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Published: April 8th 2006
When I told my father I was planning on visiting the Philippines, he was less then enthusiastic about it and his voice over the telephone signified his paternal instinct kicking in. I understood the reason for his apprehension. The Philippines isn’t exactly written about favorably in the Toronto Star or any other North American newspaper. The Southern island of Mindanao is a terrorist island. This is widely known, accepted and all who wish for their safety, stay clear of it’s vicinity. Manila and the area I was to be visiting was thousands of kilometers to the North of Mindanao and just as safe as Toronto, well for the most part anyways!
One of my fellow colleagues from the JET program, Nicky Furniss, was my travel partner for the 8 days we spent in The Philippines. She is a true and proud South African from Johannesburg with a flair for journalism and like me, likes to lead instead of follow. Knowing this beforehand, we had to meticulously calculate how to stay off each other’s toes. A challenge well deserving of a medal or two.
Nicky and I departed the rice fields of Wakuya around 7am Saturday September
18th. It took us until 5pm to reach Narita airport, and using your imaginations, should give you a pretty good indication of how fetching we both felt and looked. Traveling domestically in Japan versus Canada is a ludicrous task. Its both expensive and time consuming and I avoid doing it when I can. In total, we walked, took four trains, and one 6 hour bus to reach the airport. Not exactly the 30 minute drive to Pearson is it!? With only a 3 1/2 hour plane ride, we were in Manila by 11pm and met by Roland and Jay. Who are these men you might ask!? Well, here's the deal: In Canada, my father takes stick-fighting lessons (Kali) from a very nice (and I'm sure tough) Filipino gentlemen named Guro Jun, and he has two Kali students who live in the Philippines who were willing to meet us at Manila airport and drive us to our hostel. And I'm pretty glad they did! When Nicky and I got out to the family-waiting area, I thought we were on parade or something! The hundreds of people waiting for loved ones where waving, yelling, pushing and clobbering their way up-down and around
the divider fence. Roland actually saw us and stopped us from walking straight into the madness. Little did we know that the airport madness was just the beginning! In The Philippines, there are no rules about driving. I believe there is a very loose rule that cars should drive on the right hand side of the road (like Canada), but that's subjective. You're not required to stay in one lane, let another driver in, obey any signs, go the speed limit (which I don't think is even posted), people can walk anywhere on the road, hang off cars, etc. This was our first look at Filipino driving, and thank goodness Jay was a good driver, cause it was our first of many adventures. We checked into our hostel, Saint Illeans, which was cute and extremely cheap (about $12 CDN a night). Roland promised to return in the morning to walk us around the Makati district and take us up to the malls...yah shopping! And so, Nicky and I settled in, relaxed from our 17-hour journey, got used to our room with no windows, and put the bolt across the door.
Alrighty then. Our first day in Manila. Here
See the squatters?!?
Behind Fort Santiagowe go. Roland (as promised) returned early the next morning to escort us on a walking tour of the district. And let me add here that we got up INSANELY early because we forgot about the time difference...but hey, who wouldn't enjoy an extra few hours to get ready in the morning on their vacation! We walked up to the "1st world" area of Makati and visited the Greenbelt malls. **Okay, wait a second. Maybe I should clarify that comment on the "1st world" area. Now this is my opinion, so those Filipinos reading this, please correct me if I'm wrong: Manila seemed to be half 3rd world (extreme poverty, no or little housing, dangerous areas etc) and half 1st world (basically people and places you would see downtown Toronto or any other large city). During our taxi rides around the city, Nicky and I would see hundreds of people living in tin boxes by the railroad tracks, and 3 minutes later, be next to the Louis Vuitton and GUESS stores. It was actually remarkable how each world kept to their own area.** Back to Greenbelt mall. Roland showed us the stores, the nice restaurants, and then the even cheaper
stores and restaurants! For example, at the expensive restaurants, you could get a 5 star meal for $10-15 CDN, at the nice music stores, brand new CDs were only $8 CDN and even the pharmacies had awesome hair products for pennies. I kept gasping at how inexpensive everything was, and Roland had to remind me that compared to the average Filipino salary, those were expensive prices. He told me that the average Filipino daily wage was 400-500p (Philippine peso), which is about $10 CDN/day. Then I understood why the costs of things were what they were. So, after our first few glimpses into shopping, we hailed a taxi and shot over to the Trader's hotel, where Jay worked and had made space for us at their spa. Ahhh...drool...spa... Before we could relax though, we chatted it up with the hotel's travel agent and got set up for a day trip to Pagsanjan Falls (with a private driver) and they also organized our three days on Boracay island for us. Of course, after that was all squared away, we hit the luxuries of the Trader's hotel spa. A full body massage and foot scrub later, Nicky and I were happy campers!
