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Published: April 23rd 2007
Pinatubo from Above
The crater of Mt. Pinatubo as seen from the air
James Dylan Two Weeks in the Philippines: Part I: Angeles City and Mt. Pinatubo I was working as a contractor on a one year contract with a telecom company in Doha, Qatar, and 6 months in I decided to start planning my two week vacation. I was dating a cute girl from the Philippines at the time, and decided to take her advice and go to the Philippines with her, as a girlfriend/guide. I was working with many other contractors in Qatar, and almost every one of them has a house or business in the Philippines, (which from here on I will write as "PI", for Philippine Islands). The other contractors praised life in the PI, telling me how beautiful the girls are, how cheap it is there, so many Americans were living there now, how everybody spoke English, on and on; basically paradise on earth. They showed me pictures of their homes and girlfriends, pictures of their servants, indoor pools, etc. I'll admit, I was interested, and as I didn't have any reason to go back to visit the US, & I was sick of Europe, and I had never been to the Philippines before, so I made plans to
Pinatubo from Above
One of the "washes", or run off channels from Mt. Pinatubo as seen from the air. This is also the channel we drove and hiked in on to reach the crater. go in April of 2007. I surfed the web prior to my departure date, trying to plan ahead and decide where I wanted to visit, and settled on three places.
I would fly to Manila, rent a car, and drive up to Angeles, which is near Mount Pinatubo, the volcano next to Clark Airbase that erupted back in 1991 which pretty much ended the US bases in the PI. Afterwards, we would fly to Boracay for a week and lounge around on its white sand beaches and swim in its crystal-clear waters. Boracay is the Florida of the Philippines, kind of a vacation hot-spot, I was told. Finally, we would spend the remainder on Bantayan Island, a large island off the tip of Cebu. Rumor has it that Bantayan is the "next Boracay", so I wanted to check it out and see about buying some land there and maybe opening a small hotel or resort, just in case I did like it and decided to move there someday.
The following is my journal from the two week vacation.
22 April - Charito, my girlfriend, had flown to the PI to spend some time with her family before
James and the Airplane
This is me and the airplane we flew around Pinatubo on. I showed up and took her island-hopping, and she was to meet me in Manila. I left Doha on a Qatar Airways flight, and they are not a bad airline; I've flown with them several times now and don't have any complaints. The food was great, the service efficient and friendly. I flew directly to Manila. The front row of economy (the bulkhead?) was free, so I moved up there and stretched my legs, but everybody took it for an aisle, so people were stepping over my legs and on my feet the entire trip. I didn't get much sleep.
Arrival: 23 April - Arrived at 4 am, got my bags, and after waiting in an immigration line for 45 minutes with literally a thousand or more other people (at 4 am?) and with only 3 immigration officials working the booths, I finally squeezed through and hooked up with Charito. I thought it would be just her meeting me, but it seemed she'd brought her entire extended family along, at least 10 of them. What the hell? She'd told them she was dating an American, and I guess this is the biggest thing that's happened to them in
Shacks-1
These are the shacks on the dry creek-bed down from Mt. Pinatubo. No electricity, no water, nothing. I don't know how they live there. years, because they all insisted on going along to the airport to see me. I say see me, because none of them actually talked to me. She said it was because they were all scared or shy. I gave them a large cardboard box of chocolates, candy and clothes she asked me to bring, and they were happy and finally left us alone. It was still only 5 am, and (according to the Hertz website) the rental car offices didn't open until 8, so we had three hours to kill.
We hung around outside and talked, waiting until 8 am, and then went to the rental car area, and....no Hertz booth. I checked the email printout from Hertz; it said the office was in "Manila Airport". I called the number on the email and spoke to some guy who said "Airport Hertz" moved out of the terminal recently and was now located about a 20 minutes drive away! I was pissed and told the moron so, and that there was a reason I picked a rental car agency "AT" the airport, not 20 minutes away; I didn't want to get stuck or lost in the infamous Manila traffic. Out
Shacks-2
These are the shacks on the dry creek-bed down from Mt. Pinatubo. No electricity, no water, nothing. I don\'t know how they live there. of spite, I cancelled the reservation and went to a nearby Avis counter instead. Ironically, the Avis office had been open since 6 am, and another in the parking lot was open 24 hours, so I had basically wasted 2 hours.
The girl at the Avis counter was free, and she had a car available, so I told her to "let me have it", and boy, did she. She gave me a copy of the contract to sign, and then she pointed at the rental agreement, asking me to put my initials "here" and "here", but I am not that naive and tried read what she wanted me to initial, and wonder or wonders; it was for that bullsh*t "required" "additional" insurance that rental agencies always try to get you to accept. I thanked her for taking the liberty to pre-check the boxes accepting it (on my behalf) and trying to get me to blindly initial next to them, then told her I was paying with my credit card which already has insurance for rental cars.
She argued with me about how it was SO vital that I accept it, it was a matter of life or death,
James and the Water Buffalo
I think it is a water buffalo... that she knew of SO many Americans (like myself) who declined the insurance and had to pay for the whole car, that the credit card company would refuse to pay for anything. She said if I was in a wreck, I would have to pay for the WHOLE car and HOPE that MAYBE I could get my money back. She was tough, I'll give her that. When she finally caved and realized she was talking to a brick wall, I made her print out a whole new contract without any checks in the boxes for accepting the insurance, which pissed her off even more.
Here is the first lesson of many I learned in the Philippines, which I will present to you as tips:
TIP # 1: Almost everybody is on some sort of commission or has a scam going, and you really can't trust anybody in any position that involves money. Almost every person I met is receiving some commission or kickback from someone else. Even the woman working for the airport to help people find hotels has a scam going, directing tourists to hotels she gets a kickback from. She will call them "as a courtesy
Local Transportation
Local Transportation outside of Angeles to you" and have you fill out a pre-registration card "for your convenience", which she will then write her name on and even staple her business card to, for you to give the clerk at the hotel. How nice of her. Anyway.....
Once the paperwork with Avis was settled, an old man in a car came to pick us up to take us out of the airport proper to the Avis lot, just a few minutes away, where they presented me an older, smelly car that would never have been rented out by an American company. But with all the theft and crazy driving habits here, I didn't really blame them for renting it out.
TIP #2: When renting a car in the PI, insist that it is new or newer and refuse to accept it if you aren't happy with it. My car had some kind of clear plastic coating like window tint over the rear window, which, due to the heat, had shriveled and shrunk and made it impossible to see through, especially at night. Why this stuff was on the rear window I have no idea, except to maybe MAKE you get into an accident.
Old Military Barracks
Old military barracks on the old Clark Airbase outside of Angeles, abandoned after the eruption. I could understand if it was a dark window tint, but the stuff was clear, so it served no purpose that I could understand. I shouldn't have even accepted the car, but we had already wasted so much time already. The car was smelly, as if every driver who rented it before me was a smoker and ate greasy food in it whilst driving. There was dust and grime in all the hard-to-clean parts of the car...but hey, this isn't the states.
