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.