We stopped by the Philippines Cultural Centre on our way home but couldn't get inside, so we decided that touristy photos outside by the fountain would have to do. While sitting by the fountain, I think I almost gave a man a heart attack...There was this older gentleman out for a run, and he was wearing Canada shorts, and of course, since I was post-massage and completely energized, I raised my hands and yelled "Alright! Go Canada!!!" Of course, everyone turned and looked at me as if I was on a one-day pass from the asylum, and I shut up. I think this was the first time Nicky pretended not to know me on this trip. That night, we dined on Filipino food at a restaurant called TEMPLE and listened to a live band, and consumed (a few) $2 cosmopolitans. It was beautiful, although hot (it was ALWAYS HOT), and the atmosphere was great. I was hoping to hear some traditional Filipino music, but as we learned, mainstream Filipino music consists of covers of Western pop hits. It was still nice though. We listened to the band sing covers of Evanecense, Celine Dion and some other stuff I can't remember.
The old dungeon
See the body back there?! very real... It was weird hearing all those songs while sitting in a restaurant in The Philippines, but kind of reminded me of home... Something I forgot to mention was that we changed hotels during the day. We left Saint Illeans for the "safer" location of The Prince Plaza hotel. For a little extra cash and the unfortunate creep factor of roaches in the room, we were right next to the Greenbelt malls and a five-minute walk to everything else we wanted to see in Makati.
Day two, here we go: So, seeing as though we were staying at a nicer place, it was only fitting that we had breakfast included with our room, and that included the cute little Filipino boy who brought us our breakfast early the next morning (while we were embarrassingly still in our pjs). We tried (only once) to have a traditional Filipino breakfast. Garlic rice and beef tapa for me, and chicken longasvista for Nicky. The beef tapa was drenched in vinegar, but was surprisingly tasty. Nicky however, went and had French toast in the cafe down stairs. We left the hotel and went to Intramuros (meaning, city within a wall). Intramuros is a
St. Augustus Church
The only building left standing after WWII. cultural and historical hot spot for Manila. We visited The Manila Cathedral first, where I was met with my first REAL glimpse of poverty. Before we got out of the taxi, I was looking for money to pay the driver when someone knocked on my window and scared me half to death. It was two small children who wanted me to unlock my door so they could open it for me. It actually took me a while to understand what they wanted. They weren't begging, they wanted to do me a small service for any spare change I might have. Of course, with my bleeding heart, I gave them what I had in my pockets. Inside the Cathedral, we saw beautiful artwork and sculptures, in what could have been St. Michaels Cathedral (in Toronto), if it wasn't for the Spanish influence of colour and design. We were then convinced to take a horse and carriage ride around the whole walled city. Our driver and horse (it's name was 'Moro', meaning 'white') took us around the brick wall that enclosed the city, told us the historical and educational points about all the buildings, showed us the numerous Universities within the city
walls, and finally dropped us off (conveniently) at the greatest little handicraft/souvenir shop in the area. When we walked into the store, the sales lady gave us each a shell necklace with a ribbon on it, to put around our necks. I couldn't really decide if it was just a nice "come buy things in our store" present, or if it marked us as something. Good or bad, I'm still not sure. Needless to say, we spent some money there. Then off to Fort Santiago (still within the city walls). This is the old military compound which was once occupied by the Japanese during WWII, and which the Americans destroyed trying to free the Filipinos and Spaniards from the Japanese occupation during the same time period. This was one of the times we didn't tell anyone we lived in Japan...flashback to South Korea! Having been destroyed more then 50 years ago, the place was now beautiful again. There were amazing gardens and statues, small cafes, and of course an admission charge to get in. At the back of Fort Santiago was the old prison, most of which was intact. Nicky and I strolled through the prison grounds and came upon
a hole in the ground with a set of stairs, and a small entrance way about 3 feet tall with a barred gate across it and a padlock. Neither of us knew what to make of it. That's when a voice from above us yelled down, "Hey, you two wanna feel what it's like to be in a real prison?" Hmmm...gee...no!? The voice was from one of two security guards standing above us. One of them walked down carrying a big roll of keys telling us that he could let us inside the gate and down into the old 'dungeon'. Nicky was surprisingly excited to do it. I, on the other hand was laughing at the absurdity of putting myself in a position to be locked into a hole in the middle of an old prison in The Philippines where no one knew exactly where we were. After a couple seconds, I told Nicky I would just wait outside and make sure she came out, and do my duty as a good-travel companion. She went in and the security guard turned on the lights inside. I could see from where I was that there were mannequins, signs and pictures on
