Day 285: Island Hopping to San Antonio

Plan for today was to hire a local bangka boat driver and hop between the little islands on the Mindoro shore. Barter expert Kieran woke up from his deep slumber to land us a good deal and “not look too obvious” that we neeeeed to rent a boat. We met two locals who secured us a trip to the islands.

We relaxed on the sea wall while waiting for the boat and turned down the many vendors who wanted to sell shark necklaces. The local vendors are pretty nice and will talk to you for a bit as part of the sell.

The best part is they are fully cognizant of the whole geopolitical shit show occurring between China, Russia, and US as well as allyship with places like Japan, South Korea. They drop comments and complaints unprompted when they ask where we are from and we say US.

After we fisted bumped one vendor who was wearing a Lakers jersey, he said, “See this is why Americans are so friendly. The European folks would never go for a first bump, especially the Russians. I hate when they come here because they aren’t friendly at all and just get mad if you get near them.” 💀

The same guy started commenting on how he sees a lot of old Americans who have Filipino wives and pointed to the really, really nice houses on the mountain side. “All old Americans up there.” We couldn’t stop laughing.

Later on chatting with the local (Jason) who secured the boat, he was like “American and Philippines are like this” and did the whole finger promise symbol. He continued, “Philippines and American military works together to protect us from China. Wish they would leave us alone.” We joked, “Yeah wish they would leave Taiwan, Vietnam, and Japan alone too.” He smiles as starts going through the list with the promise symbol again. “Japan ❤️ Philippines, South Korea ❤️ Philippines, China, North Korea hate the Philippines.”

Our boat arrives and we meet Capt Papa who takes us to Long Beach and Heart Beach on San Antonio Island. The water was deliciously and snorkeling was top notch. We saw clown fish, corals, blue fishes, puffer fishes, blue starfish, and one sea turtle (and a lot of other shit). We also loved watching Philippine storms form in the distance.

After we got back, had the best dinner at Relax bar where we tried Sizzling Sisig and pork curry!

Food:
Sisig
Pork Curry

Spots:
Long Beach
Heart Beach
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