Dive-Monster Rhoody

I guess once in a while everybody goes through some days or weeks where things are just messed up and one is pretty much pissed off with everything, work sucks, it is cloudy and rains each time I wanna go out, Internet connection is lousy that adult-movies don’t run proper, and and and, it usually comes together…I seem to be in the middle of one. However,  I just decided to go for a beauty-nap, I checked my mails before laying down and found one which was not spam or complaint.

Maybe some of my valued visitors read “Raising the dead “, a dramatic real story about extreme cave diver Dave Shaw who promised the parents of Deon Dryer to find and get their son, who died on the bottom of the third deepest known freshwater cave of the world, back to the surface. I started posting the very emotional story about 2.5 years ago in eight parts. The story was original published on Outsideonline but I was totally thrilled of it that I just wanted to repost it to all who never heard of it. http://dive-monster.com/bushmans-hole-raising-the-dead-part-1/. Most people who react first with saying “ those guys  are crazy idiots, why are people doing that”, will change their mind when reading “raising the dead” and get sucked with Dave Shaw and  Don Shirley into the depth of Bushman’s Hole.

Anyway, this afternoon I got this mail where I just wanna quote:

Hi Rudy.

For the past few days I’ve been reading the forums on dumagueteinfo.com and enjoying your Dive-Monster blog. Thought that I would say hello. I see that you reprinted the excellent Outside article on Dave Shaw, Don Shirley, and Bushman’s; I wrote a book about the same incident that was published in 2008. I lived with Don Shirley and his wife for a month at Komati Springs, and visited Bushman’s with him. Very cool.

I hope to come to Dumaguete area for an extended visit soon, and if so I hope we can meet. You write well, and you obviously enjoy life.

BTW I noticed that you mentioned Dave Ross in PG. He was my OW instructor a LOT of years ago.

Cheers,

Phil Finch

Well, I usually get mails what an arrogant asshole I am (not that I deny that…), so this mail was a very cool and pleasant surprise and I must admit it turned my bad mood totally around. Of course I replied, thanked and asked if I can help anything. However, we figured out that we either bumped already into each other while I was working there with Asia Divers or just missed by weeks. Nevertheless seems we have some friends in PG in common.

More about Phil, his book about bushman’s hole and his future plans in the next article. My 3 monsters came home and there is no way focusing on writing…
cheers

Rhoody

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After Mia’s Restobar in Sibulan just north of the Dumaguete Airport got praised on Dumagueteinfo.com like Christs second coming   multiple times, I used the last Sunday to pay another visit with my little family. I have been there before but it was a Christmas Party with buffet and beer from the cooler, so I can’t really judge the place as we just had a lot of fun anyway.

To find Mias Restobar you make a right turn just after the Dumaguete Airport go along the wall, after 1.5km the road makes a right turn and 500 meter later you can see a blue-ish building on the left side, thas Mias. To get there (it belongs already to Sibulan) from Dumaguete will cost around 50 – 60 Peso with a trike. Another option is a easy-ride direction Sibulan/Amlan, and walk from the main the 2km to Mia’s but that also cost you 15 Peso and we were 4 people, so the trike was the way to go.

We went there around 1.30 pm and according to the signboard, the Restobar has open from 1pm on and the swimming Pool at Mias from 10 am – 10 pm. Sitting in a sunny day at a bar in a Karaoke Joint with a pool-table is not my thing but for people who like it, the pool-table looks very good and the whole place is very clean and friendly. We went straight to the swimming pool.

The pool area of Mias is in a wonderful garden and all seating areas are under small tents. Thos tents have a good quality and wherever you look, it is obvious that there is some love and work behind. I had problems to hold my 2 monsters back from entering the pool to order first. Our waitress was super-friendly what just fitted perfectly into the whole place.

We ordered Meat-Balls, Lumpia (Springrolls), Sinigang, Beef Roulads w/ redwine-sauce and mashed potatoes, Baby Back-Rips and French fries; that should be enough to get a rough overview of the food-quality, some shakes, coke and water against the thirst were ordered ahead.

After waiting over half an hour, Rechel asked the waitress to bring at least my coke-light and a bottle of water as Rhoody really started to look dehydrated and finally those 2 drinks arrived, where emptied, and re-ordered immediately. This order came also before the shakes; those arrived just with the Meat-Balls after 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is in my opinion just a little too long for an ice-tea, a chocolate and a mango shake.  

