I forgot to blog this last week, but when I was Charles de Gaulle airport looking for where to check in for my flight to Bahrain, I noticed something extremely odd on the board: EasyJet flt 8031. This flight had a scheduled destination of: Paris Orly. Like, evidently, it was ferrying passengers from one end of Paris to another? I was intrigued. I have sniffed around on the net and failed to find anything about what 8031 would normally be doing...
SINGAPORE, 1/10
When I was writing last, I was under the impression we were almost in Singapore. Two enormous terminals on either side of the bridge between Malaysia and Singapore at the Woodlands Crossing (the bridge paralleled by enormous pipes that bring in much of Singapore’s fresh water--there are frequent dramas played out here when the countries find themselves having a spat) handle the outgoing and incoming traffic. Getting out of Malaysia took about 5 minutes. Getting into Singapore...longer. Seems like no one mentioned we had about 150 CDs from the label--albums by The Disciplines, Jay, and other artists on the label--in the back of the van. All vehicles are subject to a visual inspection that includes looking in the trunk. So, we weren’t exactly smugglers but this was a significant amount of commercial product that wasn’t exactly free to cross the border with us. So, they took the stuff away, and Amar stayed behind to negotiate--he has an uncle working on the inside, so, he figured he could yank a few strings from the inside. To this day, I have no idea if the efforts were successful!
After waiting around for while to see if the situation would resolve, we finally went on ahead. We pulled into a parking area, and strolled over to the impossible-to-miss Durian-textured fly eyes known as the Esplanade, a performing arts complex on Singapore’s waterfront, where The Posies and I performed in 2006 as part of the Bay Beats Festival. We were met by Patrick, who had organized today’s show, and who also plays in the band Typewriter; I did some recording with them in 2006 on sessions for an album they are still working on now...Patrick led us into the Bond-villian’s-lair, squeaky clean loading deck and backstage area to let us dump our bags etc. Actually, it wasn’t long before soundcheck was proposed, since we had spent even longer than anticipated at the border. So, I went out to the same small concrete amphitheatre that I played in 2006, and saw a lovely backline set up. I took away the music stands, haha, that’s wild optimism on the part of the crew for ya...I had a cool matte black 335 provided by Gibson, and all the stuff on the backline was in good shape and the right bits, so soundcheck was easy--pretty much telling the sound guy to use less and less of the PA, til we had it about right, then the digital board reset itself and we had the pleasure of doing the soundcheck one more time. Luckily, with me, that’s a very short process.
This completed, we went to eat. There’s a few new things visible at the waterfront now, since my last visit--first, a massive construction project--three massive towers, connected by a multistory platform at their summits, all part of a huge new casino and hotel complex. And, at Esplanade, a small Hawker Center--food stalls around a common court. In no time I was bravely attacking a chili crab despite the fact that I was wearing white jeans, PLUS gado gado PLUS a big coconut to sip. I think there were other things too...I’d missed lunch. So, this was as much as meal as it was vengeance.
Then it the sun started to fall, and it was showtime. Talk about an easy gig--I played two 30-minute sets, Jay preceding me each time with a 3-song warm up. The show was free and open to the public; a great piece in
Today Online brought out a curious range of curious spectators--fans who saw me last time; friends like Chang Kang from Typewriter; very surprised expat Yanks who had seen The Posies in SFO back in the day; babies; a white-haired grandma in a wheelchair (who stayed happily for both sets). There was a nice family vibe, and my walk-offstage, stand in the crowd and belt it out went over so well I felt like a kind of carnival sideshow performer, and that was fun. The two sets were different, the second one took more advantage of the piano, and people generally stayed for both, I’d guess 150 or so all told, maybe more at the peak.
After the set and chatting with folks, I was beat so Patrick and Chang Kang took me to the hotel in a groovy little rig that looked like it should be delivering mail, but was in fact the official touring car of Patrick’s production co. On the way out the door I suddenly realized I would immediately be saying goodbye to Amar, Jay & Ili, in short order. I hate goodbyes (see my last post) and this was no exception, but the fact it had to be done pretty quicklike made it at least get over with and I could use the shock to keep off the displeasure of bidding farewell to my excellent travel companions, who had been so generous and helpful.
I was incredibly beat, I had energy to iron some clean clothes and hit the hay, and that’s it.
JAKARTA, 1/11
a day chock full of singles--1/11/10. Wait til next year tho. I had breakfast at the hotel, which turned out to be a very funny take on the continental breakfast--esp. odd after the heaping spreads offered by both of my Malaysian accommodations---the offerings: a bag of white bread, a toaster. Coffee in an urn. Uh...OK. Well, I had a piece of toast, chatted with a couple from Victoria BC who were vacationing, and then Patrick picked me up and took me to Singapore’s fantastic, shiny, and, today, practically empty, airport. There’s nothing better than an empty airport. Also, many airports I have visited on this trip have the brilliant idea to have security screening done at the gate--so, you are not bottlenecked at the entry point to all the airport services beyond.
Patrick and I had time for a cafe (Starbucks has a tight grip on the Asian airport market) and I went to my flight, on Philippine airways. Their Indonesian flights have planes with extremely generous spacing of seats, I had more leg room than on some biz class flights. I landed in Jakarta, skirting along the north side of Java to see the flat lands, the seemingly flooded rice fields, and the hundreds of ships anchored around and moving in or out of Jakarta’s industrial, fishing, and pleasure craft harbors. We touched down, I picked up my visa, and was met by the hotel driver even before customs, which somehow gave me a free pass from any and all inspection. My hotel was the Sheraton, out near the airport, so as not to have too much of a commute the next morning, after hearing how long the travel can be in Jakarta’s snarling traffic.
