Siquijor: As Fun to Visit As It Is to Try to Pronounce

Having had our fill of landbound fun (and having played enough games of chess to wear the board into pieces) (for real!) (also I finally exhausted my supply of parentheses), we decided to spend our final day in the Philippines visiting the nearby island of Siquijor, renowned for being the home of mystical healers and witch doctors.  Jenn and I thought we'd rent some bicycles and see if we couldn't spend a day at the beach, then maybe bother a few witch doctors on the way back to the port.

Unsuitable vacation plans.
Source: http://www.smashbros.com/

Siquijor is a gorgeous, clear-watered tropical paradise, though admittedly we'd been getting a bit inured to tropical paradises after a month in the Philippines.  As is the custom of this country, we were accosted by several touts as soon as we set foot off the boat, most of whom were offering accommodation or motorcycle rental; when we put it to them that we wanted a couple of mountain bikes, a weird, awkward silence descended on the men.  Eventually, after some dispute, consensus was established that the only place that would rent bicycles were some of the island's resorts, and they would only rent them to guests staying the night.  We again got many hearty recommendations of places to rent motorcycles, but we turned the men down politely; my driver's licence is still in the mail, and my only experience with motorcycles was Excitebike, and even then I kept falling over.

Sadly, with no bikes available and only five hours until the last ferry back to land, we just had to rent a tricycle to drive us to the beach like a couple of tourists, ugh.  Our brains soft from the warm sun and coconut water oversaturation, we agreed to the driver's exorbitant price; he claimed that there would be some tariffs that needed to be paid on the 10-minute trip.  Now seems as good a time as any to explain Harry's Patented Haggling System, Patent Pending:

1. Merchant: "That costs 300 pesos."
2. Harry: "Hmm...I'll give you 275."
3. Merchant: "Deal."
4. Harry's Brain: "Yessss, I got a bargain!"

The driver took us to Palitan Beach, Lonely Planet's pick of the island for stunning white sand and excellent swimming.  Neither Jenn nor I had been to the beach many times in our lives -- not too many of those in Kansas or Missouri -- but we were hoping to spend our time in the Philippines hanging out in places that looked exactly like this.   We walked across the sugary sand, donned our bathing suits, and hopped into the water.  Three hours later, when the driver returned for us, Jenn had stepped on a sea urchin, at least a dozen seaweed-green jellyfish had appeared to terrorize us, and we were burned bright pink.  Truly, this "beach" is a dangerous business.

The most horrifying beach in the world (except for that DiCaprio movie) (oh, I found some more parentheses).

Another island visited!  Let's put it up on the big board and see how we fared in our thorough, month-long exploration of the Philippines:

...Aww, nerts.  Image may appear more impressive if you
haven't cleaned your computer screen lately.