Words by shawn parker, executive summary by darmansjah
Uncovering the
mysteries of Malapascua, one tale at time.
the sun goes down on another day of diving in Malapascua, one of the world's most underrated scuba destinations
THE morning sun
had yet to break over the horizon; the sky was a torrent of purple and orange,
and the western beaches of Malapascua
Island were bathed in soft light. Towering palm trees clung to the edge of
volcanic outcrops, roots dangling in the waves below. Fish danced across the
surface of the sea, chasing their breakfast from cove to cove. I walked along
the beach and stopped to watch the slowly lapping waves reclaim the space
between the sand and the sea where my feet had made a soft impression. As the sun
pulled back the cover on the night to reveal a new day, I knew I had found a
vision of paradise, here in the middle of Phillipines.
myth and legend sit at the core of Malapascua culture through some real than others
Everything changed when I found the skull.
Bobbing softly in the surf, nestled between two blackened
boulders, the unmistakable visage of a bleached skull stared at me and I stared
back, I thought it must have belonged to a monkey, or a mystical island. As I
waded out into the water for a closer look, the identity became unmistakable-this
was a human skull, perfect in proportion
and obvious in distinction. While I pondered what I should do next-this was
first time I had found a human skull, after all-an old woman carrying a heavy
load of banana leaves came out the jungle and asked me what I had found. I
explained to her the circumstances of my discovery; she told me that by finding
the skull and returning it to its proper resting place, I was sure to be
blessed with food luck for the duration of my stay on the island.
At times, this island can feel like your own perfect, private idyllic paradise
The skull had come from an open tomb in the small seaside
cemetery. The old lady, whose name was Edita, speculated that a wave had
crashed ashore the night before and taken the skull and other old bones on a
voyage out to the sea. She told me of the bantay tubig, mischievous merfolk who
steal old bones from the graveyard and refuse to give them back until the poor
souls dedicate their eternities to the sea. “Sometimes the souls escape, “Edita
said, “and the bones was ashore. All they want is peace and quiet.” Together,
Edita and I returned the skull to a small open grave between two whitewashed
tombs. She lit a candle in honour of the old bones, and then, with a wink and a
smile she wished me well, welcoming me to the island she has called home for
more than 90 years.
PIRATES SHIPS AND
MANGOES
Apprehension overtook me. I had found a human skull floating
in the surf; that’s not the sort of discovery I thought I might make when I
decided to embark upon this tropical getaway. Friends had been telling me for
years that I must visit the Philippines that on the merits of beauty alone the
islands are unmatched, with restive and restorative powers unparalleled. I had
intended to spend an inordinate amount of time lazing on the beach, reading a
book, writing stories and chasing Red Horse Beer with shots of rum, perhaps interjecting
my down time with brief forays into the water to soak and snorkel. I thought I
might have to deal with sunburn or a sand crab in my swim trunks, but certainly
not the spirit of a headless fisherman. What Edita may or may not have foretold
held little consequence for me, a I felt as though I had awakened some dread
island spirit and the ancient eyes of the siyokoy were upon me. “Siyokoy are
the male bantay tubig, the naughty ones, and they used to sink pirate ships,”
Edita told me. “They did it for the gold and for the swords because they like
shiny things, if a siyokoy ever offers to show you his pirate sword, you had
better say no.”
A weighty presence fell upon my shoulders like a dark cloak
as I ventured deeper into the island’s interior towards the village of Logon,
Malapascua’s only settlement of substantial size, a place where coconut palms
and thick bramble block out the sun and a long forgotten rural world is
reality. The notorious reputation of this nation weighed heavily on my mind as
I followed a dirt path past thatched bamboo huts, tin-roofed workshops and
open-air slaughterhouses. It seemed as though everyone carried a sharp knife or
a weapon built to bludgeon. Even the children were armed; one pantless boy ran
past me with a sharper knife. This is a country where heavily armoured men
guard toy stores and candy shops and where the automatic rifle could be the
symbol of the national bank, so I’m not ashamed to say I was frightened.
A young man minding a fruit cart called out to me, waving an
exceptionally large knife in my direction. As I approached the cart, the young
man sized me up, one eye squinting, the dull blade dangling in the air between
us. He asked me if I liked mangoes; I considered my options and swore that I
did. The young man wiped his hands on a white shirt streaked with a
kaleidoscope of bright colors then hacked at a o me. He asked me where I was
from, what I thought of the Phipippines and whether or not I’d like to stay and
help him run his business. “The pay is very bad,” he said, juice running down
the side ot his mouth, “but the fruit is very good.”
I explored the rest of Logon with my faith in the Filipino
condition reinvigorated as an uninviting, hostile place; state departments
expound on the dangers of visiting and spend little time on the virtues. My own
personal experience couldn’t represent a more disparate attitude of place. The
same clichés people use to describe the people of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos
hold true here as well; Filipinos are gentle, spirited, charming, and open. One
Logon family asked me to join them for a meal, another to rub the belly of
their lucky black pig, while one man asked me if I would do him the honour of
beheading his prized chicken in preparation for a mighty feast. I respectfully
declined this last invitation, having seen one too many severed heads for a
single day. Instead I bought a bottle of rum from a sideways-leaning bamboo
shop stocked with American products and shared it with a few village elders,
men who remember the island before it was touched by tourism. The philipines
exists on a plane somewhere between east and west, an Asian tropical paradise
with a Latin verve and vigour, a placxe where mystery and myth hang in the air
– and shift on currents beneath the waves.
