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Published: January 19th 2012
So friends, it has been quite some time since this blog has been updated. Much has happened, most of it good.
Currently I am sitting in San Juan, Philippines, after a lovely day of surfing lessons and sitting around reading. Really it has been a great day. We (Caroline and I - more on this later) took a one hour surfing lesson in the morning. She had surfed before, so got the hang of it quickly again, but it took me a bit more work. By the end of my time, I caught a wave, stood up and rode the wave all the way into the beach for my last run. I was quite proud of myself. Caroline did a lot better - she got up on almost every run. Our teachers were great, and all that I think I am missing is the timing of paddling and catching the wave. There will be more chances for surfing in the next few weeks methinks.
12 days ago Caroline and I met up in Manila. Caroline and I met in Turkey, and decided at that point to travel around together through the Philippines and on through Southeast Asia. Their family
friend is from the Philippines, and Caroline assured me that her friend would coordinate everything while we were in the Philippines. I was a bit resistant to this since for the last 5 months I have been 100% in charge of my itinerary and destiny. But it has worked out great.
We spent two days in Manila (not my favorite place in the world) with their family friend and their family friend's daughter Jolz. We toured around, did some shopping and explored the city, with stops at the Hobbit House bar and restaurant (small people were all the staff, but the menus were supersized and the food was not brilliant), the University of the Philippines (very tropical and lush). Caroline and I tried a Filipino speciality of Kari-Kari at a place at the mall (neither of us are big fans). We were told this wasn't a good representation of it thankfully. Maybe we will yet try it again.
After Manila we headed up into the Cordillera mountains for some time in the hills. The 12 hour night trip ride up to Bontoc wasn't very eventful - it was passed in a mountain bus up to Bontoc, which went
off without a hitch. We had plenty of stops, though they were playing American country music throughout which was a bit of shock to my system. None of us really slept all that well, so by the time I got into the jeepney to head up to Sagada, I was quite exhausted. So much so that I was lolling all over, left right, head out the window, and at one point I smashed Caroline in the nose with my head by an unfortunate combination of sleep lolling and bus jostling.
Once we arrived in Sagada, we had accommodation arranged for us at the Masferré hotel. Masferré was a local photographer who documented the surrounding tribes, and his photos deck out the rooms of the hotel. We arrived early in the morning – in time for a delightful breakfast and a wander around the town. One major oversight on our part was the shortage of ATM machines. We were all running quite low when we got there, and had to dig into our supplies of foreign currency to settle our bills at the end.
The unquestionable highlight of the time in Sagada was going caving. We had a great
guide named Denver who made it fun and safe(ish). As we were entering into some small gap I had a bit of claustrophobia, but it quickly burned off as we made our way deeper and deeper. All three of us had a great time, and I even enjoyed walking through the chest-high cold water. There were some great geologic structures that we walked around an on. In some places the rocks looked slippery but were rough, and in others they were rough but looked smooth.
That afternoon we headed into Echo Valley to take a look at the hanging coffins wired into the side of cliffs. The locals used to be buried in this way, but the smell of rotting flesh is something that humans have evolved to find repugnant.
The next day we headed to Baguio via an uneventful bus trip where we traversed some beautiful terraced rice paddies. In Baguio we stayed with another of Elsa’s friends, and they gave us great hospitality, feeding us two meals a day and helping us set up a good itinerary. In the end we did a lot of touristy stuff, interspersed with games of shithead, seven up and monopoly.
The touristy stuff was nice, like going to the Philippine Military Academy, horseback riding in the forest at Camp John Hay, a meal at the Café by the Ruins (delicious), getting kitted out in local tribal gear for photos at Mountain View, and right before we left going for strawberry picking. They introduced to Filipino peanut butter which is much sweeter than usual, almost as sweet as peanut butter with honey. For breakfast, Filipino peanut butter goes really well with pan de sal, a Filipino type of bread that is somewhat like a dinner bun. Their three year old son cum one-man-hurricane Zach reminded me somewhat of
this kid (to be fair his mom brought up this video).
