My immigration officer, a girl around my age, was excited because we share the same birthday. It was the first time an immigration officer had ever made small with me that didn't feel like an interrogation. I waited in baggage claim and talked to the girl who had sat next to me on the plane. She insisted on giving me a ride to my hotel, saving me cab fare. It was a good entrance into the Philippines.
Manila was essentially destroyed in World War II and sporadically rebuilt resulting in a collection of 17 smaller cities that were not unified until 1976. Charming is not a word usually ascribed to Manila. Excluding the commercial district, which is quite modern and clean, the rest of the city are blocks of ugly concrete with garbage strewn everywhere. If there is one redeeming quality about the city, it's the music. Filipinos love music. Live bands are everywhere, and while most of time they are covering American pop and rock music, they are doing it better than the bar bands back home.
Manila is also full of prostitutes.....lots and lots of prostitutes. In addition to the girls who are either walking the street or working at one of the many "girlie bars", there is a surprisingly large number of completely innocuous women also looking to make a buck. An attractive woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt, walking out of the grocery store, stopped to ask me if I wanted a massage. In the less savory neighborhood where I spent my first night, I couldn't walked two blocks without a girl approaching me. In attempting to get away from the chaos (and stay out of trouble!), I went into Manila's nicer commercial district. The string of restaurants there had a decor to match the trendiest places in NYC or Vegas. I walked into a Cuban restaurant to check out the live salsa band. The only open seat at the bar was next to a group of four, well-dressed women. I made friends with them and spent the next 3 hours hanging out. At the end of the night, the girl who I spent the most time with told me she was a "working girl" and suggested I take her home........and that was just my first night.
Arriving not a moment too soon, Sabrina took a few weeks off of work to come meet me and visit her high-school friend who has been working at an international school in Manila for the past four years. We stayed with her and Adam, her British fiance, for a few nights. It was nice to get a few cultural notes from them. I was asking Adam about his cultural integration and the challenges he faces. Unfortunately, even after 5 years of living in Manila there is still an expected divide between "the rich white people" and everyone else. He summed it up for me with this story: He left something at the front desk of his condo building for his Filipino friend to pick up. When he tried to explain to the desk clerk who would be picking it up, he was met with the question, "Is he your friend, or is he Filipino?", as if the two were mutually exclusive. His close friends are other white teachers at the international school, a fact that seems inevitable.
From Manila, Sabrina and I went into the mountainous north to see the rice terraces. A guide took on a three-day hike to several villages only accessible by foot. Sabrina had a lot of "firsts" on this trip. First time hiking for more than a few hours (it was a hard 7-hour hike the first day). First time showering with only a bucket of water. First time using a bucket to flush the toilet. All important things. We were welcomed our first night by concert put on by the village children. About 20 kids sang 20 minutes worth of English songs. The only other tourists staying with us were a few French guys. When it was suggested that they entertain us with their own song, they picked the obvious Frere Jacques, at which point the children enthusiastically joined in. So much for teaching them a new song.
Rural village life comes with a few inconveniences. For Sabrina, the biggest one is living next to the roosters, who start their wake-up call around 3am. To put a point on this, Sabrina suggested we make a list of animals she likes: Pandas, penguins, puppies, turtles and fish. And then she made a list of animals she doesn't like: Roosters.
The terraces were beautiful and require an unfathomable amount of work to maintain.
Further up into the mountains is another town which is famous for it's hanging coffins. These coffins have been hung on the side of a cliff face (no easy feat) because of the belief that the soul does not like be buried underground, but wants to be free. Nearby, stacked in the mouth of a cave, are several hundred coffins which are there for same reason.
We took a guided cave tour, which was a big thrill for me. I've been in a lot of caves, but this one is the winner. No electricity has been piped into it, so the only light is from the guide's gas lantern. After slowly descending a few hundred feet over guano-covered rocks, the cave turns into a beautiful array of tiered pools, which cascade even further down, ending in a big waterfall and deep swimming hole.
Heading back towards Manila, we stopped in another big city, Baguio, which was also destroyed in the war. Outside the city is more beautiful, mountain scenery, but if the city itself possesses any charms, they are well hidden. To finish out Sabrina's leg of the trip, we went to Boracay, the Philippines most touristy beach town. Boracay is a small island with a mile-long stretch of fine, white, powdery sand. It has all the fixings of a fun, vacation destination. We took a snorkeling trip that was a little mediocre until we saw a large, black and silver-banded sea snake. Definitely one of the coolest things I've seen underwater. I followed it around for 5 minutes or so until it went too deep. The sea snake venom is deadly, but thankfully they are quite timid and their teeth are so small, they have a hard time releasing venom into humans.
I usually don't love ultra-touristy destinations, but we found a grungy bar at the end of the beach that was the local hangout, and for me, that was the place to be. I couldn't go in there without making friends, which is a nice sign that the balance between the transient tourist and the local economy is still on the right side.
And now, shameless sunset pictures:
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