Manila: We left for Angeles around 9 am, I believe, and the minute we pulled out of the lot, we hit the world-famous Manila traffic. I'll say right now that I have never seen traffic like this, traffic that doesn't even move, just three rows of cars that sit in traffic and maybe, occasionally, you will move up a foot. To make it worse, we had no idea where we were, Avis gave me NO map of the city, there wasn't one in the car, and they couldn't even tell me where to get one. In fact, they looked at me like I was a freak for even asking. I guess it makes sense; with traffic
Old Military Barracks 2
Old military barracks on the old Clark Airbase outside of Angeles, abandoned after the eruption. that doesn't even move, you sure as hell aren't going anywhere...so why do you need a map? I stopped at several gas stations looking for a map, but none did. What they did have, however, were two or three heavily armed security guards at each station, and I mean heavily armed. Shotguns, AK-47's…the works. Finally, I saw a little mini-mall and saw a bookstore near the front door, so I popped in and they had a map book, bigger than what I wanted, but I really didn't have a choice.
Luckily, a few years earlier Charito used to live in Manila, and she recognized one of the main roads and told me to take it, so I cut off a few Jeepneys and we started heading north towards the "North Luzon Expressway" (or the NLE), stuck in traffic that moved occasionally. I am glad that I spent a year driving in Qatar, where it is considered an Extreme Sport, because it prepared me for driving in the PI. Many intersections don't have stop-signs or traffic lights, there are very few markings on the roads, and many times there are no traffic signs. I don't know if you have to
Old Military Housing-1
Old military family housing on the old Clark Airbase outside of Angeles, abandoned after the eruption. be licensed to drive in the PI, but I wouldn't bet any money on it. It looked like most of the drivers weren't, as they would drift into your lane, Jeepney's would suddenly stop in the road to pick up a passenger, pedestrians would walk into traffic, vendors were walking down the middle of the road selling bottled water from questionable sources (which we had been advised not to drink, and which I advise you not to as well).
Finally, after an hour, we hit the northern limits of the city and hit the NLE, which was a toll road, and which was great for us because it kept a lot of the riff-raff off it and we were able to make up some lost time. Heading north, we made Angeles in an hour, so we arrived at 11 am. I didn't call ahead to make any hotel reservations, because, quite frankly, I couldn't find any on the internet. Driving through the main part of the city, it wasn't hard to figure out; there aren't any hotels in Angeles. If I had read my tour book, I would have found this out and been prepared. (Alright, to be fair,
Old Military Housing-2
Old military family housing on the old Clark Airbase outside of Angeles, abandoned after the eruption. there ARE several hotels, BUT there is a catch; they primarily serve the old perverts who come to Angeles to have sex with the young girls and they are mostly seedy, and they are all located next to the old Clark Air Base or on it.) Being these kinds of hotels, one doesn't see them advertising on the internet or in in-flight magazines or in the New York Times Sunday Magazine (perhaps "Pedophile Monthly").
So after driving around for a while and not seeing any hotels, I stopped at a gas station, passed the small Army of security soldiers, and found a map of the city, and luckily, it had a blow-up of "bar street", the street that had all of the hotels on it. Bar Street is situated right outside from the now abandoned Clark Air Base, and all of the hotels on it once catered to the US military back in the day, and I'm sure they weren't as seedy as they are now, but since the military is gone and all these perverts showed up... Driving up and down the street, we stopped at the Clarkton Hotel, which looked half-decent from outside. They had a doorman
Ash Deposits near Pinatubo
Ash Deposits near Pinatubo and a guard, and the room was clean, so we checked in for a few nights. Surprisingly, they now have a website, www.clarkton.com.
I made sure the AC worked and checked for bugs, which brings me to...
TIP #3: Before checking in a hotel in the PI, insist on a room with air conditioning, is not on the side of the hotel near the road (the motorcycles are very loud and everybody lays into their horns continually and also the exhaust fumes), and ask to see the room before you accept it. This is much easier than asking to change rooms, or even trying to leave for another hotel if the place is a dump. We settled into the room, took a quick shower and headed out.
We drove around again for awhile and somehow found ourselves on the old Clark Airbase, which is now some kind of "free trade or duty-free zone", and because the heat was stifling, we decided to walk around in the new SM Mall for awhile. Walking around inside, it was air-conditioned and pretty glitzy for a town as grimy and poor as Angeles. Then I noticed all the "DOM's" (or "Dirty
The wash down from Mt. Pinatubo
The wash down from Mt. Pinatubo, which we drove up Old Men" as the locals call them) walking around and realized they are probably the primary customers.
The DOM's: I now have to talk about the situation I found myself with the DOM's. I am a white male with a Filipina female in a large town that is known throughout the PI for its sex industry and general depravity. Everyone looked at me and talked to me as if I was one of these freaks who are in Angeles for this purpose. There were many white males (DOM's) in Angeles walking around with Filipina females, and they all greeted me and winked at me as if I was "one of them". They also assumed Charito was "one of them", as in a prostitute, despite the fact that we both look 30, and most of the hookers were in their teens or early 20's. The entire time we were there we were very uncomfortable. Whenever we were greeted by, say, a waiter, he would talk to me and ignore her. When we went on the airplane tour over Mt. Pinatubo (which I will get to later on), the pilot treated her like she wasn't even there, as if she
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo, which we drove near to get to the crater was just some "girl" I picked up temporarily. I always made it a point to mention that we met in Qatar where we both worked and lived.
Back when Clark Airbase was open, many of the soldiers married Filipino girls and settled down here, many more simply bought a house and retired here and they are still here. I have no problem with this; it is DOM's I am talking about. I have never been so embarrassed and ashamed to be a white male in my life as I was traveling around the Philippines. There must be literally tens of thousands of old, pot-bellied, fat, balding and just plain disgusting white "losers" (I really refuse to call them "men") walking around with Filipino girls young enough to be their grand-daughters. Everywhere. There was one common trait that all these losers shared, and it was that they looked really, really creepy. If you showed me a book full of convicted child-molesters, these guys would fit right in. I actually have a large web page of pictures I took of them which you can view here.
It wasn't hard to figure out why they were in the PI, and here
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo, which we drove near to get to the crater are two guesses. They simply couldn't get a girlfriend in the states or they were pedophiles but didn't want to get in trouble having sex with an actual 12 year-old girl, so they come to the PI to get them as young as they can. Almost all of these guys were all ugly, overweight, badly dressed, unattractive, geeky & balding losers who walked around with the girls as if they were the kings of the world. Didn't they realize that the girls were only with them because they had money? Were they just fooling themselves? They couldn't seriously think these girls were with them for their look and charm, did they?
I think a lot of these guys were geeks in America and never got laid, and now they are re-living their youth (or their youth as it would have been if they had ever gotten laid). In the hotel restaurant, we were surrounded by either old, single white men sitting alone or old, white men with a very, very young Filipino girl.