Anyway the Meat Balls for 120 Peso were fantastic and soon the Lumpia arrived. Those were a bit bland, but tasted fresh and fried in really hot fresh oil, not like many springrolls downtown Dumaguete where you can use them to grease a complete fleet of trike-chains with one order. A bit more salt would have brought out the taste of the filling.

The french fries were some of the best I had here in this area, obviously home-made, crispy and served with quality Heinz-Ketchup, not that del Monte crab or banana catsup…  really good, I would have eaten more, but my 2 monster chewed them away like there is no tomorrow. The Sinigang was also delicious and not too sour, absolute perfect for my taste.

The Beef Roulads were ok and the meat soft and tender. The problem with that dish was simply, that it is supposed to come with redwine-sauce. That was one of the main-reasons why we ordered it, mashed potatoes and redwine-sauce, it almost does not matter what comes with that. Hmmm, but arrived with brown goo which had some canned mushrooms added. Well…. It is still Dumaguete, so you certainly should not expect to get what you order. I am sure you guys understand the disappointment when you look forward to something exciting and it turns out different.   Rechel still liked it a lot, so all is good and for just under 300 Peso it was a good value for money.

The Baby Back Ribs were also a good sized portion for less than 300 Peso. The meat felt of the bone and was delicious. The BBQ sauce was way to sweet and totally ruined the ribs as there was nothing more to taste than sweetness. I would love that sauce as a sweat breakfast spread on a oven-fresh bread-role. But tastes are different and the ribs had raving reviews from the US-crowd here in Dumaguete, so I assume that’s the way they like it. For me was just no BBQ taste anywhere to find.

After our meal, we 4 jumped in the pool and had a great time at Mias. The depth of the pool is not for small kids without supervision. My two are 10 and 12 and can swim like fish, so no issue. For smaller kids I recommend close supervision as even the shallow part might be too deep to stand up for them.

We spend the whole afternoon playing around at Mias and had a wonderful time. When the sun started setting, we changed and started walking the 2 km towards the north highway. If you don’t have an own vehicle you might have trouble finding a trike at Mias location as it is a bit off the track. I am sure the owner is able to call or organize one if you ask for. As it was a wonderful sunset, we enjoyed the walk and just before we hit the highway my friend Guenther (owner of Casablanca) picked us up on his way to work and took us downtown.

I really have some problems to judge the place in general, so I try it from different directions.

1^st-summary: Many know that I moderate the forum part on Dumagueteinfo.com, so judging Mia’s Restobar, I basically found almost everything what DI-members complain about Restaurants in Dumaguete City. Very slow service (remember shakes 1hr 15 minutes), dishes are different as described in the menu, prices are in a range that it is in the upper third of this region.  Would I go to Mias Restobar for having lunch or dinner? No, I don’t think so, I get the same or better stuff in Dumaguete, so no need to “travel”.

2^nd-summary: It is a great place for small celebrations or going there with a bunch of friends to have some cold ones, playing pool, have a swim and a good time. Looks like a wonderful, friendly, clean place to get filled up and have fun with a couple of mates and some snacks in between. I am convinced that I will end up there once in a while with some friends for some booze.

3-rd summary:  Taking the family for a nice relaxed afternoon at a great place in a lovely, tropical garden, having a decent meal some cold shakes and a great time. Mia’s is definitely a place to consider for doing exactly that. We had a great time at Mias Restobar and swimming pool that we four look forward to our next visit in Dumaguetes neighbor municipality Sibulan.   

Cheers

Rhoody

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Since the five and a half years I am here in Dumaguete, people discuss about a Thai Restaurant and how everybody would love it. Well the waiting has an end, finally Dumaguete’s first Thai restaurant Ti Ban Thai just opened recently next to Zanzibar in Dumaguete.  Being a huge fan of Thai food (well, who isn’t), I needed to check the place out right away.

Ti Ban Thai is a cozy little restaurant which gives space for about 30 diners. The lightning and interior are modern warm with touch of Thailand caused some handmade statues in small niches on the walls. The owners, a French couple, lived in Thailand many years before moving to Dumaguete to open a Thai Restaurant and took care that all was ok on both of our visits. Ti Ban Thai has no aircon but enough ceiling-fans which kept the temperature down, that the only sweat I had dripping from my nose was from the chilies I bit on.

