Asia Trip 2013: Philippines: Volcanos and Old Cities and Hats, Oh My!

For awhile, we were the hat brigade. Or the hat posse, I can't remember. But the point is, there were hats involved. I, obviously, travelled with my goofy straw cowboy hat (how could I not?); Shane didn't but when we went out, we, and the people we joined up with for awhile, borrowed hats. You see, in the Philippines, we stayed in a youth hostel; a new experience for Shane, old hat for me (see what I did there?)

I'm actually a big fan of hostel. I know they have a reputation for being cheap, dirty, run-down and rowdy and I've definitely been to a few that are all of those things at the same time. But sometimes, they are so much more. Sometimes they are an opportunity to meet fellow travellers; road-weary yet excited, sunburned and passionate and ready for the next adventure. The hostel we stayed in in Manila was like that-it had a well-equipped common room (cold drinks, couches and a table, some food and internet access). We were in the more upscale area of Manila called Makati, having been warned that Malate, another frequent backpacker destination, was rather… insalubrious. And meet people we did-Irish, British, Spanish, American and Dutch–hostels attract all kinds.
And we wandered with them. We learned about how to ride the Jeepneys, where the good food joints were, and when they wanted to go on the walking tour of Intramuros (the historically-Spanish part of the city), we joined them, as it was high on our itinerary as well. We'd heard glowing review of Carlos Celdran's walking tour and wanted to learn about the country and its history.So we borrowed hats from the hotel and made our way into the somewhat dilapitated area of Intramuros. I can't do Carlos' tour justice, except to say that if you go to Manila and don't go on the tour, you are missing out. He is funny, animated and passionate, knowledgeable about Manila, the Philippines and history and the tour is both wide-ranging and entertaining. A must-see, Carlos details the rather storied history of the Philippines with verve, humour and a series of rather pantomime actions. Also included is a horse-drawn buggy ride through the city centre, a walk through a beautiful church and a sampling of Halo-halo, the national dessert.

The other highlight of the Manila trip was Taal; a small volcano in the souther area of the main island. Taal emerged from an inland lake, erupted and formed a crater with a small island in its centre. This particular island, therefore, is an island in a lake in an island in a lake in an island in the ocean. Just call it isleception. The trip to Taal was something Shane and I had hoped to do, but thought we'd run out of time. Instead, going along with another group of hostellers, we decided to chance it on our last day back. Another rather entertaining journey-jeepney to the metro, metro to another jeepney, to a mall to catch the bus, and then a motorcycle taxi with sidecar (requiring intense haggling to get a decent price) to the boat to the volcanic crater island. Taal itself is rather small but very beautiful. The hike isn't too hard on its own, but the sweltering heat (38 degrees and 100% humidity give or take, more on the mountain itself, since it is, in fact a volcano) made it sweaty work. But the view at the top and the sense of achievement made it all the more worthwhile. The splendor and tranquility of the surrounding land and water-even through the murky heat of the intense summer day-spread out before us in a grand vista and we enjoyed a cold and refreshing drink or four with the guys we'd met at the hostel. Then I hit a golf ball into the crater lake, because that was too entertaining an opportunity to miss!

The trip back back provided one of those weird happenstance things that you could never plan, but which provides a great story. It starts with the only time I felt like I was being ripped off as a tourist in the Philippines. Remember those motorcycle sidecar taxis from the ride down? Well, it turns out that when you are stranded far from the town and have no other way to get back, the price goes up. Way up. Far more than we were willing to pay, on principle alone. We tried a number of different drivers, to no avail (each one we said no to would shout to his compatriots to ddeny us a better deal). In the end, one of our group spotted a large van with government markings. Speaking to the driver (a member of the provincial council), she explained our predicament and offered to give him some cash to get us to the bus stop. He accepted and we crammed into the back of the van, five people in seats made for about three and pottered off down the road to a different town, but one with better bus access. Despite my fears, the man and his wife were not serial killers, but instead were incredibly lovely, chatty people. We told them of our trip and how much we'd loved the Filipino people and the food and how we were sad to be moving on, but our next stop was Thailand. As we approached the town, traffic began to swell and I began to sweat: with a three-hour drive ahead of us, and our plane taking off in six hours, it was getting close. THe minutes ticked by as we inched forward painfully slowly, finally arriving at the street where we would catch the bus, only to spot the bus preparing to depart! A mad, and unsafe dash across the road and I blocked its exit until my companions could join me and we took of for a blissfully air conditioned and surprisingly fast journey to Manila (turns out the streets are packed with cars but the motorways empty). In the overcrowded Manila streets, the feeling of being stuck in thick molasses returned and we jumped out (because walking would be faster than the bus was able to go).. A jeepney ride and a lot of half-walking-half-jogging later, and Shane and I made it to the hostel, loaded our bags into a cab and made for the airport! We made it on time, spent our last pesos on some pre-flight food and boarded our flight to Thailand.

