A Relaxing Weekend, with Tattoos

In preparation for Shelly's trip to L.A., we spent an incredibly relaxing three days last weekend at Aninuan Beach, in Oriental Mindoro province, the northern part of which is littered with more white sand beaches than you could ever visit.

The difficulty with visiting Aninuan Beach, or even the more popular beaches in Puerto Galera or White Beach, is that there is very little information online, aside from a couple of top-end resorts. So, armed with two guidebooks and Bobby's minimal knowledge of Batangas and Mindoro, we headed off on Saturday morning for the Batangas pier, an easy two hour drive from our house.

We had an old -- and, as it turned out, completely inaccurate -- print out of ferry times from Batangas to Puerto Galera. I had called around to a couple of the high-end resorts Friday night, but they were both booked for the weekend. We decided we would try our luck and see where we ended up, though we agreed that low key and quiet would be preferable to a party atmosphere. With that in mind, we planned on taking a ferry to Puerto Galera, then a jeepney west to White Beach or Aninuan Beach where, we had read, the crowds would be significantly less than in Puerto Galera.

The downside, I pointed out to Shelly, is that there would be less to do.

"What is it you really want to do this weekend?" she asked me. "I was thinking about swimming, sleeping and reading."

"And?" I asked.

"And nothing. I really want to swim, sleep and read, and that's it."

I was floored -- and thrilled. A favorite vacation that I have fantastic memories of was my trip to Nepal in 1995. After bugging out of India early, I had a couple of weeks in Kathmandu, so slept late, went sightseeing midday, and read and drank beer in the afternoons and evenings. It was a great vacation, but not of the style Shelly typically prefers, where things are usually more active and structured.

I agreed that swimming, sleeping and reading sounded good, and I did it quickly -- before Shell could change her mind.

After Bobby dropped us off at the pier, we hustled inside, intent on making the 10:00 departure we had listed on our out-of-date timetable. Instead, we found a boat direct to White Beach for just 130 pesos. It would save us time and a jeepney ride from Puerto Galera, and probably save us money, too. Without a second thought, we bought our tickets and headed to the boat.

Most of the boats we had read about were ferries or high speed, twin-hulled catamarans. I was, then, somewhat surprised to see the outrigger that would take us from Batangas to White Beach. It was, well, smaller than I had anticipated.

Not only was our boat small, it rode relatively low in the water. As the outriggers tended to kick up a fair amount of spray, the boatmen rolled a thick plastic sheeting down over the sides of the boat, effectively locking us all in.

There were probably enough life jackets if we capsized, but I doubt most of us would have made it past the sheets of plastic. Fortunately, the water was smooth and an hour later we landed on the beach.

I had been chatting with a White Beach resident on the boat. She was on her way home for the weekend, and was nice enough to confirm that our guidebooks were correct, and that we could easily walk five minutes around the rocky point to the quieter Aninuan Beach.

It wasn't high season, so White Beach was, in truth, neither busy nor noisy, but it was more commercialized than Aninuan. We decided to go back across the rocks for another look on Sunday.

We easily found a room at the Tamaraw Beach Resort, which features little huts not far from the water and soon, unfortunately, a big concrete hotel. I'm sure the family who owns the resort will appreciate the money from the additional rooms when they open up, but it's probably a step towards making Aninuan Beach more like White Beach, which is to say, not as nice as it is now. The staff was incredibly friendly, they have a good cook in the kitchen, and the views and price couldn't be beat, and both of us would stay at the Tamaraw Beach Resort again, I think. Soon after arriving, we went for a swim, then decided that this beach dog had the right idea:

And thus began our 24-hour cycle of swim-sleep-read-eat-sleep-swim-sleep-read-eat, etc.

On Sunday, we did head back around the point to White Beach. Shelly had a mischevious gleam in her eye, and I followed reluctantly.

"Let's get tattoos," she said.

"Really?" Shelly had teased me once that she had gotten a tattoo while she was in the Peace Corps. I had never thought of her tattooed before, but had decided, then and there, that I liked the idea of Shelly having some ink. I was skeptical that there was a tattoo in her future, and knew there wasn't one in my future. Too much pain, I think.

"Henna tattoos, not real ones," she explained. "They last about two weeks. It'll be a bonding experience. Don't worry -- there won't be any needles."

There were two different tattoo shops on the beach, so we headed to the one that looked more prosperous. Once there, we picked out designs, and the tattoo artist began to sketch them, with a blue ball point pen, on our skin, before filling them in with a dark black ink.

We had to head back before sun down, as neither of us wanted to negotiate the rock pile in the dark, so after a couple of beers and a big bottle of water, we headed back to Aninuan Beach for the night.

The next morning, we had to go back to White Beach to catch our outrigger back to Batangas, so we had breakfast there rather than at the Tamaraw Beach Resort, which was probably a mistake, as it wasn't as good as what we'd had at the Tamaraw. Soon after, it was time to board our outrigger. The water didn't seem rough until we got out of the protected area near Mindoro. Once we were in the channel, it was a different matter entirely.

The thick plastic sheets once again came down. Because the front of the boat is higher than the back of the boat and the captain steers from the back, he can't really see anything once the sheets are covering the sides of the boat, so a lookout rides on the bow, acting as the captain's eyes.

Shortly after I took this picture, the waves picked up -- the swells were probably only four or five feet, but this was not a large boat, so we felt each of those four or five feet -- and two more boatmen headed to bow. I began to regret forgetting my Dramamine. I wasn't the only one. Once we were in the channel fighting the waves, which we hitting us mostly broadside, the lookouts not only helped the captain steer, but also signaled to him when to accelerate and when to put the engine into idle in order to minimize the effects of the waves. I managed to take a short video of our ride. It was taken with my phone, so the quality isn't very good.






The captain steered cheerfully through the whole thing, the expression on his face never changing, probably happy for the chance to show off his sailing skills.

Me? I was glad to be back on shore.