At the moment they only open at dinner time what is a policy I don’t understand necessarily as most foreigners here are daytime-creatures and a student snack should also go well at lunchtime if promoted the right way.

Anyway, most people think that Thai-Food is necessarily spicy, what is definitely not true. Of course there are spicy dishes but at least as many which suits the pallets of diners which are slightly more sensible than Rhoody.

Rechel and I were there two times and unlikely other new restaurants opened the last year in Dumaguete, which seem to throw all in the first week and than simply go straight downhill,  Ti Ban Thai got even better from a very enjoyable first visit to our second dinner.

Like always we ordered many different dishes so we get a nice overview about the whole menu, which offers a kind of standard Thai cuisine with some appetizer, Glassnoodle Salads, hot and sour soups, different curries, etc.

Some of the dishes we ordered were the Thai spring rolls, which are different to local ones and were very obviously deep fried in fresh HOT oil what made a huge difference to most other local places where the Lumpia are just horrible saggy with a smell of 5 years old trike-lubricants.

One of my favorite dishes in any Thai Restaurant are Tom Yam Soup (any style) Tom Kha Kai. We ordered them very spicy and they came exactly like that. I would definitely take a bath in them. Rechels #1 dishes were the green and yellow curry, as she loves food the way her boyfriend is, (hot and spicy) she was really pleased about the dishes.

The Phad Thai was also a delight, after we spiced it up with a bit Prik Nam Pla (fish-sauce with chilis). With all that spices, the Yam Mounsen appeared a bit bland, but I guess my taste buds were already a kind of “influenced” and the Laab Moo was a bit different to what I was used to from my 20+ Thailand visits.

What should be definitely at Ti Ban Thai are some more drinks like coke light/max. If the ceiling-fans do the work in the hot summer month has to be seen. The staff is always present and have no place to hide as in other restaurants so it is easy to order something more, what seems to be impossible in other,very famous, Restaurants in Dumaguete.

Like you can see, a full fat and almost smiling Rhoody with an empty plate is about the best verification of a nice dining experience you can get. The price range goes from 95 peso to 250 Peso with ok sized portions. Rice goes extra and is quality Jasmin rice, not cooked to death. Overall a great dining experience and nice to have a Thai Restaurant like Ti Ban Thai in Dumaguete.

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After our 5-Star experience with Delta Ferries Kim, M&M and I finally arrived in Larena on Siquijor where the driver of Charisma Beach Resort was waiting and took us the last 30 minutes to the resort. It was dark already, so we did not see anything of the praised sunset.

One suggestion would be to install a light at the resorts parking area as it is almost pitch-black and not that easy to find the right steps to the restaurant. Anyway, one of the staff showed us our room and we threw our bags in before heading to the restaurant where I finally met Jeziel, our helping hand and the lady boss of the Charisma Beach Resort in Siquijor. (Being hungry and thirsty I forgot to take any pictures).

Charisma is a small Beach Resort on Siquijor with only 7 rooms, so a perfect place to relax from “busy” Dumaguete

The paperwork was painless and we got the menu in our hand to order some food as we were almost starving. As it was already dark, the first out of many SMB was on the table and we could continue with our plan for the night…

An absolute outstanding performance was the prepared cooler with plenty of beer which kept us happy way after the staff went home. Way after midnight Jeziel came from a party and joined us for some small-talk, before the resort was left to Kim, me and a few bottles of liquid gold…

A word about the food:

All in all the dishes we had at Charisma Beach Resort was what could be expected for that price-range on Siquijor Island. Nothing outstanding, nothing horrible and a bit up and down, meaning what was great the first dinner turned out to be a bit less enjoyable the next day. Nevertheless, it can feed me a few days without bigger complaints.