It wasn’t long before the hotel and surroundings were engulfed in what would be a familiar sight in Indonesia: mind blowing, squeezed-washcloth-of-God type of torrential rain. Like clouds declaring war on the planet...it’s impressive, really. It lasted about an hour, and its departure was timed perfectly with the arrival of Zeke and Yudhi, organizers of my show. Zeke is a musician, having had quite a bit of success with doing music for film lately. For many years he went to art school and generally lived it up in Seattle--tho we never met. He had been contacted just a few days before by Ili in Malaysia, and without hesitation put together a show in his home. His home, is his family home, his parents were in the govt/military and have some sweet digs, including the ground floor’s official reception hall, looking more or less like a ballroom, but with a stage for the giving of medals and what not. Zeke has taken this over and turned this into the base for his musical operations, having a great rehearsal place, and his own venue, if he wants to--but evidently I am the first foreign artist to perform there. Zeke is full of humor, energy, and personifies, I think the vibe that I got from Jakarta, at least based on the people I was hanging out with there, is a jumping, exciting, creative epicenter--the Hollywood for this nation of over 200 million (Yogyakarta would be more like the New York--in terms of being an artier, edgier, theatre-driven cultural capital). In fact, soon after we arrived we ran into
Joko Anwar, perhaps the highest-profile director in Indonesia, whose recent films have been winning critical praise and festival prizes around the globe. I sat with Joko and chatted, and watched a bit of his reel, when we stumbled upon him at a coffee shop near Zeke’s place. Also, I ran into some cool kids from Bandung, who had driven over two hours to check out this show. The twitter and related blogospheric activity surrounding this show had been impressive, despite the fact that we were Monday nite and this show was booked on Friday, people knew about the show, and we had a more than decent size audience waiting back at Zeke’s place when I showed up--plus thanks to Zeke’s connections, those people included journalists (Rolling Stone has an Indonesian edition), promoters, musicians of every stripe. A local band played some emo-acoustic songs, and then I set up. Candles were lit in an arc around me, and I had a beautiful old Gibson hollowbody, and a real piano, too. The audience was mostly seated on the floor, and I gave everyone a seventh inning stretch at one point. I don’t know how long this show was, but it had to have been pretty long...and people were more than cool with that. At one point the vintage Fender Twin was showing signs of a dying capacitor, making some pops and crackles, so we switched it out...I wandered around the room, and at one point there was this girl, sort of trying to hide behind a wall panel, as a lumbered around, she was one of the few standing audience members. In between songs her friends said that she’s a singer, she should sing, so I dragged her out and ran her thru “Somethin’ Stupid” right on the spot, and, as it turns out, she was extremely good.
Mian Tiara will release her first album of jazz influenced gentle pop in Indonesian and English soon.
Jakarta itself is enormous. Flying over it is one thing, driving across it is another. The city is decentralized, the steel and glass buildings might pop up anywhere--there’s a few dvelopments on the waterfront(s); and then things poking up here and there. A lot of gigantic shopping centers--huge, multistory malls that give people some airconditioned window shopping entertainment. There’s shantytowns, or at least awfully rickety housing that stretches on for miles, a sea of corrugated tin roofs, out of which the shopping centers loom in gleaming, orderly contrast to the mosaic of habitation around them. Zeke’s neighborhood was more like a Beverly Hills, big homes with greenery and a modicum of quiet--but the pulse and throb of this city is ever present, and its invigorating.
After the show, Zeke, Joko and other prinicpals of the evening went to a little eatery next to a mindblowing pirate DVD store--everything that you can imagine, stuff that’s still in the theatres, was available for about $1 per. Who, me? Buy pirated DVDs? Oh, no, sir...not me....ahem. Then Zeke and Yudhi drove me back to my hotel, by this late hour traffic had dispersed and we had the freeway largely to ourselves. When they pulled up into the Sheraton’s driveway (by the way, I am sure the location of this hotel is a former army training ground....there were some rotting items set up aorund that looked like boot camp training obstacles) our goodbyes were almost drowned out by frogs, living in a pool in front of the driveway. They were putting out enormous, high pitched drones, with complex harmonics shifting inside the sound, a la Tuvan throat singers--but two octaves higher.
The next day was my first day off since arriving in Asia, and the next day would be my first complete day off--no work, no travel--since Christmas, three and half weeks ago. I was prepared to enjoy these and make the most of the opportunity for resting. In the morning I headed to Jakarta CGK, there’s an unusual system there in that you enter the terminal, and find there’s no check in desks, apparently--then you realize they are behind a kind of security. It takes proof of a ticket to get in, but in theory, but I just told the guy checking where I was flying and with who and that was sufficient. I put my bags thru a big scanner, and went thru a metal detector that beeped, producing no action other than ‘thank you sir’ from the security staff. I found the Garuda desk and was told I had to prepare my bag by tightening a plastic band around it, this service was provided nearby. Then I was on. More conventional security was done at the gate. On the way, I thought about browsing thru a Lonely Planet Guide in the airport bookstore, but each book and magazine that I encountered for sale in Indonesia was individually shrinkwrapped. No browsing. Before I left the hotel for the airport that morning I had breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, and discovered a new fruit: the salak, or snakeskin fruit. The outside is exactly what the name implies--brown scales that look completely reptilian. The salak is shaped usually like a fig, with a round end and a pointy end, but they can be more round. It is about the size of a large fig, maybe a bit bigger sometimes. The skin is...like a lizard skin in texture too. Uncanny. The skin comes off easily, it’s not adhered to the fruit really. Inside, you’ll find 3-4 lobes, like garlic cloves, each one containing a very hard, large stone. The texture of the fruit is somewhat like a crunchy apple, maybe a little more rubbery (like raw garlic). The taste is sweet and fragrant, similar to Japanese pear.
Java was cloudy, but as we approached Yogyakarta, I could see the details on the ground, and our descent seemed to glide us inches above the surrounding mountains. I could clearly see Prambanan, the thousand year old Hindu temple, and its surrounding structures. We touched down at the Adisujipto Airport, and I marched into the terminal, the day humid and delightfully (remember two and half weeks in Tromso?) hot. I changed some more money, got my bag, and was met by the hotel driver. We entered into Yogyakarta, which because of its lack of skyscrapers, and generally low key and decentralized layout, would easily fool any Western traveler into thinking it was a small town--but in fact it’s city of some 4 million people. Busy sidewalks, with small shops and restaurants, some just a couple of sheets of Visqueen away from becoming more of an existential notion of a business as opposed to an edified establishment; there were some main streets, buzzing with motorbikes, cars, buses and pedicabs. Indonesia a right-hand drive country, but the delineation of who shall go what direction and where they will do it was in a state of constant negotiation, bordering on just saying ‘fuck it’. The old town centers on the kraton, the palace of the sultan, who serves as governor of the region. back in the day, Java itself was made up of small principalities, and some of these principalities as well as ones on other islands, occasionally swelled and engulfed neighboring ones; they split as brother princes broke off from each other’s rule, and so on. Now the sultans of different areas roughly equivalent to their former sovereignties are unelected regional governors. The current sultan in Yogya (which is pronounced and can be written Jogja) is an entrepreneur who owns a cigarette and cigar factory (Kraton brand ciggies) and other industries in the area. So you have the Kraton, which is a complex of intricately walled compounds and outbuildings all enclosed in an outer wall, itself enclosed in yet another outer wall that engulfs a subset of the city itself--technically everything inside the walls belongs to the sultan, but land is leased, lent, rights of exploitation passed on, etc and this city in miniature is home to some 25,000 people. There’s a kind of fairgrounds with carnival attractions, and much commerce from the ‘batik mafia’. The BMs are local shorthand for people who sell what appear to be handcrafted traditional textiles, but at gringo-gouging prices. In fact, everywhere I went inside the kraton, residents and people working--pedicab drivers, food stall cooks, and of course the free tourist guide that accompanies visitors to the small area of the inner kraton that is open to public visitors, told me the same, apparently memorized speech--about how the Yogya textile center had the only legit craftspeople, the lowest prices, and the seal of approval from the gov’t., and to beware of said batik cosa nostra. The thing is, I hate to say it, but crafty stuff like batik is not really my area of interest. I had to politely decline a huge amount of attempted stimulation of potential interest, which is understandable--Indonesians are proud of their traditions, which are magnificent and rich, and of course everyone loves to make a buck.
