The Honeymoon

Every minute of the month I spent in the Philippines was a honeymoon, starting with the plane ride into Manila where I first saw things I recognized as not American: the thrill of a lifetime. (The Taipei airport was like an American mall with Chinese characters on the signs.)
Jovie and I joked about our several honeymoons. Every time we got to sleep somewhere private it was another honeymoon.
We spent one night at the Aloha Hotel in Manila when I first arrived. It was smelly but I only saw one cockroach. On my toothbrush, which I threw away. At $45 per night I had expected more. It had a mini-bar (a little refrigerator full of beer and soda that we would be charged for if we used it) and cable TV. Jovie’s sister Bebing, her merchant marine husband Robin, another relative named Merlinda, and Merlinda’s daughter Sheila Mae had all been at the airport to meet me, and we all rode the car from the airport to the hotel, then went for a walk around the Manila Zoo. I was told that the zoo, which is now in shambles, had once been in good repair but the animals were dying and the enclosures falling down due to lack of funds. In spite of being a farm girl from Mindanao, Jovie wouldn’t even look at a snake in a cage. We walked as best we could with our arms wrapped around each other. Sheila Mae hid behind her mother when we first met but before long she held my hand and jabbered at me while we walked. Back at the hotel someone turned on the TV and we watched Fear Factor. None of my relatives in the Phils can afford cable TV so this was quite a treat for them. Before they left I took everyone’s picture as they posed on the bed, a pile of grins.
After one or two nights at the farm near Panabo City in the province of Davao, we headed for Paradise Island Beach Resort, which is located on the Garden Island City of Samal. It was a short ferry ride from Davao. Of the four resorts we stayed at while I was in the Phils, Paradise Island was my all-around favorite. It was very reasonably priced, less than a Hotel 6. There was lots to do, three ping-pong tables, halo-halo and other treats, souvenirs, paddle boats, nice little beaches, a bird zoo, aircon, toilet paper…and a great restaurant. Not a buffet, a real restaurant with outdoor seating, room service and everything. Jovie never looked at a menu, she just ordered typical Filipino cuisine and fixed up the special sauce she used to dip everything in: soy sauce, coconut vinegar, fresh squeezed lemoncito juice, and those killer little fresh red chilies. Other possible additives: raw onion bits, garlic, ginger. The staff at Paradise Island treated us like royalty, knew our room number and really had their act together. Unlike other resorts we went to later, Paradise Island was mainly used by Filipinos, and was priced accordingly. The only thing lacking was hot water and a TV, and at this early stage in our honeymooning we had no time for TV!
The “real” honeymoon was at Pearl Farm, one of Mindanao’s most famous resorts. Our samal house was built on poles over the water so we could lay in bed listening to the little waves passing under the floor. There was one ping pong table (next to an open channel for treated sewage, so not that appealing), a basketball court…oh yeah. Basketball. I haven’t played basketball in many years and never was any good at it. But we had just had a religious experience behind closed doors (sorry, no details) and we were in a VERY good mood a little later when we were shooting baskets. I was out on that circle thing (further out than the free throw line) and tossed the ball in the general direction of the net, and it went through the net like I had planned it that way. Jovie grabbed the ball and stood where I had been standing, and threw the ball toward the net, and it went right through. I announced that we had just been shown a good sign from Above. Whether the “instant baby” she wanted is a reality or not, we will soon know.
Pearl Farm included a variety of types of buildings, some of them up a steep hill where we found a game room with chess, scrabble, and billiards. The young guard, who like most Filipino security guards carried a big rifle, was very friendly and interested in our pool game, setting the balls up for us and letting me know when I had made a “bad shot.” A couple Japanese men over in the corner ignored the No Smoking sign while they played chess over in the corner, and the young Filipino wife or girlfriend played pool with her Japanese father-in-law.
The restaurant at Pearl Farm was buffet style, the food was international, excellent, and by Filipino standards, expensive. I had based my budget expectations on restaurant prices elsewhere in Davao (almost free), and the price of food at Pearl Farm was a shock since I had just paid for a wedding and was feeling sort of broke and starting to get tired of prices going up for the white guy. Since it was a buffet we gorged ourselves twice a day and ate snacks from the minibar in our room the rest of the time.
