This photo was from my first day in Costa Rica, where I wandered around San Jose, made friends with Joey from Denver, and read most of a book while sipping iced coffee high above street level.
I was drunk. We were drunk. This was a real bonding experience for the five of us. Later, I would jump off the deck of that boat into the sea.
An immensely hungover walk through the jungle with my new friends.
Living at the foot of a volcano in a town called La Fortuna, because they were yet to be wiped out by molten-hot magma really went to our heads.
This cemetery was something else. Keats and Yates are on your side.
A moody sky over the coffee plantation. A humbling look at beans.
The only way to get to our penultimate stay was by water taxi. I was all for it. So were the crocs.
We hired bikes for the day and rode around Puerto Viejo like straight up gangsters. If you look closely, you’ll see my big pimpin’ mates coming round the bend.
My second week in Costa Rica has just meant more adventures. We visited a coffee co-operative where I learnt about the ridiculous amount of work that it takes for a cup of coffee to end up in front of me. Then I had a cup and saw into the future. The best goddamn coffee I’ve had in thirty years. We got picked up by tractor and taken out into the rainforest to spend two nights in a lodge. I got a nice break from the rest of the world, swam in the rivers and went out on bird-watching hikes. I wandered around with no shoes on, connecting to Mother Earth and getting all hippie and spiritual about things. We were given lessons in making empanadas and I watched rain pour as I sat inside with a good book.
Back in the world, we visited Tortuguero, a town built on the edge of the river, only accessible by boat. We hired kayaks and found cayman living on the banks. I gave up and finally had to do some washing. We hiked up another mountain, looking out for jaguars and I tried eating termites – would recommend. I had too much to drink at extended happy hours and gave fashion a good kick in the teeth with my mismatching outfits. We moved over to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast where I politely declined all offers of drugs and rode bikes out to the beach. Later, I got hammered on tequila and sang Mr Brightside at karaoke.
Every day felt longer than any I had ever known. I was up before the sun but in time for the howler monkeys. We moved around and saw so much that it felt like the trip was never going to end. Then, before I knew what was happening, I had to get in a taxi at four in the morning to head home. I will never forget the things I saw, did, or most importantly ate while in Costa Rica. I met some lovely, funny, interesting and dynamic people and cannot wait for my next adventure.
For now, I’ve got a lot of washing and some saving to do.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to sum up what I have done and seen in the last week. It feels like I’ve been on the road for a lot longer than is possible. Every place I have visited has been beautiful in its own way, from the city of San Jose up into the mountains of Monte Verde and across the river to La Fortuna, a town named after surviving two volcano eruptions.
I’ve met some incredible people and pushed myself to do things I never thought I would. I’ve been canyoning, zip lining, white water rafting. I’ve fed fish and monkeys. I jumped off the top deck of a boat while rum drunk. I have failed to adjust to the time difference. I have thrown myself into waterfalls, rivers and hot springs. I bought sun tan lotion with bronzer in it by accident. I’ve stumbled along with the few Spanish words I know and a little bit of charm. The food is absolutely insane. I’ve got peeling shoulders and sleepy eyes and dirty feet and I am very, very happy.
The pressure was on. As Jaz had bought me tickets for Body Worlds for my birthday, I agreed to arrange the outing for our February adventure in London. I had thought about the Saatchi Gallery but when I looked at the exhibits there was nothing that really caught my eye and I figured I could come up with something better. I didn’t tell her where we were going, just that we had to be up early.
We came out into the brilliant February sunshine (yes, I know it’s a weird sentence and a sign that Global Warming will kill us all) and we headed over the bridge towards the aquarium, the London Eye and Shrek’s Adventure. The area is a bit of a tourist trap, mostly because it’s walking through glue because of the number of rubbernecking tourists with pushchairs and prams there are along the South Bank. We ducked inside the Aquarium to collect our tickets and I was pleased to see that it wasn’t as hideously busy as I expected the death rattle of the Half Term holidays to provide. There was still time.
Jaz and I have a mutual interest in the unknown, space and the sea are fascinating to us, as they should be to anyone. Last month when we were in Greenwich it was the Astrology Photography that really got our pulses racing. Similarly, I can sit and watch a fish tank like a fat tabby cat.
The first room had stingrays and skate all flapping around like CGI extras in Aquaman. I sat on the floor and wondered what their agenda was. I was also struck by how extraordinarily cruel it is to keep something that is supposed to be free in a glass case. Then again, I work in an office in London.
The aquarium is designed with young families in mind. That wasn’t going to stop me taking the opportunity to crawl into the domed tanks or stroke a starfish. We were told to gently stroke one of the legs. I fought the hideous compulsion to give it the old death grip. It felt like a short-haired dog, but underwater, and red and not a dog at all. The other clue that the aquarium is set up to entertain little people is the position of the tanks. I kept banging my head as I stuck my big old face as close to the tanks as I could to try and befriend the seahorse army and make them do my evil bidding. Each time I would come up and nearly crack my head open on the faux-cave design.
The best tank is the giant circular beast in the middle that you can get different views into as you work your way around. It’s in here that they have the sharks and a couple of giant turtles, upon whose backs the known universe sits. Again, you have to delete out the part of your brain that tells you they need more space than the enclosure to enjoy it but my god, those creatures are beautiful.
I also have a lot of time for penguins. It always feels like they know something that we don’t. I think that thing is how to dress to impress. Those guys always look so fucking dapper. The last room was like the ambient chill out room in a club, except full of jellyfish. As children, my brothers and I would often spend our time in the sea on holiday worrying, probably unnecessarily, about jellyfish attacks. The drab, plastic-bag looking motherfuckers you see off the coast of Normandy are nothing on the spunky maniacs they have at the London Aquarium. I didn’t have to feel bad about the jellyfish because like musical theatre kids, they like bright lights and have no identifiable brain.
