The Tourist Scramble (with rice and ketchup)

My traveling companions, Noa and Dotan, and I arrived in Banaue with a rough plan of our agenda for the next few days.  To get more information we stopped in at the Tourist Information Center.  The man behind the counter began to describe to us the various sites and treks around Banaue.  We soon noticed, however, that he was less giving us "information" and more giving us a sales pitch for his friends who just happened to be guides.  At one point he even said something to the effect of "You could do this tour with a guide for...let me see...I could go as low as...only P800".  It soon became clear that we were wasting our time and politely excused ourselves.  That night the three of us hashed out a game plan.  In the morning we would cut a deal with one of the independent guides who were constantly roaming around the hostels, and at the same time we would nab other travelers to join our group, thereby decreasing the individual cost for each person.  Noa found a guide who would take us to some hot springs and lookout points for P4,000.  I ambushed two Norwegian guys during breakfast who had just arrived on the overnight bus from Manila and were just dazed and confused enough to be talked into joining our tour, but not so tired from the bus ride as to want to immediately find a bed and crash.  So, with the addition of Nils and Christian (the Norwegians) we were now four (Dotan was ill and would be staying behind).  Meanwhile, two French women whom we had met were planning on leaving Banaue that day for Manila, but were sympathetic to our plight and helped us conspire to rope in a French couple.  After speaking with Phillip and his wife (the French) we now totaled six.  The guide said our departure time was fast approaching, so I ran upstairs to my room to hurriedly pack a day bag with water, snacks, sunscreen, etc.  By the time I returned downstaris, Noa told me our group had nearly doubled in size to eleven.  Somewhere in the mix, she told me, her and I had ditched our original guide and attached ourselves to the guide that Phillip had been negotiating with.  Our final group consisted of one Israeli, two Norwegians, a smattering of Belgian and French, and yours truly.  Phew!  The constant cajoling, convincing, and negotiating of the morning had me fired up for the tour.


After everyone else was inside the jeepney, Noa and I climbed onto the top, so as to better enjoy the epic views.  Others in the group then decided that our idea was less crazy that it sounded, so they left the cramped inside of the vehicle to join us up top.  The ride was absolutely spectacular, as the rugged area is peppered with rice terraces.  The view was impressive enough to keep my mind off the bone-jarring ride on the severely ill-maintained mountain road.  Seriously.  Put a vehicle with no shock absorption on a road that causes you to feel like you're inside a cocktail shaker, and you get the idea.  We eventually arrived at a lookout point, where everyone snapped photos and attempted to realign their spines.  From the lookout the guide took us along a path through the rice terraces, where, in barely intelligible English, he explained some interesting facts about the process of planting and harvesting rice. During all this I felt sorry for the French people, how also had only a rudimentary mastery of English.  I realized that I may be the only one on this tour who's understanding what they guide is saying.  If I have to strain my ear and connect the dots with his pronunciation and vocabulary, how can the non-native English speakers understand?  Once again, I felt lucky to have English as a first language   

We arrived at the hot springs a little while later feeling...hot.  The hike through the stuffy, humid climate made the springs less attractive than they had been earlier.  However, nearby was a rushing river and I dashed off to see if I could locate a calm pool where someone could take a refreshing dip.  Upon finding a suitable place, I ran back to the hot springs, changed into my swimming suit, and excitedly told everyone what I'd found.  Let's just say everyone were less than thrilled.  Apparently no one, not even the Norwegians, liked the thought immersing themselves into an ice-cold river.  Come on!  You're from Norway!  Aren't you all born in a snowbank up there?  Anyway, after I alternated between the cold river and hot spring a few times, while everyone else just sat in the boring hot spring, the guide told us it was time to move on. 


We returned to the jeepney and rode to several more lookout points, each one providing awe-inspiring views of the rice terraces.  It was humbling to imagine the local people carving the terraces out of the mountain with just crude shovels.  Some of the terraces are around 2,000 years old.  It made me think of how I always complained when my parents made me shovel snow as a kid.  Or about how I thought working construction during my high school summers was hard work.  Shoveling concrete all day pales in comparison to moving tons of dirt by hand and hauling river rocks up mountains for years and years to just provide rice for your family.  


That night some of us went to a local bar, where a three-person band amazed us with their musical talent.  The guys were singing everything from Eric Clapton to Toby Keith to Guns N Roses.  And they were good.  Very good.  Dotan and I couldn't stop marveling at their talent.  It was because we were so impressed that, during a break in the set, Dotan approached the lead singer as he was ordering a beer from the bar.  Dotan complemented the guy on how good he was and asked him a question about a song he'd played earlier in the night.  In response to Dotan's question, the lead singer replied with...a blank stare.  It turns out that the guy can't speak English. At All.  Later on we would learn from a local that the cover bands in this country (and there are many) learn the chords and master the lyrical pronunciation of all the famous American singers.  But that's all they master.  They can nail a Pearl Jam song or sound exactly like Jon Bon Jovi, but wouldn't understand you if you asked "Where's the bathroom?"  I find this a very ironic quirk of the Filipino culture.  It would be like if I perfected Feliz Navidad or The Macarena, but didn't understand a lick of Spanish.  I'm still baffled by it.


Sometime during the night Nils and I had an interesting conversation about ketchup.  You see, in the Philippines when you order ketchup you don't get tomato ketchup.  What comes to your table is actually banana ketchup.  Only it's still red.  For some reason, most likely due to the lack of tomatoes and surplus of bananas, condiment manufactures have somehow managed to create banana ketchup that looks like the real thing with only a slightly different taste.  I thought back to New Zealand and remembered that the ketchup there, which was tomatoes, also tasted slightly different than American ketchup.  Nils then told me that Norwegian ketchup tasted different as well.  He told me he loves Norwegian ketchup but can't stand Danish ketchup, even though Denmark is right next door to Norway.  This got me thinking.  If ketchup tastes different in every country, it would be interesting to gather ketchups from all around the world and sample them.  There could be a World Ketchup Festival where people could sample ketchups on french fries, burgers, and hotdogs.  Then, there would be a taste test.  One ketchup would be designated the King of Ketchups.  Also, I wonder, if ketchup in the USA, New Zealand, The Philippines, Norway, and Denmark all taste different, then every ketchup in every country has to be different than all the others.  Fascinating.  What does Indian ketchup taste like?  How about ketchup from Uganda?  Is there a ketchup unique to the Vatican?  I'll keep everyone posted on the ketchup issue when I have the opportunity to try the condiment in other countries. 

That's all for now.  I hope everyone is doing well in their parts of the world.  Take care!

Pat

Exit Sagada, Enter Bontoc

 My last post left off with me feeling sore from a cave tour, whining about cockroaches, and describing the taste and texture of dog meat.  That was two weeks ago.  What follows is the first installment of a three-part account of my journey from Sagada deeper into the mountains (and amazing scenery) of Mountain Province and Ifugao Province of the Philippines.  I hope you enjoy.


After exploring the caves I met two Israeli women who asked me what my plans were during my remaining time in Sagada.  I informed them that my plan was to hike through the Echo Valley the following day.  We had small talk about our travels and local restaurants before they left to get situated in the hostel and explore the town.  Unbeknownst to me, these two Israelis (Rotem and Lior) met a German couple in town, and, after the Germans asked them of their plans, Rotem and Lior said "We're going hiking tomorrow with an American guy.  He doesn't know it yet, but we are going with him."  Later that night when I saw Rotem she told me about the Germans and we agreed on a time to meet in the morning.  So the next day Rotem, Lior and I met up with Felix and Birgit (the Germans who currently live in Zurich), and headed out of town for some hiking.  Rotem mentioned that a third Israeli woman she had met would be joining us, and we waited for Noa outside her hostel.  Noa's husband Dotan was ill, so he would stay back, recuperating in bed.  The six of us found the start of the trail and headed into the valley.  After getting lost a few times we found the famous hanging coffins of Sagada.  Local tribes prefer to stuff their dead into small wooden coffins and hang them from cliffs, rather than burying them in the ground.  This sort of dehydrated-beef-jerky-style of interment is reserved only for the most revered members of society, and requires the family of the deceased to sacrifice 20 pigs and 60 chickens in order to appease the gods.  If one does not possess high status within the tribe, or they don't have the required number of livestock for sacrifice, they are buried in the ground unceremoniously without a coffin.  Some coffins hanging from the cliff are nearly 2,000 years old. 


Moving on from the coffins, we soon came across a creek that required a shoe-wetting crossing, then found a steep hill with a length of irrigation pipe running along the trail, which looked quite inviting as a rope to pull oneself up the hill with.  After going first up the hill, Felix discovered that the irrigation pipe actually was intended to be used a rope, as it was anchored to a rock at the top and too damaged to be used for irrigation.  Leave it to the Filipinos to be the ultimate recyclers.  A couple hours later our group found the highway, which is were the trail terminates, thereby avoiding a fate warned of in the guidebook which said "some tourists who enter Echo Valley for a leisurely day hike return hours later covered in mud with pine needles and thorns sticking out of their hair."  A visit to a nearby waterfall, with a refreshing dip into the cold water, rounded out the day.  The following day had us planning to visit a big waterfall a 20 minute jeep ride from town. After catching a jeep to the trail head and guide-hiring center, we were informed that the big waterfall was closed:  some kind of local holiday.  Now, I have the utmost respect for local cultures and traditions.  What I don't have respect for, is when, before departing in the jeepney, we informed the Sagada tourist center that we were headed for the big water fall.  No mention of a holiday.  Also, when boarding the jeepney we informed the driver that we intended to visit the big waterfall and he mentioned nothing about the falls being closed.  Frustrating to say the least.  We all managed to salvage the day by visiting the entrance and exit of the caves I had toured (no one in the group was interested in the physically demanding, claustrophobic cave tour).  That night we roasted marshmallows and potatoes over a camp fire at the hostel, sharing our fun with a large group of Easter Europeans (mostly Serbs, Bosnians, and Hungarians) who had arrived in Sagada that day. 