I brought the guitar along on our honeymoon at the Pearl Farm. I’d downloaded sheet music for a lot of folk songs and love songs and bought a guitar in Davao for $28, and then left it behind for my nieces and nephews to “share-share” when I left the Phils.
We watched Mary Poppins on cable TV. Jovie giggled through the first half and slept through the second half. I had the impression she had never seen anything like it. She wanted to know why the movie made me cry. While we watched TV the repairman was in the room fixing the sliding door. There were repairmen working in our room at four of the five hotels/resorts we stayed at while we were there.
After Pearl Farm we went home to Manggahan for a few days, then headed for an all-expenses paid trip to Aguakan Cold Springs Resort near the municipality of Maragusan. Aguakan is a recently developed resort owned by the brother of one of our ninongs. Ninong Manolo is the founder of Maragusan, and according to his wife, Ninang Linda, he used his own money to create a town where there had been none, then served as mayor for 18 years. When term limit laws went into effect he stepped down and now serves as a district board member. One of Ninong Manolo’s nephews now serves as mayor. He had campaigned for three months and spent P250,000 on his campaign against the wealthy owner of a local piggery who had spent millions on a three year campaign.
I had first met Ninang Linda by phone when Auntie Juliet called us at Manggahan from her home in Redding, California. Her old friend Linda was there and got on the phone to invite me and Jovie to the resort. After the wedding, Manolo and Linda introduced themselves to me in person and apologized that they would not be able to attend the reception since they were on their way to another wedding. Ninong Manolo gave me several copies of his business card and insisted that we call him when we were ready to visit his brother’s resort.
The ride to Aguakan was in Ninong Manolo’s private pickup truck, which his hired man drove. It was a three hour ride and the last two-thirds was on a fairly bad rocky road, at the end of which was, surprisingly enough, a town: Maragusan, the personal creation of Manolo, according to his wife. Throughout the ride up the mountain, Manolo spoke to me of commerce and politics, I understood at least a third of what he said and tried to respond intelligently, in spite of the fact that I was squeezed into a back seat with three women, two backpacks and a guitar, had to pee real bad, and every time we hit a bump the door handle dug into my ribs. On the way up the mountain we stopped to pick up another friend of Auntie Juliet and Ninang Linda from the old days. The three of them had been administrators of the Girl Scouts organization when they were young. Millie took over for me holding up the other end of Ninong Manolo’s vast ability to converse as we took her up the hill to one of the 24 schools that she now supervises.
Once I mentioned to Ninang Linda that it seemed to me that Filipino men are very quiet, shy, and serious almost to the point of being gloomy, whereas Filipino women are the opposite: outgoing, full of talk and laughter, and very friendly. Linda concurred, stating that “If a man talks too much he is not a man.” However this was not true of the educated men I met; two of my ninongs and one of my brothers-in-law who spoke English well were very good conversationalists (better than me), although all of them spoke so softly that I had to fill in the blanks between the words I actually heard and understood.
Aguakan Cold Springs Resort was wonderful. Since it was isolated and underdeveloped there were no white people. Karaoke (which is called videoke because the machines are coin-operated) was the main form of entertainment aside from the awesome swimming pool fed by a huge cold spring just a few yards away. The cabins were only ten years old but had obviously been cheaply built because they were relatively shabby compared to the other resorts we stayed at. The shower had no shower head, but it was fun to stand under a personal waterfall in the shower room. There was no tp but I had brought my own. Jovie’s manang (oldest sister) Inday Fe had asked to come along so we had a cabin with two beds. Rather than hang around making us feel chaperoned, Fe spent most of her time with Ninang Linda at her home in town. The women told many jokes about sending Fe to get coffee, sending Fe to town, etc. It was interesting to me that although Filipinas value virginity before marriage, they are not prudish about sex.