Scanning through several groups, bulletin boards and chat-rooms on Yahoo about expats in the PI, the boards were filled with right-wing, conservative bullshit about hating
Slowly through the channel
That is the tour guide, showing the jeep driver how to get through the tight erosion area... feminism, feminists, Bush, Iraq, Vietnam, and how they decided to move to the PI because they were tired of "American femi-nazis" and wanted to be the "Man of the House", etc. I didn't get to any point of the groups, because there wasn't all that much about living in the PI; most of the posts were just right-wing, macho bragging about how they "rule their roost" and their women "do as their told". They were mostly retired military "conservative" men, and all you had to do was sit and talk to one about Bush or Iraq and they would start praising him and talk your ear off.
I eventually got kicked out of the chat-rooms and bulletin boards because I would post bulletins asking; why, if they were such red-blooded Republicans, they were living in the PI, married to Filipino women? Why are they complaining about politics and life in the states when they didn't even live there anymore? I also threw in a few posts about why they all married girls that looked like they were 16 years old, and finally the moderator kicked me out. I guess they don't like being compared to child molesters. I guess
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo, which we drove near to get to the crater. Interesting erosion...
the moderator was a pervert himself. Here is a link to a few of the groups:
The Poverty: Anyway, after being freaked out by all these old perverts, we had a bite to eat and drove around town. Truthfully, I have never seen such poverty in my life. There were people living in shacks made out of driftwood and plastic tarp, plastic bags, sheet-metal; anything that would keep the sun and rain off them while they slept. It really broke my heart, driving around and seeing little kids, shoe-less and dirty, playing on the side of the road outside of their ramshackle houses, but there wasn't really anything I could do. There just isn't very much work or money in the Philippines for its 80 million plus citizens. Many are forced to go overseas to work, mostly in the Middle East. The Greek work for maid is "Filipenza". There are more Filipinos working in Qatar than there are Qataris. Almost every cashier, clerk, customer service person, and waitress here is a Filipino female. There are almost of many men working in the electrical departments, selling TV's, dishwashers, etc.
As I was saying, I was totally unprepared for
the poverty and squalor I encountered in the Philippines. People living on less that $1 a day, the luckier ones $2, their homes made out of trash, with dirt floors. Fathers working at fixing flat bicycle tires for just a dollar a day, just enough to feed his three kids. And here I am drinking a $4 cup of coffee after a $20 meal....this really put things in perspective for me. Walking around Angeles, I would buy something to eat or drink, and the price was always so ridiculously low, I would round the amount up to the nearest 50 Pesos and just let him keep it. We came across a green-coconut vendor selling them for 50 Peso each, which is just over one US dollar, and just because the poor guy looked so dirty and beat down, sitting on the side of the road in this heat, trying to make a living, I would give him one or two hundred, which is almost nothing to me, but might mean his kids could eat more rice that night.
Driving out near the old volcano, Mt. Pinatubo, we came across this string of old shacks on a dirt road, and
James at the crater
James at the crater of Mount Pinatubo several kids came out to look at us. We still had the coconuts we had bought earlier, and neither of us had really drank anything from either of them, so when one of the boys came forward and smiled when I gestured at the coconuts, I gave them to him. They seemed happy to have something to drink and eat, and departed back into the house. After we drove away, I hated myself for not being able to do more for them, so when we drove back and when they came out again, I gave Charito 500 Peso to give to the oldest boy in the group. I know, even that is not enough to get them out of that shack, but what could I do? There are literally millions of families in the Philippines in the exact same situation! I know 500 Pesos isn't going to move the family out of poverty, but it is a lot of money to them and will help them eat for awhile...
I wanted to help all the kids get out of those shacks, I wanted to help the parents get decent work and education...the only thing I could really do to
The waters of Mount Pinatubo
The waters of Mount Pinatubo have any lasting impact on this would be to MOVE to the Philippines and open some kind of clinic to help educate these people; as in job skills and job training, sex-ed, birth control, maybe some kind of food charity... But in a country with millions and millions of desperately poor, how many could I help? It would literally be like a drop in the ocean. What would happen if I opened some kind of soup kitchen? It would be overrun the first day, and everyday thereafter that I served a meal. There would be fights, anger, maybe even a shooting.
I remember when I was in Iraq in early 2004, me and a buddy gathered up all the unused care packages we had lying around, going building to building on our base and asking people if they had anything to donate to the Iraqi kids, and we ended up with boxes or toothpaste, tooth brushes, toys, beanie babies, soap, etc. We divided everything up and made "CARE" bags for several dozen kids or so, and took it all off-base one day and drove to where we knew many of them hung out playing soccer (this was back before
The mountain peaks of Mount Pinatubo
The mountain peaks of Mount Pinatubo, across from where we were. I used a telephoto lens for this shot. Those rocks are huge, many meters tall, I am sure. Left this was from the eruption. you couldn't drive off-base).
We pulled up and told the kids what we had and tried to get them to line up so we could have some order, but then some older teens came running up, and then some older guys, and seeing that we weren't armed soldiers on a patrol, they started rushing, and then everybody was rushing, grabbing whatever they could, the older guys stealing from the younger kids, many grabbing more than one bag...in a minute it was all over and everything was gone, it was a scene from "Gone with the Wind", bodies everywhere...all that was left were some young kids crying in the dirt and some older ones counting their bags. What a scene. We never did that again, we would just drive around and try to secretly give a bag to an individual or small groups of kids, then beat it out of there so as not to attract attention.
But back to the Philippines....to see these poor families and kids living in these shacks with no work, no money, and very little food...and so many children in each family. This brings up another topic which I am sensitive about; the Catholic
Charito at the natural spring
Charito at the natural spring near the peak of Mt. Pinatubo Church in the Philippines. Now, despite being born and raised Catholic for 19, I am not an expert on them, as I do not live in the Philippines, but seeing what I saw and listening to what people told me, I feel it would greatly benefit the Filipino people to kick them out of the Philippines, or at least make them quit meddling in the politics of the country.
Don't worry; I'm not going to go off on a long-winded anti-religious rant. But seeing a poor man with no job, living in a small shack made out of tree branches and plastic tarp, and he has to try and support 10 kids, all because he doesn't have access to birth control because the Church doesn't let the citizens have access to that information, and discourages anyone who tries to give it out...there is really a problem here. I am not even talking about abortion, just basic birth prevention tools, like condoms or the pill.
I met people who hadn't even seen a condom, much less used one, and most didn't even know what a condom was. I met a woman over there that told me that when she
Large sulfur boulder
Large sulfur boulder in a wash near the bottom of Mt. Pinatubo was a young girl, a nun told her she could could get pregnant from holding hands with a boy. This same woman didn't even know how babies were born, and as a result had 3 babies before finding out it was through intercourse. No education whatsoever.
I saw very young girls, in their mid-teens and upward, walking around with babies strapped to their waist, all because their mothers were ashamed to (and discouraged by the church) from talking to them about sex. My own Filipino girlfriend was very naive about it when I met her, and told me that her mother never once mentioned anything about sex to her while she was growing up. Many of her friends have babies, single and married.