The next day Dotan, Noa, and I said goodbye to Felix, Birgit, Rotem, and Lior and we hopped on a jeep for a one-hour ride to Bontoc.  Bontoc is a slightly bigger town, much busier and crowded than Sagada.  Our sole purpose for spending an afternoon in Bontoc was to visit the Bontoc museum, which we had heard was among the best in the Philippines.  It was a nice place, with the small display on the local headhunting tradition (complete with grisly photos) being both fascinating and disturbing.  After the museum the three of us haggled and bargained with a private van, a jeepney, and a bus for transportation to the final destination of Banaue.  The bus won out, not because of price, but because of comfort.  We were off to the iconic town of Banaue, with its world famous rice terraces, for some epic trekking and scenery. 

Here's my requisite gripe for this post.  In the Philippines, not only is personal space non-existent, but carelessly bumping into people is an accepted part of everyday life.  It still shocks me when I'll be walking down the sidewalk and people will be nudging and bumping me left and right.  When I first experienced this I suspected I was being pick-pocketed.  But because I keep nothing in my pockets, and because the offenders run the gamut from young to old and poor to affluent, I realized that it is, in fact, just a normal occurrence.  I can handle the bumping when I'm walking, but when I'm sitting down at a restaurant or internet cafe and little children are constantly smacking in to my chair it gets irritating.  It's hard to concentrate on writing a blog post when every 10 seconds a small kid comes blasting past my chair with no effort to avoid said chair.  The kid's elbows, shoulders, and head will strike me and/or the chair and a small flame of annoyance flairs up inside of me.

While I'm discussing blogging, I'll expound on the complaint to describe the environment of the average internet cafe. Most families in the Philippines simply cannot afford a computer.  It's way beyond their daily budget when most people I've met say they earn an average of $10 per day.  But the internet cafe fills the technological gap.  Every small town has at least one, and big cities like Baguio have one on nearly every block.  However, these places are not calm and serene, filled with people doing homework, researching interesting topics, or looking up basketball scores.  No, internet cafes are crammed with young boys, aged 5 to 15, playing any number of video games.  Most are playing World of Warcraft, others play first-person-shooters.  And they're playing online.  Each kid is competing against the other kids around him, so the shouting, taunting, gloating is almost always at a fever pitch.  Add to this equation about five additional kids standing at each computer, watching the action on screen and voicing their opinions and dissents on strategy and tactics.  You get the picture.  Here sits a quiet, mild-mannered American guy reading the news, learning about the death of Kim Jong-Il or reading the latest developments in the GOP race, while around him the world is swirling like a hurricane as gaming-obsessed kids are engrossed in fantasy combat with their peers.  I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Frank Costanza throws up his hands in exasperation and declares "Serenity now!".  That's how I feel sometimes.

That's all for now.  I hope everyone is doing well in their parts of the world.  And I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.  Take care!



Pat

Big Man, Little Cave

First, apologies that I haven't written in so long.  I think most people, with most projects they've undertaken, go through phases where they're very productive and phases where they aren't so productive.  I've been doing things but just haven't had the motivation to sit down and write about them.  So, without further delay:

Let me say that I am utterly wiped out.  This morning I went on a cave tour.  For more than three hours I climbed up cave formations, scurried across giant boulders, threaded myself through extremely narrow openings, climbed down cave formations, swam through underground rivers, slid around on my butt, crawled on all-fours, and bonked my head no more than two times during the whole ordeal.  Despite the physical exhaustion that I'm feeling right now, the cave tour was definitely worth the time and money and I'd do it again in a heart beat (albeit with a few days' recovery).  My companions on the tour were three nice Filipinos from Manila who took a vacation together up here in Sagada.  The fifth member of our group was Igon-ay, a local man who served as cave guide and bearer of light (he carried a gas lantern for us to see).  Fortunately for me, I wasn't quite too big for some areas of this cave, although one time I came very close to getting stuck.  As the title of this blog alludes, there were several areas where the 6'7" American guy had to resort to moves that resembled a circus contortionist.  However, other areas of the cave were cavernous and awe-inspiring.  And water.  Water was everywhere.  From cascades that seemed to come out of the ceiling to swift streams slowly carving out patterns in the boulders to a large deep pool where one could take a dip and shock the system with a surprisingly low water temperature at the same time.  I loved it.  What I will not be loving, however, is tomorrow.  I anticipate the onset of a medial condition known as "acute muscle soreness".  I'll most likely be sitting down, reading my book, and drinking tea most of the day tomorrow.


Before Sagada I had the opportunity to meet up with Jema in Baguio after finding out via facebook that we'd just happen to be in the same place at the same time.  We spent a couple of days hanging out together and spending time with some of Jema's friends (and my friends now, I guess) who live in the area.  Highlights included a meal of rice and dog meat (dog meat is bland and quite greasy, though surprisingly tender), sampling a myriad of other Filipino dishes (stuff I was always scared to try because, quite frankly, it's difficult to tell what's actually in the dish), and driving 1 hour down to the coast to visit a resort/casino complex (no gambling for me).  Jema and I will rendezvous again on the 23rd and spend Christmas in Baguio before flying to the Visayas, which is a huge island group in the middle of the country.  I'm looking forward to some island fun in the sun.

Here's my gripe for the day:  cockroaches.  They are everywhere.  Not everywhere as in "blanketing the floor like fresh-fallen snow".  Rather more like "I see at least one-a-day crawl out from a hole in the wall".  I know what you're thinking: Well, seeing one-per-day isn't exactly "everywhere".  But for a guy from Wyoming who had never seen a cockroach until traveling outside the US at the age of 22, seeing cockroaches everyday counts as "everywhere" in my book.  The kicker is this:  the locals don't seem to mind.  I was eating in a restaurant recently when I spied a rather large cockroach moving across the floor.  A waitress happened to be passing the table so I pointed it out to her.  She nodded her head and said "oh" and continued walking towards the kitchen.  Only after she returned from the kitchen did she make a feeble attempt to look under some chairs.  By that time, though, the bug had done a disappearing act back into its hidy-hole somewhere.  I know I may sound like an affluent westerner by complaining about a common third-world annoyance, but I believe everyone here could do without the cockroaches. 

Stray dogs are everywhere.  As mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to try dog meat (some of you may be questioning my use of the word "opportunity").  That experience, combined with seeing stray dogs all over the streets (Jema recounted a story to me when a local told her that "every dog you see will be eaten eventually"), can possibly change a person's overall thoughts about canines.  While dogs are usually viewed solely as lovable pets, often known as "man's best friend", another description has been added to the list:  lunch.  I've always known that some cultures eat dogs, and that some Americans in the early history of our country did the same, but I've never seen it nor experienced it until coming to the Philippines.  To my knowledge, dog  meat was something eaten by  primitive bush tribes, not city-dwellers with growling stomachs.  The meat is served in most eateries here, although discretely, because technically its against the law to serve it.   Let me be clear by saying that I only ate the dog meat as a cultural experience, and won't eat it again.  It's greasy, the chunks of meat are tiny, and all the dogs I see on the street (that end up on the plate) are emaciated strays.  Give me a chicken leg or T-bone and I'll dig in.  However, this brings up a good question.  Why have we westerners pegged the title of "edible" onto some animals and not others.  How is a chicken more suitable to be eaten for dinner, shake-n-bake style, than so many other animals?  For someone who grew up eating wild game, I can see how animals other than the big three (beef, chicken, and pork) could also make a delicious meal.  I'm sure residents of the Bayou, whom I've hard regularly dine on alligator, would agree with me.

That's all for today.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care!

Pat

"Check Please" and Chicken Bones

In order to familiarize myself with Filipino culture I consult my guidebook quite frequently.  It explains important things about how to act in day-to-day life that come in handy to smooth-over most situations, such as checking into a hotel, ordering food, or, let's just say for example, asking for the bill in a restaurant.  It's this last one that had me hung up for a while.

The guidebook described the usual Filipino way to ask for the bill as "get the attention of your server and extend your thumb and index fingers in the shape of a rectangle".  So, after finishing my meal at my first restaurant outing, I raised my right hand in the air and extended my thumb and index finger and curled up the other three fingers to get them out of the way.  I positioned the two aforementioned fingers parallel to each other to make a rough three-sided rectangle shape, much like if I was about to pick up a small object by pinching it.  You can imagine my surprise when the waitress looked at me in confusion and came over to see what I was gesturing for.  Hello?  Isn't this the normal way to ask for the bill? When she walked up to me I put my hand down and said "may I have the bill, please?"  Again, a blank stare.  It took a few more tries until she said something to the affect of "oh, you want the beel."  Yes, sorry.  Not the bill, but the beel.  Again, there's the small variance in pronunciation that can make a huge difference.  I was slightly annoyed that my guidebook had given me false advice, but chose to put this particular episode behind me.  A few days later, at another restaurant, I decided to give the fingers-in-rectangle-shape another try.  But again, the waiter didn't understand what I wanted.  Come on people, doesn't this mean BILL.  I wanted to open up my guidebook and point to the paragraph and say "Look, it says it right here".  In the following couple of weeks I repeatedly tried to use the rectangle-finger method to ask for the bill, only to get the waiter come rushing over asking me what I needed.  Dang it! I need the bill!  My frustration was building.  I began to think that maybe this method had fallen out of fashion.  After all, the guidebook was published in 2009.  Maybe in the last two years the rectangle-finger method has been banned, outlawed.  Am I committing some sort of faux pas by flashing this gesture which was perfectly socially acceptable two years ago but is now considered the equivalent of flipping the bird?  Should I expose my ignorance and ask the nearest stranger why the heck I get confused looks when I execute the recommend rectangle-finger method?  I was so confused. 