The Malapascua Titan
Filipinos like to wax lyrically on
the subject of the siyokoy and the sirenas (their female counterparts), and
I found myself treated to numerous tales of deep sea tomfoolery during my stay.
In spite of a fear of all things oceanic, I decided I would to do some snorkeling,
a so many others come to the island to do. I fastened a pair cheap goggles to
my face and packed my ears full of gauze as a defense against the amourous eyes
and spellbinding song of the sirenas and slipped into the deep blue sea not far
from the island in a place boatmen consider ideal for snorkeling. This
particular spot has long been a graveyard of sorts, and down in the deep I
discovered more old bones. Scattered on the sea floor are the steel skeletons
of Japanese WWII fighter planes, harbingers of death that now play host to
immense coral gardens and a vast array of sea life.
I spent an hour swimming through the wreck, chasing baby
barracudas and dodging tiny dorsal fins when suddenly the sun above
disappeared. The light was extinguished by a black apparition; naturally I
thought the siyokoy had come in search of pirate booty, and I’m glad I was
underwater at the time because I screamed like a little girl. As my eyws
adjusted to the dark I realized that this was no spectral beast, but rather a flesh
and bone Mlapascua Titan, a creature
otherwise known as the thresher shar. I screamed again and swallowed half the
sea.
By virtue of its shark-ness the thresher is a terrifying
fish, yet it is mostly harmless to humans, thought it does manage to cut an
intimidating silhouette on the sea with its disproportionately cnormous
blade-like tailfin and striking resemblance to its evil cousin, the Great
White. Ruperto, my boatman, assured me that I was lucky for spotting one so far
from the Monad Shoal, a rocky stump where threshers, rays and other sharks’
congregate in the predawn hours.
Malapascua has become one of Asia’s premiere scuba destinations on the strength
of pristine coral gardens, high visibility and the opportunity for divers to
swim with a wide variety of primeval beasts, and here was my opportunity to
experience thebest of the ocean. I make a decent meal and swam off into the
sea. Ruperto hauled me aboard his boat and we returned to shore with the sun
setting over our shoulders. “You are always safe around the thresher,” Ruperto
said, “But you need to watch your toes when you see the hammerhead.”
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Legends soar on currents in the rarefied air above Malapascua.
On the island’s eastern shore, on a sandy plateau where the waves breaks and
the water turns smooth, there exist ancient totems of wood, some bamboo and
some banyan, slender poles erected in the sand built to hold coconut bird’s
nests aloft over the water. The nests captured my attention by representing a
sublime beauty that I had never encountered before. Exploring the island’s
atmospheric interior, swimming with sharks and lounging on the beach are all
great reasons to visit Malapacua, but as I stood in waist-deep water watching
the birds fly I fell in love with travel all over again.
In a testament to the island’s narrative legacy, I was
treated to three different stories related to the existence of the nests. A
squid fisherman told me that the birds had grown tired of living in the dark
island interior, and had move their nests out into the sea so they could watch
the sun set. A group of gregarious children told me that their fathers had
trained the birds to fish for them so that the men could focus on more
important work, and the birds did such a good job that no one on the island
would every go hungry. One old man told me that birds patrol the seas at night,
ready to ward off the siyokoy should they come ashore looking for bones and
souls to drag into the ocean.
I never did meet Edita again, and I never had the chance to
ask her about the birds. Time has a habit of slipping away before it’s gone,
and before I realized it, my time on the island had come to an end. A tropical
utopia that sits a few kilometers off Cebu’s northern tip in the municipality
of Daanbantayan -one of the Philippines’ most densely populated and frequently
visited islands – Malapascua is worlds away from any other place on earth.
Malapascua embodies the best of the Philippines with sand, surf, sun, scuba and
snorkeling in abundance, but is above all else an ephemeral paradise, a place
where myth and magic have mixed to create experiences that are as enchanting as
they are enlivening.
At the northern tip of one of the most developed provinces
of Philippines, the tiny and idyllic island of Malapascua appears to inhabit a
world apart, with laid-back villages, simple beaches and unparallel diving.
Getting There
From Singapore,
fly to Cebu city’s Mactan-Cebu International airport with Cebu Pacific (cebupacificair.com), Silkair (silkair.com) or Tiger Airways (tigerairways.com). From Cebu’s North Bus
terminal, take a four-hour bus ride to Maya (US$4), where boats to Malapascua
leave regularly from 6am to 6pm daily (US$1).
Getting Around
Malapascua is not big; a good three-hour walk will take you
all around the coast of the island.
Further Riding
Lonely Planet’s Philipines
(US$27.99) guide features Malapascua in it’s The Visayas (US$4.95) chapter,
which can be download from lonelyplanet.com.