The Priests: While in the airport in Cebu, near the end of this vacation, I was sitting in a coffee-shop with some other families, when two priests came in and started smoking. They asked me if I minded, and I said "no, I don't, but I don't think it is good for priests to be smoking in front of children". They looked at me, then looked at the kids, and laughed and lit up.
The Jeep
The Jeep we took to the base of Mt. Pinatubo They knew from my accent I was American and started the usual questions; where am I from, where have I been, where have I stayed, etc, which I politely declined to answer, saying I didn't discuss that information with strangers. They said they weren't strangers, they were priests, to which I replied; "well, most priests I know are strangers to common-sense..." to which they looked shocked and laughed.
I guess these guys had never met someone rude like me, or at least who wasn't an ass-kisser like most of the Filipinos are towards priests, because they pulled up chairs and immediately being friendly with me and wanting to talk. They asked if I was Catholic, and I said I was born one, but left the church. The younger one asked why, and I told him it all started when I went to a Catholic summer camp in Subiaco, Arkansas, and saw a priest smoking (true story). They had a big laugh over this, and we talked some more. They asked why I didn't like the church anymore, and I brought up the whole deal about "Filipinos having 10 kids in the family because of the church's view on birth
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo
Ash Deposits near Mt. Pinatubo, which we drove near to get to the crater
Interesting erosion...
control" and the younger priest replied "Son, don't you know children are gifts from God?" in which I replied by laughing in shock.
"Gifts from God? Tell that to the poor man who has to slave all day to feed his seven "gifts". Tell that to the mother who is trying to take care of her gifts, and tell that to the child himself, picking through a garbage dump for aluminum cans to sell. Tell him he is a gift to his parents from God, and watch him look at you in puzzlement!" (I was getting hot now!) "You know what? FOOD is a gift from God, which is why we thank him before dinner (if one is lucky enough to have dinner!) Food is a gift from God, not 10 hungry kids.
You know, this is a great reason why priests should be allowed to marry and have children, because I know you guy would change your views on birth control if you had 10 hungry children! If God wanted the parents to have a gift, how about a decent place to live? How about a simple brick house? How about a decent job in which he can earn enough to feed of his other "gifts"?" How do you call giving a poor man 10 starving children "gifts!?"
I remember the priests looking at each other and grinning, as if I was just a stupid, lost child who "drifted too far from the shore", as they would say. As if I had no concept of what I was talking about, as if I had just said the earth is flat. They said the usual "God provides" answer to my rant, but I knocked the ball back into their court. I asked that if "God provides", why did they make their church-goers tithe 10%!o(MISSING)f their income to the church?
If "God provides", why is he "providing" so much to so many other nations and almost nothing to the Philippines? Why are so few nations so rich and so many wallowing in poverty?
My girlfriend was sitting with me, and I asked her if she had to give 10%!t(MISSING)o the church, and even though she is shy, she said yes. I then told the priests that I made her stop giving, as she is trying to support her family up in Quezon, and the last thing she needs to do is support a couple of fat priests who like to travel by air instead of the much cheaper alternative, the ferry. The other people in the coffee-shop snickered at this, and I think I may have actually embarrassed them. I kept going..."tell me, how many children could eat for a year on what you and him paid for two airplane tickets? You could have totally taken a ferry up to Manila, but you are flying coach, and I know it is at least $125 each. The average monthly income in the Philippines is $40, and a parent has to feed the entire family on that. The church could have given the money for both tickets to a family and fed them for six months!
We talked like this for a half an hour or so, until it was time for our plane to leave, and they seemed to be having fun. One of them even gave me his email address, because he said he really enjoyed talking to me and hoped I would write him. I plan to send him my studies of the contradictions in the bible and how it basically sanctions beatings and human sacrifice and slavery, among many other "sins. But back to the vacation...
We drove around Angeles the rest of the day, sight-seeing. We made it onto the old Clark Air Base before it got dark; I wanted to see how it looked after 16 years after being evacuated.We saw the old barracks and houses, all deserted. All tht was left of the houses were the walls, their roofs having caved in from the weight of the ash. The jungle was quickly taking everything back, some of the houses were already covered under vegetation. The barracks fared a little better; I didn't see any whose roofs had collapsed.
Unfortunately, instead of guarding them, the PI government allowed the people to go in and strip the buildings of anything of value. All those barracks, which were much needed shelter after the eruption, were just stripped of anything the people could get a few bucks for. It was a shame. Even now, they are still standing, but with no doors or windows, etc. It is really stupid, because just down the road you have people living in makeshift shacks, and here you have a strong three story building that could house 15 families.
When it got dark, we went back to the hotel, swam around int he pool for awhile, then went to sleep early because of the big hike tomorrow.
The Airplane Tour: 24 April- This morning we woke up early, around 4 am (mostly because of the jet-lag) and went swimming again in the hotel pool, which was pretty big, actually, for the kind of hotel it now was. The tiles were chipped or missing in many places, and nothing had been done to maintain it other than cleaning, as far as I could see. Afterwards we ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant and were surrounded by DOM's, sitting either alone or with their little baby girls. Needless to say, it was really uncomfortable and just plain strange. I was also amused at how normal they acted, as if it was not out of the ordinary to be sitting at a hotel diner table with a very young girl everyone knew you had weird sex with the night before. Weird as in he is 60 and she is 17 (with a body of a 12 year old).
Afterwards, back in the room, I flipped through a phone book I found and called a local travel agent to inquire about chartering a helicopter or small airplane that could give us a tour of Mt. Pinatubo. Surprisingly, she sounded shocked and told me it would be too expensive! I jokingly told her that she wasn't my mother, and told her to find something, and she said she would call me back, but I was unsure if she would or not (not wanting me to pay that much). I then started flipping through Jan Peter's great travel book "The Philippines" and saw a listing for private airplane tours, and the number listed even worked! The man on the phone was a retired US Air Force pilot who lives in Angeles, and luckily, he had time free that very morning, and would pick us up in an hour. His name was Jimmy Boyd and we operated NAvaion Air Service out of Clark Field. Tel (63) 45-331-7181, mobile (63) 917-826-0251 and he even has a web site, www.navionair.com.
After locking in the reservation, we went for a walk down Bar Street, bought some great bootleg DVD's (The PI is a bootleggers paradise, they actually have stores in malls that only sell bootleg movies and music), and when we got back to the hotel there was an authentic US Army Willeys Jeep from the 60's parked out front. As I was admiring it, the pilot came out and said "howdy" and drove us out to the private hangar area on Clark Airbase, where he had two vintage planes, plus several classic cars.
We agreed on a flight plan (over Pinatubo a couple of times, the surrounding area, then down to Subic Bay and back) and a price, which came to 90 minutes for 9000 Pesos, or just about $200. The airplane was a shiny vintage 1949 Navair, which was in its original condition with the original seats in the back, and it had that nice, old-airplane smell, kind of like a vintage VW Bug. We climbed up onto the wing and into the rear seat, taxied onto the runway (which we seemed to have to ourselves), and took off. On the way to Pinatubo be told us how, after the 1991 volcanic eruption, the entire area was covered with several feet of ash, and how the military basically closed the base and handed the keys to the Philippine Air Force and left. All that was cleared was one road into the base, so the PI hired hundreds of civilians with nothing more than brooms and shovels to clear then entire base, especially the runways and taxi lanes of the airport.
