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