To get to Isla Gigantes,

I flew into Kalibo (Aklan), took a van to Roxas City (Capiz), rode another van to Estancia port (Iloilo), and hopped into a boat to an island in Carles, Iloilo that is so far out at sea that people couldn’t even contact me.

Kalibo

My father hails from a town in the outskirts of this city. I spent many childhood summers in Aklan, in my grandfather’s house by the sea. My memory of that time consists of only images: the narrow, bougainvillea-lined streets; the smell of fresh pan de sal and fish mingling in the bakery by the port; the pile of rocks by the wooden gate, where an aswang, I was told, lived; the woven nipa roof and the ever-dusty redstone floor; the rough, gray sand of the beach behind the backyard and the chicken coop by a stone wall; the door to the balcony, which was always locked. For memories of people, I would need to consult my relatives. I don’t remember playing hopscotch with the neighborhood children in the yard, or riding in a banca paddled by my grandfather, or marveling at how my fattest uncle managed to fit into his yellow Volkswagen Beetle. But then I barely know that side of the family anymore, so I suppose it hardly matters.

Capiz

I spent my three hours in Capiz walking around the capital with my brown-bagged breakfast of bread, strolling into a cemetery, taking pictures of skulls in a dome full of bones exhumed by a recent flood, and chatting with the undertaker, who happened to work for some time as a jeepney driver in my hometown. I also visited the Sta. Monica Museum and Church in Pan-Ay, the oldest church in the region. Unlike the baroque churches in Iloilo, the church in Pan-Ay is poorly maintained, almost devoid of relics and religious art. The five-storey belfry that used to hold the largest Catholic church bell in Asia is in ruins, so the bell was brought down to the courtyard, where tourists could easily have their pictures taken beside it.

Asluman Town

Two hours by boat from Estancia Port, Brgy. Asluman, dubbed the Scallops Capital of Iloilo, is a small fishing community in the southern part of Isla Gigantes in Carles, Iloilo. With its shell-cobbled dirt paths, nipa huts built with narra and adorned with balite vines, a beach covered with decades’ worth of discarded talaba shells and surrounded by mangrove trees, the town has a rustic charm. Add to that the lack of telecommunications and the fluctuating electricity, and it seems like the perfect rural getaway for the urban-weary. Yet the town is not to be so romanticized. The remoteness of the island, its limited access to technological conveniences and commercial avenues, and the dependency of the entire community’s livelihood on daily catch have long hindered the town’s economic progress. That is, until it opened itself up to tourism around two years ago. The town serves as the “base camp” for island hopping in those parts of northern Iloilo, which feature the most beautiful, secluded beaches I’ve ever seen, unmarred by noise, rowdy party people, and commercial establishments. There are also hiking and spelunking opportunities in the island. The accommodations in Asluman town are rudimentary: a couple of rooms, some nipa huts, a tree house built upon a young banyan tree, and tents inside a small resort compound (Gigantes Hideaway Inn) or by the elementary school fronting the beach. There are toilets with limited water and many sari-sari stores. The town has plans of building more facilities to accommodate the influx of tourists, but I fervently hope it keeps its simplicity, its artless beauty.

Antonia

The most beautiful, secluded beaches I’ve ever seen

Antonia (for snorkeling and spelunking), Tangke (for cliff-diving), Cabugao (rock scrambling). Dreams of sky, sand, and sea.

Cabugao

Itinerary

Day 1

1830 ETD Manila

1940 ETA Kalibo

1000 ETA town proper, spend the whole evening in McDonald’s (open 24 hours) reading Yoko Ogawa’s Hotel Iris

Day 2

0430 Walk to transport terminal

0500 ETD Kalibo

0700 ETA Roxas City

1000 ETD Capiz

1200 ETA Estancia

1330 Portside

1400 ETD Estancia. The passenger ferry bound for Estancia leaves Isla Gigantes every day at 7 AM. There are no other trips. If you miss the ferry, you’ll have to hire a boat, which would cost upwards of 1000 pesos.

1630 ETA Gigantes Hideaway Inn, Isla Gigantes. Contact person: Joel Decano (tourism officer and inn proprietor): 09184685006 / 09155796612

Day 3

0500 Wake up and catch the sunrise

0600 Island-hopping

1130 Back at Inn

1200 ETD Isla Gigantes. The passenger ferry bound for Estancia leaves Isla Gigantes every day at 7 AM. There are no other trips. If you miss the ferry, you’ll have to hire a boat, which would cost upwards of 1000 pesos. Or you could hitchhike with a group that chartered a private boat, like my friend and I did — but that depends on luck!

1400 ETA Estancia, lunch

1500 ETD Estancia

1900 ETA Tagbak Terminal, Jaro

1930 ETA SM City Iloilo

2100 ETA Tigbauan

Day 4

0400 ETD Tigbauan

0500 ETA Iloilo Airport

0600 ETD Iloilo

0700 ETA Manila

Tangke

Budget

Day 1

110 – tricycle from airport to town proper; waived and instead spent on dinner (one apple pie and three cups of coffee in McDo, bread from a nearby bakery) because tagged along with new acquaintances

Day 2

120 – van fare from Kalibo to Roxas City

12 – jeep from Roxas City to Pan-Ay Church

15 – tricycle from Pan-Ay Church to Roxas City

24 – bread

10 – soda

15 – halo-halo

120 – van from Roxas City to Estancia Port

10 – tricycle from Estancia Port to Pa-On

60 – entrance fee to Pa-On Beach Club (consumable; spent on mango shake)

