The boat. If you look back at January 2, you can see a boat like this near the ferry, which should give at least some idea of the size difference. It was rather noticeable.
January 5, 2009: Return to Manila
After two whirlwind days, that was it for our trip to Romblon, but it ended with a third long day as we had to get up at 5 am to catch a boat back to Tablas. The ferry was scheduled too late for us to take it and still make our plane, so we had to take a much smaller boat, with a motor and outriggers (see below for picture). At least the seas were calm enough to let the small craft out this time - the next plane back to Manila was Wednesday, the same day as our flight home, so God knows what would have happened had typhoon remnants still been chopping up the waves in the Romblon Pass. Despite the relative calm of the waters compared to our arrival, however, it was still an up-and-down ride owing to the much smaller size of the boat, which only held about a dozen people inside its tiny cabin. Again I held on for dear life. I couldn't look at anything inside the boat because of all the movement, so I narrowly made it by staring at the horizon and the increasingly close shore of Tablas, as well as by resorting to my old standby, singing to myself (starting as I have since 2000 with the New Radicals' "You Get What You Give," the song that saved me on a rough ride down Mt. Tarawera in New Zealand). My no-hurl streak did remain intact, although at one point I was within about five seconds of losing it. It was quite close. Even after I was back on dry land, my head spun for hours; I noted in my journal for the day that I was still dizzy at 11 pm that night in Manila. I had to sit down for a bit and drink some water before the jeepney left - another hour-plus of hardly the smoothest ride on the planet just as a nice capper. I was still able to get down a little lunch at a tiny restaurant opposite the airport before our flight.
When I went to buy the water from a cart vendor near the jeepney departure point, I asked for it in Tagalog ("Tubig sa bote") as well as asking how much it was ("Makano"). My rudimentary Tagalog was good enough for the transaction, and also for the woman to ask me in Tagalog if I "had any" Visayan ("Mayroon ng Visayan," I believe; I missed the full grammar but I caught mayroon and Visayan, the important words), to which of course I could only reply, in English, "No, just a little Tagalog."
After we got back to Manila it was a trip to Megamall, a shopping center exactly as big and labyrinthine as the name would suggest. Starving but having to wait for dinner, Alma and I split from her mother and uncle and went looking for a frozen yogurt place I'd seen on our way in, but it took a number of minutes and turning around at least twice to find it again. It didn't help that it was located near a Marks & Spencer, but Marks & Spencer had two distinct locations within the mall, totally throwing my orientation off when I saw the second one. I did manage to pick up a number of additional souvenirs, most crucially a large number of refrigerator magnets so that I could give something to everyone in my department at work without either spending too much or having to carry too much weight back. When I first found the magnets and realized they were perfect, I was worried that there wouldn't be enough, but the salesgirl really went above and beyond the call of duty by going into the stockroom and bringing back an entire box of magnets, and then sifting through them so that I would have 17 different ones (I think I ended up with one duplicate, but that's pretty good considering she had to look at each one to be sure). All credit to the staff at SM Megamall!
The boat. If you look back at January 2, you can see a boat like this near the
ferry, which should give at least some idea of the size difference. It was rather
noticeable.
A look into the waiting room at the Tablas airport. We were the only ones there at
first, which isn't surprising because we allowed ourselves the typical "two hours and
then some" leeway like you would in the US, except this is a tiny rural airport in
the Philippines where the only security check is a friendly woman who pokes somewhat
cursorily through your bags with a wooden wand. Other travelers who were local to
the area clearly knew this and showed up much closer to departure time.
The outside of the airport. As in the inside shot I took when we arrived, you can
see that it's totally open-air; only the metal shutters close it off.
And another view of the outside. The waiting lounge is through the interior doors at
the left; the check-in counter - at which the flight's departure time was displayed on a
piece of paper, and when we noted that it was off by 20 minutes or so, they took the paper
down and wrote the new time on it, then put it back up - is at the back right; the
"screening" station is in the right foreground where the gentleman is standing
with a blue bag.
A look out at the tarmac. Yeah.
I really have my doubts that I could ever visit another airport this small in my entire
life. It'd be some story if I found one.
A four-part Coke ad in the little restaurant at which we ate. Rough translations via
Alma and me with a dictionary, clockwise from top left:
1: "Mmm!! Ice-cold Coke is truly delicious!" (Alma)
2: "Try Coke with your favorite food/dish!" (Me with a
dictionary)
3: "What are you waiting for? Order a Coke right now!"
(Me with a dictionary; Alma translated the second sentence as "Buy a Coke
already!")
4: "Coke makes bonding stronger." (Alma)
Yeah, that is the entire Tablas airport building. It fits into a single photo
taken from 30 yards away.
Inside the lounge they had a wall map of Romblon Province, leading me to nerd out.
Tablas is the long skinny island at left; Romblon is in the middle; Sibuyan is to the
right.
A closer look at Romblon and the northern half of Tablas. You can get a rough idea
of where our boat went by tracing a line east-northeast from San Agustin, over the #2
below Logbon, and into the dotted circle that represents Romblon Town.
And finally a closeup of just Romblon Island. Our January 3 trip mostly followed the
green road along the island's outer edge.