MY BACK, PLEASE
(Part 2, Dos Palmas)

I like a good brown suntan like everyone else. After all, what else literally screams, "Hah! i went to the beach and had a glorious time bumming around, while the rest of you worker ants had to endure another week of pencil-pushing and mindless doodling at your cubicles" than your newly oven-baked complexion? Nothing too burnt, i hope.

But i also know that too much sun makes your skin all shriveled up when you're 70. Besides, only chicken should be fried to a crisp, not your own skin, right?

Thus, i was armed with a boatload of sunblock for our Dos Palmas trip and wasted no time in converting R.T. and R.C. to the merits of slattering pasty, greasy, vile-smelling goo all over their bodies. R.C. was typically recalcitrant, and had to be cajoled to go along, though. Tsk, tsk.

Anyway, i've decided to do a review of the various sunblock lotions we used. Here goes:

1. Hawaiian Tropic Ozone (SPF 70) - reading the label, it claims to have mango/guava/papaya/passionflower fruit extracts. Funny, it smells rather like burnt leaves!

2. Hawaiian Tropic All-Day Sunblock (SPF 30) - smells a little better than its cousin above. Really adheres to the skin, living up to its water-proof billing. Stained R.T.'s shorts though.

3. Nuskin Sunright (SPF 35) - okay, not greasy on the skin. But smells a little "slimy" though.

4. Nivea Sunblock (SPF 50) - no smell, slightly greasy.

5. Godiva Green Tea Sunblock (SPF 25) - kinda chalky and wears off easily. Stained R.C.'s beloved Billabong t-shirt, a cardinal sin.

6. Coppertone Sport (SPF 30) - weird smell for me, but R.T. and R.C. liked it. Easy to apply, as it is sprayed on.

So which one was the best? Drum roll, please.

We voted UNANIMOUSLY the Nivea SPF 50 sunblock lotion as the best among all we tested!
[Important disclaimer: Given the miniscule sample size of 3, our survey results unfortunately have a margin of error of +/- 15%]

DOS PALMAS, HERE WE COMETH
(Part 1)


(Author's note: This is a series of rambling posts re my recent trip to Dos Palmas Resort, Areceffi Island, Honda Bay, Palawan. The reader is forewarned that this series will tend to jump around without rhyme nor reason, depending on my mood and degree of laziness)


As our banca gradually neared Dos Palmas Resort, i felt this palpable sense of excitement. The white bay cottages, their stilts set on shallow waters meters from the beach, looked really inviting. As we disembarked, the staff beat their bongo drums and handed us our welcome drink (more on this concoction later).

Then . . . silence. This resort seemed way too quiet. Where were the other guests? Why weren't they frolicking about and making lots of noise? Come to think of it, were there any other guests at all?

My friends, R.C. and R.T., and i started having misgivings. "We should have gone to Bora," one of us muttered, loud enough for the staff to hear. "What S. said was true, Dos Palmas is for honeymooners," said another. Well, obviously we were three guys with huge appetites and huge bellies to show for it, and not in any way were we honeymooning.

Checking into our bay cottage wasn't any better. The accomodations were, well, nice but nothing great. And R.C. raised a howl as there was no TV. Of course, being the contrarian, i pointed out that that was precisely the point. You didn't go all the way here just to watch TV, did you?

Well, apparently yes.

At least this will be one long vacation!!