Migs Bassig

Day Two

7:28 a.m.: The day starts at a more reasonable time, seven, just after sun-up. But a longer day might be in store. Bob and John are surveying the map, while I stare at a Nokia mobile phone –charging– on a stool beside our table. It was left behind by a man in a United Nations shirt who had been the fourth customer that morning in the lobby of Metro Ipil Mandarin Hotel in Zamboanga Sibugay, and who drove off in a red pickup with United Nations stickers on its doors. Bob’s eyes catch the mobile phone. “See,” he says, “if either John or I steals that phone the wronged owner would still point at Migs. I’m American, John is British, and Migs is Filipino.” Bob is right. The owner does come back moments later; he looks quite relieved at the sight of his phone, still charging and still on a stool.

10:01 a.m.: This is what I’ll remember from Dipolog City: its foreshore boulevard. Having driven from Ipil to Zamboanga del Norte, we stop here to take some video footage. From the al fresco seats of nearby food kiosks one could hear the sound of Sulu Sea’s waves crashing against an evenly-paved esplanade. Surfer’s waves, maybe stronger, crashing, then ebbing, then crashing again. The locals are casting their fishing poles into the water to sustain the city’s reputation as the Bottled Sardines Capital of the Philippines. Their shirts are dancing with the sea breeze. It’s a commercially humbler scene than when I go to, say, the bay walk at the periphery of ostentatious SM Mall of Asia in Manila – but it’s much more tranquil here. Makes me wonder what else I’ve been missing.

1:19 p.m.: Bob ate rice, as did John. It was such a surprise. On Chowking’s menu there was this extremely spicy Beef Chao Fan meal, which we had ordered at the fast food restaurant’s branch here in gritty Osamis City, Misamis Occidental – a place where tricycle drivers have had their rest schedules painted on the back of their vehicles (“Days Off: Tuesdays”). Now, our spice-craving stomachs fully satisfied, we wait at the RoRo facility for the ferry that will take us to Lanao del Norte. “Can we bring our cameras and computers with us?” I ask Bob, thinking that the Nissan Adventure would have to be parked here as we’re transported by the ship to our destination. How frightfully stupid of me: RoRo stands for “roll-on/roll-off”, an arrangement in which the ferry is designed to carry wheeled cargo. Such as trucks. Such as trailers. Such as cars with two white men in it, and an ignorant man from the city.

3:47 p.m.: Happiness is a thirty-minute ferry ride from one unfamiliar Mindanao province to another. The wind is blowing furiously. Storm clouds have gathered above to provide the backdrop of this beautiful landscape painting. They look like thick dirty cotton buds curled round the half-visible, half-green, halfway-towards-licking-the-sky mountains of Lanao del Norte. To cut off this terribly romantic Titanic moment, a sharp, chilly splash of water slaps my face wet.

7:33 p.m.: After a long drive from the seaport to Lanao del Norte’s former capital, Iligan City, Bob, John and I find ourselves here inside cosy Gilee’s Cafe on San Miguel Street. A sumptuous dinner after an exhausting day – though I did catch some winks while at the backseat (much to Bob and John’s chagrin). We were welcomed and are now accompanied by Bob’s gracious friends: freelance photojournalist and coffee connoisseur Bobby Timonera, French-American Marc de Piloenc and his wife Sharon, and the restaurant’s owner, who is a Swiss expat named – well, Gilee. I listen quietly to the conversations being made in this formidably interracial gathering. They are all sharing their views on American Idol, homosexuality, driver’s license pictures, Iligan’s famous waterfalls, the city’s thriving steel and cement industries, and the nuances of living as an expat in as misunderstood an area as Mindanao. “I might come back here very soon to stay a few days – not just a few hours,” proclaims John. “The city is clean and beautiful, and –contrary to the warnings of my friends– Iligan doesn’t seem dangerous at all.” Outside, happy groups of young Iliganons walk the lamp-lit asphalt streets and take advantage of the numbered summer nights. And then my Persian kebab on pasta arrives.

11:26 p.m.: The lovely bittersweet taste of coffee still lingers in my mouth as I write this in our room at P450-a-night, Wi-Fi-ready Famous Pension House. You see, after dinner, Bobby had taken our group to his exquisitely furnished Iligan City home for cups of brewed and a dose of Filipino hospitality. There were plenty of choices: Monk’s Blend from Bukidnon? Acclaimed beans from Sagada? Yemeni? Not that we needed perking up; though exhausted and heavy-eyed from such a long journey, I am wide awake now – to the beauty that lies outside of Manila. Dangerous as this may sound to others, I think I’m falling in love with Mindanao.

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