After the aquarium we played Air Hockey, which Jaz not only beat me at but then gently gloated about, until I beat her at bowling. We wandered along the South Bank, visited Foyles where she bought me Lee Israel’s book and then we stopped for lunch at the BFI. I’m still thinking about their courgette fries today which is testament to how good vegetables can be if you just think about it for a minute.
We got coffee and sat outside St Pauls, watching young siblings chasing each other up and down the steps, secretly hoping they would fall over. Then we crossed back over the river and found our way up to the viewing platform of the Tate Modern – the art isn’t to my taste but the wine certainly is.
It was another day to celebrate what London is best at – being a hub of activity and fun, a place where, as long as you can fund it, you can enjoy it.
I have been lucky enough to take my second trip away in two months. I spent the weekend in Pencaitland, just outside Edinburgh for three nights with a group of friends. We were all there to watch the Super Bowl. I know you all must be wondering the same thing, why would I ever be involved in purposely watching a sports game.
I guess I must have really wanted to spend time with this group of people – enough to overlook my usual aversion to the world of sport.
It was a grand weekend where I ate too much, drank too much, realised that I am still terrible at PitchCar but equally fantastic at very British quiz questions.
My highlights included:
· Managing to secure a room and a bathroom to myself, which I assumed at some point would be taken from me.
· Not having to, or being able to, go to the gym for four days
· Breathing fresh air and getting out away from the usual nonsense
· Spending more time with Darren
· Escaping the “sports room” where the “lads” were watching the “Super Bowl” to watch the trailer for Avengers: Endgame, because I have my priorities straight
· Making a lot of Brooklyn 99 and Arrested Development references
· Playing the game Horse, but with skittles
· Bringing down the survivors of an Antarctic base with Ben
· Going for a four mile walk that included a village pub
· Playing Hey Joon on the piano
· Eating my weight in nachos
· Shouting the four key phrases I’ve got in my locker in relation to American Football
· Listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack while getting hammered with Two Tennants Sam
· Wandering, hungover, through Edinburgh with Marcus, killing time before the train home
We may have shouted at one another at points, but it came from a place of love and anger, so it’s all in good fun.
Here is to next year, and the hopes that I will be the champ.
With two days left of 2018, I booked a flight to Spain. My Shoe Brother had made a vague offer of lodging and that was enough for me. I have mixed feelings about the changing of the year but I have good feelings about travel.
I know what you are wondering. What is a Shoe Brother?
Over half a lifetime ago, I was in a Physical Education lesson being bullied. It doesn’t take an awful stretch to look at me as an adult and understand why I would have been bullied as a child. I was skinny, bookish and at odds with the DJ Luck & MC Neat-loving morons who made up much of the alumni of my school. In one particular act of bullying, a gang of them tore off one of my non-branded trainers and hurled it onto the top of the cricket netting in the sports hall. They also took another kid's shoe and did the same. Then, suffering a crisis of bullish confidence, they grabbed a pole and attempted to retrieve the shoes they had just stole. The pair of us both stood on one leg, a socked foot raised in the air in tribute to those vile idiots who probably look back on that day as a high point of their lives.
The other kid looked at me.
“What’s up, Shoe Brother” he said.
Therein began a friendship which I absolutely cherish to this day.
Luke is currently out in Spain, living “off-grid”, completely unaware of the nonsense in your social media feeds and unwise to your petty concerns. The way he sold it to me sounded incredible so I booked a flight out so I could spend the first part of the year, and indeed his birthday, in his holy presence.
Luke picked me up from the airport and we ventured down to the coast. We spent time outside, a lot of time outside. We hiked up mountains and out to abandoned lighthouses. We ate as vegan as we could for a country built on its love of carne. We laughed a lot and we had some drinks and he made me dance on a cliff face while he drummed a beat on a steel pan. We washed up paella-stained saucepans in the sea. We practiced meditation on the beach. We got really, really cold from failing to dress appropriately for the plummeting evening weather. Most of all though, I just really appreciated him.
We are at an age when it becomes, or we make it become, increasingly more difficult to spend time with the people you have the longest and deepest connections with. It’s strange to think of the boys we were and the men we have subsequently become. He is a good, good person and that’s something to be treasured.
I hope 2019 treats me as well as the first five days did. I hope I can laugh and eat and be outdoors in the sun. I hope I get to connect and feel understood. I hope I can read in my spare time and talk in my taken time. I want for so much and it was granted to me so recently.
Having refused to pay 300 rupees extra for an air conditioned cab, I sat sweating in the passenger seat with one elbow hooked on the open window to try and spread some breeze around my body. The road was dusty and wild. There were children leaving school, walking along the side-lines and staring as this strange white boy whizzing by their village.
The taxi driver asked for the details of where I was staying. I showed him a screenshot on my phone. He shrugged and drove me to the beach. I asked along the road where the accommodation was and they shrugged too. A tuktuk picked me up and took me two kilometres down the road to another beach. I was still in the wrong place. I started walking back, frustrated and hot, my pack on my back. A motorbike rider stopped and asked where I was going. I was so used to accepting that everyone I came into contact with was totally chilled and helpful that I immediately climbed on the back when he offered to help (sorry mum). We whizzed back along the road. He asked a number of people for directions to my next stop. They didn’t know. I was eventually dropped off at Big Chill Restaurant. For some reason the name rang a bell. I ran up to ask for directions. The reason I recognised the name was because it was linked to the seven huts next door known as Lumbini.
I sat down. They offered me a smoke and a beer. I had arrived.
Akshay, who ran the AirBnB side of the business, arrived. He had this amazing relaxed and relaxing vibe about me. He led me through a humid area of forest which hosted the seven huts he proudly called his business. He had set me up at the furthest end. He marched up three steps to a small covered porch area and opened the door. Inside was a bed and a ceiling fan. There was a single light on the closest wall and a door at the far end. The door led out to a bathroom which was made of wicker and covered over in plastic sheeting. There was a toilet, sink and shower. Imagine a wet room built by Mad Max. I unpacked my bag and chilled out on the bed for a bit. I had a week ahead of me and I was glad I had just one room to call my own for that period. That was it. It was perfect.