At Aguakan there were large pools full of beautiful big fish of all colors. I don’t know what the cost of staying at Aguakan is, since it was free for us. Ninong Manolo and Ninang Linda paid for all our food also, except for coffee and snacks.
Ninong Manolo took us for a long ride one day, stopping at the home of a local priest which was done up like a world class garden. Ninang Linda was sure the priest was gay. Then they took us to a swimming pool that was being built. At this elevation the direct sun felt like it was two inches away from my head. A very strange feeling. We got some of the sweet little “Senorita” bananas that grow at this elevation. We stopped to tour a banana packing house. The young guard was very hesitant to let us in, and Ninong Manolo was embarrassed to use his influence to get us in, but when his wife explained to the guard who Manolo was, we were allowed in for a short look around. The young woman in charge of the packing house was very friendly. Then we dropped Manolo off at the house so he could attend a birthday party, and Ninang Linda packed a picnic feast and the driver took us all to a local waterfall for a picnic. We took pictures and collected rocks and ate marang fruit, a close relative of what Ninong Manolo repetitively called “Durian, the King of Fruits.” We had bought the marang from an old woman at the side of the road, and since we bought everything she had, we also gave her a ride home in the back of the pickup. Ninong Manolo had his driver stop to pick up all the pedestrians we passed along the road, and the back of the truck was full of people at one time.
There was a ping-pong table at Aguakan but no balls. The food was good, the snack bar was well-stocked, but someone had forgotten to go to the bank, because everytime I tried to pay for something it took the employees ten minutes to scramble around looking for change to give me. Jovie never let me tip anyone anywhere for anything. She said it just wasn’t done in her country.
Ninong Manolo’s driver took us home to Panabo City after two wonderful nights at Aguakan. Jovie told me to tip the driver P100; it was a three-hour trip one way and he had stopped to pee twice along the way, to my infinite relief.
After a couple more bittersweet nights at Manggahan we headed for our last honeymoon trip, one night at Eden Nature Park on the way to Mount Apo. After visiting brudder Dodong and family at their home, Dodong found a young man in his neighborhood to take us up the mountain on his motorcycle. I had not brought the guitar this time. Fortunately the road was mostly paved, though it was steep and windy in parts. The ride was long but uneventful till we got to Eden.
When we arrived at the resort, instead of first letting us off on the steep road, the motorcycle driver tried to turn the bike around by walking it in a circle with his legs. He was tired and it was a bad error in judgement. The front wheel went down a three inch drop to the shoulder of the road which was paved in very large gravel rocks, over two inches in diameter, and the bike tipped over on our downhill legs. We had to lay down on the ground (not too gently, but at least the bike hadn’t been flying down the road, so it wasn’t quite like a crash) and the bike landed on our legs. Our left knees were banged up but not bad. Guards appeared to haul us to our feet before we knew what had happened. The driver was very embarrassed and apologetic, so I paid him quickly and told him it was OK so he could go home.
When we got to our cottage (which cost about $60 per night but included dinner and breakfast) some people were sitting on our front porch, resting from a walk they had been on. Since this was the Philippines, not the US, they didn’t excuse themselves and leave, they stayed and talked with us! The older woman was a well educated teacher and they all preferred to use English since I was there and since they could. It seemed that anyone who was able to speak English well was proud to use it, whereas my rural in laws who only spoke it a little had to be prodded to try and converse in English.
It was mid-afternoon when we arrived so we went swimming. I wondered why the pool closed at 4 p.m. until I got in and started shivering, and noticed that the sun was almost ready to go down behind the mountain. It was a quick dip.
The cottage at Eden was the most modern of all the places we had stayed. Jovie was very impressed. The hot water lasted forever, unlike any other place we stayed including Pearl Farm. The restaurant was very good, especially the desserts. They served international fare but I especially liked the coconut flavored jello-like stuff, I forgot what Jovie said it was called. It was Valentine’s Day and there was a crooner with a guitar singing love songs quite well. After being bombarded with videoke every place we went (except Paradise Island), it was great to hear someone who could carry a tune.