After we left Baguio we headed down from the hills to the plains, and a wedding of yet another relative of Elsa’s of indeterminate relation. The wedding was held in an Anglican church in Saytan (an inauspicious name if I ever heard one), and the deacon had quite a long homily. Eventually they had their “first” kiss and everyone then headed off to the reception where 3 cows and 10 pigs had been slaughtered for the occasion. The reception was officiated by
a transvestite man and a lesbian and they made it a lot of fun. They did a hot potato garter toss, the loser being the one with the hot potato (the garter) in their hands at the end. Miraculously I escaped the garter. Caroline was not quite so lucky. They rigged the flower toss by doing a limbo which was a problem for Caroline since she was almost a head taller than everyone there. Her dance with the lucky garter catcher can be seen here:
">Caroline dance. Caroline also gamely danced with one of the dirty old men but after that experience swore off all dirty old men for the night.
We left the reception relatively early since the energy seemed to be flagging and most of the young people had left and we headed back to another relative’s house where we make quick work of a sizeable portion of apple and strawberry vodka that we mixed with powdered juice which made for remarkably competent chaser. After a few rounds I decided I was ready for a Balut. Balut, for the unitiated is a fertilized egg (see
) and a Filipino delicacy. There is a tiny chick in there, and
I have it on good authority that it is better after drinking. Anyway, I went for it and had one, which ultimately turned into four. The way you eat it is to crack a hole in the top of the egg, peel off a bit of the top of the egg, apply salt and flavored vinegar liberally, then take a bite. Finishing the harder bits of the egg is not required.
After a night where the local idiot was wandering around on our roof looking for the bathroom, we were woken at an uncool time of 7:30am to get to yet another meal, breakfast back at the house of the vodka/Belut. Those Filipinos know how to eat! The rest of the day we had a pretty easy time of it. We went to two waterfalls (I swam in both ones), and for one we had to cross a pretty high rope wire bridge – it seemed relatively secure. We also went to the school that most of the extended family attended in their youth, also in Saytan. Their elementary aged marching band puts many older marching bands to shame. We also went to a family farm.
made our way to San Fernando, the home of Abet, sister of Elsa. Abet is a lawyer in San Fernando, and invited us into a courthouse to see one of her hearings. It ended up being much more fun than I could have imagined. The first two cases that were heard were more or less straightforward affairs. The first hearing was about an adoption, the second the examination of a lab tech in a drug case. Then Abet’s case came up. She was defending her client who was the several-decades-younger ex of an older man. He had accused her of stealing money from him. Both the judge and Abet believe that it was a complete fabrication in order to get her back. It was quite a lot of fun. At one point Abet asked him how much she meant to him right now, and he said “worthless”. There were some giggles in the courtroom from all parties, but someone kindly told him that he probably meant “priceless” with further giggles and he corrected himself. As he was heading to the witness box he sat down in front of his ex and the judge asked him what exactly he was doing
since he was supposed to be going to the witness box. It all made for quite a scene.
That afternoon we headed to the Botanical garden in San Fernando for a small walk around, and had a quiet dinner at Abet’s home.
The following day one of their staff took us up to Vigan, an old city with horse drawn carriages and the like. It reminded me of both San Juan Puerto Rico and Panama City, probably both due to their Spanish influences. We went and saw clay pots being thrown and tried our hands at it. The clay they use is very soft which makes it quite difficult to throw. We tried some local food like longganisa (local sausage) and empanadas (apparently a local variation), both of which were quite delicious. And then we headed back to San Fernando for our last night at Abet’s.
We then headed to San Juan to do some surfing, which is where I sit now. What a tough life.
Lori
non-member comment
Looks like fun !
Looks like you are having a great time - love the pictures ! (any surfing pics??) Those hanging coffins are very unique - why did they do that ?