Jogja is Indonesia’s center of learning--over 150 Universities are located here--and it’s the epicenter of Javan culture, the site of its most impressive ancient monuments. But at the moment, on Tuesday afternoon when I checked in to my hotel, it was a place to rest. I had booked the biggest room in a very nice hotel, The Jogja Dusun Village Inn. A collection of buildings centered around a large pool, and interspersed with gardens and canals, with koi and other fish making the rounds, the Village Inn is tranquil, friendly, spacious and charming place. My suite, 101, was the closest to the lobby, no stairs to navigate, and 8 steps from the pool. The main room had a huge canopied bed, and the bathroom was exposed to the open air, but I was walled off and separate from any other rooms, so I had fresh air but total privacy. So, imagining a kind of L, the long part of the L had the sink and countertop and toilet, and the short bar of the L had a massive bathtub, that could easily fit 3 people--the secret being that it wasn’t that deep, just deep enough to keep you covered as you reclined against the sides, all surfaces in irregularly-sized small tiles. At the junction of the L, that space was uncovered and open to the sky, with some plants growing in a patch of round white stones. If there was rain or too much breeze, you lowered some wooden blinds to block yourself off. The main bathroom area was one step higher than the tiny patio and bath area, so if it did rain, the splatter of drops on the marble floor would be inhibited in their progress. Off of the side of the bedroom, there was another open space, a sliver of patio with a lounge chair, and a tiny koi pond, which circulated its water up and over a tiny trickling waterfall. While its true that the weather during my stay was volatile--we had some shockingly intense rainstorms--and often windy on either side of a change in state, the hotel was an oasis--the wind went overhead, stirring the palm trees and providing air circulation, but not disturbing anything at ground level. Best of both worlds. Ahh. So, this first arrival day, I did SFA. I read, I watched Al Jazeera in English (which is excellent--my recent travels to places with cable have shown me how shockingly bad CNN has become--I want to know what’s happening on earth, and CNN spends an hour talking about fucking GOLF). I emailed, and then came the rain. Ok, so you have evaporation, water goes up, forms clouds, changing pressures and temperatures cause condensation, water falls. This I understand. Clouds are big, so, when mass condensation occurs, rain can be heavy. But rain this heavy? I mean, I would think the whole cloud, dropping rain at this furious rate, would be exhausted in like, 4 seconds. And just when you think that, just to prove you are an insignificant ninny, it starts to rain harder. And harder still! This was violence, an attack. Amazing. It prevented me, and my tired bones were ever so grateful, from going anywhere. I ran to the restaurant, and dined in the covered but open terrace, as all hell broke loose in an aquatic manner.
Not only was my room spacious, calm, and private--but it seemed like, this being the low and rainy season, like I had the place to myself, at least the first couple of days--one older couple dined in the restaurant that night, and breakfast seemed to be for me and me alone. The rain gave up eventually, the waterfall continued to burble, I turned on the gentle and silent AC, and in like 40 seconds I was out. Done.
And up at 3.30. I had booked a private tour of the local temples, UNESCO-recognized masterpieces of first-millennium religious art. Tho Indonesia is now 90% Muslim, which came by way of Middle Eastern traders and proselytizers, traders and proselytizers from India and other nearby kingdoms had introduced Buddhism and Hinduism before that. To broadcast their mastery of these belief systems, they erected ever bigger and better temples. Borobudur is a circular pyramid of complex carvings depicting thousands of scenes in the life of the Buddha, and above that, the symbolic hierarchy of states of existence leading up to Nirvana, perfection, one-ness. So the singular stupa, which is a hollow dome in this case containing a meditating Buddha, at the summit, symbolizes both the oneness of the ultimate, free of desire and even form, state of being...however, intriguingly, the meditating Buddha found inside the giant, singular stupa at the top was incomplete, unfinished...this is interpreted as symbolic of the elusiveness of perfection, but that also a flawed species such as the human race has the right to pursue the ultimate state of transcendence.
Yanti, my tour guide, and our driver, whose name I didn’t catch but was himself a guitar player, picked me up at 4am, and before we left the outskirts of Yogya we stopped so I could grab a snack--they parked by a Circle K, but in front of that was a couple selling all kinds of homey food, and I bought a few things--a bright purple muffin, a triangle of paste-y vegetable something-or-other with a crispy exterior, and a tiny plastic box of nasi goreng. All delicious. There was also a slice of bright green cake that made me curious, too...but I didn’t want to bloat! We drove on, and slowly Java emerged from nighttime. Not that the activity in the city ever stops--the ramshackle eateries, the general buzz of commerce--it seems to be always on. This dropped off as we passed into the country side.
Our arrival at Borobudur was timed to coincide with sunrise, and the sky was starting to flame in the east as we mounted the steps. There is a hotel right next to the site, and they seem to be the portal by which all shall enter, if they are an ‘official’ tour group. I think backpackers and people going in under their own steam have to enter at gate much further away and hike in a bit. I’m all about the saving of time, and the deluxe (‘in the manner which he is accustomed to...’) approach. End result: my guide and I climbed up the steps, turned around at the highest level, and watched the sun come over the horizon, as the surrounding area, much of which is jungle/forest, emanated mist, giving everything a cobwebbed, mysterious and, well...mystically beautiful look. Pointy volcanic peaks off in most directions, except south there is a geometrically improbable, gnarled folded ridge of forest covered geography, to steep to be inhabitable for the most part (it widens out towards the base of course, and there are homes and a very pricey resort tucked in). At one point, a Ted Geisel-worthy sworl of tree-encrusted limestone is crowned with a lamp, the only light on the top of the ridge. This is for the Javans an Olympus, the home base of their pre-imported major faith deities. Note: pagan beliefs and modern Islam are not particularly compatible in the eyes of some of the more...enthusiastic believers:
read this article about a group of youngsters having a very difficult time seeing the forest for the tree. Meanwhile back at the temple. Yanti and I were the only people there for quite awhile, it was enough just to stand at the summit and scan the horizon, look down at nearby farms, a monastery, the forest. Not the same kind of busybody stuff going on here as there would be closer in to the towns. Soon, tourists started to emerge from the mist. But the temple is enormous--to walk around its three levels is at least a couple of miles worth of walking. Yanti took me around the level that commences the life story of the Buddha, showing scenes from the kingdom of Siddharta at the time of his birth, followed by events leading up to his birth, and then onward. Each panel (there are over 1500 of them) is meticulously detailed, and of course you have them on either side of you, so it’s an immense amount of info, an entire encyclopedia on the “Hill Temple” which borobudur translates to. These buildings are tall and pointy, and very much alive. As the heat of the day started to rise, the insects awoke, followed quickly by the birds. There’s something very striking and impressive about these giant columns of carved stone, ancient and silent, even more so when they seem a magnetic focus of the nature around them, with swallows, huge solitary wasps, and hundreds of dragonflies seeming to hover in a protective, interactive aura. Indonesia is also notable for the diversity, size and number of its butterflies--I counted at least 30 or 40 individual species that day alone--from tiny moths that looked like fragments of green leaves, to a gigantic butterfly with with white hind wings and black orange and white front wings, I would say this creature had a wingspan of perhaps 8 or 10 inches. Java has pythons and a poisonous, green vine-like snake, but I never saw any. Geckos and skinks galore, tho.