The light bulb moment came one day when I was eating at a pizza place.  I had long since abandoned all attempts at using the rectangle-finger method and was now just saying the world "beel" whenever the server got within earshot.  I had finished eating a delicious pepperoni pizza and was ready to leave when I looked over and saw a man at a nearby table getting the server's attention.  To the untrained eye it appeared he was setting up a make-shift goal post so someone could kick an almond-sized football through his hands.  To my fully trained eye, however, all the confusing and perplexing situations of the past came flooding out of my brain and an energizing enlightenment took over.  OHHHHH!  You don't make the rectangle with one hand.  You make "L" shapes with the thumb and index fingers on each hand, then touch the thumb tips together!  OHHHHH!  Ha ha ha.  That's why all those servers never had a clue that I was asking for the bill.  All this time I was showing them a hand gesture that makes absolutely no sense.  They probably thought I had a hand cramp or something.  I was excited to try it out for myself.  I poised myself to flash the correct sign, and after catching the attention of my waitress I confidently showed her the correct hand signal.  She knew exactly what I was saying.  Phew!  And I didn't even have to say "beel". 

I'm currently staying at a hostel in Baguio where I've stayed before.  This place is nice and clean, with a small restaurant on the first floor as an added bonus.  I eat there a lot because the prices are modest and some of the food is good.  Because I've been thoroughly unimpressed with Filipino food I usually order the Chicken Curry from the menu.  This dish is good except for one thing:  the chunks of chicken have small bones in them.  I've found it difficult to eat the chicken pieces because of the small bones, mainly because of the fact that Filipinos never provide a knife at the place setting (try cutting chicken with a spoon).  This usually means half the chicken ends up being thrown away.  One time I picked up each small piece of chicken individually and ate it using my fingers.  The huge downside was I wasted about 40 paper napkins in the process.  So...tonight I asked the waitress if I could get the chicken curry without the chicken.  The dish usually comes with assorted vegetables accompanying the chicken.  To save the hassle of having to cut bones out with a spoon or pull small bones out of my mouth after every other bite, I wanted to have just a vegetable curry.  Should be simple.  However, when I asked if I could have the chicken curry with no chicken and possibly extra vegetables, the waitress proceeded to name off every vegetable that's in the dish.  Eggplant, potato, bell-pepper, carrot, etc.  Ummm...no.  Sorry, but I'm trying to ask for no chicken.  I want only vegetables.  Blank stares.  I then inexplicably resorted to Spanish:  solamente vegetables por favor.  That did nothing to help me.  Not only do Filipinos not understand a lick of Spanish, but their English isn't as good as most people will want you to believe (side note: I know this makes me sound like an ignorant western tourist who expects everyone to understand MY language and see no reason for me whatsoever to make an effort to understand theirs).  After going back and forth with "please no chicken, only vegetables" and "Sir, it has eggplant, potato, etc, etc", I finally decided to scrap the idea and said "I'll just have the chicken curry, please".  As I waited for my meal to come I realized in horror that perhaps in all the confusion the waitress had misconstrued my request and will bring me a dish with only chicken, no vegetables.  Damn.  What will I do then?  My irrational fear was proved wrong when the dish came out with a heaping plate of chicken and vegetables in curry sauce with steaming rice.  It was very good.  And, as usual, I was pulling small bones out of my mouth the whole meal. 

Well, that's all for now.  I hope every one is having a great time in other parts of the world.  Take care!

Pat

Surf's up, Dude!

I did it!  I can surf!  It wasn't pretty, in fact I'm sure it was quite ugly to watch, but I actually managed to ride a wave standing up.  Wahoo!  It feels good to put in the effort and be able to accomplish what I set out to accomplish.  I'm a long way off from hitting the waves in Santa Cruz or Huntington Beach, but give me a nice beginner's wave and I'll tear it up!  Here's out it all played out:

From Vigan I arrived in Urbiztando, described by the guidebook as "the cradle of surfer-dude culture in the Philippines".  They weren't mistaken.  Surf bums everywhere.  After booking into a room at Monaliza Surf Lodge I inquired about lessons.  Antony, a local surfer and brother of the lodge owner, said he'd take care of me and to be ready at 9am the next morning.  The rest of the evening I was nervous, alternatively thinking about how I could be a natural surfing bad-ass or how I could make a complete fool out of myself while breaking a limb.  The nervousness, combined with the hot and muggy weather, made for some poor quality sleep.  I woke up in the morning feeling not too rested, rolled out of bed, and headed for the cafe next door.  I stuffed myself with eggs, toast, and coffee, then realized it was probably a bad idea to eat that much and regretted it.  Antony came by later, accompanied by a short, slender man whom he introduced as Larry.  Apparently Larry was going to be my instructor.  I was assured that Larry was a talented surfer and would show me all I needed to know.  We picked out a beginner's board and walked down the beach.

In hindsight, I should have watched some youtube videos or something in an effort to familiarize myself with the learning material.  After a brief onshore lesson about paddling, standing up, and balance, Larry led me out into the surf.  We started with me laying down on the board and him holding the tail end to keep me straight and stable.  Then, when a suitable wave was approaching, Larry instructed me to paddle, at which point I followed his instructions, felt the wave come under me, and attempted to stand up.  The next step in the sequence usually involved me losing my balance right away and falling into the water.  However, thanks to Larry's onshore lesson, I knew to fall backward while protecting my head with my arms.  After about five attempts I was finally able to get to my feet and stay there for a few seconds.  Repeated attempts saw me successfully stand up on every fifth wave or so.

(side note:  these two girls, about five and eight years old, are standing right behind me looking over my shoulder at the screen.  They've been doing it for about 20 minutes.  It's annoying and I'm about to ask them to go away.)

Anyway...the hour long lesson was a mixed bag of success.  While I technically did manage to surf a few small waves, Larry's idea of constructive criticism was to give me a thumbs up if I was able to stand and shake his head and smile if I wiped out.  It was up to me to provide my own criticism of my mistakes.  I was pretty disappointed that the lesson wasn't more in-depth.  Let's just say Larry won't be nominated for teacher-of-the-year.  I spent the evening online watching instructional videos and getting a better understanding of how to properly paddle and stand up.  The next morning I was out there again, this time without Larry.  I spied a group of locals and tried to hang near them.  A few attempts to catch a wave had me wishing Larry was there to hold the board straight and level.  It was so much easier with him around.  I couldn't even catch a wave, let alone stand up.  After several failures I was beginning to get nervous, paranoid that the locals around me were irritated that a greenhorn was spoiling their waves with his unique style which could only be described as "drunken surfing".  It was then that I spied another white person, a young woman, who didn't look like she was fairing much better than me.  It also looked like the local male surfers were giving her some tips.  I decided to set up near her so that I wouldn't look so bad and maybe I could learn something new.  After a while I introduced myself.  She said her name was Patricia and she was from Canada.  Judging by the accent I'd say French-Canadian.  The more I surfed around her and the locals, the more comfortable I became.  Soon locals started giving me pointers as well, even though I wasn't wearing a bikini like Patricia.  One of them told me I wasn't paddling hard enough to catch a wave.  I changed my tactic and paddled like a mad man whenever a good wave came up.  That was the trick.  After that I was able to catch each wave and could concentrate on the standing up part.  I kept at it, getting a little better and riding a little longer with each wave.

The board rental price was P200 for one hour, so at the hour mark I called it quits, but mainly because my arms couldn't take anymore paddling.  I hit the shower, ate some lunch, and headed for an internet cafe.  The next morning I planned on surfing, checking out of the hotel, and busing to Baguio.  However, my plan was foiled when I saw the surf.  The conditions were ugly.  Only a few experienced surfers were out.  Antony came up while I was sitting and waiting for things to calm down.  He said there was good beginners surf about 5 km down the coast and that he could drive me there.  After some hemming and hawing I said to myself "what the hell, probably not going to get another crack at this for a long time".  So, Antony, the surfboard, and I piled onto a small mo-ped and cruised on down the highway, arriving at a place called "Jesus Beach" (so named because of a huge statue of Jesus on the shore).  I paddled out into the surf while Antony gave confusing hand signals about exactly where to paddle and setup.  In the hour I was out there I caught a few good waves and had a great time on my own.  Every time I got thrashed by the surf I climbed back onto the board and headed out again.  It was great.  The only downside was instead of sand on the seafloor, it was covered in coral.  I received a few cuts and scrapes from wiping out, but it was worth it.  About an hour into it my arms were dead tired, so I headed back for the beach, happy that I could call my first surfing experience a success.  The locals made it look effortless.  I think I made it look like it wasn't worth the effort.  Hopefully, though, I'll get to surf again in the future.

Now I'm in Baguio enjoying the cool mountain air and, more importantly, getting some laundry done.  I have to say that I'm pretty sore from surfing.  When I arrived at the hostel the first thing I did was promptly take a long nap.  In a few days I'll head north, farther into the mountains to a small town called Sagada.  Only 20 more days until Jema and I meet up.  Sweet-as!

That's all for now.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care!

"V" for Vigan!

For those of you who know me moderately well, you are familiar with my appreciation of food.  In short, I enjoy food immensely.  And when possible I eat large quantities of the stuff.  While this does not serve my waistline or pocketbook well, it does give me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.  Especially if that food is pizza, cheeseburgers, or, say, pasta.  So imagine my delirious delight to learn, upon arriving in the town of Vigan, that a certain restaurant has all-you-can-eat pasta on Monday nights.  For only P160 (about $3.70).  What a treat.  Vigan gets extra brownie points.

