I liked Batayan much better than Malapascua even from my initial impression of the island- less tourists and more space. The guy who helped me find a place to stay also told me he would teach me how to drive a motorbike if I wanted to, which I obvio did, so the same day I rented one for an hour and had a lesson. It was hard at first but within half an hour a was hardly wobbling at all and could stop and turn etc without killing anyone. Riding a bike is pretty fun as well, and pretty cheap at least as far as gas goes; with the gas prices these days I'm amazed that everyone doesn't ride a bike.
I had an awesome day the next day:
1. Woke up, had my daily ration of peanuts and one mango (I'm trying to only do one meal in a restaurant.. and anyway, I'm sure mangoes and peanuts are both very good for you) Then went into Batayan town on my bike, about a 30 minute ride from Santa Fe
2. Made friends with some kids in the park who wanted to play with my camera, then started talking to one of their moms who was a teacher in one of the elementary schools, going to go hang out there tomorrow
Haha.. bankrupt like my company
4. Back on the bike again and drove up to the way north end of the island and watched the fishermen drying shiny silver fish in the sun
5. Made some more friends
6. Went back to Santa Fe and had dinner at the former white sands, which is run by an awesome French dude who made his fortune at 30 and then has traveled for 40 years, finally settling down here and opening a restaurant which has VERY good food - hes pretty fun to talk to, basically I want to be him
7. Ended up eating dinner with a guy from Seattle and his Pilippina finance, who seemed pretty cool and talked my ear off despite saying that he was stoned which should have made just stare at the wall, and kept telling me I was giving him hope for the future generation even though I'm pretty sure I wasn't saying anything earth-shatteringly intelligent.
One thing that is starting to get to me about the Philippines though is the massive amount of attention I attract. It was much less noticeable when I was traveling with Liam since people are much less likely to cat call at you if you are walking with a guy for fear of getting pounded into mincemeat, esp if the guy is big. Now all of my conversations seem to be:
pinoy guy: "whats your name"
me: "liz"
Pinoy guy "you want to go to the disco?"
me: "no"
Pinoy guy "are you single?"
me: "no I have a boyfriend"
Pinoy guy: "where is he?"
me: "united states"
Thats about the extent of my convos, I've also been asked if I wanted to get married to a few guys by their friends.
Not a big deal but its kind of like being constantly in Vegas in a short dress and heels, despite the fact that I have dreds, have about 6 articles of clothing and am wearing no makeup.
Other pictures from Batayan:
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