We moved from Borobudur (after a pause for cafe at base camp hotel), to Mendut temple, and other nearby sites. Mendut is near a huge banyan tree, itself a collection of related trunks forming a body about 9 feet (3m) in radius, the branches and leaves overhead prob have a 50 or 60 foot radius. From above, vines that are really new tree trunks descend, hundreds of them--if they make contact with the earth, they will put roots down--the locals hack them back to keep the tree from taking over the whole village; don’t worry, it’s still plenty big.
Next to Mendut is an active Buddhist monastery, which you are welcome to enter. It’s here that Yanti picked up a rambutan from the ground--a reddish thing covered in hairlike stems (thicker than hair, more like cherry stems, supple and not pointy). Inside is a lychee-like white pulpy thing with pit, three of them. It looks like lychee but is more straightforward sweet, without the floral notes of the lychee. Later we stopped at a roadside fruit stand to buy more salak, and to try the mangosteen, which looks like a squat purple tomato, but has very think skin that peels readily, and once again, you find some lobes inside that are translucent white like lychee, and sweet like rambutan. Fruit is so abundant in Indonesia I noticed that this plantation let tons of it, esp. jackfruit (jackfruit is a big thing, football sized and shaped, covered in pyramidical bumps), just fall to the ground. Most plantations will let you pay a fee to go in and have all you can eat--but not take away, you are back to kilo price should you want to walk away with any.
Part two of our day was an exploration of the Prambanan temple complex, a Hindu temple roughly the same age as Borobudur. It was a good time for worshippers, they were feelin’ it back in the 800s. As many of its toppled stones were harvested by local villagers over the centuries, less of it is reconstructed than borobudur (which was preserved by way of being covered in volcanic ash by nearby Mt. Merapi) but the main temples are. Three huge telescoping pyramidic columns--the Shiva temple is 150+ feet (47m) high--pay homage to Shiva, Vishnu and Brama. Directly across from each one is the steed, carved in solid stone, of the facing god/goddess. Garuda the mythic bird, Nandi the bull...the Nandi is a fabulous work of art, incredibly realistic but also comprised of graceful curves. Shiva is not accessible, the site had just completed years of restoration when an earthquake struck in 2006; back to the re-drawing board they went, and the Shiva temple is not considered safe yet. Luckily the earthquake happened in the middle of the night, otherwise you would have had a lot of squished tourists. However, the Sheraton Hotel, with its *underground* guest rooms, which was damaged enough to be closed for two years...yikes. And so it was that the world experienced its own shocking tremor with devastating results this day--this week was the time of the Haiti earthquake--I was able to find out about it on cable news right away, and was able to donate as I had net access in my room.
Prambanan has several different, mostly crumbled, temple sites, but they are fascinating and mysterious even in their deconstructed state. We spent awhile there, and then lunch was had, sort of tied in to an unavoidable look a silversmithing place, and then I was back at the hotel by early afternoon, 9 hours of temple examining with Yanti’s well informed commentary, a day well spent.
That evening I cooled off in the pool, went to a street place about 15 minutes walk from my hotel to have gado gado and more, while a group of old, crusty Australians, I think one owned the place, gabbered in indecipherable Aussie patois. On the way back, I saw the tailor shop (more or less a metal shack, so think of that image rather than ‘shop’) was still open, three guys in there not really working on anything. The crotch of my jeans had come apart at the seam. I walked in and said hello, and said I needed some repair work. Long pause. Then, deadpan: “Too bad.” Long pause, then general laughter at my expense, then they fixed the pants for free (I wrapped a sarong around me).
I intended to do...something, not sure what--but whatever it was, I didn’t do it. I fell asleep in like two minutes when I was back at the room, at like 9pm.
YOGYAKARTA, 1/14
This was the day I went to the post office, first setting off on foot, but then when I saw that the locals were on the pedicabs, and they weren’t just for tourists, I thought...why am I walking in 85F heat? Pedicab to the rescue. Like 75 cents to get uptown. I did my business (postcard to Aden) and then while I was in the hood, I checked out the kraton, or what little of it I could. Here I found from my tour guide that female circumcision was no longer practiced, but boys were circumcised at 12. Aiyee--but evidently under general anesthesia. But still. Ow. After my tour, I went to a little food stall to have the famous ‘gudeng’--jackfruit, beef skin, and...’other stuff’ that is really, really tasty.
Now, I have been dutifully avoiding motorbikes since a Bellingham psychic told my mom to keep me off two-wheeled motor vehicles (so a sidecar would be OK, and an eBike dubious) but when Rizky, the esteemed local musician who put my show together, came to pick me up--guess what: only one option. I donned the extra helmet and we set off and about 5 minutes into our ten-minute ride came down another mega-rain. We pulled up to a cafe, where the electricity was out but candles were already in place, and it was immediately pitch dark, and flooded, in the neighborhood. We weren’t going anywhere for awhile. But this was totally OK, food was served, and Rizky and I had a great time discussing the meaning of art, the meaning of our individual missions, and more. Teater Garasi is an art collective that puts on music, theater, and more in Yogya. Some of their productions have toured abroad, and one of the in house artists, Jompet, has made a serious name in art contemporain. He makes mechanical body enhancements that control or interact with sound generators...so, kind of dynamic kinetic sculpture that usually has a human inserted in it, that may or may not be in control of the results.
