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| Boracay Sunset |
January
2005
Dear family and friends,
Hello
everyone. This is the fourth winter in a row in which I have headed to the
Southern Hemisphere as an escape from Vancouver/Savary winters. Again this year
I will be recording some of my travel thoughts and experiences. These
scribblings will, in turn, end up plugging your inboxes, even the inboxes of
those of you that I haven't heard from in awhile. I hope they are of some
interest. Anyway, as always, I spent a minimum amount of time planning my trip
and I am ever late in booking flights. However, when I headed back to Savary in
mid December, I noted some graffiti in the men's washroom at Earl's Cove. A
series of astutely observant weathermen had recorded the following conditions:
Oct. 13 wet and foggy
Oct. 23 cold & scary
Nov. 3 wet
Nov. 6 raining
Nov. 24 snowing
Dec. 2 f***ing cold
Dec. 7 pissin' rain
Hey,
I didn't just fall off a turnip truck. On reading that, particularly "cold
and scary", I pretty much knew it was time to book my flights and get away.
When I got to Savary, I did just that, booking a flight to New Zealand with a stop in Manila
on the way there, and a stop in Kuala
Lumpur on the way back. The general area, Southeast
Asia, and New Zealand, were
easy choices given I will have a chance to connect with Lorraine
in Auckland for a few days on her way back from Australia. I
have never been to New
Zealand and it has crept up my list of
places to go as it is unfailingly raved about by all who have visited there. Other
details of my trip are to be decided as I go, but I hope to visit some of the
eastern Indonesian islands and possibly Papua New Guinea.
So,
now here is an update on my trip so far. My flight to Manila
was the usual arduous 24 hours, Air Canada's
grim service to Los Angeles, chaos transiting
LAX, a flight of almost fifteen hours to Taipei
to connect with a flight to Manila.
My flight from LA was really quite okay and the transit through Taipei airport, generally
pretty orderly and all. But, as we were getting off the plane, a women was
calling out "Call a poor, call a poor", and handing out yellow cards
to everyone, and directing people down a corridor. Still only half awake, I
stumbled along in my stupor with the other passengers for a short bit, yellow
card in my hand, and then I thought, "Call a poor, call a poor"? I'm flying Malaysian Airline. Most people are
not going to Manila, they're going to Malaysia. Call
a poor. Kuala Lumpur! Ooops.
After
getting in the right line, I arrived in Manila
on January 14th and caught a taxi downtown to 'Ermita', the
principal budget/moderate traveler area in Manila. Ermita is a bit seedy, broken
concrete sidewalks, litter everywhere, the smell of raw sewage, chaotic traffic
spewing exhaust, noise and clamour. So, okay, maybe more than a bit seedy, but
pretty much your typical large city in the under-developed world. I checked
into the Riviera Mansion Hotel, which, should be noted, is neither on the Riviera nor is it a
mansion, but it was okay.
Manila is a hugely
sprawling city of 10 million people, and as I was pretty whacked from the long
trip, I spent the next couple of days just walking around nearby my hotel. Public
transit is also not easy. There are very few buses, and those few are only on
major streets. Public transit is mostly served by 'jeepneys'. Jeepneys were
originally recycled US Jeeps, lengthened, with a roof to cover the back, and
seats along the sides to accommodate about 15 or 16 passengers. Many of the
originals are still to be seen, but most are new ones built in the style of the
originals. The streets are full of them; either shiny brushed aluminum, or
stainless steel, or painted every colour of the rainbow, with fake Rolls Royce
or Mercedes Benz fronts, and bedecked with flags, baubles, frills, while decals
nearly cover the windshield. They all are named, Evangeline, Juanita, Angel, or
they invoke God's blessing. A key requirement for all jeepneys is clearly the
sound they make. Like the signature sound of a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle,
jeepneys, old and new, have a distinctive throaty rumble that spews from the
exhaust in a cloud of smoke.
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| Typical Jeepneys in Manila |
Doubtless
they get people where they want to go, but for a traveler like me, it is near
impossible to decipher where a jeepney is headed, or by which route. Their
final destination is posted on small signs, but that is of little help when
every place is unfamiliar and you want to stop at some place along the route. Fortunately,
the Philippines
is the third largest English speaking country in the world (English along with
Pilipino, a derivative of Tagalog, are the two official languages), and the
people are genuinely friendly, so getting directions is easy. Jeepneys do not
have a schedule; rather they are said to leave when they are full. To me, this
is not true. What I see is that they leave only when they are overloaded. However,
fares are very cheap; a typical ride is about 12 cents. Money is passed forward
by the passengers, and change back, and it all seems to work. Although I use
them, I abhor them. I really do prefer to ride public transportation over
taxis, but the roofs on jeepneys are so low it is impossible to see where you
are going.
