Naughty Dogs Get Eaten

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Manila, one of my least favourite cities so far. I wasn't expecting much from it, but I was not prepared for the poverty, pollution and general seediness. The traffic congestion here is amongst the worst I have seen anywhere, and sometimes you can see the choking fumes in the air. In the area I was staying (Malate), there were mothers and children sleeping on sheets of cardboard on the streets and in the filth. And yet, just around the corner was a huge shopping mall with fashionable shops and an 11-screen cinema. The difference between the people's wealth in this one area was staggering.

The Philippines has a reputation for it's sex scene, and it appears to be justified. I saw lots of middle-aged men walking around with young Filipino girls, and there are lots of seedy bars where you can pick up local girls or watch shows on stage. I was asked numerous times by local men if I wanted a young lady for company. One guy was so persisent that I said I had a girlfriend. When he asked where she was, and I said back in England, he said "Good thing, leaving your girlfriend behind. Lots of men do it. So, can I get you a young lady?" The other hassle on the streets was the viagra salesmen. Do I look like I need viagra?? But they wouldn't leave me alone. "Six hours sir!" said one guy chasing me down the street "It can keep you going for six hours!"

One of the first things you will notice in the Philippines is the Jeepneys. These are a form of tranport unique to this country. When the American forces left the Philippines after the Second World War, they left behind thousands of army jeeps all over the country. The resourceful locals decided to use these as public transport. The jeeps were stripped down, cut in half and elongated to make a vehicle the length of a minibus. They have two bench seats in the back, and carry 16 passengers. At least, that is the optimum number. In reality, many jeepneys will be overloaded, with people sitting on each others knees and people hanging off the back or on the roof. If one stops and you ask "is there room?" the answer will always be "just one more!" Nobody actually knows the maximum limit of a jeepney because it's always "just one more!" All jeepneys are individual in nature. The designs of each one are different. There are two categories of jeepney; The "Bling Jeepney", which is shiny silver and covered in spotlights, ariels and assorted metal artifacts. Then there is the "Arty Jeepney", which is usually spray-painted with a brightly coloured crazy design. I love the jeepneys!

Admittedly my time in Manila was brief, and I only saw a small part of it. I will be back again in a few weeks, so I will check out the other parts and reserve my full judgement until then. But my first problem was actually getting out of the damn city! There is no central bus station, so you can't just turn up and take your pick of the buses. Buses leave from random places all over this vast city of ten million people. I eventually discovered a night bus heading north to the town of Bontoc. It was a twelve hour journey with ridiculously cramped seats that didn't even recline. I hardly slept a wink and was exhausted when the bus got in at 9am the next morning. One tip for long bus journeys. Go to the toilet at any opportunity. Even if you think you can't go, you should TRY and have a sprinkle every time the bus stops. Because it will be sods law that the bus won't stop for another six hours, and then you'll really need to go! A full bladder on a bus bouncing over rocky roads is not pleasant. This tip is similar to the Army motto of "eat as much as you can when you can, because you don't know when your next meal will be" (I actually follow this army tip, even when I KNOW when my next meal will be)

So, I arrived in Bontoc, and I was hungry. There was a restaurant here that only sold dog. Yes, that's right, DOG. Woof Woof. What do you think of that? Most people will probably be revulsed, and think it's cruel and barbaric. Yet some of you will be tucking into a nice steak or a leg of lamb later without any qualms. Why is it OK to kill a pig and eat it, but not to kill a dog and eat it? Both are equally cruel, so you can't condemn people who eat dogs on the grounds of cruelty. It's all about perception. The difference is that we keeps dogs as pets. However, most of the Asian countries who eat dog do not keep them as pets. There are at least eight countries that I know about who eat dog, so we are actually in the minority. It is widely considered to be acceptable, and has been an integral part of their culture for centuries. Should we therefore condemn this practice? Do we have the right? I have heard tales of dogs being kept under terrible conditions, but is it any worse than they way most chickens are kept in this country? How many of you actually buy free-range chickens?

I had a major dilemma about whether or not I should try dog meat. When you think about it, the English eat an astounding amount of animals already. Cow, sheep, chicken, turkey, hare, rabbit, deer, pigeon, pheasant and pig. So we're not shy when it comes to meat. And I have eaten some of the stranger meats like cat, crocodile, gazelle, and buffalo. But dog? In the end I decided I couldn't. As I walked along the street, there were lovely little dogs coming up to me and wagging their tales, wanting to be stroked. Nope, dog meat ain't for me. By the way, I haven't really eaten cat. I was just giving the cat lovers a moment of spluttering outrage!

Bontoc was a drab little town, and the tourist information had no information on hikes or sights around the area. A tourist information office with no information!! What is the point? The guy was most apologetic, and said they were hoping to have some information soon. I was going to suggest that he gets A4 pieces of paper with "coming soon" printed on. So when people ask for a map, he can at least give them a piece of paper. So I caught a jeepney to the next town, Sagada. This was a tranquil little village in the mountains, and had a 9pm curfew each night. That was a new one on me. I'd never been anywhere before where I was told to go home at a certain time! It was very chilly in Sagada, and I spent that night wearing my sexy thermals and a T-shirt.

In Sagada, I said hello in Filipino to a number of people. Basic politness as the stranger in town. Hardly anyone even acknowledged me. I started mentally counting the results for my TFI. This stands for "Traveller Friendliness Index", which I have created and used in a number of countries so far. It works like this. Firstly, you learn the words for "hello" and "how are you?" in the native language. Then greet people who are serving in shops, internet cafes or when you are walking in the wilderness. Keep a rough mental tally of how many people respond, and how many people ignore you. To get a full picture, you should score different parts of the country, and in both rural and urban areas. The reason I started this was because I was going into shops in Colombia, saying to the shop assistant in Spanish "Good Morning, how are you?" and not even getting a response or a nod. Ignored completely! It really riled me, especially after being in friendly Ecuador. So I thought about a score system to compare countries. It's not to be taken too seriously, it's more a bit of fun and a general guideline. You cannot capture the essence or true nature of a people by such a crude method.