What does not get extra brownie points is the hotel I stayed in.  The Vigan Hotel is described in the guidebook as such:  "Suffers from a lack of TLC, but at least it is cheap".  A more accurate description has never been proffered.  Shortly after entering the room and depositing my backpack on the floor, I witnessed a cockroach enter from a tiny hole in the wall.  I was taken aback.  Not sure if I should let it be or yell for the front desk attendant, I settled for a middle-of-the-road option and squashed it with my shoe.  From then on I was sure not to walk barefoot in the room so as not to get remnants of cockroach guts on my feet (I also have a slight germaphobia).  At least there was a TV in the room; one night I got to watch Bear Grylls eat deer poop while in the Alabama backwoods.  Apparently deer poop is like nature's multivitamin.  Who know.

Vigan is a very cool town.  Every other Philippine town was bombed by the Japanese and Americans in WWII, thereby destroying the vast expanse of Spanish Colonial Architecute that existed here since the 1500s.  An American Air Force squadron was descending upon Vigan for a carpet bombing mission, and the Japanese forces evacuated at the last minute.  In the next last minute the Air Force mission was aborted.  What remains are cobblestoned streets and very old Spanish mansions.  Some streets have neat lighting hanging from trees and horse-drawn carraiges act in the place of tricycles and taxis.  I spent my time in Vigan visiting local museums, moseying around town, and hanging out with a well-travelled Canadian retiree named Ron.  Him and I were the only two gringos in the whole town, so it wasn't too difficult to spot one another amidst all the locals.  Ron is an inspiration.  He's 67 years of age but is still able to travel on the cheap, out of a backpack.  He estimates that in all his years of travel he's been to over 40 countries.  Good on him for it.

Ron and I enjoyed the aforementioned all-you-can-eat pasta together over some beers.  The pasta was good, but not spectacular.  I can't complain with the price, though.  And I think those Philippino waiters were kind of perplexed to see two big white guys ask time and time again for another bowl.  They didn't see us comin'.  After the meal Ron and I exchanged emails.  The next morning he headed north and I took a road south.  

Eventually I had to leave Vigan because I'd seen everything there is to see and I've got a rough timeline to follow.  After waking up this morning, eating breakfast at a local cafe, and doing some interneting, I walked to the bus station.  Rather, I attempted to walk to the bus station.  See, when I arrived in Vigan I rode a tricycle from the bus station to my hotel, which wasn't a huge distance but wasn't close by.  When the tricycle arrived at the hotel and I asked "how much?" the tricycle driver responded "40 pesos".  What?  No way!  I happen to know that a tricycle ride within town shouldn't cost any more than P10.  I was irritated at his attempt to swindle me.  I talked the guy down and eventually game him P20, but only because he had to drive me across town.  So, when departing Vigan I opted to walk to the bus station rather than have to deal with swindling tricycle drivers, a decision I later regretted when I was lost and wandering around in circles.  After about an hour of going down several streets multiple times (and Vigan isn't a huge place, population 47,000) I was able to spy a landmark I had seen when I arrived.  From the landmark I knew vaguely where I needed to be, so I headed in that direction.  A few minutes later and lo and behold there stood a fleet of busses ready to take me anywhere.

I'm here in San Juan staying at a hotel outside my budget range, but it's the cheapest option in the area.  Why am I in San Juan?  Well, because this area is a haven for surfing.  You may be saying to yourself "but Pat doesn't surf".  I'm going to learn.  Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with Ian, a surfing instructor.  I'm not sure what to expect and imagine some hilarious moments of me crashing on the board or being swallowed up by a puny beginner's wave.  Whatever happens I'll be sure to fill you all in with the next post.

Until then I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care.

Pat

On pollution and talking to oneself

*Cough* *Hack* *Gag* *Cough* Hack*, boy the pollution is a vile part of everyday life here.  So much so that locals walking around town often cover their mouths and noses with masks, like the ones dentists wear when they're grinding away at your teeth.  Other people just carry around rags and hold them to their mouths in an attempt to filter out some of the thick, black exhaust that seems to be pouring out of every vehicle.  Most of the vehicles on the road are the ubiquitous Filipino jeepneys (side note:  I don't why its spelled "jeepney", everyone here just calls them "jeeps").  Literally, when these lumbering public transport vehicles (picture a standard jeep crossed with a bus) chug up the hill, it looks like someone attached a fog machine under the rear bumper.  Except the fog coming out of this machine is black and toxic.  On the flip side, they are a very cheap and handy way to get around this city.  By cheap I mean about P8 - P10, depending on the distance.  That's roughly 20 cents.  And by handy I mean they cram as many people in as possible, drive like a bat out of hell, and don't stop unless someone yells "Para!".  Also, the head room and leg room are seriously lacking.  Jeepneys are cramped even for the average diminutive statured Filipinos.  I can't help but get my big legs in the way of everyone and I have to hunch over as if I'm eating breakfast in a dog house. 

Speaking of the traffic, as if the pollution it causes isn't bad enough, the erratic driving of nearly everyone would be enough to make even the most daring daredevil nervous when crossing the road.  I wouldn't even dream of driving on these roads.  There seem to be no rules.  There may be laws on the books, but nobody follows them.  Yesterday I saw something truly frightening.  I was walking down the sidewalk.  Jeepneys, cars, motorcycles, trucks, you name it, were veering this way and that.  Honking, swerving, punching the gas and slamming the breaks.  I look up just in time to see an old woman walking my way, crossing where a side street intersected the street we were both walking along.  Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a white SUV come racing down the side street.  Things started happening in slow motion.  The old woman was oblivious to the SUV.  The SUV driver didn't see the woman until it was almost too late.  He hit the brakes hard and went sliding into the intersection, contacting the woman with what I would call an "aggressive nudge".  If the driver hadn't stood on the breaks when he did that frail old woman would have been sent flying into the busy street.  Scary. 

Earlier in the day I rode a jeepney up to a park on the outskirts of town which had amazing views of the mountains.  The place was named Mines View Park, although there was no signs of any mines in the area.  I guess I shouldn't say I rode a jeepney to the park, though.  Rather I should say I boarded a jeepney headed to the vicinity of the park, after about 15 minutes panicked thinking we'd passed the park, deboarded the jeepney far too early, had to walk the rest of the way, got lost, consulted the map, got frustrated with the map, asked for directions, was given confusing directions, gave up, headed back to town, then stumbled upon the park accidentally.  All and all a fairly normal adventure for me.  I got my first photo at Mines View Park.  A very nice Filipino woman, accompanying a friendly Australian man, took a photo of me (with my disposable camera) with the valley and mountains in the background.  Now I just need to use up the camera to get the pictures developed.  When will they invent disposable digital cameras so I can upload photos right away?  
 
I've also been meeting more Westerners.  I met Simon, the Canadian guy.  Fred, the Frenchman.  Mardel and Mark from Alaska.  And today four Australian women came stomping down the hall of the hostel.  It's nice to have a normal flowing conversation in English.  For a while there the only English conversations I was having were with myself, in my head.  That's not healthy.

Tomorrow I'm departing Baguio and headed for Vigan, where Spanish colonial architecture await.  Then back to Baguio and north to the world famous rice terraces and mummies.  Sweet as!

I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care!

Headhunters, mummies, and Buddhas

Many times in my travels here I've had to ask for directions because, frankly, I get lost a lot.  The frequent problem I run into is that Tagalog is a tonal language, much like most Asian languages.  When I traveled in South America it was possible for me to totally butcher a Portuguese or Spanish word, and have the locals still make out what I was saying.  That's not happening here.  My example is the town of Iba, where I spent a few days recently.  When I arrived at the bus station to depart, I asked a conductor where I can board a bus for Iba.  He gives me a look and repeats back to me what I had just said.  I again say "I'm trying to get to Iba, where can I board a bus to Iba?".  He says something like "I don't know what that is, we don't go there".  I immediately knew he was either lying or didn't understand me.  I kept pressing, repeating the word "Iba" and digging in my backpack for a map so I could point to the town.  Out of nowhere he suddenly says "Ohhhhh, Iba, yes we have a bus bound for Iba".  At this point you'd think I would be contorting my face in confusion as to why, for an inordinate amount of time, he couldn't understand me, but then suddenly knew exactly what I was talking about.  The trick, I quickly realized, is in the tone.  You see, I caught a nearly imperceptible difference in the way I said "Iba" and the way he said it.  I pronounced it "ee-bah", with the stress on the first syllable.  He said "ee-bah", stressing the last syllable.  The difference was very subtle.  It's these small differences in pronunciation, typical with Asian languages, that have created problems for me.  I've since learned that, if someone gives me a blank stare after I ask them a question, to just keep repeating the question with different stress and tonal combinations.  It can get pretty comical.

And the good news for today is:  I found a camera!  Wahoo!  And a disposable one, which I've been looking for since I arrived in country.  Walking back to the hostel today I took a different street just to see something new.  From the sidewalk I saw a camera store partially obscured by a fried chicken restaurant.  For a few seconds I vacillated back and forth as to whether I should inquire about a disposable camera.  I'd kind of lost hope for finding one and the camera store looked crowded; I didn't want the hassle.  But some unseen force drew me towards the store.  I weaved through the crowed, eyes darting this way and that trying to spot one.
And then, like a kid finding an Easter Egg in the basement in July, I glanced inside the glass case at the counter and shouted as loud as I could "EUREKA!".  Well, not exactly.  But I did walk up to the counter and say, "Do you have any disposable cameras?".  I didn't get the correct response.  The woman looked at the man beside her and they both started shaking their heads.  Just before I could point to the case and say, "Well, what is that down there", she got all excited and went groping around inside the display.  Phew.  It was exactly what I wanted.  A disposable camera, not waterproof, with a flash.  AND it was manufactured by a reputed company, Fujifilm  I've seen disposable cameras around that look like children's toys and appear to have very questionable quality.  So, now I'll have my own pictures of the places I go.  And some of the pictures may even have me in them.  Sweet-as!