I wandered back up to Big Chill and sat with Akshay, drinking Kingfisher beers and eating curry. My bill was less than a fiver. I went back to my hut and discovered I had been thoroughly chewed by the local mosquito population. The mosquito net I had carried with me for a week was my best friend.
I woke upat five amwhen the mosque around the corner put out the first call to prayer. I listened to some podcasts and tried to pass the time before breakfast. Despite how well I had eaten in recent days, I was hankering for some food. I headed up to Big Chill and looked through the menu. I couldn’t help myself and went for the “English breakfast” – a cheese toastie, fried eggs and potatoes fried in garlic. Elsewhere in Goa I saw these same items listed as a Russian breakfast. I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
After I had eaten and been given directions to the beach by Akshay, I headed out. Next door was a small convenience store where I bought a packet of cigarettes for the first time in forever. That week, after quitting smoking maybe seven years ago, I smoked four packs of Marlboro Lights.
I walked out to Patnem beach and tried to walk around the coast. There was nobody else around. I came round a rocky corner and realised I was fifty feet up above the rocks. I climbed up and over, jumping between boulders, my flip flops not giving me the best chance of being safe. After a couple of close calls I realised I couldn’t make it along the coast in the way Akshay had suggested so I walked back and took the road round to Palolem beach where the taxi had dropped me the day before. While Patnem was quiet, Palolem was full of Indian, Israeli and Western backpackers and holiday-makers. Stall owners waved to me and tried to call me over. I bought two tiny pairs of yoga pants for my niece and nephew.
Down on the beach were a number of hastily built up bars. On either side of them were crews of workmen digging and welding, working to get more places up before the summer season hit. I sat in the front of a bar and ordered a coffee. It was still too early to drink beer. Mr B, who ran the bar, came and sat with me, asked where I was from. He told me he was originally from Bristol but there was nothing about him that looked or sounded Bristolian. He made me laugh and I dropped by his bar every day I was in Goa. He said I could leave my bag there while I went for a swim in the sea. I was so excited. I’ve always been a water baby and love being able to throw myself around in the surf. When I was a kid, my parents bought bodyboards for me and my brothers and we would see who could ride waves along the beach until the front of the board dug down into the wet sand and we were flipped off.
It felt great to get out into the water. Waist deep were gangs of Indian men throwing themselves into the incoming waves. I joined them, laughing and whooping as the surf crashed against our backs.
Back at Mr B’s I had my first Kingfisher of the day. I got talking to the only other English guy there, Rob. He worked the season in Goa and returned to his dad’s place in Notting Hill the rest of the time to pick up a job in a pub. He had been doing this for seven years and never saw a UK winter. Rob took me to the other bars frequented by him and his friends. We spent the day drinking and dodging flash floods that were still hitting the land to mark the end of the rainy season.
I agreed to meet Rob that evening, at Tattwa, the bar where he worked. I had an Old Fashioned with him and sat down for the best Paneer Butter Masala I’ve had in my life (so far). I had another beer and headed back to my room. The vibe in Goa was completely different to the other places I had visited. The zen state in Rishikesh was gone, I was enjoying the sun and the booze and not having a schedule. I sat out on my porch, smoking and finishing off another beer before bed.
The call to prayer woke me up again. I listened to the rain and the insects until breakfast. I had egg and beans on toast with juice and coffee – I still hadn’t worked out how to “do Indian” for breakfast. I walked to Palolem and wandered around the coast, trying to find Butterfly Beach. I was again met by harsh rocks and turned back. I could feel my shoulders burning so sat in the shade amongst the stray dogs and honeymooning couples until I fancied a beer. I walked back to see Mr B and was told that it was Gandhi Day, a national holiday where nobody in India drunk alcohol. I had a coffee, read some Harry Potter and went for another swim in the sea.
I went back to Big Chill for lunch and ordered a traditional Goan curry. I was told I might be able to get a beer later if I didn’t drink it in public and didn’t mention it to anyone. I don’t know if my blog counts so I won’t reveal my sources.
I walked out to Patnem beach, strolling from one end to the other. There were more bars popping up. It was still quiet in comparison to Palolem. I swam in the sea but had one eye on my bag, which I had left propped against a boat pulled up on the beach. I walked back to the road and was prepared for a short walk back when I heard a motorbike pull up behind me. I moved aside but the rider stopped and told me I was looking a bit pink.
He offered me a ride. I accepted immediately (sorry again Mum) and rode bitch back to Big Chill in just a pair of wet shorts and my flip flops. I chilled in my room until dinner and had a huge plate of the traditional Indian dish – penne pasta.
The secret beers came through. They were hand-delivered to me, wrapped in newspaper. I skulked back to my hut with them clinking together in the darkness. I cracked them open on the bedframe and slept very well for it.
I woke up with the call to prayer and waited for breakfast again. Life wasGroundhog Daybut I was happy with that. I had some stuffed roti with pickle for breakfast. It cost half what my other breakfasts had and the spice put a spring in my step for the day. I walked to Palolem and was sat in Mr B’s bar drinking beers when I got into conversation with a couple from Brighton who were sat at the next table – Georgie and Jack. They were very humble about the amount of travelling they had done (when it was loads) and we talked through our favourite places. They asked about my tattoos. We talked about Glastonbury andArcade Fire. They told me they were heading to Agonda beach to visit a tree that was renowned locally for being full of fruit bats.
“Do you want to come with?” they asked. The joy of travelling on my own was that whenever an opportunity came up to do something, I didn’t need to confer. I was the only member of the committee. I could do whatever I damn well chose.
“Definitely” I said.
