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Published: April 12th 2010
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Crucifixion
Yes that's right, his feet and hands are ACTUALLY nailed to the cross On my return to Manila with the Americans we had a nasty shock or two; quite literally - I was electrocuted in the shower which was very upsetting, feeling so vulnerable at the time...
We were then told there were no beds at that guesthouse or any other in the few mile radius due to the Easter weekend, on top of that all transport was shut down and we would be stuck in the hole that is Manila for the weekend (The city is undoubtedly one of the worst I have ever seen; everything is cracked, broken, malodorous and dirty). Devastated, I tried to re-book my flight back to HK while Matt and Josh graciously searched for a bed for the night.
During their absence I met Tom and Iselin, two Norwegians. Shortly after, Matt returned with good news of another hostel, even cheaper and better than all the others, but in the rough end of town, and we formed a new group and all moved together.
Now that we had formed a sizable group, I explained to them that I had intended on travelling to San Fernando, 2 hours north of Manila, to watch the Good Friday
!!!
Several people fainted and died from the heat alone here that day, i can't imagine anything worse than this. Rites ceremony (live actual crucifixions) and I organised a hire-car for the day. With that, I left early in the morning with 2 Swedes, 2 Americans, 2 Norwegians.
We arrived in San Fernando at 11am; it has been hotter than hot in the Philippines but this was something else. It was too warm to breathe and the sweat poured from all of us. Not really sure what to expect from this crazy ceremony, on the long walk from the car to the cross-site we passed blood splatter on the campaign posters, blood on the cars at the side of the road and saw splashes on the umbrellas of the other passers by.
Anticipating what was in store for us only lasted a few minutes as we were soon confronted by a lot of bare-backed men with cloth covering their faces, wreaths in the hair and blood dripping from their backs. They were chastising by whipping themselves with glass-studded whips!
Our little group soon became weary of the site of blood in the streets and ominous resident-evil-looking black and red guys. As soon as we walked through the main gates we saw the three crosses on the hill
overlooking the large crowds of people. The crucifying would start when the main guest (a guy who had it 23 times previously) arrived after he had carried another cross a few miles through the streets. No one had any idea when this would be so we dragged our feet towards any possible shade. We soon discovered the temperature had reached 45 degrees in the flaming sun and quickly decided to head to another destination after the first ‘act’.
Around 2:30pm the main event got underway. Dressed as Romans, men on horseback rode through the massive crowd which Tom and I were lucky enough to be in front of and soon afterwards, the poor soul appeared, carrying his cross through the last mile of dusty and burning streets, sweat dripping from his cloth covered face. Shortly after watching him pass us by, we heard the speakers sound, the volume was turned up such that we could hear the nails being hammered in and with or without the speakers, we all heard the screams of the tortured soul. The scene was very striking and I wish I had better photos, but the locals with their hundred of parasols and umbrellas to
protect from the heat got in the way.
He hung on the cross for 30 minutes before passing out and being taken down. As they hosied up the next volunteer, we struggled back to the car, faint and dizzy from the heat, our legs being burnt from the seemingly never ending exhaust pipes and gushes of hot air at our lower bodies.
Nursing our burns, we decided on my suggestion to head to beautiful Subic Bay, between San Fernando and Manila to see if we could see the famed bat cave and the black cloud of them racing out to feed at dusk.
Unfortunately the traffic beat us to it and we settled on a lovely meal at the beach watching the sun go down instead. We had been approached by children asking for money all week so we decided it would be more appropriate for them to have a square meal and ordered some of the local children a few plates of rice and meat, which helped to restore the karma of the day.
Tom and I walked along the beach together, admiring the views and then hopped the long ride back to the stinky
oh my god
that is all that can be said really capital. We had decided to would be buying Tanduay rum for the evening and quickly chugged a few glasses and headed off to ‘club’, which again, turned out to be a lady-bar and both Tom and I were inundated with floods of young people’s offers of sex. We quickly decided to fane couple status, drink up and go for a walk.
Pretty wasted, we both walked and talked for hours. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute and we headed to bed at 5am.
The next day I decided to change my plans around in the hope of meeting my mum in Singapore. As Tom eagerly asked me to join them to the island of Bohol the next day, I quickly booked us flights there in one of the most spontaneous actions of my life so far and extend my Philippines visa for a month.
Slightly hungover, the Americans, in true USA style suggested we head to the Mall of Asia, one of the world’s largest shopping centres. With food on our minds we squeezed the 5 of us in a taxi and arrived for dinner and a lot more rum. We giggled the hours away and decided to
head to the cinema, We agreed on ‘How to train your dragon’, a Dreamworks animation, which we all thoroughly enjoyed in our brainless state.
After the movie we headed down to the pier, just outside. The area was so different to the side of Manila we all knew and hated. Very expensive bars filled the clean and modern pedestrian street and live bands performed alone lights and waterfalls. We grabbed a barrel of beer and then sat on the wall of the sea, lying under the stars, talking and enjoying ourselves and laughing a huge amount.
Returning to the hostel around 10pm we were lucky enough to watch the Easter vigil from our stairway. Hundreds of people passed by with statues of the Virgin Mary and flickering candles in their arms.
The Philippines really is Asia’s odd child.
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