It was slightly cloudy and a little hazy up there, but it was still a great trip, being several thousand feet up above the huge crater that was filled with dark water. I don't need to write in detail about this part of the trip, except to say it was fun and one of the main reasons I went to the Philippines. Mr. Boyd flew us all the way down to Subic Bay which was the location of the old US Naval Base which we flew around a few times, then back up to Pinatubo, and on the way back to the base he flew over one of the "washes" or channels that the ash flow created, and it was amazing; it must have been a mile wide and just went on for miles, this wide path of eroded land bordered by mountains of ash, with a small creek running down the middle of it. This is the very wash we would be hiking up the next day, as it turned out.
Dotting the sides of the hills and the edge of the river were hundreds of small shacks, housing who knows how many families. I had never sen such poverty in my life as I did in the Philippines, and it is a real shame. I almost wish the US would invade and run things for several dozen years until they get stabilized. I had no idea what these people were living on, as I didn't see any farms near the shacks. Coconuts? Mangos?
The Travel Agency: We landed and the pilot drove us back to the hotel, and it was fun riding around the base in the old Jeep, with the Filipinos looking at us and all. When we got back to the hotel, I went into a small travel agency situated next door, "Charina's Travel", and looked into hiring a guide or signing up for a tour that takes people to the top in Mt. Pinatubo, The girl behind the desk started making some phone calls, and there was also an older Filipino man in the room who came over and started helping her. I guess this didn't happen a lot, as it took them quite a while to figure out who to call. I didn't want it to turn into a big production, but it did (and I found out why the next day).
They said they would make some calls and get back to us, and I gave them Charito's phone number so she could deal with them in Tagalog, which, if you are an American, is a good thing to do. Businesses tend not to rip you off as much if you are with a Filipino, either because they respect you or are scared that they will get caught. Another thing we did a lot is Charito would go in a store alone to make a purchase, then once the price is agreed upon or whatever else business conducted, I would come in and pay. You could always see the disappointment in the shop-owners eyes, knowing he had been robbed of a chance to rob me.
We jumped into our stuffy rental car and drove around Angeles and Clark Air Base the rest of that day. Mt. Pinatubo is (was) huge, and it still takes all day to drive around, especially due to the lack of roads. There were many native Filipinos (Indians? Charito called them "Jungle People") on the mountain when it erupted, and I have heard some people say as many as 600 died. Those who didn't die lost their lands, and occasionally you will see some very dark-skinned, wiry-haired people walking around, these are the Jungle People. They seem to live on the fringes of society now, scratching out a living.
Driving around, way out in the country, along the edge of a small wash, we came upon more of these makeshift shacks, most made out of branches and tarps thrown together. This area was very dry and dusty with ash from the volcano, and scattered all around were pumice stones of all sizes, many gathered up in small piles, some in burlap sacks. I am assuming these were sold to some company to use for cosmetics? I am guessing that the people who lived in these houses sold these for money, probably their only source of income. As a Jungle Person, you know you have it pretty rough and are truly on the fringes of Filipino society when even the poor Filipinos considerer themselves better off and richer than you.
So I was driving along, casually looking at the scarred landscape and slowly making my way towards the volcano, and around this time, the travel agency called and said they booked us on a tour up Mt. Pinatubo with a guide for 5000 Peso, which I laughed at and told Charito to tell them that they were out of their minds. 5000 Peso is a bit more than $100, and I knew that in the PI this was quite a bit of money, way too much money for a simple tour-guide. Hell, in the PI, you can hire someone to kill a person for $150. I knew they were taking advantage of the fact that I was an American, so I told her to forget about it, that I would find someone else, and hung up.
About an hour later they called her back, saying they quoted me the wrong price (of course) and it was actually only 2500 Peso, which included the drive to the trailhead in a special 4x4 Jeep and a guide to take us up to the actual crater. I had only a limited time here in Angeles and didn't want to waste too much of it, so I told her to tell them to book us, but we weren't going to pay any extra fees, period. They agreed, feigning being insulted, but insisted that we come back and pay them right away, before they closed that night. It was already late in the day and we were miles away from Angeles, and there was no way we were going to get back to the hotel before they closed, and I sure as hell wasn't going to change my whole itinerary just to please them.
I had been warned about this by my co-workers who had already been to the PI, so I told them we would pay them when we got back, and if not, the next day. They lied and said they couldn't promise us that we would be able to reserve the tour, and I told them "oh well". Everybody wants their money up-front in the PI, even if it's not needed right away. They just wanted it in case we changed our minds or found a better deal. I knew all they were going to do was call up some guy who had a Jeep to take us up the mountain. They accepted it and said they Jeep would be at the hotel at 5 am, because if we hustled we would get to the top before the heat kicked in at noon, which would be better, as we would be walking downhill by then. I told her we would be there at 5 am.
I knew it was going to be a long, hot hike in the direct sun, and realized I was really "white", due to being on night-shift for the last 8 months. I was so white I made G.W. Bush look black. I stopped at a department store, wove our way through the perverts, and bought a light, white, long-sleeved shirt to cover my arms. While in the department store, we saw this really foolish looking old man, well into his 60's, grey-hair and all, buying shoes for this young Filipina girl (who seemed really street-smart and trendy, by the way), and everybody in the area was laughing and smirking at him. Wow, talk about old fools being taken for a ride. Really, is there anything more foolish than an old-man trying to....what, buy happiness? It was also such a contrast, seeing him in a old t-shirt and shower-shoes and her in expensive, stylish clothing with some pretty pricey-looking shades.
That night we ate at a nice Bohemian restaurant actually owned by an older Czech man who was also the cook, and it was pretty good. I said it before and will say it again here; you will never get service like you do in the Philippines, or from Filipino workers anywhere in the world. They are at your side from the moment one of them opens the door for you, pulls the chair out for you, hands you the menu, etc. A waiter stood by my side the entire time I was perusing the menu, ready to answer any questions. I was hesitant to go to the bathroom, afraid he might come and want to hold my equipment for me while I took a leak, and possibly shake it afterwards. The food was good, the beer was better, then we went back to the hotel to prepare for the hike.
The Drive: 25 April - We woke up early, and as we walked out to the street, we saw a large, extended Jeep 4x4 sitting there, and oddly, a western couple sitting in the back. Suspecting it was ours, but not sure, I approached the driver, and he had our names. Oh, now I know why the price was suddenly cut in half; another couple signed up. I don't know why I thought we would be alone, and it didn't matter anyway, except now these two had the front seats, and Charito and I had to sit in the back, and I knew it was going to be bumpy as hell, and I wasn't disappointed.