the wall, and enough light to see everything clearly, so very slowly (watching the other guard), I went inside. Once I had crawled in, I watched the door like a hawk and saw the outside guard coming down and starting to shut the gate!!! My heart just went wild, and I dashed for it, "No, no,no,no, NO!" thinking that we were in trouble. The guard inside realized what I was thinking and started laughing. He had the padlock with him so the door couldn't be locked. Everything was fine, and I was being over paranoid. Okay then. This was most likely the 2nd time Nicky pretended not to know me on the trip. We finished up with Fort Santiago and moved on to Saint Augustine church, which is the oldest church in The Philippines, and was extremely beautiful! St. Augustine's was also the ONLY building within Intramuros to remain standing after WWII. This World Heritage site was more like a museum. The beauty of the portraits, sculptures, old relics, clothing, and models on display were magnificent. We went through the church with a tour group from Malaysia. One of the men I started speaking to had actually just been in
Toronto for a conference last month, and when I asked him where he stayed...he tried sounding out these M words...and I was coming up with hotel names, when he said he had stayed about an hour out of the city...the name "Markham Suites" sprang to my lips and he stared in astonishment, "Yes, that's it! That's the place". For those NON-Torontonians reading this, Markham suites is in the town I grew up in, (Markham). Isn't it strange how small this world is. In the middle of The Philippines, I meet a Malaysian man who was just in my hometown in Canada, sleeping in the hotel where my mom used to buy decorative hats from a store in the lobby. Interesting eh!? After our day at Intramuros, we went back to Makati for dinner at this amazing Mediterranean restaurant called Pasha. Wine, salad, steak and baklava for $10. Who wants to move to The Philippines with me!??!
Onto Day three, I know you're probably tired of reading, but day three was really awesome, keep going! Today was the day of our Pagsanjan trip that we organized through the travel agent at Trader's hotel. We were picked up in the
Pagsanjan River
Where "Apocalpse Now" was shot morning by our own driver (named Bien) and driven 2.5 hours South-East of Manila to Pagsanjan. During the drive, we saw a lot. Everything from beautiful mountains, to disturbing poverty, to the quaint little villages that looked a lot like my own little town of Wakuya in Japan. When we finally arrived in Pagsanjan town, we saw tons of men trying to direct our car to THEIR spot on the river to take us up stream to the Falls. We were told horror stories of people trying to do this trip by themselves, making it all the way to the city of Pagsanjan and being tricked by the locals once they got to the falls. These people were forced to pay large sums of money to the locals to be taken back to the city. This is the exact reason we went through a tour and had our own guide take us to a more established spot along on the river. A law was passed a couple year ago actually that each establishment could only charge the fixed rate to take ANYONE up the river. So since then it's been a lot better, but we were still sticking to our
driver. It was actually a resort (where we arrived), but I'm not sure if anyone really stayed there--I was under the impression they might only do the falls tour. We were assigned to these two small Filipino men who got us into their long thin boat and we started up stream. Another boat (operated by a man with only one hand) met ours and dragged us upstream (since he had a motor and we did not). Once we got to the rapids, our two gollum-like guides began pulling and pushing us UP the rapids!!! It was amazing! They were so light on their feet, pushing off rocks with their legs, jumping and flying, in and out of the boat with incredible ease. Each set of rapids was more impressive then the next. After an hour or so of riding through the beautiful canyon, we came to a dead end. It was here that we left our guides and walked through a few huts to the other side. Low and behold, there was Pagsanjan Falls. It was a great sight (I mean it was no Niagara Falls, but it was great all the same). From there, we paid another small fee
