Day 05 –
Today, we explore the island with the scooter. There’s a waterfall inland we want to see. We first try to get away from the main road but the smaller roads always bring us back to it so we stay there until it’s time to turn inland towards the waterfall. At the crossroads, young people stop us to tell us that we have to take a guide to go canyoning and see the waterfalls. We tell them there’s no way we go canyoning with Côme. He’s too young. They are insisting and telling us we have to take a guide anyway. While we are talking to them, we see local people passing by on their scooters without being bothered. It looks like a scam… We’ve become expert recognizing them! We ask whether the road is going inland or not. They say yes. So we tell them we’re just going inland, we won’t be needing their service, thank you very much, and we continue on.
The drive towards the waterfall is beautiful. The windy roads lead us through a lush forest and picturesc villages. There are no road signs but Google maps helps us navigate towards the waterfall. We end up in a village with beautiful wooden houses. It’s impossible for us to continue on. The dirt path downhill in front of us is impracticable with the scooter. According to Maps though, the waterfall is not that far. So we ask the villagers if the path leads to a waterfall. They say yes. We park our scooter and continue the journey on foot.
We walk down the steep slope for about a hundred meters and finally reach a stream and waterfall. The place is magnificent!! Children are playing in the water, two teenagers are doing their laundry and two young men are washing themselves. They are all surprised to see us here. We are in the middle of the jungle, the sun is shining, the water is crystal clear and the limestone rocks are stunning. We’ve got to be in heaven!
We try to have a conversation with one of the young men but it’s complicated, we’re in a more remote part of the island and people don’t speak much English here. So we settle down to bathe and enjoy this heavenly place. In the puddles, hundreds of black tadpoles are waddling. When the man notices Côme’s interest, he catches a whole handful of them.
After a while, we all start to get hungry so we decide to leave. Obviously, there’s no restaurant for miles but in the village, there’s a house selling snacks. So we settle for some drinks and a few packs of chips. Then, we set off again and continue to explore inland. We will stop in a few villages, where people will always be very surprised to see us but will always great us with a large smile. We will see steep landscapes and magnificent hills, basketball hoops on the side of the roads with young people stopping their game whenever a vehicle is coming. We will search a limestone mountain where we will find many fossils. And Julia and Côme will even have to walk for 3 km downhill while Doo will be somehow trying to bring the scooter down on a completely undrivable dirt road. In short, we’ll have a great time today!
Day 07 –
Today we are leaving our wonderful hotel resort. We are going to the other side of the island, to Oslob. There, whale sharks, more exploration and waterfalls are waiting for us. But the trip there will be long (about 4 hours) and we have two buses to take. Of course there is no timetable and no one knows when the bus is coming so the wait seems endless. While waiting, we try to understand men’s fashion (here, many men pull up their t-shirts to reveal their prominent belly), we talk with Dino about Groin and Meuh and Doo is even interviewed by some high school students working on a project. And after a while, the bus finally arrives!
The trip to Oslob is not as long as we thought but we have to find distractions for Côme so he can’t watch the movie that is playing on the bus. They’re showing “Venom”. A film that is definitely not suited for children. When we get to Oslob, we head to the scooter rental shop and then head to our beachfront apartment/hotel that is located two kilometers away. The apartment is great and the view is just incredible. Côme sets off to the sea right away and while he’s swimming and playing on the shore, Doo goes grocery shopping. At the supermarket, all the cashiers are wearing Christmas hats. That’s one thing we haven’t told you yet by the way. There are Christmas decorations everywhere on the island: nativity scenes, peculiar Christmas trees (made of scrap metal), even the attendants at the gas station are wearing a Christmas hat. But our Christmas spirit stayed in Japan. Christmas feels so weird in the middle of the rainforest when it’s 30°C (86°F) outside…
Day 08 –
Today Côme is up really early to go see the fishermen. There are a few of them right by the house. They show him the morning catch: needle fishes and flying fishes. He then goes to play with the cleaning lady’s son who has come to do the laundry next door. We then head to town to find a place to eat and change our scooter whose headlights do not work. We stay there for a short while. We visit a nice church, a market and then we set off to explore the interior of the island again towards other waterfalls.
The scenery is once again breathtaking. We are just taking our time: stopping to take some pictures, counting the cows in the fields (23), just admiring the beautiful countryside, and then…