Garasi has their own space, but might put on events in larger spaces too. Here we found the high art epicenter for Indonesia, Garasi is a shining emblem of the kind of high concept pursuits that Yogya has to offer in balance to the more potentially market-ready pursuits in Jakarta. If you think I prefer one to the other, you’re wrong. Both feed and influence the other, and both are necessary forms of the same huge enterprise--communication, which is the only art form I actually practice. Rizky has been pursuing music from an indie rock angle but also using his band to play the challenging music that accompanies theatrical works, evidently his band is continually in an intense workshop mode in pursuit of these projects. We had this great, ambling conversation by candelight, a mix of philosophy, exchanged wisdom, and humor--not out of place in a Woody Allen film....My Dinner With Rizky, perhaps. Fantastic.
Then it was time to head to the show, it had slowed down a bit, the rain, and the lights came on in the restaurant (it looked much better candlelit, tho). We pulled up to Garasi’s HQ, next to a rice paddy a-burble with frogs. Garasi is a couple of offices, a kind of meeting room/kitchenette, a bar, and covered space with a small (but not elevated) stage. Chairs are arranged in a semi circle, and the front row is just a riser with some pads, so the chair folks can see over the front row’s heads. Technically, everyone is looking down at the stage. Despite the storm scaring some people off, the seats filled up and I played to, with and amongst the audience, who were great, attentive and appreciative. My damp sneaker soles were squeaking on the sustain pedal, so I took them off, oh...except, now I was grounding the PA, so I got a shock from the mic. So, easy--no mic. Shoeless, mic-less...that’s minimalism for you. I delivered a two-hour show and people really loved it. The rain was accompaniment for the first half, then the creek-creek of frogs--the performance space is covered by roof but not really totally enclosed from the outside, so it was a tranquil and cool/breezy place.
The following day I took my last swim in the pool, checked out of my hotel (my stay cost me millions, literally. I felt like a sheikh. But, this is because Indonesia’s currency trades at over 9,000 to the dollar. I wasn’t sure if my sms’s were getting thru to Rizky, we were supposed to meet up but by 1pm I was so hungry I couldn’t wait, and went to a food stall for something that was concocted by me pointing to things that looked good; then I ran into Rizky looking for me, and we went for a coffee--at yet another cool, contemporary art place--this was a combo gallery, clothing shop and cafe with food (and internet too). Then he dropped me at the hotel, and I got my transfer to the airport, and flew to Jakarta. In fact, when I checked in for my flight, they offered to put me on an earlier one, since I could make it and it wasn’t full, so I took their offer, and by 6pm I was sitting in the far end of the terminal, having ice tea and free wifi. At about 9pm I went and checked in for my flight, and made my way to the gate; unf. the food didn’t look good at the cafe where I was online, and by ten everything was closed out by the gates. Grr. I had a miserable little piece of crap sandwich from the only thing open--Starbucks.
Then, at last, I was on my way, and asleep. At 5am we landed in Manila, and a Philippines Airways employee guided me deftly around all the immigration and customs and back to security and made sure I was thru ok, which was truly awesome. Then I waited around until my flight to Taipei was ready.
TAIPEI, 1/16
So, just some days before arriving I’d been exchanging messages with Jason, my contact in Taipei. Jason had sent me a friend request on Facebook some months ago, and, as I do, I had a look on his page to see what he was all about. It was in Chinese characters, mostly, so I sent him a message asking where he was from. And this began a conversation that led, ultimately, to this show. But in the meantime, as the show was drawing near, and we were getting into the last details, Jason asked me for my flight info. So, I sent him the details. But, then, a few days later, he asked me, once again for my flight info--so I sent it again, and didn’t hear back from him...hmmm. I got off the plane, cleared immigration and customs, and exited the arrivals area. No sign of anyone (oh, also, just to be extra extra sure I had texted Jason from Manila, yes, in the middle of the night). I walked around, trying to look like I was obviously me. No dice. I saw a potential rocker (Jason doesn’t feature himself, choosing abstract icons instead, on his Facebook profile, so I didn’t know his face) coming my way, I positioned myself to be seen and the guy strolled right on past. Ah. OK, I sat myself down at a coffeeshop in the arrivals hall, texted my location to Jason with no idea if he was getting my texts or not, and by the time my macchiato was on my table, Jason and his friend Duncan were approaching my table. They allowed me the pleasure of finishing my coffee and then we headed into the city. Duncan’s family during his childhood/adolescence followed his dad’s engineering gigs to Singapore and L.A. for some combined 15 years, and Duncan stayed on to complete school in L.A. and worked himself in the engineering field, so he speaks in colloquial American vernacular, actually reminding me in speech style quite a bit of my half brothers, he’s the same age as the eldest of my dad and stepmom’s three children. We drove into the city. Taipei shares some architectural motifs with cities in Japan--maybe a bit newer looking and less rambling. Tho it’s a big city, it’s by many degrees calmer than a city of its size should be. Again, no real center seems to be discernible. You could say the high rise mall by the central train station is the epicenter, and geographically you’d be correct--but people here don’t think that way. There is a rather inauspicious intersection of two main streets--not exploited in any kind of Shibuya/Times Square hoopla--that people call the focal point of the city. Duncan’s flat, where I was to be staying for the duration of my visit, is pretty close by. Duncan’s neighborhood has posh and trendy shops, but it’s not over the top glitz, even tho it’s prob. the choicest slice of urban real estate.
I showered up and we went to lunch nearby. Food is excellent in Taiwan, as far as I’m concerned, and remarkably cheap for the capital city of a country that has clawed its way into the first world as one of the Asian Tigers. After lunch we walked around the neighborhood (the West Side) and I found that Taipei has a serious wine mania. There were several shops devoted to wine, but then we went into Taipei’s 24-hour ‘bookstore’,
Eslite Mall, which is much, much more than a bookstore. It’s a gorgeously intellectual, but populist (I can’t explain that one, but trust me on this) department store, several floors’ worth. Now I understand the economic success of Taiwan. If pleasure is so readily available--gorgeous places to shop that aren’t cardiac-crisis expensive (Paris), but also aren’t plumber-butt bottom drawer like Wal Mart (my country tis of thhhhhhhpt), abundant delectable food in endless variety...well who wouldn’t work their tails off to buy in? In the US, your hard work will be rewarded in the following fashions: 50% of your paycheck will go to medical care that only being next door to Haiti can make us feel good about our accomplishments therein; then if you really make it you can fork over $100 to fork over ‘nouvelle cuisine’ that any French grandma wouldn’t force feed to a goose. Shopping is done in fat stores where fat dudes tell you that they have no idea which aisle the fat TVs are on. Fat chance. Spend ten minutes in Taipei where consumerism is much more of a sport/entertainment/lifestyle than the Americans who get so much crap for being consumers is, and you’ll realize: consumerism isn’t the thing being criticized--it’s just that we put laughable effort into laughable results.