to be taken through and behind the falls by different guides on a bamboo raft. There were 9 of us all together on the raft and behind the falls was spectacular! If you can manage to keep your eyes open with all the water coming down on you, there's a great little area back there where I jumped in and marveled about where I was. On the way back down the river, our 2 Gollums didn't have to work so hard and we zoomed down. I think they might have been a little ticked with us because ALL the other tourists that day were Chinese, Korean, or Filipino...meaning they were a lot smaller then us Westerners. Oh well, they managed and we tipped them well for it! One fun bit of info for this river was that it was the location where 'Apocalypse Now' was filmed. Since I've never been to the real Congo, I can't say if it was much of a resemblance, but I could definitely see the Congo-ness about it! Our tour provided us with a fantastic Filipino meal after the falls trip and we ate watching the river, and (of course) the other tourists. Bien then
got us back in the car for the exhausting drive back. The sweet man that Bien is, bought us a bag of rambutans. They are these crazy and prickly red fruits you have to break, bite out the middle, chew and then spit out the pit. It's quite a process for each one, but when you make it into a sport, it's more fun! The bag also came accompanied by about 100 small black aunts who insisted on hiding in my shirt pockets once I feel asleep. All part of the experience!! After we got back to Manila, we relaxed, had a Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks and dreamed of leaving for Boracay the next morning. Ahhh...good dreams. This was the morning that it occurred to me that we were waking up progressively earlier and earlier each morning. It's a darn good thing we were on our way to paradise, because my idea of a holiday/adventure includes sleeping in occasionally. But once again, we woke up to Nicky's insanely loud Japanese cell phone jingle (At least this time I didn't leap from my bed towards the room phone or door...like I had been doing the days before...) Anyways, we checked
out and made it to Manila's Domestic airport WAY too early and waiting a good 2 hrs for our flight to Cataclan (the connecting island to Boracay). Our Asian Spirits plane was quite cute though. 2 by 2 we sat with 20 rows, not a very large plane. We feasted on exquisite palette satisfying snacks such as mini green cupcakes, prawn crackers, and what Nicky called a 'sweetie' (a hard candy). The green cupcake was surprisingly good😉 Once off the plane in Cataclan, we were met by a man who loaded us onto a bus, drove us 5 minutes down the road and unloaded us onto a beach. At the beach, we were transferred to a wooden catamaran-type boat where Nicky and I sat (with a nun!) and enjoyed the 20-minute cruise to the next island...our home for the next three days, Boracay. The island looked like a film set! I really didn't think that it was going to be THAT beautiful! The water was blue and green and CRYSTAL clear all the way down. The beaches were so wide-you almost had to hike from the water. The sand was only white, and the best part of all...there was hardly
anyone else on the beach at all! Unknowingly, Nicky and I arrived during NON-tourist season. Meaning at many points over the next few days, we had the beach completely to ourselves!!! Our room was great. Nice and clean, BEAUTIFUL view, and private as anything you could ask for. Naturally, we hit the beach! The water was so refreshing; we could have stayed there all day. And we sorta did! That night we walked around the shops, and of course did a little shopping. We came across one store that sold all this beautiful pineapple thread fabric. The store owner told us that he makes things for Calvin Klein and showed us an example of the place mats he had. In Boracay you can buy them for 80p ($1.50); In America, they're sold with the Klein label for $90.00!!! Too bad I didn't need place mats! We ate dinner at this restaurant called 'Attica' where we sat right in the sand and watched all the passersby while we ate. We did a fair bit more shopping and then hit another place for drinks. And believe it or not, Nicky and I barely drank (alcohol) during this vacation. We were so enticed
by all the fruit shakes/smoothies that we had to indulge every chance we got! In Japan, fruit is not exactly a cheap commodity, so we might have over done it a little☺ The next morning (and by now, we're up to Thursday) after breakfast, we hired two guys to take us snorkeling. And one embarrassing point I'll mention (cause I'm pretty sure most of you will hear about it in Nicky's email) was that I fell off the boat trying to walk up the side of it. Yes people, thank you, yours truly fell off a plank of wood trying to climb up a boat and I'm just glad Nicky had both our cameras. The people on the beach laughed, and so did I. Just wanted to get that story out of the way and now we can put it behind us. I think this was the 3rd time Nicky pretended she didn't know me on this trip! The boat and our two 'locals' took us around to the other side of the island where we jumped in and snorkeled around all the coral, fed bread to the fish (I didn't know fish ate bread), and got a sunburn on
my behind where I forgot to put sunscreen. Nicky kept coming up to clean off her mask and I asked her what she was doing. Here's the conversation:
"Nicky! What's wrong? You okay?"