I was left with a warm and positive view of the Philippines. It reminded me strongly of the time I've spent in Cuba: there is some poverty and deriliction, certainly. And environmental standards aren't the most stringent in the world. But there is a genuine warmth and caring amongst the people driven not from a callous desire for tourist dollars, but seemingly from an enjoyment of life and of people. The muggy, tropical environment, too often battered by storms and tsunamis has bred in a resilience and adaptability that is truly remarkable. Of all the places I've travelled in my life, Manila sits in the rareified air of one of the ones I could really see myself living in. It's not the most prim and polished, nor the most modern and wealthy, but it feels like a place with real opportunity around every corner and smiles in every door.

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Asia Trip 2013: The Philippines Part 1: No Baboy!

"No baboy!"

That was the one key phrase Shane and I learned in Tagalog, one of the more predominant languages in thePhilippines (there are apparently 175 languages spoken in the Philippines, though a meagre 171 are still actively spoken). "No baboy" means "no pork", or at least close enough-"baboy" means pork anyway. In the worst case scenario, I just pushed my nose up into a pig snout and made snorting noises, then shook my head and made the universal "no" gesture of crossing it out with my hands.

We had to learn this phrase because my travel companion, Shane, one of my best mates in the world, is Muslim and doesn't eat pork, and that is a pretty major part of the Filipino diet. We had to be on our toes. In the end though, it wasn't that much of a limitation; despite the fairly limited reputation and knowledge of Filipino food around the world, it was almost without exception wonderful.

The Philippines was the first stop on our trek that we would do together, though I'd spent a day in Hong Kong before meeting Shane-I'll write about that later, and hopefully it won't take six months this time! We actually met in the Hong Kong airport and caught what must have been one of the cheapest flights I've ever taken, RyanAir included. Our flight was somewhat delayed by poor weather. At first I thought the weather wasn't that bad, then a deafening bolt of lightning struck the tarmac outside the airport window about 10 metres from the plane we were waiting for. I suddenly was much happier to wait.

As a result, we didn't touch down in Manila until the afternoon. After dodging the over-priced cabs that prey on unwary tourists with sky-high rates, we wended our way into the hostel where we'd spend the next four days, taking in the sights of Manila en route.

My expectations had been rather modest, if I'm honest. The Philippines had been an afterthough, added to to trip only once we'd stumbled across the Cebu Pacific flights and realised we could add a whole new country to our list for a palty £35 or so. Furthermore, one of my other closest friends had spent time in Manila on business and rated it as one of the worst place he'd visited. On the flip side, I had a friend from undergrad of Filipino descent who provided a detailed list of food, sight-seeing and travel suggestions, and it sounded great based on that. So, off we went, and for our second-longest city, no less.

I'm glad we did. Though the first impression of Manila isn't the most glowing-corrugated metal slums greet you near the airport and the city is one of the smoggiest I've visited (though I'm going to Beijing this spring, so there may soon be a new champion!). We were staying in the slightly-more-upmarket area of Makati rather than the somewhat insalubrious malate, so the buildings and and roads were in good shape, but the overwhelming initial sense was one of pure, unfiltered bedlam. Cars cram into every niche that could even remotely be considered a road, people walk on and off the sidewalk in throngs and the ubiqitous Jeepneys weave throughout with a grace that belies their rather significant bulk. It's also hot on a level you never experience in Britain, and rarely ever in Canada. All this combines to create a hot mess of smog, choas and good-natured jostling throughout.

But all that would provide a backdrop to one of the most interesting countries I've been to, and a truly varied and rewarding travelling experience. Underneath the anarchy of the street scenes, and despite the often stark and depressing poverty is true verve. The Jeepneys, refashioned and home-modified jeeps abandoned by the Americans after World War Two bristle with ornamentation in a gaudy yet exuberant, overwhelming yet inexplicably charming display. Festooned with lights, colours, hand-painted murals and other ornamentation, they are a goofy party on wheels, in nearly every way the opposite of the staid black cabs that rule London's streets. Oh, and they cost about 30-40p to ride, and work on the honour system: pass your money forward to the driver via the intervening passengers and they will pass change back. Everybody pays despite the lack of monitoring, and change is always returned.