As our habit is to order a full table of different dishes, we run into the problem that like many smaller resort kitchens are simply not prepared to cook dishes at the same time. They finish one dish and go to the next what let the first dish cool down. Due to our bigger order, we waited about 1:20 minutes until it arrived on our table, while some was hot, the potatoes were stone-cold.  Well, they reheated them and that’s fine with me. We avoided that issue the second night with telling them to bring on whatever is ready and that turned out to be a great solution as warm food kept on coming for the whole dinner…

here just a picture I want to share, I simply love the colors of that plants:

I had a funny situation when ordering my 4^th cup of coffee the next day as they run out of hot water… ??? I need on my stove at home 1-2 minutes to heat the water, here it took 25 minutes. I assume they had some hot water in the freezer and needed to defrost it first …

Anyway, the next day was mainly wasted with hanging around, doing nothing and being lazy. We scored 99 out of 100 – the one point missing comes from the 2 minutes I spend taking this pictures. Charisma is perfect for being lazy and doing nothing. The natural beach is white and has fine sand what can be a bit light if you succeeded in drinking a case of beer and the sun is out with full power the next day, but well… that was out choice.

The water in front was crystal clear but after it got knee-deep the bottom was more like white mud and a bit yucky. The pool of the resort is a saltwater pool which might be not the favorite of some but as a scuba diver I really could not care less.

So after an afternoon beauty nap we proceeded with our original plan and continued with what we can do best, saving others from becoming alcoholics… Oops, almost forgot to mention that I woke up just in time to catch the final of the famous Siquijor sunset… of course I want to share some of the almost dramatic pictures with my valuable readers…

We needed to check out the next morning at 11:00am so we called it a day around 4:00am, well we did not have much choice as the cooler was empty anyway…

Mission accomplished… !!!

The ride back to Dumaguete was in time and smooth, so all was fine to proceed to Mikes Beach resort in Dauin to start working on Kim’s Nitrox course…

More about Nitrox in the next report…

Cheers
Rhoody

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Not all things can be predicted when planning a trip, anyway if you ever wanted to find out what is the closest to human water, continue reading this article…

Kim was on a visit in Dumaguete and after 2 days in the City we ran into the problem that there was no Hotel available at the weekend due to graduations or whatever. Well a Resort in Siquijor was booked but I got the call 1.5 days before we wanted to go there: “Sorry Sir, we did a mistake, no room available”

Back online and calling around, all full… the last I called was Charisma Resort near San Juan and we got two air-con rooms for 1750 peso and a discount of 5% on them. Jeziel, the female part of the owner-couple was a great person to deal with and very helpful with each and everything.

Do not expect any stunning pictures… there is not much picture-material on the Dumaguete Pier on a cloudy Saturday afternoon…

So on March 19, Kim, M&M and Rhoody heading pretty tired from two nights beer-temperature-testing towards the Pier in Dumaguete to go on the 1:30pm Delta Ferry to Siquijor. Goal of the whole trip was to sit on the beach with the feet in the sand and drinking unbelievable amounts of beer. All was booked, all was perfectly planned, the sea was a bit rough, but hey, we are real men – So, let’s get it on…

Of course the Delta trip was cancelled due to a broken boat and nobody could give any information if the 4:30 boat would go. To our big surprise the broken boat left Dumaguete at 2:00pm EMPTY to Siquijor to bring the other Delta on some spare-parts. No don’t waste your daily WHY-Question here; simply call it the 86-Factor.
So on the phone again, and another time Jeziel was a great assistance with getting information. For our little trip I can verify that without her it would be probably more a 82 than a 86. I told her that our main goal upon arrival would be a bite to eat and a lot of cold Beer… of course for Kim a couple of cow-pee (sml) also.

While I was on the phone, Kim was at the Delta ticket booth, taking part in the challenge “How many elbows are needed to push me away in 10 seconds”… City of gentle people my ass!!! The guy at the office was also immense helpful with statements like: “For a while Sir, the kuan maybe ano….” . We still hoped somehow to make it to Siquijor to get the correct treatment for Kim’s black spots from hundreds of elbows left on his body…

Anyway while our 600 pounds wobbling across the pier I got the message that Delta left Siquijor at 3:30, meaning as it was 4:15 that we should see the spot of the ferry already on the horizon. The only thing we saw was the Montenegro which was in a tremendous speed heading towards Dumaguete. That would be our last option to get to Siquijor this day, even the 2 hour ride sucks totally… well you can’t always get what you want…

With about an hour delay “our” ferry finally arrived in Dumaguete. Boarding it was a kind of tricky, the boat was bouncing up and down, but this time I managed it without further injuries, so all was fine. The ride to Siquijor was surprisingly smooth and after 1:15 minutes we finally arrived in Larena/Siquijor and the driver of Charisma resort was indeed standing there to pick us up and bring us way after sunset (which is supposed to be great at Charisma) to the resort.

