Merry Christmas Ya'll. I'm typing from Northern Cambodia in a Hotel Room with honorary Deiter, Kerry Dunfey, who was our present this year and came all the way from the U S of A to see us. Naturally, I will wait until she leaves to post all of the hilarious pictures and videos we have of her. For now you can check out some of the cool stuff we did in the Philippines.
After a full day of travel (7am to 7pm) and our first
“tricycle” ride (It’s a motorcycle with a kinda covered side car attached to
it) we arrived at the beach in Boracay in the Philippines. Once on the beach we
began the horrible two bag schlep which is by far the worst travel activity
ever. Yeah I know, some of you are reading this while taking a break from
shoveling snow so boo hoo for us, but for the Amazing Deiters Traveling Circus,
the bag schlep is the worst. It’s hot and heavy and sweaty and will rub all of
your bug bites/sun burn. Plus it’s clear to everyone that you’re fresh meat and
so you get mobbed with offers for everything under the sun, so it’s shuffle
step…”no thank you”…shuffle step…”no thank you.” This time was particularly bad
because we didn’t have accommodation and two “helpful” ladies latched onto us
like sucker fish taking us from hostel to hostel and “helpfully” telling
everyone what the other places were charging thereby destroying our ability to
bargain. We finally shook them and found a place just off the beach, dropped
our stuff and headed out for a well-earned libation. Our watering hole in Boracay was a beach bar
called “Bei Kurt and Mags” which was owned by a jabba the hut-ish nice old
German guy who sits shirtless in the center of the bar directing his army of
Filipino service staff. It had all the traditional Filipino dishes, ya know
Pizza, Burgers, and anything fried. Seriously, Philippine cuisine is basically
stuff that’s “sooooo good” when you’re a sophomore in college and hammered. Maybe
that’s why the “happy hour” on Boracay lasts five hours (that’s a long time
when Caipirinha’s cost about 75cents). Boracay days were spent sleeping in,
then walking around for a while, then getting grub, then getting a massage (for
$6 each), then easing our way into the 4pm happy hour, then some deleted scenes
and repeat. We met a cool crew that we would hang out with every night and an
Ivy League young buck named Keith who took us dancing at a gay bar (true
story). The place was amazing with two exceptions, first Tish got sick a few
days in so we were locked down in the room for a day, and our hostel totally
sucked which is a drag on the overall mood.
At one point they didn’t clean our room for 4 days, then they didn’t
have any running water, then they wouldn’t turn on the generator when the power
was out and on and on. They were lame. It culminated in the final night when we
couldn’t pay by credit card because “someone is sleeping in the room with the
machine sir,” This made the Deiter’s ANGRY and stern Tash talk followed. At one
point I told them I worked for trip adviser and that “the internet will hear
about this!” The end result is that they called the manager (or pretended to)
and comped our entire stay. This wasn’t our intent, we’ll take it, they were
brutal. The next day(s) produced the most epically horrible travel stretch of
the trip. Granted the horrible hangover I had (see the picture below) didn’t
help, but the trip was bad enough on its own. We woke at 6am and took a
tricycle to a Boat, to a 2hour van ride (spoiler alert I threw up in the van, I
sometimes get motion sick and the Irish flu doesn’t help. I kind of kept it on
the classy though and only 2 people saw, one was terrified and the other
offered me a mint), to a flight, then an airport shuttle, then another flight,
then another tricycle. Then an overnight stay before another 6am wakeup and a 7
hour bumpy van ride (I managed to not throw up on this one). Phew! That was
awful even typing it but we survived and were rewarded with what is probably
the single best place we have been on this trip. El Nido beach on the island of
Palawan. For the first time ever we were smart and dropped our bags in the
first hotel we came to so that we could look for accommodation without the
horrible awfulness of the 2 bag drag. This made all the difference in the world
and allowed us to find a super sweet beach (and I mean right on the beach) hut
with wifi and a fan for $20 a night. The beach at El Nido is like a 500 yard
crescent with tons of beach bars and restaurants. It is way less developed than
Boracay and therefore has a much more authentic feel and almost nobody
aggressively pedaling crap you don’t want. Again Boracay was great but you
can’t walk two feat without hearing massagemamsiiirrrrr (Translation = massage
mam Sir?), I can still hear it ringing in my ears (yeah, I know again boo hoo).