The scores so far (averaged out of ten):

Fiji - 9
Indonesia - 8
Ecuador - 7
Peru - 6
Chile - 6
Bolivia - 5
Colombia - 5
Venezuela - 4

Unfortunately, Sagada is scoring low so far. But I have heard the the Filipinos are amongst the friendliest on earth, so I am sure this town is just a temporary blip. I had one very friendly experience whilst on a hike though. I was walking back when a local guy shouted from a house at the side of the road "hey, come in and have a drink!". I thought it was a cafe, and thought, why not? Have a nice cup of tea. I went inside and it wasn't actually a cafe, but someone's house. There were five guys inside, a kareoke machine in the corner and a log fire was burning with some meat cooking over it. They sat me down, and gave me a shot glass of some fiery liquor and a glass of water. After downing the spirit, they offered me a small chunk of roasted pork. Introductions were made, and the bottle of spirits was passed around again. After drinking each shot, they ate another piece of the crispy pork. I noticed they were just having half a shot glass of spirits topped up with water. Good idea, otherwise we'd be on our backs in no time. Over the next hour we had quite a few rounds of shot-pork-shot-pork. (I might even have a "shot-pork" evening at the flat when I get back to the UK). Soon it was time for the Kareoke. The machine they had was a serious bit of kit. It was the size of a fruit machine with a large TV screen at the top and integrated speakers. It looked really out of place in this wooden shack in the middle of nowhere. This was actually a "videoke" machine, which the Filipinos are crazy about. It was a very surreal moment, 3pm in the afternoon, drunk in a mountain shack and singing "Eye of the Tiger" with five complete strangers!

THINGS TO DO WITH AN ORANGE WHEN YOU ARE DRUNK: Whilst walking back to town, I was feeling a little bit tipsy. I stopped to get something out of my daypack, and an orange dropped out from it onto the road. It started rolling away from me down the hill. I set off in pursuit, but the hill was very shallow, so I caught up with it easily. The gradient of the hill was such that the orange was rolling at a comfortable walking pace. Not slowing down, not speeding up. So instead of picking it up,. I let it continue to roll, and walked alongside it. Apart from a couple of correctional kicks to ease it around corners, the orange stayed at a constant speed beside me, for about 3 kilometres downhill to Sagada. It must have been a strange sight for the cars overtaking me, a foreign bloke "walking an orange!"

The next morning I set out on a short hike near Sagada. Lonely Planet suggested hiring a guide for all walks, saying that "most people get lost and stumble out of the bushes several hours later covered in mud and scratches". I had a basic map, and thought I'd try one of the short walks by myself. How hard could it be with clear directions? I stumbled out of the bushes several hours later covered in mud and scratches. So in the afternoon I hired a local guide. We visited a place called Echo Valley, which is famous for it's "Hanging Coffins". The coffins are carved out of wooden logs, and are placed on the side of a limestone cliff at a seemingly impossible height. They are not actually hanging, but are somehow attached to the cliff face. Very impressive. Although makes it rather tricky for the relatives to leave flowers.

I had a chat with my guide about the whole dog-eating business. Because, although most dog-eating countries don't keep dogs as pets, I found out that some people do keep them as pets over here. Which is a curious anomaly. He said that dog meat has been part of Filipino culture for hundreds of years. He couldn't shed any more light on this, but the one thing he did say about pet dogs was that "naughty dogs get eaten"!

Another place we visited with the guide was the Sumaging Cave. I thought we would just be taking a short stroll into the cave, but we actually took a gas-lamp down and climbed deep into it's depths. We descended about 300 metres in total, which took an hour of climbing down rockfaces and waterfalls, wading through rockpools and trying not to slip down any crevaces. At one point we entered a vast ampitheatre-sized cavern which is the largest cavern I have ever seen. There were several thousand bats in here, and although we couldn't see them, their screeches were deafening. They had also been kind enough to deposit a large amount of bat crap on the floor for us to walk and slip in. But this was only for a small section, and it was back to plain old rocks again shortly after. At the furthest point was an underground lake which was just begging to be swum in. So I stripped down to the ol' boxers and dived in. Bloody hell, it was freezing!! The icy water was so cold it was almost stinging, and it made all my senses alive and my mind alert. Afterwards I felt FANTASTIC, totoally revitalised. Talk about a wakeup call. This is what I need every morning to get me out of bed. Perhaps I could engineer some kind of hydraulic lift for my bed in London, that is triggered at a certain time and tips me out of bed into a paddling pool of freezing water. I'd never be late for work again!

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Photos

Manila
Dreary concrete jungle by day. Sexy skyline by night

The Bling Jeepney
Adorned with an assortment of spotlights and metal

The Arty Jeepney
Brightly painted and begging to be noticed

traditional huts of the Igarot
these are the hill tribes of North Luzon

the town of Bontoc
a staggeringly unattractive town, but a neccesary visit since it is the "gateway" to more Northen parts

Echo Valley
in the background is the tranquil village of Sagada

the "hanging coffins"
not exactly hanging, but definitely defying gravity. Some mighty strong superglue was used here! (click photo to see more clearly)

cool cave rocks
we climbed down these on our journey to the centre of the earth

more cool cave rocks
carefully sculpted by water over thousands of years

underground pool
very, very, very cold. But refreshing! That's me waving