Anyway, I bought a postcard in the basement stationery department--again, reminding me of similar shops in Tokyo, but far less cluttered, more spacious and elegant. Then we hit the record/DVD dept--mind blowing selection, including a wall of vinyls, some of which appeared to be vintage. Wow. Then we hit the wine section--dozens of square meters of accoutrements, and then rows of Premier Crus. I mean, what I just described took up two floors--what the hell was the book department like? Phew. I couldn’t even *go* there.
While we were out I picked up a set of strings for Jason’s guitar, his were pretty crusty, and then after a rest period we headed to the neighborhood of the venue, near the main University. We navigated the SUV down incredibly tiny alleys lined with bikes and cars, and managed to park somehow...dropped the gear at the venue. The Witch House, a very cozy little student bar that specialized in board games. Yep, they have walls of them, some for playing and some for purchase. They serve a little food, and coffee and drinks. No stage, just set up mid floor and go. Dinner was had, at a typical street stall, you see these all over town--ingredients to choose from (I chose some offal, some tofu, and a vegetable just cuz) are submerged in boiling soy sauce, a new take on the deep fryer, results are delicious, predictably. I washed it down with a bubble tea--milk with a little tea in it, sitting on black spheres of jellied-something or other. My favorite business name in a long time (that accurately describes the pleasant visual effect of the black edible jewels sunk down in the white beverage) was one of these bubble tea stands called “Wow....Frog Eggs!”. It’s basically like a milkshake in a way, separated into curds and whey. No ice cream, but cream, sure.
So, back at the Witch House, the gamers packed it in, and Jason’s band Queen Suitcase set up. Carla sings and plays keys, Lester (ok: here I interject that all the Taiwan kids had Anglo names with a particularly British twist--when was the last time you met someone under the age of 80 named Lester? Their birth certificates will show Chinese names, but that gets set aside, even by the parents) and Jason play guitar and sing, there’s an awesome bass player and drums too. But it’s not loud, this was in a tiny cafe and it was appropriate volume. I thought their music sounded like Os Mutantes, with a little swinging London. Less fuzz guitar. more like early Cardigans kind of tones but slower tempos. Really cool. We didn’t have many seats to fill, so it was easy to have a nice full house, I would say 40 people and that was the maximum--a few rows of pews at one end, by the door, a thin stretch of picnic table along the wall which would technically be in front of the players, so if I was facing ‘forward’ I would be looking at them across the skinny part of the venue, and the pews would be to my right. To my left would be some round tables and parallel with me, the bar.
I set up, did away with the PA because this audience was dead silent and the room had beautiful acoustics, and I had freedom to roam around and address the three angles in equal amounts. People were extremely receptive to the show (my intro in memorized Chinese helped), swaying when things got dreamy, leaning in when they got intense. There was a small exodus at one point when people had to catch the last trains, but actually a few more people came in at that point to, the net loss was survivable, and I played a very complete, enjoyable set, and people loved it.
Afterwards we piled in the SUV and headed to a late night eatery. The band and a couple of their friends. I was forbidden to pay, and only allowed to eat (I even drank beer, so caught up in the hospitality I was) delicious food which was seafood of every imaginable stripe plopped down on a lazy susan. I think we ate for two hours, by which time it was well into the single digits on the clock, and the place was still going strong.
On Sunday, Duncan had to work (he teaches English) for a few hours. I slept in, and started to write this blog entry--it’s been a massive undertaking. By the time D returned I was pretty hungry, and we headed by metro to the young people’s shopping district. I had a glimpse of the place when we stopped there yesterday to pick up my piano from another local musician. The district is dominated by a multistory karaoke palace. I had a recent epiphany recently about why in Asia the pop music is so cheesy, and why Peter Cetera, Air Supply, and other 80s dinosaurs seem to be the dominant musical trend of places like the Philippines. It’s because people’s musical life incorporates karaoke--and these songs are fun to sing. Cheesy-beyond-belief Chinese pop, Whitney Houston or her Indonesian counterpart--it’s all about how well it belts in the booths, a significant acknowledgment of the web 2.0 idea, if you think about it. Music doesn’t just come down from on high, from a place approved by the critics to be oohd and ahhd over (e.g. I asked my friends, who are musically astute if Fleet Foxes had made an impact here in Taiwan, and they said...uh.....absolutely....none). Anyway, Duncan and I warmed up for the upcoming eating Olympics with a little bit of gizzard on a stick washed down with Starbucks...strolled the shopping streets and then hopped the metro to the Nightmarket.
First it was a warren, a souk, a hive, a hive, a nest of food stalls and ultra cheap retail, some legit, some not. Then they moved all the food stalls into a permanent, covered location, a massive indoor market whose high, warehouse style roof sort of keeps the illusion that you’re wandering outside intact. Of course, as soon as they were moved out hundreds more moved in, so the main Nightmarket is still the same old thing, but there’s seats now by the food market. Or you can pick from the small vendors amongst the clothing/cigarette lighters/flip flops/makeup/whatever stalls in the retail area. The retail area is alleys, uncovered. Packed with little shops/stalls selling all kinds of things. In the alleys themselves more vendors set up impromptu ‘shops’--essentially items on a rolling clothing rack or an unfolded blanket. There is a tacit arrangement with the police about these illegal, impermanent, non rent-paying vendors--the cops walk agonizingly slow thru the market (not hard to do considering you are in a packed salmon stream of humanity in every alley), giving plenty of time for the impromptu vendors to get the word, pack up and move somewhere out the line of sight of the popo’s. We started our explorations in the food market. It’s hard to pick a place--signs and hosts/hostesses are clamoring for your attention, along with ingredients, finished products, smells and sights. We found a table in a place specializing in soups, and I had a soup of pig heart. Plus ‘stinky tofu’ which isn’t very stinky but is quite nice, and from a nearby juice stand I had a juice of some fruit that looked like a melanoma-encrusted cuke, some kind of knobby witch nose nightmare that was stunningly good. My friends all said ‘ooh, sour, right?’. Uh, no...after that it was just wander, pick, and marvel. There was this item that was some kind of hard cake, that was then smashed, the resulting gravel sprinkled with a sweet or savory ingredient of your choosing, and the whole affair wrapped in a tortilla made from basically uncooked pie crust dough...fuckin a. I chose coconut and I chose well. After all that, and a drink made from sugar cane roasted on a hibachi, put in a kind of wood chopper to extract juice, and spiked with ginger...I could have called it there but in fact that whole food market was the amuse bouche for the *real* Nightmarket--ahhhhhhhh! So, we spent hours walking, trancelike cuz that’s how fast you can walk when you are crammed in an alley with ten million other people, occasionally grabbing a humbow or fried tofu. And then! we went to the Taipei brewery. It’s not well known but you can enter the grounds of this massive beer factory, late at night, and there’s a cavernous space for food and drinking. We had a pony keg (and once again, I drank beer just because it was fun) and the guys taught me Taiwanese drinking games. I was way too uncoordinated for the rock/paper/scissors based ones, but could get a handle on ‘Turtle, Turtle UP’ in which you place your hand on the table palm downward but fingers pushing up so it’s like a little turtle, make the invocation, and lift ONE finger, hoping that you avoid lifting the same finger as the guy whose turn it is to make the chant. You switch back and forth, speed has a lot to do with the fun of these games...well, I lost. A lot! Eventually it was closing time, and we emptied the keg into to go cups, and went out on the street. Oh, by the way, I should mention now that Taipei was in the 50s F at night, which after the tropics, was unbearable. So standing around at 11pm with beers, oh...horrible. Until...Marco, one of our crew, disappeared and came back with a little box. Betel nut!