We took off and got to see a beautiful sunrise over Mt. Arayat, but it was way too bumpy to take any pictures. It was enjoyable, sitting in the back with the cool, early-morning air whipping around us. We passed through many small villages and settlements, listening to legions of roosters crowing, and it was much more pleasant to do this in the early morning than later in the day with the terrible traffic, heat and dust.
The travel agency said it would be a 90-minute drive, and it was....to the boundary of the park, which also meant the end of the asphalt. We stopped in a small village and were quickly the highlight of the day, for all the kids and many of their parents came out to look at us. We were shuffled into a small, open-air concrete block building and told we had to pay an "entry-fee" which (of course) the travel agent didn't say anything about and had to sign our names in an old, mildewed, green ledger book, and also fill out some other paperwork.
The guy who asked us to do all this looked like he was just roused out of bed; his hair was all mussed-up, he had a dirty wife-beater on, and a cigarette dangling from between his lips. A couple of the villagers came in from outside to watch. Finally, we all packed back in the Jeep, some guy in a blue vest jumped into the passenger seat (our tour-guide?) and we took off. At the outskirts of the village we were stopped at a military checkpoint, and across the street I could see a small barracks for the other soldiers. They checked our paperwork, lifted up the gate, and we rolled in.
If you look at the map of this area, you will see a road just to the west of the wash we were in. The road appears to be a straight, clean cut path right up to the base of the volcano, but it looks a little boring. We, however, were driving in a wide creekbed, or "wash", which was created from the flow of the hot ash and water from the eruption. I thought this way would be much more interesting and provide many more photographic opportunities than the road, and I was right.
The landscape changed almost immediately as we entered the wash. It was a large, ash and rock filled mile-wide flat riverbed with a small creek running down the center. Occasionally we would see water buffalo grazing, and off in the distance we could see huts on the surrounding hills, sometimes smoke. After a few miles it started getting bumpy and the rocks were getting bigger, we passed several natives gathering pumice stones and piling up burlap sacks for pickup. It was a bizarre landscape, a scene that could only be created by something as catastrophic as a major volcanic eruption.
As we got closer, the wash narrowed, and I could see that what I thought were hills were actually ash-deposits from the eruption 11 years ago, now covered with grass and trees. Since it was soft ash, it eroded easily and created displays I would expect to see only in a science fiction movie like The Lord of The Rings, and actually, I wouldn't be surprised if one day the area was used to shoot a movie. In several places, the heavy rain the PI receives created huge, pointed spires out of the ash, giving the place a totally alien looking landscape. I only wish the ride wouldn't have been so bumpy, as I missed a lot of great photographs.
As I said earlier, the travel agency said it was a 90-minute drive (and it was to the main gate). However, it was another hour of being tossed around in the back to the Jeep until we hit the trailhead. Due to the water eating away at the ash, the driver never knew what to expect as we got closer to the trailhead. Once, the creek passage narrowed down to just a dozen feet and the tour guide had to get out and move several large pumice stones out of the way so we could squeeze through. Finally after an hour of this (remember the 90-minute drive?) we hit the trailhead. I could see the way ahead was tight and blocked by a few smallish boulders, but thought that if the PI government hired a few guys to come out and clear the way, we could have gone up much further. Once we started hiking, the way opened up wide again.
The Hike: We all crawled out, happy to be free of that painful Jeep and from being knocked around. We stretched our legs, all took a leak, the driver laid down in the back-seat, the tour-guide put on his flip-flops, I hitched up my shorts, and we took off. It turned out the guy in the blue vest was indeed our tour-guide, who was named Jose. Jose was an older, overweight man who didn't speak English, but luckily I had the foresight to date a Filipino girl, so she translated.
I was a little worried about him being our tour-guide, as he looked about 60, and had a large belly, and didn't know if it was into him to hike up a volcano in 90 degree heat. But Charito said he told her he had done it over 50 times already, so I didn’t say anything. Jose said we needed to hurry, as he (we) didn't want to hike in the heat of the day, and man, did we ever hurry. I don't know how he walked in those flimsy, worn-out shower shoes, but we had trouble keeping up with him. Several times we even lost sight of him! Isn't a tour guide supposed to stay with the people he is guiding?
I found out the other couple (to whom we hadn't spoken a word yet) was German. I didn't let them know I spoke German, as that is always fun, listening to them talk about you, them assuming you don't know German. However, I was happy they were German, as I know Germans are good hikers and I didn't want to be held back by some lazy, whiny Yuppie couple from who knows where. Charito really impressed me to, as she is a 36 year-old retail clerk who didn't exercise all that much, but she performed even better than the Germans, leaping from boulder to boulder like mountain goat! I made jokes about her being a true "jungle-girl", and that climbing mountains was in her blood, for which I received a true "city-girl" smack upside the head!
Going up the mountain was pleasant, we were in the shade, it was cool, we were well-rested and full of energy, anxious to reach the crater. The sides of the wash were over 100 feet high in some areas, straight up, with trees growing right up to the edges. We passed several large yellow boulders that I realized were sulfur, and when I scratched it with a key I could smell the rotten-egg smell. The tour guide pulled us over once and showed up one area in the side of the wash where you could see jet-black chunks of trees that had been turned into charcoal by the heat of the blast 11 years ago, and had been buried in ash until the creek just exposed them. I pulled several pieces out, and they were perfectly shaped branches, just in charcoal form. He warned me not to pull anything out of the walls, as they were very unstable, and I could cause the whole 100-foot deposit towering above me to crash down. Um, thanks for the warning!
About two-thirds up the wash became narrower and jungle vegetation started to appear, then became heavier until we actually were walking through jungle. Near the top, deep in vegetation, we came across a natural spring in which native jungle people had rigged up several bamboo poles to pipe the water and created a water-spout to drink at and wash in. Sadly, as in America, there was trash around. Candy wrappers, water bottles and chip bags were scattered about. While we were sitting there resting I walked around and gathered most of it up, but where was I to put it? I piled it under a rock, hoping someone, someday might bring it down. The Germans knew what I was doing (but didn't help), but the tour-guide was looking at me like I was crazy. There is trash almost everywhere in the PI, piles of it on the side of the roads, in backyards, vacant lots.
He said most of the trash on the mountain was from the South Korean tourists, and he hated them, by the way. Not because they littered, but because they were mean, cheap, greedy, terrible people (these are all his words, by the way). He said the week before he had brought a group of 50 Koreans up the mountain, and not one shared a snack with him nor tipped him when he brought them back to the village afterwards. He said that several months ago he was stuck on the mountain for three days during a typhoon with several Koreans (he had tried to tell them it was coming and would create problems during the hike but they insisted...) and they were all huddled together in a cave waiting for the once-timid-creek-which-was-now-a-raging-river to subside, and not one of them would share any food or water with him, and none of them tipped him when they finally got off the mountain.
The Crater: Around 10 am we emerged from the jungle and crested a rise and there it was; this large, dark lake inside the crater formed by one of the largest volcanic eruptions in several hundred years. We took a few pictures from up there then made the descent down to the water. Someone (the government?) had amazingly gone through the trouble to build a concrete staircase down to the water, and I say amazing, because unless they flew the materials in, all that cement had to be carried by humans, and this was a several hundred foot, almost vertical staircase. Near the waters edge were several bamboo and grass huts in which we all rested, and we were thankful for the shade, as it was now becoming very hot.