Half an hour later, the three of us were shoulder-to-shoulder in the back of a tuktuk on the way up the coast to Agonda. Jack spotted a monkey in the trees and we all jumped out to take photos and watch this family leap through the trees. It was amazing.
The driver dropped us at the tree. We stared up. I had never seen anything like it. Every branch was loaded with bats. They looked like fruit themselves.
We walked through to a bar and set ourselves up for the afternoon. There were tables and chairs on the beach under huge parasols. Jack and I shared big bottles of Kingfisher (so they didn’t have time to get warm). Georgie had a few daiquiris and then switched up for vodka. We started talking to a couple from Liverpool sat at the next table. They eventually joined us. Jo and Dave were in Goa for three weeks as they had worked out it was a much easier option than waiting for their new place to be available at home after moving. They had a son who had been backpacking a year or so before and they clearly had the travelling bug too. Their place was on Agonda itself.
We sat around drinking until it got dark. Georgie kept running in and out of the bar, trying to get Wi-Fi. Her dad, also a scouser and also called Dave, had flown into Goa and was meeting her and Jack to travel around with them. We all knew the pain of transferring through airports, not sleeping properly and feeling jetlagged so when Dave Two arrived we made sure he had a comfortable chair and a large Kingfisher. It started to rain so we ducked under the canopy of the bar. He told me an incredible story about playing pinball with Morrissey. There was immediately something about him I liked.
Dave One got chatting to a local fisherman who agreed to take him out the next morning.
“Paul, do you want to go fishingat 6am?” he asked. The joy of travelling on my own was that whenever an opportunity came up to do something, I didn’t need to confer. I was the only member of the committee. I could do whatever I damn well chose.
“Definitely” I said.
I woke up at six. I was still drunk. My clothes were strewn around my hut. My alarm was going off. The calls to prayer were going. I could hear rain on the roof and insects burrowing through my en-suite. I had a horrible feeling that Drunk Paul had got me into a situation. I then remembered that I had agreed to go fishing. I wasn’t sure if I knew how to fish. I had been fishing once before and my friend Charlie accidentally hooked a pigeon. I’m also a vegetarian. What was I going to do?
I stumbled outside and put my shorts and a shirt on. I found my way to the waiting car. My head was ablaze. We rode in silence. I was a condemned man. We stopped for Jack and then headed back to Agonda again, the scene of the crime.
We had to help get the boat in the water and like the man in charge of taking the anchor up, I was feeling ropey. We were all given a bottle of water which I then gently suckled at for two hours. We headed round the coast to Butterfly Beach. I got to see it from the water at least. It looked like Tracy Island.
In the distance we could see other boats out on dolphin sighting tours. We were able to see them leaping out of the water from where we sat.
I tried fishing with just a line. They gave me a rod. I managed to hook the ocean floor a couple of times before everyone else realised I had no idea what I was doing. Jack and Dave caught five fish in total.
Each fish they hauled in was passed over to our fisherman guide. He rested the wriggling fish on the side of the boat, raised a length of wood up in the air and beat the fish to death with it.
“They call that The Priest” said Dave from the front of the boat, “because it’s the last thing the fish sees”.
I said a prayer for my fishy bro.
Jack and I sat on the beach and ordered breakfast once we were safely back on dry land. We then dove into the sea (without waiting the required thirty minutes after eating). We messed around in the surf until he remembered we needed to get back to the others. Georgie and Dave Two were supposed to go out dolphin spotting but had (somewhat understandably) stayed in bed.
We took the scaled victims of our cull to a restaurant on the beach where they cooked them up in a mix of spices and served them with beer and sides. If I ate any fish because the opportunity was so brilliant that I couldn’t avoid it, then I’ll deny it until my deathbed.
We all reconvened at a bar called Fernandes to be thoroughly bad influences on each other and get good and drunk. A small Labrador puppy came and sat with us. We named her Sandy. She had so many fleas that her fur looked like static. She fell asleep in Georgie’s lap and I think she fell in love.
Dave One was excitedly watching locals haul in huge fishing nets which scooped round the entire bay. We went to check out what they had caught. It seemed the rest of the town had the same idea.
We got half cut and headed to the best pizza restaurant in Palolem beach – Magic Italy. It was recommended by everyone I spoke to. Due to alcohol consumption, I don’t remember much but I know we all had a lovely time and the tiramisu deserved a knighthood.
It started to rain. It wouldn’t stop until the morning. Georgie, Jack and Dave Two were heading for Hampi in the morning. It was the last time our motley crew would be together. It was strange how close we had become in just a couple of days but I was gutted to see them go. They said we would all meet up when we were back in the UK.
Jo, Dave One and I watched the rain pour down as we tried to find a taxi. We were heading in different directions but they insisted on dropping me off. I promised I would meet them for lunch the following day.
I got back to my hut and collapsed on the bed. I wondered how I would ever return to a life of relative sobriety and calorie counting after this.
I woke up filled with dread. I didn’t know what the problem was. Then I remembered it was my last full day in Goa. I got up, showered, dressed and had breakfast with Akshay. He gave the most incredible life advice and was happy to sit and chat to me whenever I found myself in the Big Chill. He promised that one day we would meet again and go trekking in the mountains in the north. He had given up a career in advertising and marketing to run an AirBnB and he seemed so fulfilled and so happy that I took whatever advice he was offering out.
I walked to Patnem to meet Jo and Dave for lunch. They were a genuine and warm couple who seemed to enjoy my company so I was only too happy to spend more time with them and learn what their lives were like back home. We all spoke at length about life back home and I was glad when the heavens opened because it meant I could spend more time in their company and enjoy their humour and warmth.
That night I had dinner and a lot of rum with Akshay and headed warmly off to bed. I didn’t want to go home but I was glad to be doing it with so many happy memories of a unique part of the world.
It is often only once you are clear of an experience that you are able to recall it for what it was, as a whole, and with absolute joy. That is how I feel about backpacking around the Philippines with Clarissa. It was the best of times, and then, for a little tiny bit, it was the worst of times. Now we are back and everything is in order and it is the best of times again.