Betel nut, actually, technically does not exist. Betel is a vine, and the nut in this case is called areca and it comes from a type of palm tree. The nut is green on the outside, white on the inside with a brown core, pulpy, chewable but not really edible. The vine is like any vine. Plant-y. Centuries ago, it was discovered that the alkaloids in the leaf, when chewed with the ingredients of the nut, gets you a nice little high. It’s not only legal, it’s common in much of Southeast Asia, India, etc. In this case, the nut was sliced nicely in half but still connected at one end, so, butterflied, and a tiny slice of betel stem, making a disc a millimeter thick and about as big around as the battery in a watch, was glued to the interior of the nut by a gooey mix of spices, just a miniscule dab. You put the whole thing in your mouth and chew it, and soon your mouth is filled with juice, stained red by the spice daub (important: do not swallow). You spit it out, and continue to chew the pulp for some time. After 5 minutes, I felt warmth in my ears, and then warm all over, and slightly elevated. It works by causing your blood vessels to constrict, dispersing less heat to your exterior--with dramatic results. The effect lasts for about 5 minutes. There’s a little lift, caffeine like. But the sensation of warmth is remarkably effective, and saved my ass out on the streets of Taipei. I went for seconds! Then it was bedtime.
The next morning I was up early, my cab came at 8. Duncan helped me down to my ride and I was off to the airport. I had time to mail Aden’s postcard from the airport post office, then check in for my flight, then head down to the basement of the terminal (Terminal 1 is a little old fashioned feeling, a kind of hospital-like utility) where the food is. Three choices--BK, a cafeteria with Taiwan dishes, and a sit down place, Jimmy’s kitchen (remember: no Chinese names in Taiwan). For about 8 bucks I had a bento-type lacquered box with two meat choices (BBQ pork and roasted duck were mine), sauteed eggplant, rice, tofu, and some other vegetables I don’t know the names of. There was a bowl of brothy soup too. I ordered a coffee at the beginning as my only beverage, but they have this timing thing where they wait until you are exactly 85% finished to serve it (I observed this in the other tables, too--the coffee was brought, without prompt from the diners, at the exact same moment). Thus stuffed, I headed to the gate. How about this for a pleasant exit: after a friendly immigration counter stamped me out with no line, I WAS THE ONLY PERSON GOING THRU SECURITY. That’s a good feeling. No lines, holding your pants up cuz your belt is in the tray, etc. And once again, I was on Philippine airways, in the same left side bulkhead window that my travel agent (Lisa at STA Travel in Seattle, one of the best in the biz) had snagged me on the other PR flights. I must say that Philippine offers a substantial amount of space in economy on most of their planes. In the meantime--an Aussie couple was having a fight with the crew. I was delighted, hehehe. He: business class, the only customer on this flight. She: next row back. My row. Econo. He: trying to say that she could ride up front too, tho she didn’t pay for that. PR: NOT HAVING IT. Good! Fuck that dude--if you didn’t think your arm candy was worth paying the full fare for, that’s your problem; don’t act outraged you fucking NITWIT. Especially on a TWO HOUR ISLAND HOP, you GARGANTUAN PIECE OF BAD TRAVELER TRASH.
Landing in Manila, I was pleased that in their huff they forgot their IHT, so I grabbed that. I claimed my bag and headed to the other part of the V-shaped main terminal, for domestic flights. Air travel is crucial to this archipelago, and some flights are so popular that they use 747s. My flight was absolutely packed, but on an A330 (still a big one). I spent my long layover on the free net, and by the time we were up in the air I felt bad that I had asked the young guy to please vacate my seat (I was very gentle and polite, but still) just so I could look out the window at pitch black cuz it was dark. So, I could barely make out the lights and shape of Cebu CIty on our approach (furthermore, I was seated over the wing) but I could see it was pretty big. Nothing like Manila tho--man, that is an enormous burg. I had a good view when I flew out on the way to Taipei. I could count at least 7 huge clusters of massive steel-and-glass skyscrapers, and an incalculable amount of sprawl.
I got my bag, and searched around the bag claim area for a sign with my name on it--there were several resorts with HQs right there in the arrivals zone, but not the tiny guest house in Panagsama Beach I had chosen (and chosen well). I went out onto the busy street level and then found the clipboard with the paper with ‘String Fellow” on it and got in an absolutely stunning Hi Ace van, which I had all to myself. Soft seats and smooth sailing for the 2.5 hour drive past Moalboal to my destination. We went thru the heart of Cebu City which was all about insane crumbling markets, shack eateries and tailor shops--it all looked positively foreign in the blackness of night. Then we’d bust past a gleaming mall or resort, or a very American looking fast food diner, Bob’s Big Boy kind of vibe, but brand spanking new and 21st century retro generic, and then back to kind of anarchic urban swelter...then we started to over the hump of Cebu the island, and were winding...there’d be a blind curve, no lights, and then in the crook of the curve a little roadside eatery, no customers but available. Dips bottomed out in potholes, scrawny dogs didn’t get out of the way til the last second and eventually we came around the bend and saw the far shore below us, I was dozing (and ravenous) by then. We will had almost an hour to go. So, when I snapped too, man, was I in a movie set. Panagsama Beach: welcome to the place where Gilligan’s Island and Apocalypse Now meet. A stretch of dive (as in scuba, not a quality judgement) shops and guest houses, with a rocky stretch of shore on one side and a dirt road on the other; the non-waterfront side of the street having just as many dive shops and guest houses as the infinitely preferable ocean side. In the dark it seemed like the absolute shipwrecked ass end of the earth. Perfect...that’s what I came for. To get away for a few days and be free to do or not do. When I arrived at Hannah’s guest house, I was let in and led to my ocean front room, high tide meant waves were lapping at a sea wall about 3 feet from my door. And the woman who gave me the key walked me to the only restaurant that was still in full swing. I chose from a table of locally caught fish (some big ol’ prawns, in this case) they grilled them up and served them with some ginger rice and a mango shake that was impossible to get half a sip down without inducing an iron-spiked ice cream headache. Good tho. I came to from my groggy day of travels on planes and bumpy Filipino back country roads, and walked back to my shack to the birdsong of various two-dollar whores calling out to me from every rope-lit iron bar. Tattooed whiteys worked on their local rum buzz. Goodnite.
