Week 10 -- Visayas

The Visayan Islands are the middle band of the Philippines, separating the northern island of Luzon from the southern Muslim state of Mindanao.


Cebu City
Cebu is the capital and trade hub of the Visayas. It is a dingy, bustling port town set amidst plantation islands of sugarcane, mango, mahogany, and coconut palm. The color of Cebu is predominantly grey; the vibrant paints of its old farmhouses have faded under a masque of soot, grime, and jeep exhaust; its old cathedral stands gloomily at the end of a string of neon-lit whorehouses. Dusty motorcycles labor up and down its hills like beetles, carrying missives and parcels for the rich Chinese families in the outlying settlements. On a warm night, you can ride with these carriers in the open air, packing two, three, even four onto one bike. There are no traffic laws in the Philippines -- the bikes hurtle along with abandon, passing beggar boys, trundling jeepneys, farmers laden with cane and wheat, collapsed houses in the road, and the inevitable packs of pregnant strays that seem to infest every corner of the country. Traveling in Cebu reminded me of the immense antiquity of this country -- its old Spanish churches, the cross Magellan erected upon beaching here, the lazy key palms drooping over its roads -- and how all this has faded -- its stacks and stacks of garish billboards, the kids playing in its streets with silver handguns, the transsexuals and pimps leering at you from its street corners. It is a world well removed Manila, closer to the fresh roots of the islands than the engines of the West; it is even sadder to see the corruption beginning here.


City Hall, Cebu City


Temple of Lions, Cebu Island

Panilau Island / Bohol Beach Club
One takes an open-air ferry from Cebu to Panilau, a sleepy isle ringed with white and gold beaches, coral reefs, and dark blue water. Divers come from Australia and Greater Asia to scuba here, and little bars and shops cluster on the coast to hawk conch shells and fake Rolex watches. There is a terminal wind from the southwestern sea -- hot, clean, and unflinchingly intense. The palms all bend backwards before it, and the wind never seems to cease. Prim white diving boats and cattarans idle in the surf, hooking anchor lines around the boulders on the beach. You trip over these lines when you walk the beach at night. Quiet, quiet, interminably quiet, one listens only to the wind; even the waves seem to hush for it. Sunburnt dogs and white cats sleep on piles of broken coconut shells, and dusky red kelp drifts through the warm shallows. Panilau remains silently noble, untarnished by the traffick and opportunity of larger settlements; it is a dying breed.


Bohol Beach


Bohol Beach, Twilight


Lake Laguinita

Tarsier River Region
In the heart of Panilau is the Tarsier River, so named for the tennis-ball sized monkeys inhabiting its banks. Ridges, actually walls, of old green foliage enclose the river on either side; the trees are mahoganies, mangos, sycamores, and key palms; here and there you will see a chocolate-colored farmer, barebacked, scaling one of the coconut trees on footholds hacked out by bolo knives. Fisherman drift in warped little boats through the shallows, dangling nets and bamboo poles -- the water is an idle green, murky, but not polluted if you stay far enough upstream. We took a motorboat up to the riverhead, where the water tumbles down from low, fern-dense waterfalls into a deep basin suitable for diving. The lower walls are covered in slippery moss, making ascent nearly impossible. I fell twice back down into the basin, sliding on the stone and nearly decapitating myself on the projecting sycamore roots. We had to be guided up by a local boy with rope and hook -- the leap was almost twenty feet. Sailing through the warm summer air into the ancient waters of that river, one can hardly help but savor the simple history of these river people, their persisting liberty from modern toil, their remote pursuits and pointless businesses, their ugly children and tasteless food; they have achieved a kind of superiority by humble, humble means.


I am small, blind, and ready to be devoured



Charlies in the trees