Anywho, Palawan is known as the Philippines “last frontier” because it is not
super developed and we’ve found that places like this generally have a cooler
vibe. After checking in we met up with our multi-lingual Canadian friend Brian
and two new friends for dinner on the beach and then shut it down early to
sleep off the travel days. That night I got a solid 14 hours (for real) and
tash put in twelve and we sprang up at the crack of noon, rarin’ to go. The
next day featured walks around the beach and the tiny two street town, good
grub, drinks at sunset and live reggae music performed by Filipino Rasta’s, it
was great. You meet so many cool people in a place like this. If you’re at a
beach bar with an open seat at your table somebody will just plop down and
start talking to you. Next thing you know you’re exchanging emails and planning
to meet up again when your cross paths in east JaBip. It’s really one of the
best parts of a trip like this. The next day featured a moped adventure/couple
date with our new friends British George and French-Cambodian Socum. We got our
bikes in the morning and set off in the direction of a deserted beach and a
waterfall. George was really brave because he had only ever ridden a moped like
5 times and the roads were increasingly shady as we covered the hour long ride
to the beach. We kept going over these wooden bridges that had signs warning
“weak panels…” and a bunch of other stuff that you couldn’t read cause you were
past the sign and on the bridge so I guess just juice it. Luckily for everyone
concerned, I’m a bad ass man-nurse who knows his way around a scooter so we all
made it to the beach safe and sound. The
beach was beautiful and deserted and we swam for a while, then napped in
hammocks before getting lunch at the one restaurant-ish kinda place on the
beach. After that we rode back towards the town and did a sweet little hike to
a couple of waterfalls where we swam and cooled off. The ride back to town from
the waterfall was simply spectacular. It was a half an hour riding with my baby
on the back, the sun was just about to go down so it was the perfect mix of
warm sun with a cool breeze and we were out in the middle of nowhere cruising
past rice paddies and water buffalo pulling plows, and there were sporadic smiling
children who would run up and wave when you passed (I even gave a few of them a
mobile moped hi-5). It was a small moment in a big trip, but it’s one that I
will remember forever. That night brought dinner in a café with our new
friends. It’s was a great cheapish meal with live music and a perfect way to
end the day. The next morning we set off on our anniversary present to
ourselves, an island hopping trip that culminated in a stay on a private
island. We had our own boat crew and a tour guide Named Israel who kept calling
himself our “terrorist guide” and laughing uproariously (seriously we got that
joke like three times before we left the harbor. We Spent the weaving through
all these little rocky jungle islands that were created when the indian plate
crashed into the African plate many moons ago (thank you Wikipedia). The view
was stunning and it was surreal to stop and walk around deserted beaches and
snorkel into ocean caves. In the afternoon we stopped on an island with a small
beach and some hammocks where our crew (that never gets old) prepared a sweet
spread and while we enjoyed a cold beer. They must be reading our blog because
they were nice enough to bring in a few island dogs for me to play with and I
made a few friends dishing out table scraps when we were full. The afternoon
featured some more snorkeling and a hike to the top of a baby mountain for a
birds eye view of the scattered islands. At around 5ish we headed to our own
island to laze away the afternoon and wait for dinner. We had our own hut that
was set up on the hillside and in turns
out that we were the first people to stay in the room. Previously they had you
stay in bungalow platform with a mosquito net but this was apparently wiped out
in a storm so they upgraded everything. We walked around a bit and found a
noisy pig that doubled as the garbage disposal and is being fattened up for the
staff to eat on Christmas. After that we hung out on the deck and enjoyed the traditional
“gin and Sean-ic” while our staff (ok last time, but for real, we had a staff)
got dinner set up. It was a table for two surround by tiki torches on a raised
pad just off the beach. They brought us wine (which was good) and the waves
were crashing as the stars came out and at that moment any chance of topping
this anniversary was gone forever. Dinner was a hilariously excessive portion
for two people but we gave it the old Deiter try and managed to eat most of
it…we didn’t want to offend the chef. The star of the meal was the calamari
with the pork adobo coming in a close second. After dinner they prepared a
bonfire and we drank drinks and dreamed big dreams in the way you can only do
on your private island. When we asked for more beers we were told there were
none but our guide was happy to share his empiradore brandy (A.K.A. Rocket Fuel)
and his singing/guitar talents (which were tremendously bad) Tash kept laughing
and staring at me like “is he for real, are we being punked.” He did a quarter
of “blowin in the wind” and then remixed into “puff the magic dragon.” Tash
almost pit out her drink when he said he had been playing guitar for 16 years
(is he confusing years with minutes?) He closed the set with a killer version
of “Desperado.” He knew most of one verse and part of another and so there was
a part in the middle where he just kinda got stuck cycling between the two. We
would probably still be there now “out ridin fences….” if I didn’t jump in and
bring that sucker home. We figured that was our cue and headed to bead before
he launched into another ballad. The next morning brought breakfast by the
beach and another half day of island hopping before we were deposited back on
the beach in El Nido. The trip was unreal and will be a highlight of our
overall travel for sure. We laid low that evening to give the budget a break
and turned in early after haveing a surprisingly good pizza , so we be rested
and ready for a big travel day to Manila.