I got up for breakfast the next morning and made a great musical discovery,
Asin: the Philippine answer to the Poppy Family. So good. You could also describe it as if Nico’s Chelsea Girl album had been recorded with a really good Hawaiian band. It’s awesome. This was a welcome break in the fray of spending lunch, as I did, listening to the Outfield (seriously! Is that shit even on CD??) or dinner listening, as I did, to Miley Cyrus.
Tho I wasn’t into the fat guys with skinny girls two decades their junior vibe, other than that the scene here is way laid back, friendly, and safe. Lo season means there’s room to breathe and check out times are extremely lax.
However, I decided to spend Tuesday in bed. As by lunchtime I was a sick as the mangy dogs that roam freely in this hamlet. I emptied all ballast chambers in rapid fashion (it’s always astonishing just how much liquid the human body can evacuate, and for how long), and although this meant I would enter Vietnam defenseless, I had little choice but to consume my only series of Cipro. But I was determined to get over it, and it was with a hopeful eye on a morning snorkel that I took two Imodium towards the end of the evening.
At 6 some weird-ass critter woke me up. It was some kind of birdcall, that sounded like gasping, or coughing. It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t identifiable, that’s for sure. Amazingly, the wind-dislodged coconuts banging on my roof abated for the period of slumber. At 7.30 I was really awake, my stomach, which yesterday was a bloated source of stabbing, wrenching ick, was as placid as the morning sea. Nothing more seemed to be happening in terms of ejecta, so I bravely donned shorts and headed to the breakfast, and tentatively gummed some white toast. Then I headed to the dive shop and boarded a bouncing boat to Pescador Island. On board were the local boatman and dive guide, two German frogmen and a friendly Frenchman named Etienne, who was also promoting concerts as a sideline in Perpignan; and a young couple, a Finnish boy and a Swedish girl, snorkeling landlubbers like me. Considering the divers pay ten times as much to be on that boat as we snorkelers do, our presence was welcomed most hospitably. Pescador is a perfectly circular rock that rises up out of the sea a few minutes by super fast motor boat from our base camp. just under the surface, the rock widens out, so you have a bigger circle of coral, after which it all drops off and you can’t see anything. But the submerged coral zone is awesome for snorkeling. Our trajectory followed the divers, tho we couldn’t see them, but we flippered around the circumference of the island and met up with the boat about 80% of the full circle, about 40 minutes of snorkeling all told. The presence of the drop off is less intimidating as you have a few fishing boats and a couple of dive boats around. Swarms of fish of course inhabit the reef, and at the drop off there are huge schools of big sardines and other silver-colored food chain components. It was a pity to have to keep moving but there was no shortage of stuff to see. But just one huge outcropping of coral could easily serve as an hour of entertainment. The more you look, the more you see. As we came around to the side facing Cebu, the water was a little rougher and the fish bigger. Huge parrotfish, tangs and other interesting citizens were seen. And the water here was home to a large number of really weird jellyfish--they were slowly undulating pieces of ribbon. They didn’t seem too intimidating--if drifted too close to the bottom the fish picked at them mercilessly. We also spotted two sea turtles, one of whom did something I’d never had the timing to see doing: he/she came up for air, poking its cute little head above the surface for a gas exchange. I was hooked, so we zoomed back to base, and I was already ready for another go. I chatted with Etienne and his non-watersport oriented Cypriot gf, Hatice. They are quite nice, and we had France and music in common. She’s a classically trained violinist who has moved into a budding career as a singer of emotional, challenging vocal music like Gypsy laments and Russian romances. Snorkel # 2 of the day was at another drop off, off the coast of Cebu up a bit from Panagsama Beach. I was the only snorkeler, and I had a better idea of how to pace myself than I did on the earlier trip. I saw...well, so much diversity and color...electric blue critters gathered in a pop art tapestry; swarms of reef fish going for something edible that brought them up into my proximity; a box fish, ridiculous and clowny; surgeonfish, triggerfish, parrotfish, angelfish, butterfly fish...on and on. a huge sea cucumber, a yard long, and colored and textured and shaped exactly like the tail of a croc, down in a little sandy space. I haven’t mentioned the variety of textures and colors the coral and sponges and other adhered animals provide. Positively psychedelic, gentle and gorgeous. You’d see some eye catching, large boldly patterned fish, and then look closert at the same patch and then other, more intricately patterned ones would be evident, and closer still, and tiny monochrome ones would then be apparent.
By that evening word had gotten out I was a singing man, and down by the dive shop a short stretch of sandy beach provided an impromptu hootenanny grounds, some local kids brought a couple of acoustics and we sat on the beach and traded songs. I knew I had found my people when the following miracle happened: two 20-something Filipino kids with pot leaf emblems on their caps ask me for a BGs song and can bust out every line of ‘To Love Somebody’ and one, Tim, actually says at the end: “Non Stop, Massachusetts same key!” I was home. A couple of hours, 4 billion blazing stars, two bottles of rum (not for me), fifteen singing young Filipino men, one advising Frenchman, and one polyglot torch song-belting Cypriotte later...after a selection of White Lion, Ken Stringfellow, the Eagles...I mean, this was their call, not to mention a reggae version of ‘Wonderful Tonight’...we had a great time. There were some great singers. I loved that by the end, the very small guy who had been mixing the rum & cokes was flat on his back and not really able to get up when I said goodnight. Also, the management team of the guest house, who had discouraged us from coming on the patio so as not to disturb the other guests, who I thought were totally disgruntled with the whole spectacle, watching with frowns from the porch...well, they were just waiting for something they could sing along to, hahhaha. So, from their perch, they busted into something we did, it was hilarious. They were still frowning, but they couldn’t help it--when ‘Dust in the Wind’ or whatever came up, they couldn’t help themselves, they *had* to belt it.
Sadly, I woke up this morning ready for another round of le snorquelle but a storm had moved in. Water and sky were moody and grey. I saw the dive boats going, but I didn’t join them. Here’s hoping for a break in the afternoon.
Love
KS
Panagsama Beach, Moalboal, PHILIPPINES