We flew overnight from Heathrow to Hong Kong and then on to Cebu airport. The Philippines is made up of over seven-thousand islands. We had two weeks. We would have to island hop at a rate of five hundred islands a day if we were going to do them all.
Q: How big does a bit of land have to be before it is an island?
A: It can still be smaller than a football pitch or an extra-large pizza.
Cebu City is nothing to write home about, except that is exactly what I am doing, so I guess I have to. In the way that The Beautiful South sing that it could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome, Cebu City could be anywhere, anywhere alone. It’s tall and it’s dirty and there are enough air-conditioned 7Eleven stores for all the backpacking white kids to get their toasted sandwiches and bottles of Hooch. We stayed in a hostel that seemed to be entirely populated by muscly guys in backwards caps and nip-slip inducing vests and their bleach-blonde, cup-of-tea-tanned girlfriends. They all talked the same way and had no idea about anything. It was quite nice to sit and listen to idiots. I hadn’t done so in hours.
We slept in bunk beds, using our towels as bedding and were up early the next morning to get down to the ferry port to try to make it to somewhere more interesting. Somehow we failed to get the ferry we wanted, to Dumaguete, and wound up waiting out the next one to Bohol by having breakfast in a local café. We swatted flies away and elected to sit at the table in front of the fan so we could attempt to survive in the humid new world we had found ourselves in. Brunch was an omelette and a delicious sparkling lemonade called Sparkle.
The ferry from Cebu to the Talagaban port on Bohol took under three hours. We took the cheap seats up on deck and somehow I managed to sleep, awaking to find my neck stiff and in need of WD40. We didn’t know anything about Bohol, having left our Lonely Planet in the company of an illustrated guide to the films of Wes Anderson and a signed copy of Simon Pegg’s Nerd Do Well. That was thousands of miles away on my bookshelf. We decided we would just follow the crowds.
When we got off the ferry, the taxi drivers kept asking us if we wanted a ride to Alona Beach. If that was where everyone else was going then we figured we might as well. We took a forty-minute trike ride across the beautiful island to the Tip Top hotel (that was the name of it, not the conditions in which we were treated) and we swam in their pool and wandered down to the beach in search of dinner as the sun set. I was mercilessly attacked by mosquitos as we sat with beers and vodka and pizza and pasta, hardly the veg and rice combo we were expecting of our trip. Afterwards we hit some of the bars along the beach and Clarissa took it upon herself to name all of the feral cats and homeless dogs we spotted. We were offered tattoos, massages, tequila and who knows what else. We decided to take up the offer to go on a tour around the island but when we got to the tourist office, drunk, they told us they were closed and we needed to come back in the morning. We booked another night at Tip Top and fell asleep despite the buzz of the air conditioner.
The next morning we joined all the other white people in Bohol on a mini bus tour. We thought we had just signed up to go to the Chocolate Hills but actually got a lot more for the £8 each that we paid.
The Chocolate Hills are worth the trip, a series of alien-looking mounds in the middle of nowhere. It’s a bit of a tourist trap but you have to expect extreme ends of the spectrum in the Philippines. We rode for two hours, with a brief stop to try and sell us tickets to see the biggest python in Bohol, before we got there. We trekked up two-hundred steps to parry away selfie sticks. It was hot and we were closer to the sun and arguably, to God.
Once you’ve got “the shot”, there’s not really an awful lot else to do, and the turnaround for viewing the Chocolate Hills is close to that of reheating a casserole.
Our next stop was a bamboo bridge. It looked cool but the tips of our flip flops got caught in the loose, woven reeds. Locals overtook us while casting the stink eye and I wondered if we were supposed to stand on the right like the escalators on the underground.
We took a river cruise with lunch. Our meals were limited by our decision to become vegetarian. There was a buffet, from which I was able to get some rice, noodles and fried vegetables. Everything else was dead animals. I also ate some watermelon, which may have just been a garnish. We were served iced tea while a pair of tiny Filipino girls who had taken both barrels of a shotgun loaded with make up to the face played covers of Ed Sheeran and The Carpenters through a blown speaker. The sun beat down on the green of the river and I watched a group of boys fishing off the bow. We pulled up alongside another barge where children danced and played ukuleles and their masters made international gestures for “give us your money now”.
Our next stop was a church or museum that we refused to go into in case we instantly burst in flames. It was worth taking the trip to see what was on offer. Bohol was cute but there were still a lot of other places we wanted to see. We didn’t want to get stuck in one place.
We booked a flight from Cebu to Puerto Princesa and arranged a car to pick us up at five in the morning so we could be at the port in time. We went back to the beach and tried to explain vegetarianism to a waitress before being served anchovies. We looked like fussy and preposterous idiots. We got a buzz from buy-one-get-one-free cocktails in a reggae bar.
The next morning we got up, got dressed and headed to the port. We slept on the ferry as terrible karaoke versions of even worse songs played loudly on the static-blessed TV above the seating area. We woke up in Cebu. It was eight in the morning and we didn’t have anywhere to go or anywhere we needed to be until our flight that afternoon. We decided to go and get breakfast in the mall and ended up stuck there all day.
For some people, the idea of being trapped inside a shopping centre for a full day is the stuff of dreams. I am not one of those people. We spent the first two hours sucking Wi-Fi up in the “Travel Centre”, a weird corridor with USB sockets and showers. We then sat in a supermarket café drinking watermelon-heavy tropical juice drinks full of pulp, sap and pips. The mall opened and people threw themselves under the up-rolling barriers like there was a 50% off sale on weird behaviour. We explored everywhere before realising we should have taken a bit longer about it. We searched for breakfast and ended up chewing mushrooms and eating garlic-coated spinach with noodles and iced tea.
