Philippines
My friend from Brooklyn was coincidentally going to be in the Philippines for a few months. She convinced me to join her there after she joined me in Hanoi for a week. Here is review of my activities. We went to Benaue for 2 nights. Christina went on a hike to the rice terraces. I didn't because I was having a stomach thing. I even took some antibiotics. It was an okay town. Really small. Only a couple of restaurants. We stayed at the Greenview Inn. It was a bit of a dump. We stayed in the basement with a shared bath. There was a guide there who was very helpful: Freddie. His English was good, and he was very helpful without being scamming. Great. Although at one point we told him we were going to get a motorcycle taxi (I forgot what they were called there. They were basically a motorcycle with a sidecar.) to go to the couple of local sites and shortly after we were finishing our food at the restaurant next door, a driver mysteriously showed up. How did he know we were in need of a driver? Hmmm… turned out he was a friend of Freddie's.
Then we went to Sagada by jeepney (200 or 250 pesos each - about $4-5). Christina sat on the roof for a while. The ride was not that comfortable. In Sagada, we stayed at another run down hotel called the Igorat inn. It was totally overpriced at $30 per night. The bathroom was in the room but the whole place had a shabby worn-out unloved feel. The walls were paper thin and the first night there was a screaming kid next door. The next two nights there was a snorer. In Sagada, we ran into a woman Christina met while volunteering in the south. Julia. We went into a restaurant that first evening and there was no place to sit. There was a lone woman, so I was going to ask if we could sit there but it turned out that Christina knew here. Small Pilipino world. She was traveling with a group of people. So, for the next few days, we hung out with them. We went to some of the sites with them. That was fun. The sites were fine but not all that. One of them was a site of hanging coffins. That was interesting. The guides will tell you information if you ask them but you have to ask. The deal is that the dead sit in a chair at home for 4-5 days during which time people come to visit. Then the are folded into a fetal position. And carried to the burial site. They are passed from person to person. It is thought to be good luck to get blood of the dead on you. Then they are put into a coffin which will be on the side of the cliff. I am not entirely sure why they do it that way, instead of cremation or burying in the ground, except that the ground is really really rocky. We also went to a cave where they pile coffins. I think basically they just dry out. I guess they must not have any large predators to break into the coffins and eat them.
In the afternoon, we had pizza and shakes at someone's house outside of town. A local potter, Segrit, who knew Julia the peace corp volunteer and an artist friend of hers decided to try to do a restaurant for the weekend as a test to see if they should do a restaurant. The pizza was good (not great) and the shakes were good. We sat outside on woven mats and oversized pillows.
We also went for the Good Friday buffet at St. Joseph Hotel, cooked by the French "chef" in town who also cooks for the Log Cabin. The meal was mediocre at best and cost 300 pesos, about $6. It had an iceberg salad, a soup that was ok but I don't remember what it was. Ok only because they put cheese in the bottom. Cheese for me had been a rare treat in Thailand. There was also overcooked pasta with tomato sauce and chicken. I think there was chop suey. The only other dish I remember was a fish pate that with a pink fruit sauce. Nothing was great, and most was down right bad. Very disappointing. The best part of the meal was a really good chocolate fruit cake.
The next night we went out to the house at the same house they were serving shakes and pizza. They were having dinner for 350 pesos, $7. It was salad with great dressing. A delicious soup. Pizza as a snack. And spaghetti which was really only ok. Dessert was sliced fruit with a topping on it. It was good. . That couple were artists. I knew it from the day before. They had way too much eclectic great taste art to not be artists. He was a painter and she did soft sculptures of people. They were really a wonderful couple.
After Segada, we went to Bagio. It was ok. It is a town of 1 million people. First night we stayed in a hotel downtown called the Buchanan. It was close to the park. The first day it was Easter Sunday so the place was swarming with tourists. We rowed a boat in the little lake with a million other people. Totally fun. Neither Christina nor I could row very well. It was really fun. It was so crowded in the water that everyone was running into everyone else. We were talking to everyone like a big party. People were friendly but all the women were looking at us like we were crazy because we were rowing our own boat. We did have the option of get a rower. Why? Rowing is all the fun.
Bagio also had a really super large market. It was there you could really see the poverty. There were a bunch of kids (and a few old women) looking to sell bags made out of what I would've called seed bags except they had been used for many different things. The kids also were looking to carry our bags. The poverty and desperation of these kids was sincere. They were cute and bit aggressive. The next day we went to check into a new hotel up on the hill and not in the city center. City center was a bit seedy. It had a very unsafe feel to it. I had my fanny pack that came with my backpack over my shoulder. Previously in the day, I had been looping the zipper strings through one another but for reason I hadn't at this point. I felt a tug on my bag and pulled my bag around to find the zipper open and a nice looking young man walking at my side. He immediately stopped at a counter store and I stopped to check my bag. At first we thought my wallet had been stolen but it had not. Thankfully. Maybe because of the good karma I racked up with helping Alan in Hanoi. The hotel turned out to have only double beds. I was totally not crazy about staying there and they totally wouldn't dicker over the price of a larger room with 2 beds. The cost was about 1800 pesos, $38 which is expensive. So, we went to another hotel. The rooms were only a little less and totally a dump. So, we went back to the other place. Still no discount, of course not. We went to Camp John Hay, for memory lane with Christina. It is no longer a US military base. Christina and family used to go there as children for a slice of Americana. They would eat the food, shop at the commissary, and bowl. Christina had fond memories. It turned out the historical part was closed on the day we were there. Too bad. We walked around. Ate American like food. Thought about playing putt-putt but it was starting to rain so we had cups of Pilipino hot chocolate. Then walked up to see the cemetery of negativism which is this fake cemetery with made up people on the tombstones. We went to see their really nice hotel which I think was about $200 per night. Then we went down to see the Buddhist temple, which was closed. So, we went to an internet café and shopped some more in the huge market place. That night we had dinner at the hotel, which was really weird. I had the Juan Something Salad which was a plate of chopped up vegetables including roasted eggplant, onion, tomatoes, salted boiled duck egg, bagoong which is a fishy red condiment, green mango, okra. I used the house dressings which were these weird sweet things. It was really the weirdest salad I have ever had, and not good. Christina had really fatty ox tail soup. The owner's son chatted with us. Nice young guy. He had a bunch of friends there. He bought us a beer and tried to chat up Christina who was not having it. He also sent over a piece of cake called Sans Rival. This had to be the most awesome cake I have ever had. It was flaky, crunchy sort of like a really light angel food and had a very heavy butter cream frosting. Awesome.
After dinner, we started a fire and watched some TV. Turns out the son and friends were having a party and playing poker which meant we were woken up all night long. That was a real bummer.
Next day we got up and went to the bus depot with really great timing we caught a bus immediately. This bus trip was better in the sense that the road was a real road not dirt, not winding through the mountains. We had stops at real bus stops with plenty of food. The scenery was interesting. Not the beautiful rice terraces but instead it was of poverty. It was really really poor. I have never seen anything like it. So very poor but interesting for me too see. Once in Manila, however we slowed to a crawl and I think we ended up 2 hours late. And again we got totally ripped off from the cab. I am used to it but it really makes Christina furious.
Next few days were filled with Carlos' tours of Manila, dinner with Christina's family and new friends, and malls. It was fine. I have no complaints. I was also able to see his "alternative space" called "the livingroom".