"My mask keeps on fogging up!"
"Didn't you spit in it?" I said
"NO! That's gross! I saw you doing that and thought you were just being dirty!"
"hahahahahahahaha!!! Well, it works!" (I still don't think she did it)
Before we hit the next snorkeling sight, we went to this island and walked in and out of all these caves. Unfortunately the tide was two low to snorkel in there, but it was amazing just being down there! We had to climb up and down these TINY wooden circular staircases to access the caves and we were the only ones there! At the 2nd dive site, there were NO other boats, so the water was all ours. Has anyone reading this ever seen a BLUE star fish before? Because there were tons down in these waters! Blue star fish! how fun! Our guides got into a little bit of trouble arriving at this spot though. First we went to a place that was too
shallow and then when they tried to move the boat, they went into a fishing net, which was when the yelling started from a nearby boat. The guides were embarrassed, and we found out that one of them had never done this before. He was a bartender from another resort on the island who was on vacation and helping out a friend. So his 'maiden voyage' hadn't been perfect... first I fall in the water, then the caves aren't accessible because of low tide, the 2nd place is too shallow, they run into a fishing net, and then the topper, Nicky's t-shirt (which our driver had hung out to dry over the side of the boat) BLEW off into the ocean! Hahahaha... Nicky was pretty upset, but it was also kind of funny. We had both been watching the shirt, both thinking, "yeah, maybe we should move it, it could blow into the wind", and then it did! The poor guides turned the whole boat around in the choppy sea and went back looking for it! Even with all the mishaps, we both had a fantastic time! Our guide (the one on his maiden voyage) had great English and we had a great conversation. And that was how we spent our morning...on to the afternoon. In the late afternoon, we organized to go horseback riding. When we get down to the hotel lobby, this kid is waiting for us (he's probably only 15 or so), and he can't speak much English. From living in Japan, Nicky and I both have learned to understand EXTREMELY simplistic English/invent-your-own sign language. From this we gathered that we should get into a tricycle (which is a motor bike attached to a cardboard box on wheels that you sit in and be chauffeured around by a smiling tooth-less man). We headed towards the stables (while the kid followed behind with his bike), when we got there, we had to pass through a village. Since we had been on the resort edges of the island, it hadn't crossed my mind that there might be other people who actually lived on this small island who weren't involved with one of the resorts. I was wrong. Before we reached the stables, we were met by children's stares and adult's looks of...well, what I would call 'dislike'. I can't imagine what it must be like for those people to have to watch as tourists like myself and those much wealthier, come through their village to take a ride on a horse. It almost made me want to turn around and forget about it. But we didn't. We got to the stables, got on to a horse, and were once again led through the village, this time by two boys who each led our horses on foot. I've been horseback riding several times before, and never once was I led by someone walking. I felt bad for the boys! Unfortunately, the worst hadn't been seen yet. As we started up the trail to the famous lookout point (Mt. Luho), we started going through even more devastating areas, where the houses were just small boxes, the children wore barely any clothes and the lanes were chuck full of garbage. There were literally mounds of garbage. Not just a couple bags here and there. Piles of a hundred garbage laid at the side of the road, we passed a garbage burning site, and something else that surprised me, whole gardens, sand pits, fences, and perhaps even homes made out of plastic bottles. I had never seen anything like this in my life before. When we passed anyone, I kept a smile on my face, but felt so guilty that I was going to return to my comfy hotel room that night and they would stay in their make-shift houses. When we reached a certain point of the mountain, Nicky and I had to get off our horses and climb the rest of the way up. When we got to the top, we paid another small fee to climb the next ten steps to the high platform at the very top of Mt. Luho. The journey had been worth it. We had made it just before sunset and the sky was beautiful. After seeing the beauty from the top of the island, I was apprehensive about going down again. We bought our 'horse leaders' cokes (which they threw into the bushes when they finished with them-despite my scowl) and we headed back. Once again, passing through the poverty and filth, I tried to think of something else. Growing up in suburban Canada, I never saw a lot of poverty when I was younger. Even in Hamilton, I never saw such child poverty and I'm glad to see it now at this age. No matter how thankful I was before of what I had, I am much more now.