Today I visited Tam-awan village, which is a mock up of an authentic Filipino native village.  A charity foundation purchased real huts from native tribes and transplanted them here to Baguio.  Tourists can visit the village and see what the huts look like.  Also, if said tourist wants to rough it they can sleep in a hut overnight.  I would have been all for crashing in an authentic Ifuago tribal hut, but my hostel is about P200 cheaper and I'm on a tight budget.  The village was amazing, though.  There are multiple tribes in the mountain region, and they all have small differences in design and architecture.  It came as no surprise that the most feared of the tribes, who are headhunters, had the best houses.  Their architecture was probably influenced by all the other tribes who they defeated, thereby taking all the best ideas and integrating them into a tribal mansion.  Although in this case "mansion" just means two rooms instead of one.

After Tam-awan village I stopped at the St. Louis University Museum.  The museum curator, Ike, was sure to point out to me that this St. Louis University in Baguio, Philippines had no connection to the city in Missouri.  Thanks for clearing that up, Ike.  I will say that this museum was extremely interesting and had many amazing artifacts relating to the daily lives of the mountain tribes.  Ike was very informative, explaining how they mined and smelted gold with rudimentary tools and a bellows made from a tree trunk, how they worked the rice terraces with only wooden shovels and milled the rice using a mortar and pestle, and also how they mummified their dead with plant oils, tobacco smoke, and fly swatters.  The mummification process is a bit unsettling, as it begins by propping up the dead relative in your living room for between 3 and 30 days for mourning, depending on the deceased's status in the village.  Apparently if you were of high status your rotting corpse gets to sit around longer.  Actually, rotting isn't quite the right word, because a fire would be lit to dry you out and keep flies away.  When the maggots do start eating your flesh, some lucky relatives get to pick them off, one by one.  A salt-water solution is poured down your throat and tobacco smoke is blown down your windpipe, allegedly to preserve the organs inside.  However, Ike said this wouldn't work and that no one really knows why these 2000 year-old mummies still  have intact organs.  After all this is done, they put you into a wooden coffin and hang the coffin inside a cave.  In some parts of these mountains there are coffins still hanging.  Some are very, very old.  

After the museum I made my way to the Buddhist Temple.  Ike said I should check it out, and I thought, "Hey, what the hell, I've never been inside a Buddhist Temple".  I had a moment of panic as I opened the door and I realized I didn't know the proper etiquette.  Was I supposed to remove my shoes?  Or is that just for Muslim Mosques?  Should I nod my head to the Buddha? Should I do the sign of the cross or flash a gang sign or what?  Seeing that there was nobody else present in the temple I decided it wasn't a big deal, and that the Buddha would forgive me for my indiscretions.  The temple seemed like a calm, peaceful place, but was alien to me so I didn't know what I was looking at.  There was writing everywhere in some sort of Asian language, and incense burning somewhere out of sight.  Other than that, not much else to see.  I spied a toilet down a short hall, but thought maybe having in infidel urinating in his temple would push the Buddha over the edge, so I decided to hold it.  After leaving the temple I stood in front of the 25 ft tall Buddha statue, gauged my degree of being impressed, and decided I was only somewhat impressed.  The 260 ft crucifix at Mt. Samat had more grandeur.  But I guess if you belong to a religion like Buddhism that embraces peace, awe-inspiring monuments will be few and far between.

I know I may be beating a dead horse here, but another transvestite prostitute tried to approach me today.  Luckily the crowd between me and the tranny was dense, and I had an open lane leading away from her/him.  Another prostitute later on asked if I wanted to "do boom-boom".  No, thank you, but I appreciate the inquiry.  

Well, that's all for today.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care!

Pat

Camp John Hay

Day 11.  I woke up to the cool morning air in the refreshing city of Baguio.  Well, it's mostly refreshing.  Like every other Philippine city I've been in, the air pollution is sickening and the noise pollution is offensive.  Luckily when I checked in at the hostel they gave me a room at the back, away from the street.  It felt good to have a full night's sleep without the stifling heat waking me up or the sound of a fan grinding away in my dreams.  After eating breakfast in the small cafe attached to the hostel, I ventured out into the city for some sightseeing.  My destination for the day was Camp John Hay, built in these high mountains as an R&R destination for US troops who were serving in the tropical South Pacific.  In 1991, after the US Navy's Seventh Fleet and Air Force Unit left the Philippines to base themselves in Japan, Camp John Hay was turned over to the the Baguio city government, which has turned it into a city park, golf course, resort destination, and historical area.

I hoofed it to the Camp, which is on the other side of the city from my hostel, and upon arrival I found myself surrounded by towering pines, small shrubs, and cool breezes blowing through the forest.  It was blissful.  I walked the Eco-Trail through the park, which is really just a normal trail.  Nothing especially "eco" about it.  After a while I stumbled upon a small butterfly sanctuary which provides food and safety for native butterflies.  Due to the cool temperature, however, the butterflies weren't very active, so it wasn't really impressive.  However, the maintenance man verbally pounced on me to say how much he loves Americans and that he worked for the US military when they had bases here.  He went on and on about how much better it was when the Americans were here.  After a while he steered the conversation towards conspiracy theories, saying that the Americans and Israel can never fight against each other because the Bible says so.  He also told me about how American corporations are controlled by a secret religious group.  He said he read these things in a book.  I've spent enough time in Humboldt County, CA to know that when the topic turns to conspiracy theories, that's my cue to exit stage left.  It's not that I hate conspiracy theorists, sometimes they can actually be entertaining.  Its just that usually they keep talking and talking while I keep nodding my head, wondering all the while when they will cease talking.  In short, its a waste of my time.  So, I said goodbye to the butterfly sanctuary and made my way to a burger joint listed in the guidebook.  After wolfing down a juicy cheeseburger, I headed in the direction of a viewpoint that the guidebook said offered amazing views of the surrounding area.  I was ready to sit down, relax, and soak in the beauty of the mountains.  You can imagine my frustration when the road I was following suddenly ended in a construction site.  What?  I scratched my head and stepped behind a tree to discretely check the map in the guidebook (it's never good to advertise yourself as a lost and confused tourist).  Thinking that maybe I'd gone down the wrong road, I backtracked.  However, after searching and searching, the correct road didn't seem to be anywhere around.  After approaching several different people asking about how to get to the viewpoint (at this point I didn't care about looking confused and lost, I just wanted to get to the damned viewpoint), I was losing hope when person after person had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.  Finally, one lady pointed to a man in a red shirt and told me to ask him.  The mad in the red shirt then told me to wait and he'd find someone who would know.  The person who knew, an older woman with good English, informed me that the viewpoint no longer existed.  Apparently there's been so much development around Baguio, and especially in Camp John Hay, that a resort most likely occupies the spot that has excellent views of the surrounding mountains.  Not only that, but the roads have changed, so even if the viewpoint did exist, I probably couldn't get to it anyway.  Well crap.

I put that episode behind me and headed for what is called the "Historical Core".  This is a group of buildings built by the US Military in the early 1900s, as well as a beautiful garden amphitheater, a history walk, and the bizarre "Cemetery of Negativism".  At this point let me go off on a tangent for a moment.  For years my chosen navigation method has been to just "follow the signs", a method that often gets me into trouble with my partner, Jema.  She is a meticulous planner, and when travling outlines every road, turn, name of the roads, distance to the next turn, distance to the final destination, and so forth.  Sadly, though, my navigation method isn't working so well here in the Philippines.  The lack of signs to the historical core, combined with the widespread development mentioned above, meant I had to ask several people for directions.  After finally arriving at the historical core and paying the P50 entrance fee, I proceeded to the Cemetery of Negativism.  This is a poignant yet perplexing small plot of land, created by one of the past Navy Commanders of Camp John Hay.  It was meant as an inspiring and thought provoking attraction for soldiers and tourists.  I will say I was mildly inspired and it did provoke some thought, but mostly I was just amused.  The "cemetery" consists of small headstones for fake people, symbolizing the death and burial of negative thoughts, which the Navy Commander said was man-kind's "greatest self-imposed infliction, his most limiting factor, and his heaviest burden."  The headstones describe people such as:

A. Truly Miserableday              Why Didn't I?                                 Knot a Teemplayer
Born in gloom                           Lived wondering why                      Born a star
Lived without bloom                 Died for no reason                          Lived a meteor
Died in this tomb                                                                             Died in flames

I guess the Navy Commander gets points for effort and originality.  I walked away thinking that the message was spot on, but the delivery distracted observes from truly embracing that message.

Continuing on, I made my way to the History Walk, a 1 km path with stations describing and depicting various historical periods throughout the Camp's history.  This was my favorite part.  If you want to learn the history, look up Camp John Hay on Wikipedia, I won't waste time telling the story.  However, I immensely enjoyed the Walk because it was quiet and serene.  Most of all the wind blew through the pine forest, which made me feel like I was back in the mountains in Wyoming.  The sound of millions of pine needles being rustled, combined with the scent of pine in the air and cool wind made me nostalgic for home.  It was a happy feeling.

I visited the garden amphitheater, a popular place for wedding ceremonies, strolled around the grounds a bit more, and started the walk back to the other side of town, headed for the hostel and dinner.  All in all a good day of sightseeing.  I also ran into the first other backpacker I've met in the Philippines.  He's a Canadian and doing more or less the same route I am.   He asked me if I get stared at a lot.  Apparently he does, too.  Good to finally meet another tourist.

That's all for now.  I hope everyone is having a great time in other parts of the world.  Take care!      

Pat

Mountain Dweller

I'll start off this post by saying something I didn't think I'd ever have to say:  I'm getting pretty darn tired of being propositioned by transvestite prostitutes.  Seriously.  It always catches me off guard.  One minute I'm looking for a place to buy a bottle of water, and the next minute a very mannish looking woman says "Do you want company, sir".  NO.  I want a bottle of water!  I don't want company from a normal prostitute, let alone one that doesn't have a definitive gender.  I'll get to the details of when and where that happened a little later.