It was breathtaking to be in the crater, surrounded by the mountains peaks and seeing the lake disappear off into the distance. I don't know the actual diameter of the lake, but it seemed very large; I'm sure it was well over a mile across. It was dead silent, you couldn't even hear the wind. We had the whole crater to ourselves. It was one hell of a trip up there, and I didn't regret a single minute of it.
The German man and I stripped down to our skivvies and walked out into the water, but it was very unpleasant and not at all refreshing. The water was warm and full of what I am guessing was dead algae particles? The water was actually crystal clear, but when you scooped up a handful, you could see the fine, small, green plant matter in it. Who knows what it was. I tried swimming in it but it was hard to move my arms in it and difficult to stay afloat. Trying to describe it to the German, the closest thing I could come up with was "thick water". There were no fish in it, nor any other living thing in the area that I could see, even birds. I moved a large rock on the shore and was startled to see several large cockroaches scurry away, some on to the water! I didn't know cockroaches could swim.
Looking around, I noticed several paddle-boats and canoes on the shore, and the small lagoon area we were at actually had been roped off, all the way across to the cliff on the other side, creating a swimming area that you would normally only see in a state park in the states. I asked the tour guide about this, because, in trying to take some photographs, this crap ruined most of my pictures. Here I am, in the crater to a huge volcano, surrounded by majestic peaks, gigantic boulders, and mountains of ash, I have to look at a dozen brightly colored, plastic boats and a rope of bleach-bottles strung across the lagoon.
He said it was the Koreans (again). Ah, my friends the Koreans. Evidently a Korean travel agency that brings groups of them over. I asked him how, in the name of Buddha, they got all these up here, and he said they paid the jungle-people to carry them up, by hand, for a few dollars each. At this I wasn't surprised, as the cheapness of the Asians is legendary.
I then asked how in the world they were allowed to bring them up here and throw them in the lake, and he said they simply asked and bribed the Mayor of the village in which the volcano is "annexed?" It's jurisdiction? They told the Mayor that they thought it would be good to have something for the tourists to do after hiking to the crater (instead of taking in the beauty and splendor of it all?) and though it was a good idea. I wish these idiotic people had been there just then so I could have drowned them in that black water. I asked the guide if thought that maybe it wasn't good to have all this crap in the crater, and he actually agreed with me! I told him most tourists, especially the ones who spend 5 hours getting to the top of a volcano, especially American tourists, don't like this kind of thing and prefer to see the crater in it's natural state, and I stand by this. He just gave me that familiar Filipino "shrug-of-the-shoulders" that said "well, what can you do"? F*cking Koreans.
After stewing about for awhile, I went over and untied the rope with the bleach bottles strung across the lagoon and let the wind blow it across to the other side, and then I started pulling one of the paddle-boats out into the water, planning to use it to pull them all out, one by one, and capsize them, filling them with water and sending them to the deep bottom of the lake. The Germans agreed with me about the boats being an eyesore and although didn't help me, were laughing about the whole thing. The tour guide didn't know what I was doing and told Charito to tell me that if the Koreans saw me in one of their boats, I would have to pay them 500 Peso ($10).
This made me even angrier, and I told her to tell him I HOPED a fucking Korean would come over the hill and demand some money from me. I would tie him to the paddle-boat before I sunk it. I pulled one of the boats way out off the shore (the shore was very steep and became very deep after just a dozen feet or so) and tried to sink the damn thing. It was cracked and had a hole in it already, so I stood on one side and rocked it until it flipped, but it just wouldn't sink! Did you ever know how hard these stupid things were to sink? I had my Leatherman attached to my shorts (yes, I was a soldier for 10 years) and pulled the knife attachment out and tried cutting the whole bigger, but the plastic was very hard. I spent a few more minutes trying to sink the damn thing, gave up and swam back to shore. Next year I'm going back with a hatchet.
The Germans though it was the funniest thing they had ever seen and applauded my efforts. Charito didn't know what to make of it, although she is used to my behavior against things I felt were wrong, like the boats. After another 20 minutes or so of lying around, taking picture and resting, I got dressed and told the guide we were heading back up to the rim to take in the view up there again, and we wouldn't be coming down to the water again, so we would wait for them up there. I guess I made the Germans feel I was rushing them, because they, in their typically arrogant German way, made a fuss, saying "why rush, let's relax and enjoy the view, chill out, you Americans are always in a hurry, sigh..." etc. I just told them I had seen everything here and was heading back up and they could sit here all night if they wanted, I didn't really care, and we headed up the staircase.
Up top we took some more pics and chilled, happy to be by ourselves for a while. I walked off into the jungle to try to look down into the small "over-flow" space that had been dug into the hillside by the government in an attempt to keep the lake level low, and almost stepped into a snare that some jungle people had placed in a path (later on the guide said it was to catch wild chicken). Sooner or later the relaxed Germans and the tour guide came up from the crater and we headed down.
The Hike Down: The sun was really beating down now, and we had no shade, and the guide was really in a hurry to get down the mountain, so he was always far ahead of us. Surprisingly, the Germans were falling behind, because of the girl. She turned out to be lazy and out-of-shape, always complaining about the pace to the hike, the heat, the rocks we had to climb over... Several times the guide had to go back and get them to make sure they were still on the trail. I was 40 at this time, Charito was 36, and the guide was well over 50, and we were all in the lead keeping a good pace. The Germans were a young married couple and I would be surprised if either of them had reached 30 yet. This was probably the reason they weren't in a hurry to head back from the crater.
All I can say about the hike down the mountain was that it was our own, personal "Lord of the Rings" journey. Near the end, the heat beating down, no water left, the tour guide far ahead, no one talking, the wind whipping ash around us, our eyes filled with grit...all I could think of was those two midgets from the movie climbing the volcano, attempting to destroy the ring. Our goal was simply to get back to the damned hotel. Finally, we reached the truck, woke the driver up, and headed off down the wash. Our only relief, however, was that we no longer were in the direct sunlight and that we were sitting down. We couldn't relax, though, because we had another hour of being tossed around in the back of the Jeep while picking our way down the riverbed, all the way back to the village and the beginning of the paved road, and then another 2 hours after that of sitting in traffic, breathing in fumes, just to get back to the hotel, which we did around 4 PM.
Talking to the guide before we reached the village, I told Charito to ask him, if he didn't mind telling, how much money he was being paid to take us up the volcano. I couldn't believe when he told us 500 Peso, which is a little less than the 5000 Peso both of us couples paid! 500? Where does the extra money go? Charito asked the driver, and he said he was only making 1000 for the day, pretty good money, but he had to buy his own gas. But that still left 3500 Peso, which is almost $75! Just so you know, I didn't mind paying this, but I wanted the money to go to the people who actually helped us and worked with us, not some snotty people sitting in an air-conditioned office who made a simple phone call on our behalf.