And therein lies the most striking aspect of our visit to the Philippines: the people. I've travelled to many locations around the world, and am always fascinated by the reaciton to tourists. In many cases, there's an undercurrent of either antipathy or opportunism. Foreign visitors, especially in poorer countries are often resented for arriving flush with cash, disregarding local customs and norms, often getting outrageously and inappropriately drunk and generally showing a wonton disregard for the people in that country. In other instances, foreigners can be seen as walking cash bags, just waiting to be conned into one scam or another, triple-charged for every item and otherwise fleeced for everything they're worth. Still other times, tourists might as well be ghosts for how much they are virtually ignored by the local populace.

In the Philippines, none of these options was true. Basically everywhere we went, whether it was just Shane and I or a larger group, we were greeted with genuine and welcoming smiles. Everyone from the security guard at a fast-food chain to waiters to cabbies seemed honestly and wholeheartedly happy to meet new people, to serve and to talk. I've witnessed this sort of warm welcome before, notably in Cuba, and it always encourages me to see it. Almost never did I get a sense that we were being taken advantage of (the tourist-trap taxis at the airport notwithstanding). Instead, I felt a real sense of excitement and compassion.

This post is going on rather long, so I'm going to split it into multiple parts, lest I scare off whatever intrepid readers have made it this far. Next up, what we actually did: the walking tour of Intramuros, hiking up a volcanic crater (and hitchhiking back into town), and partying with the £1.75 full-size bottles of whiskey.

 

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Asia Trip 2013: The Trip in Numbers

So, as many of you reading this blog are likely to know, I recently went on a trip to south-east Asia with one of my best friends in the world, Shane. There's a lot to reflect on, so I'm going to write a few posts about it, but I wanted to start with the most basic and the most nerdy: the trip in numbers. Stats, figures, sums. So here are the key facts and figures. All of them are for me; Shane's will vary somewhat (e.g. he flew direct from Toronto, so his number of airports and list thereof is different).

Total Days: 20, including flight days.
Countries Visited: 5 (Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Japan)
Cities Visited: 8 (Hong Kong, Manila, Tagaytay, Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima)
Airports: 8 (Gatwick, Beijing [for a transfer], Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, Seoul Incheon, Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda)
Hotels, Guesthouses and Hostels Stayed In: 8 (two different ones in Hong Kong, two different ones in Tokyo, one each in Bangkok, Seoul, Kyoto and Manila).
Total Kilometers Flown: 31645 (estimated by FreeMapTools)
Photos and Videos Taken on Primary Camera: 2008 (with a fair few more on our phones). These are just the ones we kept.
Bits of Electronic Kit Brought: 6 (iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Camera, Two X-Mini II speakers)
Bits of Electronic Kit Lost/Stolen/Broken: 1 (Kindle screen broke in Japan)
Bits of Electric Kit Brought: 5 (Universal plug adapter, 4-plug extension lead, iPad charger, multi-port USB charger, camera charger)
Electronic Cables Brought: 4 (Mini USB cable, Micro USB cable, 2 dock connector cables)
Electronic Cables Broken: 1 (one of the dock connector cables gave out-solder came lose on the USB side)
Electronic Gadgets and Cables Bought: (Two 3-in-1 charging cables, one memory stick, a wireless keyboard/mouse combo
Shirts Bought: 4 (in Hong Kong, tailored)
Other Things Bought: 5 (One Kyocera ceramic knife, one non-stick small saucepan, one silicon flipper to use with the saucepan, one pretty wooden flower vase as a gift for my girlfriend, one iPad case in fake wood as a gift for my girlfriend).
Volcanos Hiked Up: 1 (Taal, in the Philippines)
Nights We Went Clubbing: 6 (once in Manila, once in Seoul, three times in Tokyo, once in Hong Kong)
Nights We Did Karaoke: 1 (Manila at a fellow hostel-mate's request for her birthday. I wanted to try it in Tokyo, but they take it so seriously I didn't dare)
£1.75 Bottles Of Whiskey Drunk: 2 (on two nights, shared with others). Both in the Philippines.
Beers Drunk in One Hour of All-You-Can-Drink: 6 (I think)
Bullet Train Rides: 4 (Tokyo to Kyoto, Kyoto to Hiroshima and the return for each)
Taxi Rides: 10
Jeepney Rides: 8 (I think)
Metro/Subway Rides: Lots
Maximum Steps Walked In One Day: 41,000+ (according to Shane's pedometer)
Money Spent: £Just like, a lot
People Added to Facebook: 5

More posts to come about each place we went!