I left Iba!  Wahoo!  And boy am I glad I did.  The place was...mediocre.  I had went there first off because I thought I could do some hikes in the area.  Then I found out the hikes were way too long and realized that I didn't want to be doing them alone.  I stayed in Iba anyway for the cheap accommodation, but finally had to leave as it was getting tired.  My next stop was Alaminos, the gateway to 100 Islands National Park.  After arriving at the bus terminal, several tricycle drivers boxed me in before I could even plant a food on the ground.  I kindly told them that my first order of business was to visit the CR (comfort room, which means the bathroom).  After using the CR, three of them continued yelling and gesturing over each other.  They knew exactly where I was going and why.  The only reason any white person ever comes to Alaminos is to get to Lucap, 10 km down the road, which is where the dock is to get to the islands.  I finally told all the drivers to stop with the racket, and I pointed to the closest one and said "you".  We zipped off down the road, and a few minutes later arrived at the Department of Tourism building in Lucap.  Here's where the real craziness began.  Apparently they don't get a lot of white people at the Department of Tourism building in Lucap.  That's the only explanation I can think of for why as soon as I stepped foot off the tricycle, every person within a 500 meter radius flocked around to watch me interact with the tourism guy.  Seriously.  It was suffocating.  I'm talking to Celoy the tourism guy, who seems like a nice man and has very good English, and 50 other people are standing there staring and trying to butt into the conversation with broken English about what I should also do or also see (read: spend more money on).  The prices for the islands were a little more than I thought they'd be, so I said I'd think about it.  Then I made the mistake of asking where I can buy water.  Five people tried to lead me in opposite directions so they could sell me THEIR water.  After hemming and hawing for a while (and trying to block out all the people staring at me), I said I would go for it.  Celoy had me fill out some paperwork and I paid the park entrance fee.  A woman who seemed like she was Celoy's sidekick but wasn't wearing a uniform then led me hurriedly to where I could rent a tent and buy water.  It was at this point that the lady-boy came out of nowhere.  It's not like these transvestites are off by themselves and then just come up and approach me.  No, they're milling around, conversing, working with everyone else.  Why they need to ask me if I need company on the island is beyond me.  Perhaps there have been white men who have traveled alone in the Philippines and have been known to engage the, uh, "services" of these trannies.  Maybe that's why they see me and say "white male traveling alone!  He probably wants some man/woman company!".  Sorry, not into it. 

After dodging the tranny, getting a tent, and going through the excruciating task of buying a simple bottle of water, a little boy led me down to the dock where I could catch a boat for the islands.  It turns out the little boy was the son of the man who was to drive me in his banka.  A banka is a homemade boat, resembling a canoe with outriggers on each side, powered by a motor that's ready to kick the bucket at any moment.  As the banka driver and his son got the boat ready, a group of small children surrounded me.  This is where I got creaped out.  These children couldn't have been any older than seven, and they were obviously very poor.  And they all had voices like they've been chain-smoking for 50 years.  One of them, in broken English, kept saying something about a "coin in the ocean".  Huh?  She kept talking like those little alien toys in the claw machine from Toy Story.  Then, for no apparent reason, as if they all coalesced themselves into one organism, they started singing Christmas songs together on queue.  WHAT?  Five children with chain-smoker's voices stumbling around me singing "We wish you a merry Christmas'' in perfect English.  While all that was going on, a man approached trying to sell me a machete, a pack of gum, or some pork-rinds.  This man had all you could ever want.  I declined his offer and was glad when the boat driver's son told me to board.  We got under way and headed to the islands.

When I had decided to visit 100 Islands National Park I was expecting quiet solitude on a beach.  I imagined myself reading, snorkeling, listening to the waves lap up onto the shore, etc, etc.  An error in my planning, however, brought me to the islands on a weekend.  When the banka pulled up onto the shore of Quezon Island, where I'd be staying, it was crawling with Filipino families and Taiwanese tourists.  Damn, I should have stayed in Iba a couple more days.  Or left Iba a couple days sooner.  Well, whatever, I thought, I'm here and better make the best of it.  I plopped down on the shore and pulled out my book.  After a while, two guys approached me and tried to strike up a conversation.  I was skeptical.  Did they want to offer me prostitutes, or do they want to steal my stuff.  Either way, neither is happening.  They said they were teachers.  Hah, likely story.  If you ask a thief what they do for a living, they sure won't say "I'm a thief".  I shined them on for a while, answering their questions and reading my book when they weren't talking.  After a while they left, which was fine by me.  The rest of the day I spent snorkeling a little (I kept an eye on my stuff from the water), staying out of the sun, and trying to concentrate on my book with the drunk Taiwanese tourists playing water-volleyball nearby.

A little brochure I was given about the National Park stated that tents could not be set up before 6pm, so as not to crowd the beach.  Well, at 5:59 I pulled out the poles and started assembling.  Immediately I encountered a major problem.  The wind.  I couldn't hold the tent down in order to slide the poles in properly.  After several frustrating minutes, a small-statured man came running up offering help.  I trained an eye on him so I could see if he swiped anything of mine.  Then another man in camo pants ran up to help.  Now I was getting nervous that maybe the tent would get set up, but my stuff could get stolen by these two so-called "helpers".  After everything was assembled, the two guys introduced themselves as Comote, the park ranger, and Ted, the park security.  Really?  They kindly said that if I needed anything, don't hesitate to ask and they'd help me out.  "Huh", I said to myself as I scratched my head.  I sat down and sheepishly realized how uptight I was being about my bags.  Nobody's out to get me.  Even if someone did steal my stuff, where were they going to go?  The island is just a few acres in area.  I felt like an ass.  Here these two very nice people were genuinely trying to help and right off the bat I had assumed they were going to hurt me.  This big realization helped me relax and enjoy being in this tranquil place.  Comote came by later that evening to chat (he was a wee bit tipsy).  I asked him about his family, we talked about WWII, and he said he loves Americans for liberating the Philippines from the Japanese.  Later on, the original two guys came back, this time with another man and a woman.  Turns out they are teachers after all.  A bunch of them came to the island for a work retreat.  Wow.  All that time I was just being paranoid about people being out to get me. 

In the morning I was eating eggs and rice at the little cafe on the island and an older women approached me and said "You must be Patrick".  I said yes, wondering what this was about.  She said her name was Gloria and she lives in Washington DC.  She's with the teacher group and invited me to come over and hang out with them.  I spent the rest of the morning eating food they offered me, taking pictures with everyone, and speaking with Gloria a great deal about her family and the Philippines.  She told me her father had served in the Philippine Army with the US in WWII and was given US citizenship after the war.  Because of some mix-up, he wasn't aware of his US citizenship until years later, when Gloria was in high school.  Upon learning the news, the whole family packed up and landed in San Diego.  Gloria met and married a Navy man, and they've been in the DC area for about 30 years now.  The whole teachers group was great.  Everyone had to get a picture with me, and we swapped facebook info before saying goodbye.  I was very glad that I got to meet them, and even more thankful that I had been able to chill out the day before.

After the banka ride back to the mainland and a quick dash to a tricycle (I wanted to avoid any machete hawkers, singing children, and transvestites) I was whisked away to the bus terminal where I boarded a bus to Baguio (bah-gee-oh).

Baguio is a welcome change from the heat of the lowlands.  The city is at an altitude of about 5,000 feet and  dotted with pine forests.  There are no tricycles here belching out their two-stroke engine smoke because they can't make it up the hills around the city.  Baguio was originally built by the Americans as an R&R village for US troops.  During the Japanese occupation in WWII it became the headquarters for the Japanese generals.  I'm looking forward to spending a couple of days here. 

That's all for now.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care.

Pat

Stagnant in Iba

Day 8.  I've been in Iba for three days now, and I'm ready to leave.  The accommodation is cheap, but in this case cheap equates with low-quality.  The size of my P300 (about US$ 7) room is what you'd get if you took a big samurai sword and chopped through a dorm room down the middle.  Quite small.  Yesterday ants were crawling on the wall and they started to crawl onto the bed and then onto me.  I squashed as many as I could, then moved the bed away from the wall so they couldn't access my bed that way.  I'm also suffering from a lack of food options.  There seem to be no restaurants around here, as well as no decent supermarkets.  I can get fruit from a roadside stand, and fried food from a street vendor, but that's about it.  I've been whittling down my peanut butter and jelly (staple food for me) supplies more and more.  Also, there's not much to do around this place.  I need to move on.  Why have I stayed here for so long, you ask?  Well, a few reasons.  Number one:  the cheap accommodation I mentioned.  After paying P1,000 per night in Manila, I feel like I should savor the low-cost bed as much as I can tolerate.  The room has a TV as well, so I'm not totally bored.  I've been relaxing, reading my book, doing crossword, and watching the History and Discovery channels.  Number two:  the internet is extremely cheap here, so I can spend some extra time online without feeling it in my pocketbook.  Reason number three:  I needed to do laundry, and there are no self-service places here.  The place I found had a next day turn-around, and I didn't find it until yesterday.  I received my clean clothes today, but in order for me to make the most out of my next destination, I need to be leaving bright and early in the morning.  Picking up my laundry prevented me from leaving at the desired early time.

The heat has been a constant annoyance for the last week, and one that I will happily forget when I move into the higher elevations in a few days.  It takes a lot of water to stay properly hydrated here, so when I buy the stuff, it makes sense to buy the bigger bottles because they are more economical.  I pay less per liter.  Yesterday I bought a six liter jug.  I'm just glad I don't have to carry it around, because it would just add to my already heavy baggage.

