Coron, Palawan, the Philippines

So good to be back in Asia. The smell is so repulsively wonderful and familiar, like inhaling your own fart.  The Philippines is different to other places I’ve been in SE Asia, but vibrant and verdant in that fecund SE Asian way. Manila is just another Asian megalopolis but its demography is astoundingly prodigious.  The population in the Philippines is enormous: even the smaller islands we are to visit teem with tens of millions, and these are backwaters unheard of outside the archipelago.

Coron has a different vibe. A bustling seaside town with slums towns transcending their dilapidation by proximity to azure seas. The decaying shanties and shacks take on a graceful magnificence by their juxtaposition to the magnificent bay. Views which would be reserved for select few if transposed to a place where people who move and shake in the wider world wished to reside are seen from the doorstep of wooden shacks.

The sea is life here, for fisherman, washerwomen, divers, cooks and tour guides.  There is the faint redolence of fishiness pervading every narrow street and alley, choked with bikes and trikes and rickshaws and tuk-tuks and taxis, surging and chaotic and paradoxically efficient, as only Asian spaces can be.

I waited while Theo went into a 7-11 and a truck thundered through a dense crowd, suddenly jettisoning a crate of coke bottles from its cargo. Without fuss or prompt a woman appeared and began sweeping up in the centre of the busy intersection. Another two men appeared: one directed traffic while another picked up the crate and gathered the unbroken bottles and larger shards.  In a few minutes the intersection was clear. I offered the street sweeper some pesos, which she demurely declined. She was waving at me as out taxi sped away.

It was our final day in Coron. Stoically hangover, we lurched toward breakfast and then staggered about in the humidity, artlessly accomplishing insignificant tasks; buying t-shirts, picking up dive gear, getting massaged. It was only when Theo and I realised the days main attraction was going to be a cock fight later in the afternoon did the fetid haziness lift and our ramblings attained a purposefulness that allowed us to enjoy the languidly our accommodations afforded.

In the characteristically frustrating manner befitting all Asian men, but more so in the Pines, our inquisitions as to the time and place the cock fight resulted in several vastly different answers: “fight started at 9am”; “fight start at 3”; not on Saturday, no!” “Only on Sunday!” “Never on Sunday!” “Sunday always cock fight day!” “Cock fight not far”; “cock fight too far!” It was all on or all off, near or far, nothing was true unless observed for oneself.

Eventually, perforce suffering the misguided politeness, we prepared for a reconnaissance to discover the scene for ourselves. According to local custom, it is better to give woefully inaccurate information than to confess ignorance. Accordingly, our rickshaw driver nodded as we issued instructions to take us to the cockfight, then gave is every reassurance our destination was his easiest fare.  Theo seemed naively trusting of his misplaced confidence, while I had some doubts. After a short distance and a brief survey of his vehicle,, I began to doubt his fitness as taxi driver and interpreter. Somewhere out of town his initial confidence spluttered alongside his engine, prompting a renegotiation of our directions with gratuitous repetition of the words 'cock' 'fight' and 'chicken', which drew a lot of knowing nods and “Ahhhhs!” and a frighteningly abrupt U-turn. A few more repetitions of chicken sounds and we were on our way.

Again I could measure our driver’s confidence in the RPMs and as we were rattling back into town I felt the vehicle slow and had a vaguely unsettling premonition. 

“Theo, I reckon we’re going back to town to get a roast chook”.

Alas, my hunch was correct, proved by a predictably confusing hand to mouth pantomime. It took some skilful hand puppetry and vociferous rooster impressions by Theo to finally intimate, beyond a doubt, that we wanted to go to a cockfight. Another swift, near fatal U-turn, a thumb squeeze on the throttle and a vigour hitherto unseen by our man behind the wheel, and we were on our way. We arrived at the deserted block and were given a brief but believable explanation that the cockfight was to take place later that afternoon. At this point, all we could definitively know was that the cockfights were no currently taking place.

We waited around until the cock cages staring filling up and some very shady characters began to arrive. It was suddenly very apparent we were the only non-locals who were attending the cockfight and some of the reluctance to divulge the details of the cockfight may have been premeditated for our own good. Nonetheless, we were here. Unfortunately there was no rush to start the fight. Our bus was due and the first cocks were well off the rumble.

We amused ourselves with every imaginable pun and as more conniving eyes began to lust after my camera and our general presence, we waited on the highway for our airport transfer bus. As the first cocks bustled about on the arena our bus arrived and we left without witnessing one bloodied feather. The cock fight action was to be another day.

Love Hurts - A noir vignette

The day was bleeding out into the dusty front bar of the Tattersall Hotel. It had been a big day in the small town. The annual goat races were a big draw card in Barcaldine and the rest of the hoopla hung about the main event snapping up punters like a fly zapper on a veranda. There was more of a scene going on down the road at the Shakespeare, but I preferred the crowd here. They were as lively as a jar of pickles with livers just as well preserved, but they mostly left me alone.

Besides, I was waiting for Tamara and I didn’t wanna have to jostle at the bar while I was with her. I wanted to enjoy every minute of her company with the privacy of people well-mannered enough to mind not stare too much. Because Tamara got stares. A lot of stares. It didn’t bother me too much. Mostly. Besides, a guy my size could usually stare at pretty much anyone and they wouldn’t stare back for too long.

I had been waiting a while, keeping one eye on the window while the sun set and I sipped my through my fourth Jammy and soda and suddenly there she was. Like a left jab to the breadbasket she took my breath away. She wore her long black hair down and dressed in the short blue dress bought special for the goat races she was too good for this scene and a washed up boxer like me.

Tamara practically floated up the footpath to the hotel and was headed right to me. Then I saw the look in her eye. My stomach did a little readjustment as I watched the pack of three big apes in shiny suits tailing her, and calling something out from behind her back. They wore grins on their monkey faces and their catcalls were as cheap as their white shoes. I pulled a pineapple and left it on the bar. It was a big tip, but I knew I might need a friend with tight lips in a short while.

As Tamara stepped up to the door I stepped out and into the path of the goons. A small grin curled up the side of my mouth as I saw Tamara’s mock disapproving look. Three of them, one of me. Love hurts, but not for me. Not tonight.