That night we went to the resort beside ours called Waling Waling. They had these beautiful cabanas lined up on the beach, each one private for each group. There were hammocks, and cushions on small stools to sit on, and our waiter had to climb the steps to bring us anything. If was wonderful to watch the ocean all night and enjoy the Filipino cuisine in our own cabana. Just as we were about to leave, an American woman stopped us (who we had noticed the previous day at the Manila airport) and asked if we were American backpackers traveling Asia. After two very defensive "I'm not American" answers (no offense to my American readers!), and realizing we might have insulted her own Nationality, we relayed our story of where we were from and that we actually lived in Asia. She and her fiancée (who was Filipino) were there in Boracay for a vacation (from visiting his whole extended family for the first time in Manila). They sat with us for a couple hours and we each told of our own traveling adventures, where we had been, where we'd like to go again, and where we don't need to go again. It was great to finally meet some other people, especially because it wasn't tourist season, we were glad to meet some nice people to talk to. The next morning was our last in Boracay so we did our final 'touristy' thing and rented a hot dog that two guys drove around for us. Nicky was pretty funny on it because it was her first time, and I was brought right back to my childhood, remembering tube fights with my siblings at my cottage in Ontario. We couldn't leave the island however without first taking up ONE of the offers from those small Filipino women for a massage on the beach. As nice as massages are, sometimes they hurt. Ever experience that? I don't think my thigh muscle was supposed to crack when it did, but it feels all right now---think that's okay? After one last swim, we had to leave. Back on the boat ("goodbye Boracay!!! We'll miss you!!! We'll be back!!!"), back to Cataclan, back to the airport and back on board an Asian Spirits flight to Manila. This time, our flight to Manila came with cockroaches on the plane too! (and they weren't a chocolate covered snack!) I wasn't very thrilled at the time, but now it's rather funny. At least I didn't scream bloody murder or anything...didn't want to give Nicky any more ammunition for pretending not to know me! Back in Manila and back at the Saint Illeans hostel (which we would both recommend to any of our traveling peers), we arranged to once more meet up with Roland and say goodbye over dinner. If was great to be able to relay all our adventures back to him and show him our pictures. Roland understood how we felt seeing everything that we did because he also grew up in suburban Toronto. We said our goodbyes outside St. Illeans, grabbed one more group picture of the three of us, and hit the hay for our last sleep before our painful 4:30am wake-up call. We left Manila at 5am, and after two taxis, a plane, a bullet train, and two JR trains, we got back to Wakuya at 8pm--EXHAUSTED! We each had much more luggage then when we left, significantly darker skin, sore muscles and a week full of amazing memories.
The Philippines was an exceptional trip for me. It wasn't my first choice, but now that I have been there and have seen what a truly misunderstood country it is, I would suggest to all of you that it's worth a trip. Everyone (except the kid from the stables) spook great English, everyone was really kind to us and there are some TRULY gorgeous spots there. Not to mention the cheap DVDs you can get for 80p! (I bought about 18!) As it is, one day I WILL go back to see the things I missed! After all, you can't exactly see 7000 islands in 8 days, now can you! Thanks for reading all the way through guys! I know it was long! Trust me, I know! It took me two days to write!
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Ron
non-member comment
excellent holiday
Indeed the Philippines has been mistakenly pictured as a dangerous and not so nice place to spend one's holiday. It is nice to see that you are one of those who saw how nice and cheap it is to spend your holidays in the Philippines. Filipinos are so warm and friendly and you should also experience in future the warmth and hospitality of a Filipino family. My brother in law is currently in the Philippines and he has his own travel blog of his experiences in the Phils. He is an Aussie and currently enjoying a tour around the Phils. Thanks for writing such a good piece about the Philippines.