How I spent my summer vacation

When it comes to theme writing in school, nothing beats the all-time favorite topic, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." I don’t know about your time, but during our time, as soon as classes started, our first assignment in English was to write about our summer vacation. Since going abroad wasn’t fashionable yet, I remember saying the same topics all through my grade school years. Either I went swimming at Po-ok beach in Cebu or horseback riding in Baguio. And yes, I do agree with most people that Baguio isn’t what it used to be. Many years ago, it smelled like pine and horse manure, which wasn’t such a bad combination. Now the smell of pine is gone and you smell a different kind of manure.

When you get out of school and start going to work, summer vacations don’t last two months anymore or your boss will eject you from the office. So the all-time favorite question is, "How did you spend your Holy Week?" And where did I spend my Holy Week? At Dos Palmas Arrecefi Resort.

This is going to sound like a real hot press release as the two people you see in the photo are my son Justin and Dos Palmas general manager Ivan Lim. Ivan was driving a speedboat and my son said he wanted to help with steering the wheel. My son’s ambition is to drive a fast train, but since we were at sea, the speedboat was the next best thing, unless someone invents a floating rail track for a floating train. Ivan loves the sea. I think that is what you call real happiness. You get into a career that you also consider a hobby. This way you don’t have to drag yourself from bed every morning to go to work hoping that the weekend will come soon. You must really love the sea to run a resort. Just when everyone else is off on a holiday, like Easter or Christmas, you have to work like mad to make your clients feel that they’re not being crucified sharing the place with so many other people. And that’s the reason Ivan was there and working during the Easter break. I think we crucified him instead.

While we were vacationing, news about SARS spread. Forget Iraq and the still to be found weapons of mass destruction, this virus is a major concern. If there are two good things that the SARS virus brought us, it’s forcing us, finally, to practice good hygiene, and to boost domestic tourism. People have either postponed or cancelled their foreign trips. It used to be that all roads, or rather air space, led to Hong Kong during Holy Week. This time, all flights to everywhere in the Philippines were full during that four-day Easter holiday. It’s just unfortunate that it had to take something like SARS to force us to visit our own country. When we were flying back to Manila Sunday morning, our plane left an hour late due to the hordes of people at the Puerto Princesa airport. I don’t think anyone in the airport expected that kind of crowd during the four days. If you’re going to ask me which plane was late, I’m going to keep you guessing forever. If I say it’s definitely not Cebu Pacific, I will be accused of unfair reporting. If I say it’s Cebu Pacific, I will be ejected from my office. Whew, how do you write a travel piece when your family is involved in the airline business?

There was complete chaos at the Puerto Princesa airport the day we went back to Manila, but it was a great sight to see, people from all over visiting Palawan, visiting the Philippines. Or should I say, finally visiting the Philippines. I wish we could all do this more often.

As expected, people asked me why on earth I had chosen Dos Palmas – wasn’t I scared of the Abu Sayyaf and the ghost of Rico Yan? If you ask me, there’re more chances of burglars ransacking your home than your being taken hostage by the Abus again. Besides, I am that sort of person who doesn’t like everything too polished. I went to New York when no one wanted to because of September 11, and last year, flew to Bali two months after the bombings. Anyway, a Philippine Navy boat guards Dos Palmas every day, so you can be sure that the next group of Abus who come will be blown to kingdom come, which ever kingdom they want to belong.

If you look at the photo, you will recognize the houses on stilts. It was the one shown on TV for one whole month when the Abus struck. See how beautiful the place is? I can’t imagine being taken hostage at 5 in the morning when you are terribly dressed, or undressed. Worse, your toilet hour is scheduled exactly an hour after and you are still sitting in the Abu’s getaway boat, which as explained to me was three times faster than our coastguard patrol boat. I don’t want to sound funny, but it reminds me of the time I was kidnapped for a week and I didn’t see a toilet for five days. I’m glad that Puerto Princesa has a tourist desk at the port (no matter how small) which can book your visits to various resorts. As you can see, there were many people lining up that Holy Thursday morning already in their swim gear. However, the toilets need major rehabilitation. The sign on the door of the ladies’ room actually has a plea for help, "Paki-usap. Donation lang po! For C.R. maintenance. Thanks!!!" The toilets had no flush and the faucets were dry, but there was this huge pail of water ready for your disposal. The huge pail of water and tabo are a common sight in every government restroom.

So why Dos Palmas? Why not? I would’ve wanted to show you photos of my husband and son kayaking with another father-and-son team in the clear blue waters of the resort, but the kayak looked half-sunk with the combined weight of my husband and son, and people might think that the kayak is of poor quality. A photo of the food would’ve been good, but since the food was so good I forgot to take a photo of it. By the time I remembered to do that, nothing was left of the lobsters, crabs and mussels but empty shells. A photo of the fish and corals which I saw when I went snorkeling would’ve been great, but I didn’t have an underwater camera ( I managed to get a photo from Ivan though) I was there to relax, and like a dirty old woman, hopefully, see the ghost of Rico Yan. But he didn’t show up. He probably cannot stand dirty old women.