We watched the Cebu chess competition and then booked tickets to see Guardians Of The Galaxy 2. That’s what you do when you’re in Asia right? Go to the cinema? The film was great. I only cried a bit.
Afterwards I needed to replenish vital liquids I had lost because of my stupid feelings so went to Starbucks, refuge of the white person travelling. Our barista was very excited that we were from England. I told her I was in Harry Potter and she gave us the Wi-Fi password. I went to the bathroom and two small boys mimed playing basketball which I think was a comment on my height. I felt like I was Gulliver on his travels. The people of the Philippines are very small.
We got a taxi to the airport and had to switch out layers of clothing to make sure our bags, which were small enough for carry on, were under the weight limit. 60% off my bag was taken up with snorkels. We didn’t need an awful lot else.
I was amazed at how quickly we were out of the terminal on the other side. We literally walked out the door. From there we took a trike to our hostel to change for dinner. The driver proudly told us that there was a new international airport opening that week.
We tried to book the underwater cave tour of Puerto Princesa, the only reason we were in town. We were told we would not be able to do so until the following day. We decided to go out for food and plot our next step. We got a trike back to the centre of town, which was a crossroads. There was a loud tiki bar and very little else. We ended up back at the restaurant next to our hostel, trying to explain that we didn’t eat meat, or fish. We were then offered crab. The plus side was that the beers were cheap.
We decided we would get out of Puerto Princesa, and head north to El Nido. We had been told it was full of tourists. What difference would we make? The difficulty was in getting there. It was about six hours away by road and we had no transport. We managed to book a minibus for the next morning. I should have realised that for the price there was no way it was a private hire. I think we paid 2,000 pesos (£30.00) for the privilege.
The following morning we were up, packed and ready before 9am. We had our complimentary breakfast of eggs and coffee before waiting for our lift. They were late. I sometimes forget that not everybody is as uptight about time keeping as I am.
Eventually we were all loaded into the van. We drove for fifteen minutes before stopping at some kind of human filling station where every other seat was given up to a butt. We sat there for half an hour, without the engine and the air conditioning running, while women in rags offered us bags of apples, waiting for our driver to be ready. We drove for a couple of hours, long enough for me to fall asleep. It was raining when I woke up. We pulled under a wooden awning. Water ran along gutters and splashed down heavily in designated areas. Motorcyclists pulled in to attempt to dry off. In the tradition of Asian people wearing t-shirts with random English phrases on them, one of the motorists had Damp on his shirt.
We continued on. Eventually the rain stopped. We dropped some people off. We picked up some more people. The average number in the car remained the same. We pushed rice paddies and farmland and headed up into tight mountain passes before coming back down the other side and into El Nido.
The driver let us off and pointed roughly in the direction of our guesthouse. Either someone else’s luggage or the rain had soaked through Clarissa’s bag. As soon as we got to our room she had to unpack everything and hang it outside. There were crosses on the walls and psalms in wooden frames. The Wi-Fi password was JESUSCHRIST (All capital letters-no space). I waited to burst into flame.
We walked to town. There were beautiful bronzed people in vests and flip flops everywhere. Some were drunk. Some had accents. There were stalls and bars and a beach. We explored. We bought spring rolls and pasta and pizza from a restaurant on the beach. We had cocktails and beers and decided to get a trike out to the other beach to watch the sunset. We got a lift with a man who told us his name was Police. He looked like Rufio from Hook. He said we would wait for us. There were thousands of trikes everywhere. I doubted I would ever see him again.
We climbed down to the beach, had beers, swam in the sea and the sun went down. This was what travelling was supposed to be about. I felt more relaxed than before. When we got to the top again, Police/Rufio was waiting. We got a lift back to town and decided to get blind drunk.
We had every cocktail on the menu. We ended up at some hideous Ladies Night at a bar on the beach. I remember scowling at someone who told me to smile. I remember dancing like Vincent Vega in Jackrabbit Slims. I remember shouting in someone’s face about Bohol. The next thing I knew I was back in the guesthouse and my head was spinning and there was Jesus Christ on the wall and JESUSCHRIST in the Wi-Fi and I was being sick. Clarissa joined me. We yin-yanged over the bowl and she passed out on the floor. I went to bed and returned to be sick moments later, stepping over her unconscious body. I repeated this four or five times and then passed out. I woke up and threw up in the sheets. Clarissa was in bed. She told me to go to the bathroom. Women make a lot of sense.
The following morning the phone rang and broke my mind. When I picked up the receiver I was told that breakfast had been served. I put the phone down and passed out again. Half an hour later there was a knock at the door and our breakfasts had been put on the table outside, surrounded by Clarissa’s clothes that were still drying. We stumbled into the light and I slowly forked pancakes This was holidaying. We decided we should probably leave. We checked into another guesthouse up the road and took our hangovers to the beach.
We all know that it is important to stay hydrated. My friend Emma shouted “hydrate or die” at me for a week while we were in the Sahara desert. I am going to blame the hangover for the fact we walked the length of the beach before settling down under some palm trees. I swam in the sea, snorkelled for a bit and then stretched out to tan up. The next thing I knew I was burnt. I was burnt and dizzy and still hungover and very thirsty. We hobbled back until we found a café to get some food. My legs started to change colour. My back did the same. It turns out that spending a long time floating face down in the water like a corpse does wonders for tanning. We eventually headed back to our guesthouse and I napped until the evening. I started to feel really ill, worse than the hangover. I still don’t know if it was the hangover or food poisoning or good old fashioned sunstroke but the next few days went by in a blur. I couldn’t get up or do anything. My stomach hurt and I lost my appetite and I got really pathetic and needed my mummy.
Clarissa had to tell me I was being pathetic a number of times before we were able to move past it. We decided we needed a change of scenery so checked into Double Gem, a place that was at least three times more expensive than anywhere else we stayed in the Philippines. For that price, a young man carried my bag to my room and there was a complimentary toothbrush. We relaxed in the pool and heard the most hilarious exchange.