10 – tricycle from Pa-On to Estancia Port

80 – passenger ferry from Estancia to Isla Gigantes

10 – boiled peanuts

TOTAL: 486 pesos

Day 3

900 (1800/2) – boat rental fee for island hopping

350 (700/2) – guide fee (there is no fixed rate; determined by the guest)

75 (150/2) – kitchen fee (there is no fixed rate; determined by the guest)

100 – tent rental fee (overnight)

195 – food (dinner and breakfast)

20 – entrance fee to Antonia Island

30 – entrance fee to Tangke Island

10 – habal-habal from Inn to shore

50 – tip for boatmen

10 – tricycle from Estancia Port to Talabahan (eatery); lunch c/o a new acquiantance

180 – airconditioned Ceres bus fare from Estancia to Tagbak Terminal in Jaro, Iloilo

35 – buko shake

10 – jeep from Jaro to SM City

49 – Chow King nai cha

126 – pasalubong from Biscocho house; overnight food and lodging for Day 3 c/o relatives

TOTAL: 2140 pesos

Day 4

200 – airport terminal fee

SUM TOTAL: 2936 pesos, excluding airfare

One day I know I shall unlearn you

but for now let me quote to you reasons why

I’d rather not.

1.

“your eyes are full of language.”

2.

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes — they’re beautiful. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire.”

3.

“I don’t know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me.”

4.

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are full of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out.”

5.

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me.”

6.

“when you tell me to come, I will come, by the next train, just as I am. This is not meekness, be assured; I do not come naturally by meekness; know that it is a proud surrender to you; I don’t talk like that to many people. ”

7.

“You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.”

8.

“I have no fear of losing you, for you aren’t an object of my property, or anyone else’s. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine.”

9.

“I love your feet/ because they have/ wandered over/ the earth and through/ the wind and water/ until they brought/ you to me.”

10.

“Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers.”

–

1. Anne Sexton
2. Charles Bukowski
3. Henry Miller
4. Franz Kafka
5. Jane Austen
6. Edna St. Vincent Millay
7. Vita Sackville-West
8. Anthony de Mello
9. Pablo Neruda
10. Margaret Atwood

Fever Dreams

1.

Her body floating spread-eagled in a pool of water tinged a bloody orange by the dying light. Her eyes like marble, cold and opaque. Popping, staring straight up at the darkening sky. It begins to drizzle. The raindrops falling into a million ripplings, dancing against her fingertips. The rain like mercury spilling into her dull gray eyes, swirling into one color, like poisoned milk.

2.

Dawn chorus rousing the late October morning, cool and breezy. Soft sunlight kissing the potted roses in the balcony. A book lying supine on already rumpled sheets. A plate of deviled eggs and crusty pugon-baked bread on the table. By the French windows, you, sipping hot tea. “These mornings are made for reading,” I say, burrowing under the covers with the book. Drawing the curtains back, you place the teacup on the tray. “Well then,” you say, like a cat purring, “love me and I will fill all your days with poetry.”

3.

We lie under the bed, my friend and I, with time and shrapnel stoppering her heart. “Wait with me,” she says, holding my hand, “until my blood dries up.” I do, keeping still as they continue to bomb our city. I’ve grown deaf to the explosions and the sirens. I hear only the sound of the phone ringing, though who would call us, I can’t imagine. I pick up after a while, whispering, hello, she’s dead, and let the receiver clatter on the floor. I crawl to the window and peek through the blinds, watching dust motes in the shifting light. Hundreds of planes, like paper cranes, catch and open fire in the pastel-hued daybreak sky, painting the horizon red. My room is blue, the bed low, but not so low that I can’t fit under it. Falling debris quake the earth. I quiver.

4.

A day of walking along the Great Wall of China, carrying only a water bottle, an umbrella, and a lomo camera.

A week in the edges of a Shinto temple halfway up a mountain in Kyoto—sweeping the yard, drawing water from the well, listening to monks chanting.

A month of waitressing in a red-brick café in Bologna, after comp lit classes at UNIBO.

5.

You! Slap plaster over this broken open crypt. I do not want the corpses fouling up the air. Seal out that sliver of moon, showing through a crack in the ceiling. Seal it up! Shutter the windows. Lock the door. Will day be dark and air stale? Yes! And quiet.

6.

“…reaved urn in the old house in Talisay.”

7.

Lips trailing on skin as smooth as a mango peel, and smelling as sweet. The lingering scent of breakfast: coffee and caramel. Flesh soft as down. Hair wet with dew, fresh from the shower (green apple and grape). On the pillow, trace of patchouli.

8.

Found during a diving expedition in a shipwreck under the sea: a seal-like creature with jewels along its sagittal crest and a spine lined with crowns of prismatic glass on a silvery furcoat. A chest of 148 books, each containing a forgotten folk tale. A woman sleeping in the log cabin, surrounded by seaweeds and barnacles and eerie green light.

9.

A day of no emails.

10.

A midnight heist, 1920s film noir style. Three slick villains with a vagabond and his daughter. Full moon light, old mansion. The teenage girl and a handgun. A woman in a negligee, awoken by a full bladder. A startled shot. Black blood on silver and hand-me-down lace, splattered on a head of blonde curls and a pale face. A locket. Revelations. Once again a motherless child.