For more on the Philippines and the island, visit tourism.gov.ph.
Three Ways To Do
It….Malapascua
Budget: sleep;
located on the southwest of the island, TEPANE
BEACH RESORT features rustic cottages built with local materials like
bamboo, stones and straw, all looking out over the ocean. Staff who go above
and beyond the call of duty to make your stay a pleasurable one (from US$33; tepanee.com).
Budget: eat; GING-GING’S GARDEN RESTAURANT offers
the very best economy dining on the island and remains popular even in the low
season. The Italian café espresso might not be authentic but their pasta dishes
are. They also have chocolate pancakes that are worth true love (meals from
US$1.50-US$2.50).
Budget: do; Take
a hike from BOUNTY BEACH, which runs
the entire length of the south coast, trek up to the lighthouse on the island’s
northern tip. Round it off by heading down to the basketball court in the main
town of Logon, to take part in one of the frequent, informal tournaments that
blend local and foreign talent.
Mid Range: sleep;
Its name inspired by the Latin word for seahorse, HIPPOCAMPUS BEACH RESORT has some large and very well-designed
terraces set back from the beach. It is fronted by a restaurant that serves
breakfast on the balcony and dinner on the beach (with fan/air-con from
US$33/US$82; hippocampus-online.com).
More Island
Adventures Around The Philippines
snorkel with gentle giants in Donsol
DONSOL
UNTIL the ‘discovery’
of whale sharks off the cost here in 1998, Donsol
was an obscure, sleepy fishing village. Now it has become one of
Philippines’ most popular tourist locations. During the peak months of March
and April, the question isn’t whether you will see a shark, but how many you
will see. You can also dive at manta Bowl to catch the manta rays and take an
evening river cruise to see fireflies.
STAY Vitton Beach Resort is next door to the
visitors center. Its spacious grounds mean that even when the beach is busy
with boats and whale watchers, the comfortable cottages in their garden setting
are quiet (from US$40; 63 0927 912 6313)
GETTING THERE The
nearest airport serving Donsol is
the Legazpi Airport to get there,
fly into either Manila or Cebu and catch one of the many daily flights to
Legazpi serviced by AirphilExpress (airphilexpress.com)
or cebu Pacific. Donsol is a one and
a half hour drive from Legazpi (US$35).
CAMIGUIN
WITH over 20
cinder cone 100m-plus high, Camiguin
has more volcanoes per square kilometer than any other island on earth. Besides
the usual diving, snorkeling, sandy
beaches, waterfalls and hot and cold
springs, Camiguin offers the
chance for jungle trekking, volcano
climbing, rappelling and anything else can dream up.
STAY Camiguin Action
Geckos Resort offers perfectly constructed, spacious, hard-word cottages
with verandahs combined with touches of class and taste. To top it off, it sits
on one of the widest stretches of beach around (from US$42; camiguinaction.com)
GETTING THERE Mid-Sea
Express (midseaexpress.com)
flies thrice weekly between Cebu and Camiguin.
Aviator (flyaviatour.com) offers
affordable charter flights throughout Philippines. By sea, there is a daily
morning ferry that leaves from Jagna on Bohol to Camiguin at 9.30am. The boat from Cebu for Camiguin leaves every Friday at 8pm.
BOHOL
catch sight of the smallest monkey on earth in bohol
THE LUSH island
provides of Bohol offers independent
travelers a wealth of options both on and off the beaten track. The island’s
short-lived independence at the turn of the 19th century resulted in
today’s successors of the republic becoming fierce protectors of Bohol’s
distinctive cultural attractions of the Chocolate
Hills and tarsier monkeys, it’s jungle
interior, rice terraces and offshore islands that captivate travelers.
STAY The Peakcock
Garden is nestled on a hilltop with a great view of the sea. The European-styled
resort lies on an expensive property featuring manicured gardens and an
Olypmpicsize infinity pool (from US$195; thepeacockgarden.com).
GETTING THERE
Bohol’s main airport is the Tagbilaran
airport. From Manila, fly with Airphil Express of Cebu Pacific. Mid-Sea
Express flies twice weekly between Cebu and Bohol.
BACUIT ARCHIPELAGO
It’s no exaggeration to say that this is the reason to visit
the Palawan region. From any vantage
point under water, from the air, lying prone on a beach – it’s a fantasy escape of mesmerizing jagged limestone island resting in
the crystalline water of Bacuit Bay. The islands hide many white-sand
beaches, hard-to-access lagoons and peaceful coves. The best way to explore the
Bacuit Archipelago is to rent a boat
for a day (between US$30-US$40) from El
Nido.
STAY Miniloc Island
Resort is a premier resort in the Bacuit
Bay itself, located in a sheltered cove. Cottages are perched over crystal
clear waters. Prices include meals and use of kayaks, and other sports gear
(from US$165-US$200; einidoresorts.com).
GETTING THERE
from Cebu or Manila, fly into Puerto
Princesa International airport with either Airphil Express or Cebu Pacific.
From Puerto Princesa, a shuttle van take you to El Nido in about five hours (US$15).