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| I found a browns fan |
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| Tash and I trying to not look nervous when the boat captain told everyone to put life vests on |
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| Caipirinha's in strange wobbly glasses |
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| The nativity |
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| The beach in Boracay |
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| And you thought you were having a rough day |
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| Mmmmmmmm Pig |
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| Its a Sean-set |
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| More sunset boats |
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| Me with our new friend Keith |
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| And our buddy Philip |
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| Me tish and our friend keith |
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| Burgers on the beach |
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| The main drag in Boracay |
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| Me and big kurt from our favorite bar |
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| More boats at sunset Yawn |
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| I feel so AWESOME and I Love EVERYONE!!!!!! |
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| And now I want to Die |
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| The beach in El Nido |
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| Get your Natasha's here. |
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| The view from our room on the beach in El Nido. |
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| Dinner with our new friends. |
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| Me and tash at the beach |
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| How creepy am I? |
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| That's a lot of Man in that Hammock- I probably shouldn't have put these two back to back |
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| Tish makes it look way classier |
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| A beach where we rode motor bikes to |
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| The waterfall we found on the motor bike trip |
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| The view off the front of our boat |
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| Tish on an island we found |
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| Me and tish - not sucking it in at all |
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| Me and a fellow Man Nurse |
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| Our boat and our tour guide |
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| This pig is for the Christmas feast of our island staff |
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Yeah...so we ordered garlic bread and this is what came out.
The view off the front of our boat complete with tish toes
our private beach hut
The beach on our private island
The deck on our private island- did I mention we had a private island. Take that Tom Brady
Our room on our island
Deiter party of two
Now with tiki torches
face book profile pic anyone?
Then they built us a bonfire
Me and our boat tour guide Mr. Israel
Our own private concert
Nothing sets the mood like Emperadore Light Brandy
breakfast by the beach
Then I turned into friggin Auquaman
a cave we snorkeled into
Tash's fish bite wound
the deck at our beach hut
P Chicchi's Kitten corner
This guy wants to come home with us (that's tish's bag he's sleepin on)
They let you eat on this thing- Ha
Getting ready for some grub on the beach
a pizza that you could actually sell in America and not get punched I the face
Me and tish in a waterfall that we found on the motorbike tour
FISH!
a place called the "small lagoon"
a statue of the Virgin Mary on the beach that looks kinda ominous when shot with the gopro
ships at sunset
sunset with trees
and without
A tish-mas tree
Tish doing her hilarious Asian Photo poses
A delicious San Mig Light
Your order is late cause the staff is too busy dancing to cook
another Sean-set selfie
beech beer
who wants MEAT!!!!!!
That's a tricycle
THIS MEAT is on FIIIIIRRREEEE- sing it like Alicia Keys and you'll chuckle
A beach we found on the motorbike trip
A water Buffalo
another hilarious tish stream crossing
Shot from inside "cathedral cave" on our snorkel trip
same
I like the reflection
Underwater me
Sunlight coming over the wall of the cave
Tish floating behind me
She got her snorkel stuck in her hair.
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