A couple swam past us. I presume they were a couple but he was clearly gay. It’s difficult to tell. A lot of Filipino men seem to be gay. Kind of like the British. As if they wanted it to become a hilarious anecdote, he turned to her and said “How are you feeling? Still itchy?”
We looked at each other incredulously. She looked at him in horror. We have repeated it as a catchphrase every day since.
The next day, with my head clear and my bottom no longer a risk, we headed out on an island hopping tour. Not only did we have to pay over the odds for the trip because we were staying in a swanky pad, but we also had to pay a Riverboat Fee for pollution or something. Watch out for that. We were joined by a Filipino mother and daughter, a guy from the US and a young German couple, who may or may not have had a Fritzl-like relationship. I couldn’t possibly say.
We headed to another beach. There were palm trees. There were a lot of boats and therefore a lot of people. I tried snorkelling but was constantly worried about coming up only to be smashed in the head by a passing boat. It was like something out of a Hollyoaks episode. The next beach was teaming with people. Some couldn’t swim and kept their life jackets on, even when sat on the sand. All around of us, young locals tried to take selfies. A couple of them tried to sneakily take photos with us. It’s the most obvious thing in the world. I hadn’t experienced anything like it since Peru. Eventually we conceded and posed for these photos. We then wondered what they possibly did with them. What was the point of having photos of white people?
Somehow the crew were able to put together lunch for the seven of us using just whatever they had on the boat. Of this, we ate rice and mango. The fruit was so good that I couldn’t have wanted for anything else. I followed it up with cup after cup of Coke. Why does Coke taste so much better when you’re overseas? That’s rhetorical. It’s because they don’t have to abide by our silly laws on the contents of fizzy drinks.
Having filled our bellies they let us back on before we jetted off again. Five minutes later we pulled in beside a cliff, they lowered the ladder and we had to swim to the next bay as there were so many other boats. The cliff right-angled and we followed it in. There was a small opening in the rock face that people were crawling through. This was the Secret Lagoon. With scraped knees and banged heads we made our way inside. There were sheer walls all around us and a small bay where people safely paddled in water up to their knees. We queued to come back out again. It wasn’t all that secret and it wasn’t all that exciting.
We snorkelled with fish drawn to the boat by the leftovers that the crew threw over the side. Clarissa was overwhelmed by the numbers of fish. She has a thing about creatures that flap – butterflies and pigeons and the like. It turns out that the thought of the fish touching her was too much. She quickly got back on the boat.
We were dropped off at the north end of El Nido where there are great chasms and rocks to kayak in and around. I let Clarissa sit up front and steer. We only collided with one other boat before we worked out what to do. After that we were an Olympic-grade rowing team. We swapped over and she commented on how the skin on my back was falling from me like carved meat from an illuminated kebab van. My legs were peeling too.
Kayaking was great. By the end of it the pair of us had decided we would invest in one when we got home and take it out in the Estuary. People talk bollocks when they’re on holiday, don’t they…
We got back on the boat and stopped in another bay. We all went swimming, including the Fritzl girl and the two Filipino women. After a couple of minutes I heard one of them screaming and flailing. Without a thought for my own safety I swam over and held her up while the crew found their way over. I thought I had saved the day. It turned out that her legs had stopped working which is not a real malady. She was in a life vest as well. It really put some perspective on the ridiculous things I panic about.
We got back to our shore. There were crabs and starfish in the crystal clear water. We picked up our bags and headed onto the next place to stay. I felt a bit like a hermit crab, constantly crawling along in the sand with a pack on my bag, searching for somewhere shady, my tiny bug eyes and pincers scanning the immediate area.
We found a place right by town which meant we could go out for another dinner I couldn’t stomach before getting back in time for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Minority Report. The trip was a real lesson in the works of Tom Cruise. He’s made some great films but there’s something deeply unnerving about him.
We took another internal flight, back to Cebu. We got a ride to Moalboal to spend the rest of our days in peace. The rest of our holiday I mean. We got a privately hired minibus with a cool driver called Benjie. He let us stop for snacks and sang along to the radio as we lazily dozed. He offered us a lift back in three days time, when we would be heading back to Cebu to fly home. It seemed like a good idea and we gave him a deposit which Clarissa said we would never see again.
We were in Moalboal for one reason, Kawasan Falls, the famed canyoneering site everyone heads to. We checked into yet another place and realised we didn’t have any food. The resort didn’t offer anything aside. We found a weird German/Filipino hybrid restaurant. Yes, that’s a thing. It was a hut with the feel of a German beer hall. They served schnitzel and bratwurst and pad Thai and chicken abodo. We had chips. The glamorous life of a vegetarian.
The following morning we had another breakfast of eggs and got a lift to the Falls. We were given helmets, life jackets and contracts to sign before being loaded onto the back of a motorbike and driven up into the mountains. I hadn’t been on the back of a motorbike since I was a kid. It filled me with a renewed sense that I needed to learn how to ride. Another promise to myself that would seem empty once I got home. We were dropped off and had to walk through the jungle and to the falls. I instantly forgot our guide’s name and called him mate for the rest of the day.
It was one of the best experiences we had. The scenery was beautiful, beams of light breaking through the canopy of trees overhead as you wonder about safety and exactly how far thirty-five foot is.
The key thing is learning how to fall with style. It took Clarissa taking a tumble on our second jump before our guide decided to teach us that you simply stepped off with one foot and then used the other to push you away from the edge. There’s a lovely GIF of the fall somewhere.
We returned to our new accommodation, next door to the original, battered and bruised and ready for food and sleep. We ate very well while we were in Moalboal, everywhere had something we could eat.
We took another boat tour out around the islands and saw the sardine runs and a sea turtle being hassled by locals. There’s something incredibly freeing about snorkelling and watching nature. I could have stayed below the waterline forever.