I've gotten very used to everyone on the street noticing me and asking about my height or making some comment about my size.  Everywhere I go I get stares, smiles, shouts, questions, looks, and fingers pointed at me.  I try to smile and say hello and answer their questions, but it's like being a celebrity I suppose.  The funniest are the small children, toddlers.  They stare and stare and stare some more.  I'm sure they've never seen a white person up close, or such a tall person, or someone with blue eyes.  And, they don't smile when I try to smile back.  On the bus to Iba a little girl sitting in front of me turned around and stared at me for probably 10 minutes straight.  At first it was cute, but she wouldn't smile back and wouldn't turn away from me.  I started to get uncomfortable, then annoyed, so I stared back at her.  Right into her eyes.  Her face was stone-cold.  She had neither delight nor malice in her eyes.  She could be a poker player.  I kept wondering what she was thinking, then realized she probably can't think much at her age.  Eventually, for no apparent reason, she turned away and looked out the window for the rest of the bus trip.  I guess in the end the rice paddies going by are more pleasant to watch than a short-haired sweaty American.  

Well, that's all for today.  This post is quite uninteresting, and that's because hardly anything has been going on.  I vacillate back and forth as to whether I should have stayed stagnant like this here in Iba, but in the end it does very well for my budget.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care!

To the Shrine of Valor, and BEYOND!

Day 6.  Wow, what a day.  I'm exhausted, so this post will be short.  I woke up extra early so I could make my way to Mt. Samat.  A short tricycle ride to the transport terminal, and then a jeepney to the base of the mountain, and then another tricycle ride to the Shrine of Valor at the peak.  The whole shrine complex was impressive, and better than I expected it would be.  There is a 260 foot cross perched on the very peak of the mountain, a museum full of battle descriptions with WWII weapons used by the US, British, and Japanese, as well as a large open-air chapel.  Here's a link where you can see a picture of the cross and chapel: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-156725.  I spent a couple of hours seeing everything, resting, and eating.  Then, because I didn't want to pay for a ride down on a tricycle (I think I got scammed on the price for the ride up), I walked the 7km down.  Wasn't too bad, but my bag is HEAVY.  I need to go through it and throw out all the non-essentials.  I did see three monkeys on the walk down, which surprised me.  Didn't think I'd see monkeys.  Didn't even have monkeys on my mind.  Didn't have Georgia on my mind either.  Sorry Ray. 

I then rode two buses, for a total of about five hours, to get to Iba, where I am now.  It took me some time to find the hostel, as the name in the guidebook and the local name are not the same.  I started to panic, thinking that maybe the hostel had closed down or something, until I asked a very nice couple at a gas station about it.  They conversed back and forth rapidly until realizing that the hostel is above a restaurant in town.  That's why they didn't know anything about what I was saying.  The place is known locally by the restaurant name, not the hostel name.  So I took a tricycle to the place and inquired about a room.  The lady insisted that they did not have any of the single person P300 (three hundred pesos) rooms left, and all I could get is a double P700 room.  I looked around the place and it appeared absolutely dead, not another person in sight.  I kept asking about the cheaper room, pretended I was delirious (only half pretended), and mumbled something about another hostel nearby, and then, VOILA, suddenly a P300 room freed up for me.  It's amazing how fast hostel rooms can free up like that.  It's like the people occupying them just vanish.  Poof.  Hard bargaining and a smile go a long way in this country.

Since I'm trying to keep this post short, I'll just write about one observation today.  Two-stroke motorcycles.  They are everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  Literally.  All over the place.  They are the motorcycles that power all the tricycles.  And the tricycles take up the roads like herds of buffalo.  My point is, the pollution from the exhaust is sickening.  I'm not sure what the US Food and Drug Administration recommends for daily intake of two-stroke engine exhaust, but I'm surely overdosing.  Most tricycle drivers wear face masks because they breath in the exhaust so much.  Some people on the street cover their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs.  Blech.  Good thing I don't smoke, or my lungs would be down for the count. 

And water buffaloes.  And rice paddies.  I'm seeing them everywhere.  Good to be out in the countryside.  I guess I wrote about two observations.  Three really.

I might take a break from blogging tomorrow.  So for those of you reading every day, on the edge of your seat for the next saga, shaking from the drama, please don't freak out. 

That's all for now.  Hope you all are doing well in your parts of the world.  Take care.

Pat

Rain, rain, go away, and only come back when I say.

Day 5.  This morning I woke up extra early (around 5am), ate the customary peanut butter and banana on bagel for breakfast, finished packing, and strolled out of the hostel to make my way to the bus station.  I had planned on walking to the LRT station and riding it to the bus stop (which would have cost 12 pesos), but as soon as I stepped outside I saw the rain and uttered an expletive under my breath.  Getting soaked from the rain is one thing when you're in, say, Wyoming, where it's dry most of the time.  But in a monsoon part of the world, as soon as your shirt/pants/bags are soaked, they stay that way for a while.  So, what to do?  I didn't have to think long, because the gate guard at the hostel (there are armed guards outside of almost every building here) flagged down a taxi for me.  After climbing in, I told the driver my destination, but he seemed confused about the exact location in the city.  So I pulled out my map of Manila and the two of us tripped over each other's sentences for a while trying to pinpoint the destination, until he raised his finger in the air and declared "Santa Cruz!".  Off we went.  A few minutes later we arrived in Santa Cruz, only to see that it wasn't the right place.  Thinking quickly, I realized that the driver had driven me half-way, and that I had been to this part of the city before.  I also remembered that there was an LRT station a block away.  I paid the driver, gathered my bags, and walked to the station.  Before departing the hotel this morning, I had hoped that I could get on the LRT early enough to beat the rush-hour.  No such luck.  Apparently every moment of the day and night is rush our on the LRT in Manila.  When the first train came in, I saw that it was packed to the hilt (see previous posts for more colorful analogies on this situation).  As I moved to the door closest to me, three people got off the train through the door, and, miraculously, five people got on.  Well, it doesn't take a math wiz to figure out that if the car was packed when it arrived at the station, and there are now two more people in that car than there were before, a six foot seven bag toting tourist isn't going to fit at all.  So I stepped back and waited for the next train.  Luckily, this one was slightly less packed (I was also a bit more aggressive in getting to the door before the rest of the hoard).  After arriving at the bus station I located the conductor, not the "hot doctor", and boarded the bus.  By the time we arrived in Balanga three hours later, the rain hadn't let up a bit, which was quite disappointing.  I was hoping to set off immediately for a hike up to Mt. Samat, where there is a WWII Shrine and Memorial.  However, I wasn't about to hike a mountain in the rain.  I went with plan B, which was to stay in Balanga for the night and hopefully do the hike tomorrow.  I got a ride to a hotel on a tricycle, which is a comical motorcycle/sidecar combo that performs the same functions as a taxi.  The tiny motorcycles that power these contraptions have barely enough guts to make the thing move sometimes, like when you have whole families piled on.  The hotel is good, but still at the high end of my budget range, and there isn't anything cheaper here.

It has been raining all day, so I've mostly stayed in the hotel, watched TV, read my book, and done more planning.  When the rain has taken a break from falling, I've been venturing out to get food, exchange money, and see the town.  But the rain doesn't break for long, so I invariably end up bee-lining it for the hotel when the down pour resumes.  That's my day.

Now let me say something about Filipinos.  They are very nice people, very polite, and infatuated with my height.  When I first arrived in Manila I was nervous and anxious about the stairs I would get, but I've since realized that people are looking at me because I'm basically a walking lighthouse.  Tall and white.  A lot of people ask me how tall I am, or at least put their hand way above their heads in a recognition of how tall I am compared to them.  I usually just smile, chat for a few sentences, and carry on.  And because basketball is popular, I usually get asked if I play in the NBA.  I try not to laugh and just smile politely.

Sometimes the Filipino eagerness to serve catches me off guard, like last night at the Indian restaurant.  When the waiter came to take my order, the owner butted in halfway through to finish taking my order, and he had an assistant standing next to him to ensure that I had everything I needed.  At the hotel this morning the porter, desk clerk, and security guard all rushed to my side to answer my questions and make sure I got what I needed.  Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming, but I suppose it is better than being ignored.

Speaking of security guards, they are everywhere.  Some are armed with various firearms.  I'm not sure how the security company operates, but all the guards wear the same uniform.  And I always see guards in front of every mall, bank, restaurant, hotel, pawnshop, or any store where something of value is sold.  I'm not sure what to think of them. Sometimes I feel safer that they are there, even if they are carrying loaded weapons and I find myself questioning how often they practice shooting and handling them.  Other times, though, I see them restocking shelves in the convenience stores they are guarding, or sweeping up the sidewalk out in front of the restaurant they're assigned to.  Security guard/stock boy/janitor?  Huh.  Again, I'm not sure what to think.  I guess in the end I'm glad they are there, even if just to serve as a deterrent for would be bad guys.

Well, hopefully my hike tomorrow will work out.  If it is still raining tomorrow, I'll be forced to continue on.  There's not much to do around this town except for the hike, and the rain here could go on for days.  Maybe I can swing through on my way back south in a few weeks.

I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care.

Pat

Manila in the rear view

I'm on the Korean computer again, and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to start a new post.  My strategy is to randomly click on buttons containing Korean words.  If what I want doesn't come up, I hit the back button and try something else.  Not the most efficient strategy, but it works.