A Message to London Drivers

A funny thing happens to me when I cycle. I go completely Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I can be having the nicest, happiest, sunniest, positive day in the world. But the minute I kick my leg over that cross-bar, I will gut you like a fish should you dare make even the most minor of transgressions. It's a really weird road rage situation; I genuinely dislike the person I become, even if there is a weirdly compelling sense of freedom in such rage.

So I need to work on that. But there's a flipside to this. Because I know part of where the fury originates. There is a truly adversarial aspect to cycling in London. I suspect this is true of most major cities, but I would wager that the sheer number of cars and of cycles in London exacerbates the issue. There are bikes lane all over the place (which drivers often resent and periodically ignore) and a biking culture that ensures the streets are full of cycles. But the cars are also never-ending. So an animosity tends to build.

And there is one thing, above all else, that I'd like to ask of the drivers of London. One simple change I'd love to see that would lessen tensions and would feed into a wide-scale amelioration of the situation for the legion of cyclists who call this lovely city home. So I ask of the motorists: please, please, think about your choices. Don't run on auto-pilot. Drive consciously and deliberately and think about the implications of how you're driving.

I know this sounds obvious, but it happens less than you think. Driving is such a common-place occurrence that you do tune out; you know you shouldn't, but you do. And one of the principal manifestations of this, as it pertains to my daily cycle is the number of times that a motorist will zip out of a side-street, cut me off or change lanes directly into my space. Best case scenario, I slam on my brakes and waste my momentum. Worst case? Well, I'd rather not discuss the worst case, but it happens too often.

So, I'd like to propose the following: when you see a cyclist, or a pedestrian, or a rollerblader or a skateboarder coming down the street, err on the side of caution. I know it means taking time out of your day, but 19 times out of 20, the wait for me to clear the intersection or move past you so you can change lanes safely is measured in seconds. Even if the chance of hitting me is slim, please avoid if when the alternative is waiting an additional five seconds. I think that's fair.

I'm not laying all the blame for my road rage on the motorists on the road. I don't know why my switch is so thoroughly and reliably flipped when I'm on my bike. But I do know that I get really sick, really quickly, of having to slam on my brakes and skid to a halt, nearly rolling over some guy's hood, just so he doesn't have to slow down for the time it takes to say "good morning".

So, please: think and drive!

What now for this blog?

So, I've thought long and hard about what to do with this blog. I started it years and years ago, as just a way to ramble on and basically think/rant/philosophise out loud. I never expected much of anyone to read it, and my hit counter stats back that up pretty soundly. However, when Electra became ill, that changed. For the past two years, this blog was completely about Electra and her treatment, my views on it, prognoses and results. For all intents and purposes, this became my Electra & AML blog.

This served a few key purposes. For me, it was a form of catharsis, a way to get some things off my chest, and to help me get my head around what was going on. It brought me a sense of clarity to write about what was happening; putting the events and emotions into words helped me crystallise them. On a more pragmatic level, it was also a way for me to keep people-including friends and family-informed of what was going on so those who were far away could feel connected. It served these functions admirably, I feel, though obviously the time for that is now past. So, now what?

Since Electra's death, I've wondered about what to do with this blog that had started out as an infrequently-updated personal rambling space and had morphed into a singularly-focused site. As I saw it, there were a few main possibilities:

1. Close up the blog entirely. Leave it basically shrink-wrapped as a testament to what had happened and how I felt about what was happening.
2. Close it and delete it. Save backup copies of the writing for my own memories, but take it completely offline.
3. Return to a the pre-AML phase, posting as I felt like it, about whatever piece of whimsy floated into my head.

In the end, I have elected to go with the third option. I am aware that there may be a few more people following along than there were before, which may make me self-moderate a bit more than before, but I enjoy writing in this public forum and I'd like to continue to do so. I could start a new blog, but that seems like overkill to me. So I'm going to start transitioning this back to just being a "Dan's thoughts and ponderings" sort of place.

In parallel to this, I've begun working on a more serious blog, which I'm not yet ready to unveil, but hopefully will do soon. In this latter blog, I intend to write longer-form pieces, with more research and backing, about political, social, economic view and opinions.

This site, however, will stay more personal. I will probably still hit on politics and social issues from time to time, but it will be more of a "pub chat with mates" style than a researched and backed-up article. I will also periodically post things that are short, goofy, fun or whimsical. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, please follow along, via RSS, Facebook or Twitter (I'll try to post to the latter two when I do create a post). Word of warning, I'm highly unlikely to adhere to any form of reliable schedule with my posting here: it is far more likely to be sporadic and infrequent, but I'll do my best!