Oh, then I remembered the travel agency. I thought they seemed a little greedy about the whole affair, a little too eager, and now I know why. When he left us at the village, I know the German tipped him, and I gave him three or four hundred too, so he was happy. He said he had 10 children, and he seemed like an honest enough guy, but I was becoming suspicious of everyone around us, and that may have been a typical bleeding-heart story to get a bigger tip.
When we got back, we went and took a shower and relaxed a bit, and then walked over to the travel agency next door. The girl was at the desk, and was all smiles when she saw me, until I started asking her questions. "Hi, me and my German friends paid you 5000 Peso for the trip up Mt. Pinatubo, and since the guide gets 500, and the driver said said he is getting 1000, that leaves 3500...so I was wondering if you could break down for me where all the money goes? Oh, and thanks for telling us about the entry fee we had to pay back in the village. So tell me, how much does the driver get, and how much are you guys keeping for yourself? I mean, all you did is call the Jeep driver, so I am guessing you don't keep too much for yourself, do you?" I could see the image of the man, who was in the office yesterday, reflected in the window behind her, he was in the adjoining room, hiding behind the partition, listening. He didn't seem so eager to come out and help, this time.
Not surprisingly, the girl didn't know what to say, and was stammering, acting like she didn't understand me, looking around the room. She stammered something about how "the driver hasn't been paid yet, we will pay him tomorrow..." To sum it up, I couldn't get an answer out of her, and I knew she understood me. I asked again, "How much money did this agency keep out of the 5000 Peso we paid you yesterday? That poor mountain guide said you are only paying him 500 Peso, and the driver said he is only getting 1000 and he has to buy his own gas, and that leaves 3500 Peso, so where did it go?" Man, she looked like a deer in the headlights. She kept looking over into the other room, but the man wouldn't show his face. I knew damn well where the money went, and I told them so. I gave them a line about how I worked for a travel magazine and I was going to be sure to write about this in it and put the name of their agency in the story, then turned and left. Did I make too big a deal about it? Again, it wasn't because of the money I paid, it was about the money going to the people who worked to earn it.
I don't remember what else we did the rest of the day, but I remember we were exhausted and probably just hung out in the room. We went to bed early so we could get a good start in the morning.
26 April- Checked out of the Clarkston in the morning, hit the NLE and drove back to Manila. It was a nice ride, until we hit the Manila city limits. There were very few signs directing us to the airport, and I because of the lack of street signs, we soon got lost and were soon up to our necks in good old-fashioned Manila traffic, which for the most part means we were parked in the street. I don't know how, but by tracing back our route and deciphering the map, we found ourselves on a bridge that we were able to find on the map, and we slowly (this time) made our way to the airport.
The traffic was terrible, and now, on top of it all, we were unable to find the Avis drop-off location, as no map was provided! There was no map in my Avis paperwork, no map in the glove compartment...Charito called the Avis office but they wouldn't answer the phone. Once I tried going into the rental car "pickup area", but the rent-a-cops would let me in the access road. You could only reach it if you were emerging from the arrivals terminal or with a special pass. Charito called Avis again and there was still no answer.
The flight was leaving in 90 minutes, check-in was closing soon, and we were stuck in traffic on the mile-long stretch between the airport and the main road, and I was writing off leaving today. Suddenly, near the end of the stretch, I had a hunch that maybe I was just heading the wrong way, so at the airport exit, I turned right instead of left, came across a building that looked familiar, went into it's parking lot, drove around a bit as it became familiar, and there it was, the Avis Rental Car Return Depot! I hauled-ass in, slammed on the brakes, threw open the trunk and started pulling the bags out and piling them on the asphalt. Some Avis employee came out and started checking off items on the inspection sheet, and I told him my flight left in 45-minutes and we needed to get to the domestic terminal. He looked at his watch for a minute, said "45 minutes?" and whistled for effect. I said "I know, I know, can we hurry up?" He handed the clipboard off to another worker and started throwing the bags in the back of another car and we took off.
On the way, he told me the ride to the domestic terminal was 500 Peso, or some other ridiculous price. I started laughing and shaking my head, and told Char to call Avis again. I told him that is a joke, because their car lot is so far away from the airport, how the hell else am I supposed to get back but to be shuttled? I also told him that I wasn't charged when I was brought to the car when I arrived! I also told him in all my years, I had never heard of a car rental company charging customers to shuttle customer to and from the airport. He tried giving me some BS about how "regular airport, no problem, but domestic terminal, extra fee!" I knew this was BS too, as the domestic was within sight of the International terminal. He acted like there was a problem, but when he saw Char was dialing Avis he waved his hands around and said "no problem, no problem", so I knew he was doing his usual shake-down for money from tourists.
Of course, we got stuck in traffic on the way, but still made it in 15 minutes. We pulled in, and he stopped by the front door and didn't get out. I guess he was mad about not getting to rip us off, so I would have to unload our bags myself, which I did. Of course, I didn't tip him. We grabbed our bags and ran inside, and....ran into a long security line which headed into a metal detector. Shit. Luckily, there was one for males and one for females, which was much shorter, so I gave Charito our tickets and told her to go through and run to the check-in counter and let them know we were there. She left and I stood in the agonizingly slow line, which got worse because porters were coming up with people bags and cutting in line! One guy tried to cut in line in front of me and I literally pulled him back and shoved my way in front of him, giving him a glare. He could see I was pissed so he didn't pursue it.
Finally, I made it through, grabbed my belongings and ran to the Seair counter, where Charito was talking with the girl, showing her the tickets. The girl looked bored, and I could see she was not going to let us though, but when I smiled at her and came up and put my arm around Charito, she smiled and said we could go to the next counter, which was for a different flight, but was open. I thanked her, went to the next counter and we checked in. Char was pissed about it and, trying to cheer her up, I told her to look at it as a compliment to her, as since she was with me, she was "elevated" in status, but it didn't work much. We came across incidents like this several times in the PI, where Charito would be treated differently by other Filipinos if they knew she was with an American or if they saw us together. It was strange. If anything, I thought it would be the opposite, as it is in Germany. Me and my German ex were often treated poorly in restaurants and stores. Maybe it is their xenophobic nature.
We had to go through yet another security point and pay a "terminal fee" of a couple of dollars, then entered a huge waiting room with several hundred people in it. Luckily, our plane was a little late boarding, so we had a few minutes to kill, but we made it. It was hot in the waiting room, and I had to laugh at the Seair stewardesses; first, they were all extremely cute, with great figures, and second; the company made them wear these really short skirts, like mini-skirts, really. In the states you wouldn't see that anymore, with us being oh-so PC and all, and so "sensitive" of people's feelings and all. I could totally see an obese woman filing a lawsuit against the airline for making her "feel fat" by making her have to be around sexy young women in mini-skirts.
The trip was short and after just 45 minutes, we landed in Caticlan, a small "banana republic" airport with a very short runway lined by coconut trees.
Check out my blog listing to go to the next part of this adventure, Boracay!
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