We spent our last day chilling by the pool and trying to remember exactly how we were supposed to function in the real world. It turned out that our driver got a better offer so sent someone in his place. Someone who turned up fifty minutes late. After sitting in traffic for two hours we arrived at Cebu airport to be told we had missed our flight. We then had to sleep in the airport hotel before booking onto the flight out the next day. We then missed the connecting flight out of Hong Kong. It took us fifty-five hours to get home. Those were the worst of times.
Like I said, with all of that nonsense out of the way I can appreciate how incredible the trip was and how lucky I am to enjoy a place that is yet to be completely ruined by people just like me.
It takes me back. It takes me back seven months and reminds me of what we went through. The first thing anyone else seems to notice is my smile. I hate my smile.
I see the bus.
That was the bus that was supposed to collect us at the end of the trek and take us out of the desert after trekking 100km together. That was the bus that broke down.
When we got to it, we thought we were done. We thought we had finished. We still had a couple of kilometres to go but we waited for the laggers to catch up and everyone went through together. We cheered as we crossed that invisible finish line. Then we somehow had beers and we sat on the dunes and took photos and messed around. There were two buses. There had to be for the one hundred of us. I remember the smug face of the guy in the doorway of the first bus who wouldn’t let me on because he said it was full. I was forced to wait with my friend Adam and the rest of his stupid team.
We realised the bus was still stuck two kilometres back and it made sense for us to go to it. Once the sun had set there wasn’t an awful lot left for us to do. Once the beers were finished, there was nothing left for us to do. The temperature started to drop. It got below freezing at night, well below.
We got onto the bus and tried to stay warm. We were taken off so they could try and tow it out. It didn’t work. We sat on the sand and lost more of our body heat. We were ordered back onto the bus. We tried singing and playing games. Nobody had any food. Nobody had any water. We waited for four hours before the original bus returned for us. We were lucky. We laughed it off anyway.
Then I notice my top. My merino wool base layer. Essential, we were told, to insulate us and to self-clean. I wore it for five days straight. It became a second skin. The smell would probably make your eyes water. I only had one because the combo of top and trousers was £100.00 and I figured I wouldn’t be going back to Mongolia anytime soon. I was right.
Next it’s my Action Challenger neckerchief. A Schiernecker-chief if you will. I was given that scarf when I trekked my way up the Inca trail to Machu Picchu exactly two years before. I was so sick on that trip but I learnt a lot about my inner strength, what I was capable of. I refused to give up. I refused to drop it. I’m far too stubborn and it’s not often enough that it’s a good thing.
Then I see my Ray Bans. Actual Ray Bans. I had a pair before that I picked up in Argentina. Those were Roy Bons. I bought the actual Ray Bans in the great spending spree of April 2016, shortly before Adam and I went to Thailand and found exactly the same thing for 200 baht (£4.00). I don’t really go in for the whole brand thing but Ray Bans are cool. They’re cool like Jack Daniels is cool.
It’s only after that I am able to see my face. The beard that had grown out through our days in the desert. The weird way my hair sat when it was full of smoke, sand, grit and grease. The strange dent between my eyes, either through concentration or Resting Bitch Face. The crow’s feet that appear now when I smile. The hook of heritage in the shape of my nose. The tiny shadow of a puncture mark in the lobe of my left ear from when I let my brother go at it with a sterilised safety pin and a champagne cork. The dimples and for a rare change, what looks like a jawline. The teeth. The smile. The memories.
Seven months after we flew out to Mongolia, I look at this picture and I forget about all the stuff that bothered me. The things I left behind that I worried about. The trials and tribulations that we all faced along the way. What it reminds me of is that I am the sum of my experiences. I have no recollection of this photo being taken but it looks far too staged to be candid. I would love to go back there, to that moment, to be with the friends I knew and the friends I had made. To taste some more questionable meat in noodles and brine. To listen to the sound of the wind whipping up the tarp as I tried to get to sleep each night, clenching the opening of my sleeping bag together to keep whatever heat I could inside. To drink more straight vodka in a week than I probably had in the rest of my life. To walk every day with a pack on my back. To not want for anything else. To just go. This picture speaks exactly 860 words.
This photo was from my first day in Costa Rica, where I wandered around San Jose, made friends with Joey from Denver, and read most of a book while sipping iced coffee high above street level.
I was drunk. We were drunk. This was a real bonding experience for the five of us. Later, I would jump off the deck of that boat into the sea.
An immensely hungover walk through the jungle with my new friends.
Living at the foot of a volcano in a town called La Fortuna, because they were yet to be wiped out by molten-hot magma really went to our heads.
This cemetery was something else. Keats and Yates are on your side.
A moody sky over the coffee plantation. A humbling look at beans.
The only way to get to our penultimate stay was by water taxi. I was all for it. So were the crocs.
We hired bikes for the day and rode around Puerto Viejo like straight up gangsters. If you look closely, you’ll see my big pimpin’ mates coming round the bend.
Luke picked me up from the airport and we ventured down to the coast. We spent time outside, a lot of time outside. We hiked up mountains and out to abandoned lighthouses. We ate as vegan as we could for a country built on its love of carne. We laughed a lot and we had some drinks and he made me dance on a cliff face while he drummed a beat on a steel pan. We washed up paella-stained saucepans in the sea. We practiced meditation on the beach. We got really, really cold from failing to dress appropriately for the plummeting evening weather. Most of all though, I just really appreciated him.
We are at an age when it becomes, or we make it become, increasingly more difficult to spend time with the people you have the longest and deepest connections with. It’s strange to think of the boys we were and the men we have subsequently become. He is a good, good person and that’s something to be treasured.
I hope 2019 treats me as well as the first five days did. I hope I can laugh and eat and be outdoors in the sun. I hope I get to connect and feel understood. I hope I can read in my spare time and talk in my taken time. I want for so much and it was granted to me so recently.
Paul Schiernecker 