Time to start Kim’s blue-spot-treatment and proceeding with our original weekend plans, how that worked out… well, find out in the next episode…

oops, almost forgot the 86-Factor picture …. Here is a cool advertising for water I saw on the Pier in Dumaguete

Well, on the first view it is a typical rusty hand-painted advertising, so lets have a closer look…

WTF is the closest to human water… do they have a factory where 10,000 people pissing through coffee-filter and fill it in bottles ??? nah, that result would be almost Kim’s SML … Anyway, soon we are in Siquijor, stay tuned..
cheers

Rhoody

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A Fluoro Dive is the latest and probably fanciest addition in Scuba Diving. A Fluorescence Night Dive is like being live in Avatar. Maybe it is a fancy thing which goes away as quickly as it came, nevertheless for those who have the options, they should give it a try, it is pretty cool.

While most Advanced Open Water Diver who did the night dive got shown the Bioluminescence by their instructor, or just saw that glowing star-like plankton glowing around the fins of another diver, the Fluoro Dive just brings that up a few notches.

The Coral Fluorescence is nothing really that new in Scuba Diving. Charles Mazel can be named as one of the pioneers starting to investigate that phenomenon in the 1970s. Later he worked on the idea how to have that effect captured in pictures and on film. So first a brief explanation about that:

Coral Fluorescence

That specific “glowing” in bright green, orange and yellow comes from some specific proteins in the corals and other aquatic life. Those protein produced light-waves are usually not strong enough that our human eye can see it, so we need to emphasize that activity somehow. Like in your first night-dive, your instructor might ask you to cover your torch while he waves like a maniac through the water to show you the Bioluminescence.

To activate the Coral Fluorescence to be (for us humans) visible Charles Mazel started experimenting by stimulating the proteins with different bright light sources in an aquarium. The reflection of the light was so strong that he developed different filters to filter out that strong light waves and make the Coral Fluorescence visible for the human eye.

Mazel did a lot of experimenting in Marine Aquariums before he started the company NightSea and developed a torch which can be used for Scuba Diving… the Fluoro Dive was born. The Blue Star Flashlight produces a very strong blue beam which “tickles” the proteins of the host and raises their activity which produces this extreme “flashy” fluorescent colors. To filter out the reflected (for a Fluoro dive unwished) bright light, the diver will wear an additional yellow filter under his mask and off he is to Avatar.
Horst Grunz, a German professor of the University of Duisburg-Essen and a passionate diver did some experiments sponsored HiTec LED’s by Osram and recorded that stunning video:

Like most equipment in diving, Mazel’s NightSea Blue Star underwater lights are not that cheap and range from US$ 175 to almost US$ 700. According to Horst Grunz you might also use Cree LED’s in royal blue. At present those lights are mainly used by Universities for studying the Coral Fluorescence but more and more dive shops in the world get a set of that special torches to be able to offer their guest this fancy Fluoro Dive.
Cheers
Rhoody

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The KRI Restaurant in Silliman Avenue is one of the latest additions to the Restaurant – Options in Dumaguete. I read quite some mixed  review with the general tendency to be positive about KRI Restaurant. So back and relaxed from my working-trip to Angeles, I grasped Rechel and we went there for lunch.

There would be enough parking space for the guests if not this typical local attitude would rule that people who have a big car must almost drive right into the entrance in a way almost nobody can pass or actually park there. Kuya, you can park in Dauin, it would help the shape of your wife a lot if she need to move her … well skip that.

KRI Restaurant has its name from the three involved people Keith, Richie and Irish and is pronounced  -kree- like in “Chris”. The interior is modern and a kind of bright but still welcoming, the aircon working nicely (no ref, not too hot) and music is perfect balanced background music for a nice lunch. The chairs are ok for my big ass and the table-setting nice.

The menu of KRI Restaurant in Dumaguete is pretty small and offers some Salads, Sandwiches, Rice-topping and noodle dishes with some specials announced on a mirror on the wall.