Today I took care of some important errands and finished planning the next few days of my travels here.  The morning took me to the nearest Light Rail Transit (LRT) station.  After being jammed into a train car like a can of sardines being squeezed by the world's strongest man, I made it to the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) to extend my visa from 21 days to 59.  My guide book had said the BOI was a scary place chock full of people, a whirlwind of chaos, and that I should use a travel agency or renew the visa somewhere outside of Manila.  However, I made sure to arrive early, and it was a breeze.  By the time I left there, people were streaming in like cattle to a fresh pasture, but I was heading out the door.  I then walked back to the LRT station where I had departed, and rode (again, packed in to the point of getting good view of everyone's bald spots) to the bus station from which I will depart tomorrow morning.  I'm glad I scouted the place out, because it was out of control.  Apparently there is no central office, and several bus companies operate out of this bus station.  I asked someone how I can get to Balanga, and he pointed me to the Baatan Bus Line.  I walked over, and a small man started rattling off questions like he was training for the speed-talking event for the next Olympics.  I finally was able to interject and tell him I didn't want to depart this very instant; that I would come back tomorrow morning with my bags.  I then asked him where I could buy a ticket.  He said I should give the money to the "hot doctor".  Eh?  At this point I was dripping with confusion.  Hot Doctor?  Who is this "hot doctor" and where is he located?  Can I speak to him now?  Is "hot doctor" his real name or is that just his title?  After a few back and forths and me repeating myself and the small man repeating himself, he told me that he was the "hot doctor".  Huh?  A five foot tall Filipino man standing in the middle of a bus station is a "hot doctor"?  After he said "hot doctor" about ten more times, the light bulb in my brain suddenly shone bright.  He was not saying "hot doctor".  He was saying "conductor".  Oh, I see now.  This man here is the conductor for Baatan Bus Lines, and I give him the money when I want to board the bus.  Okay, got it.  After a few more questions, and a little more confusion, I thanked him and walked back to the LRT station. 

After that I headed back to the area where my hostel is located, walked to the shopping mall nearby and tried to located the electronics store where I had seen a good travel outlet adapter (I've given up on the camera for the time being).  I need a travel adapter to charge my cell phone, which I purchased in New Zealand but will work here.  After sometime getting lost in the mall, I found what I was looking for and made the purchase.  I then made my way to the nearest grocery store and searched and searched for some cheddar cheese to eat with my bagels.  My cheese search continued in the cooler section until I noticed the sign indicated that cheese isn't in the cooler section, that it's on a normal shelf with things like cereal and bread.  I was perplexed.  Shouldn't cheese be refrigerated?  I grabbed a container of Kraft Cheddar Cheese, but noticed that it wasn't called just cheese.  It's called "spreadable processed cheese".  That didn't sound like what I wanted, and nothing else on the shelf looked like what I wanted, so I abandoned my cheese search and left. 

In the afternoon I packed up my bag, read my book, did some crossword, and then headed to an Indian restaurant I had heard about.  I thought that, since it was my last night in Manila, and because I've been eating only bagels with peanut butter and street food, I should treat myself a little.  The chicken curry I had was delicious, along with the San Miguel beer that washed it down.

I was going to write a little about the pollution, but I'm tired of writing for now.  That, and I'm racking up by bill with every minute I'm on this computer.  So, I'll just say that Manila is very polluted.  Some trash in the streets, but mostly with cars, buses, and what they call jeepneys, which spew out dark fumes constantly.  Also, I learned that Manila is the most densely populated city in the world.  I've enjoyed it, but I'd like a little more space.

So, I hope everyone is doing well in their part of the world.  Take care.

Pat

Cultural Exposure

Day Three.  Today I want to talk about a couple of things.  But first let me clear something up that I hadn't properly explained in the first post.  Jema and I decided to travel separately for about a month.  She is somewere in the Philippines.  We will meet up before Christmas at a chosen location and time. 

Because today is Sunday, it was a day for more exploring.  I wasted quite a bit of time at the mall again looking for a damn disposable camera.  Apparently the digital age has taken over to such an extent that I can't find a camera that uses film at all, let alone one that I can throw away after using.  Between yesterday and today I've spent nearly six hours stopping at every camera shop, then every shop that sold electronics, then every hardware store.  Nadda.  So, unfortunately, as of now my travels will be documented only with this text.  Which is a shame, because I visited two very interesting but very different cultural locations today. 

First let me say something on the heat.  It is hot here, and humid.  At first I had forgotten about how necessary it was to drink loads of water, until I got my first headache.  Now, I carry my water bottle around after filling it up with drinking water at the hostel, then I buy cheap bottles of water off of street vendors when I'm feeling parched.  I've also been walking nearly everywhere, exerting myself, so that adds to the equation.  Hopefully I will acclimate to the heat soon.  If not, I'll speed up my departure to the highlands up north where it is supposed to be cooler. 

My first cultural destination today was the Manila American Cemetary and Memorial.  In lieu of photos, visit this link:  http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ml.php.  The cemetary contains over 17,000 graves of US servicemen who lost their lives in WWII, mainly in the Philippines and New Guinea.  It is striking to see all those crosses, and a few Jewish Stars, lined up neatly on a manicured lawn.  What is even more moving, however, are the large walls which have names etched into them of the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen who are Missing-in-Action.  Over 36,000 names, along with rank and home state, are found on the tablets.  I was very impacted by the fact that so many hadn't been recovered.  To die in war is one thing, I believe, but to die and never be found is something much more tragic.  When filling out the guestbook I could not at first think of something to write in the "comments" section.  Finally I wrote what I felt "sadness, pride, awe". 

I realized, during my visit to the cemetery, that I had been quite ignorant regarding the WWII Pacific Theater.  I had always assumed that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and we went to Japan, fought them, and won.  But at the cemetery there are detailed descriptions of every battle, the units that fought, and the strategy that helped the US and allies win.  Immediately after Pearl Harbor, with the US momentarily stunned, the Japanese took the opportunity to invade and occupy nearly every South Pacific country, island, and atoll that existed, including the Philippines.  However, the first offensive battle for the US was Midway, and it was a turning point (among others) of the Pacific Theater.  Attacking and defeating the Japanese at Midway gave the US forces a much needed morale boost after the devastation at Pearl Harbor.  Well, the US, with Allies, went on to fight in Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the Philippines, and other major battles.  By the time the US got close to the Japanese mainland, the Manhattan project had produced what it had been created to produce, and the rest is history. 

Now we'll talk about the second cultural experience I attended today.  Cock fighting.  Visit the Wikipedia page to see photos:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfight.  Cock fighting is not only legal in the Philippines, but it is practically the national sport.  Truly.  According to the Wikipedia article, the Philippines is the mecca of cock fighting.  The "Olympics of Cock Fighting" is held here twice a year.  Now I certainly am not in favor of animal cruelty, but thought that because it is so big here, I should see what all the fuss is about.  My guidebook recommended a place to go and watch if one was so inclined, so I went off to find the Pasay Cockpit.  Stepping off the train, I started walking down a busy street that was lined with pawn shops.  Standing in front of every pawn shop was a guard armed with a pump action, pistol grip shotgun.  I wasn't sure whether to feel more in danger or more safe, so I just kept walking, hoping to quickly find the aforementioned cockpit.  After a lot more walking, I was getting nervous, and thirsty, so I stopped at a roadside vendor to discretely check the map and purchase a Gatorade.  The map didn't tell me anything, so I mentioned the cockpit, and, lo and behold, I was right there.  Just around the bend from the roadside vendor was the Pasay Cockpit.  I strolled up, payed my 200 peso entry fee, and walked into a new world. 

The building resembled a basketball arena, only scaled down to a tenth of the size.  There were bleachers with seats, an AstroTurf ring with three foot high glass walls, referees, judges, betting facilitators, and, of course, the owners who were holding their...ahem, cocks.  Because I'm a giant white man the betting facilitators quickly noticed me.  They urged me to sit close to the ring and start gambling.  I politely declined both offers, taking a seat near the back and telling them I had no money.  Here's how a cockfight works:  an elderly bald man gets into the ring and talks to the crowd through a microphone.  Because he was speaking Filipino, I'm not sure what he was saying.  While he is talking, the two gamecocks (as they are known) are brought in by their owners.  A third cock, the aggressor cock, is also brought in.  The aggressor cock is held near to and pecks each gamecock, separately, to rile the gamecock up and get them ready for the fight.  Once the old bald fellow is done speaking, the shouting starts.  Everyone in the arena begins screaming at the top of their lungs and waving their hands in the air like a demon is being exercised.  They are trying to match bets.  If I want to bet 3000 pesos on the white gamecock, I hold three fingers up, shout the white gamecock's name, and attempt to find someone else in the crowd who will bet the same amount against me.  It is truly a sight to see this display.

After the betting is through, the protective coverings are taken off of the razor sharp spurs that each gamecock is wearing, they are set down on the AstroTurf, and everyone holds their breath.  I watched probably six fights in all.  Four ended very quickly, one went on forever, and the last (the reason I had to leave) came down to a draw, when both gamecocks had mortally wounded each other.  Sad.  Usually the victorious one is whisked off to be patched up by a surgeon, and the loser ends up in the stock pot.  From asking the betting facilitators for more details, I learned that a gamecock usually fights once a week.  And this career continues until it loses, or is wounded in such a way that makes it unable to fight again, such as a broken wing or eyes gouged out. 

Well, that's cockfighting.  I have to say its pretty tragic to watch, yet fascinating at the same time.  Every time a fight ended I kept saying I'll stay for just one more.  But I kept staying because while the cruelty was unsettling, its hard to tear yourself away from such a foreign spectacle. 

The end of my day was spent eating a shwarma (middle eastern meat dish, which I first discovered in Iraq), whilst talking to a 50-something Scottish fellow.  The conversation was going well until he asked me if I had met any lady-boys yet, and then invited me to come to a show later on tonight.  Sorry, can't make it.  Apparently these transvestite shows are a big thing here.  I can handle the cockfighting, but not the trannies. 

Lastly, let me say that this computer I'm working on only recognizes Korean.  So, the spellcheck doesn't work because the Korean spellchecker can't check my English spelling.  The point is, there may be a few misspellings and grammar mistakes that I missed.  So be it. 

I hope everyone is well in other parts of the world.  Take care!