The price range goes from 75 to 98 Peso while the soup of the day is 49 Peso. Drinks start from 40 Peso for a coke to 50 for a SML. Additional several Shakes and coffee are available.

Considering that the menu announces that all is exclusive VAT & Service Charge, the drinks are pretty much expensive for Dumaguete.

Anyway, the staff was very attentive and we had the menu a second after we sat down. Our drinks were out of stock so we decided to stick to the complimentary drinking-water (nice and prompt service, by the way) Rechel mentioned to me that a guy at the table behind us whispered something to the “R-Part” of KRI and pointed at me, who appeared 10 seconds later at our table and apologized for the inconvenience with the drinks and staff is on the way to get some coke light and sprite from a neighboring shop.

Somehow I got the feeling that the “whispering” on the table behind involved something like “ This is THAT Rhoody, better don’t fuck it up” or similar. Well, anyway I appreciated that a lot as I had a similar situation in another restaurant where I was the only guest with a friend and 4 waitresses were standing lazy around but none moved their ass to get outside, resulting that my friend went outside and bought 2 bottles coke light which we consumed with our lunch.

Each time I visit a new place I order a variety of dishes to get an overview of the total. Our order for 2 was:

• Soup of the day (Tom Yum Goong)
• Pad Thai
• Turkey on Chiabatta
• Short Ribs on rice
• Sweet of the day (sort of lime-cake)
• Pecan Pie

So let’s start with the two Thai-dishes from KRI Restaurant. Both are not on the regular menu but I asked our friendly waitress and she told me that they are usually available. I love Thai Food but the last time I had something close to Thai Food was in Angeles City in a kinda weird place with delicious food but strange guys around.

I know it look like Baby-vomit, but was really delicious

Both dishes were absolute delicious and the closest to Pad Thai and Tom Yum Soup I ever had in Dumaguete. My order was very spicy and I am sure for the local pallet it must have been insane spicy while I could have it about 2 steps higher. Anyway, delicious, can I have a bathtub full of that stuff?

Side note: … now our Coke and Sprite arrived (nice service)

Turkey on Ciabatta – Short Rips on Rice

While there was no complain about the taste, the size is a little bit behind my expectations. Same could be said about the Ribs on Rice. Two tiny rips with a little bit of meat covering barely the big hole in my tooth bottom-left-back… Again, taste-wise, nothing to complain but also nothing extraordinary.

Lime-Cake – Pecan Pie

I definitely loved the Lime-Cake which had a great refreshing flavor without being too sweet. Maybe two or three drops of something on the side or a spoon of ice-cream on top would make it extraordinary for me. Rechel liked it also but preferred the Pecan Pie. Both desserts were something I would not wanna miss.

The table settings and food presentations were all fine, nothing I would rave about or would remember in a few years, but hey, we are in Dumaguete, and for here it is at the sunny side of Dumaguetes Restaurants.

When we paid the bill at KRI Restaurant, the coke and sprite where due to late delivery on the house …. Or maybe it was the result of the whispering and pointing earlier on my back… Still very generous and appreciated, so I left a well deserved tip of 70 Peso, which is more I would usually tip on a 500 Peso bill.

I am not exactly sure how to write a summery about the overall experience at KRI Restaurant…but ok, here I try:

It is definitely not that cheap as I can read on some other reviews online but it is a nice place with value for money. I don’t mind paying a bit more for good quality, service, aircon and nice ambience. The 2 Thai dishes are definitely on me do-it-again list, while I certainly will skip the short rips as Mooon has about 4 times as much meat for only double money on their Baby Back Rips…. won’t go for the Turkey on Ciabatta bread anymore either, just too much bread and not enough turkey.

Will I go there again?

Maybe not if the same place would be in a real city. We talk about Dumaguete City, where the choice of Restaurants is pretty limited and KRI Restaurant in Silliman Avenue is a very welcome addition to my style of having a bite to eat. Staff and owner very attentive on that visit and Rechel and I definitely enjoyed our visit at KRI Restaurant in Dumaguete. Congrats Keith, Richie and Irish, all together a nice job, see you again at your place. My chances being a returning customer? For Dumaguete it is a 100% YES!!! (I will be there again and try more dishes and some repeats), 50% yes after the second visit, 4.48% after the 3rd visit …

cheers

Rhoody

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