First
impressions of Manila
are of a city with more 7-Eleven stores and more moneychangers than any city I
have visited. There are often two 7-Eleven stores in one block, and there are
moneychangers everywhere you look. I never can quite understand why travelers
deal with moneychangers on the street; wherever I have been (except maybe Lima, Peru)
it is generally accepted that exchange rates are best at banks. Not
surprisingly, many tourists complain of having been ripped off exchanging money
on the street. Generally, I think favourable exchange rates will be offered,
but the advantage will disappear when the money is passed over. It may well be
that the Filipino psychic surgeons, so famous in the 1960's and 1970's for
their mystical, sleight of hand, removal of tumors without scarring, have
switched professions.
The
Philippines is an
archipelago of some 7,107 islands reaching from south China to the northern tip of Borneo.
Over 100 ethnic groups and a mixture of foreign influences shape its people. The
original inhabitants of the Philippines
are thought to have been of the same racial origin as the Malays, and the
islands were settled some two thousand years ago. As a major trading nation
with China, the islands
enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous existence until the arrival of Ferdinand
Magellan in 1521, at which point he claimed the islands for Spain. (The Philippines,
as a name, is a derivative of 'Philip', heir to the Spanish throne in the mid
16th century.) Since then,
their history has been bitter indeed. The Spanish expeditions that followed
brought with them the honour of all of the abuses Spanish colonizers so
famously delivered elsewhere in the world. An early effort dislodged the Muslim
community from Maynilad (now Manila),
setting up over 400 years of religious warfare that persists yet today.
As
part of the Spanish imperial empire, the Philippines got caught up in the
Spanish-American War at the end of the 19th century, and were
'liberated' by the Americans. The Philippines proclaimed their
independence on June 12, 1898. But their independence was short lived as, at
the end of the war, the US
effectively bought Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines for $20 million. And
with that, the first Philippine Republic was dead and buried. Driven by their
own imperial ambitions, the US's
mission was to secure commercial control of the countries resources. By the mid
1930's they had done so and a US
style constitution was approved, just before war broke out with Japan. The
advancing Japanese quickly drove the allied Filipino and US troops out of Manila (leading to General
Douglas MacArthur's famous "I shall return" promise). With
MacArthur's hasty exit, Filipino's paid a heavy price; about 45,000 of the
surrendering troops died in forced marches, or while imprisoned. A further
100,000 people died in Manila
during the bombardment and crossfire when MacArthur did return in 1944.
The
finally independent Philippines
was left with a shattered nation and massive debts. They then chose to inflict
some home made misery when they elected Ferdinand Marcos as President in 1965. Bolstered
by the Americans, Marcos' regime of corruption and cronyism only ended in 1986.
Although Ferdinand is dead and gone, Imelda his beautiful wife, voted Miss
Manila in the early 1950’s and once known as the 'Steel Butterfly', is alive
and well; she was recently acquitted of stealing $13.2 billion from the
Filipino people. Today, the Philippines
struggles under the weight of 450 years of this exploitation and occupation.
The
first day in Manila, I spent right around my
hotel but the next day I walked to Rizal
Park named after Jose
Rizal the nationalist leader who led the movement for independence from the
Spanish, and who was executed in 1896 as a reward for his efforts. The next day
I went to nearby 'Intramuros', the original walled city built by the Spanish in
1571. It must have been a very impressive and sobering sight to the locals when
it was built, as even now, it is formidable. It was in the light of the late
afternoon when I walked around on top of the walls; the moat has now been
converted to a golf course and so it is quite lovely.
But
Manila is hardly a place one would want to spend
a lot of time, so four days after I arrived, I caught a bus to the port city of
Batangas, some two hours south of Manila. There I boarded
'Super Gigi', a 'pumpboat', for the two hour crossing to Sabang on the island of Mindoro. Although they come in all
lengths, pumpboats are all narrow beam, and with bamboo outriggers. The one I
boarded was about forty feet long, and accommodated thirty of us. They do have
a roof, and plastic covers that drop down the sides to keep out the splashing
water (they were well used on my trip, as at times it was quite rough).
The
reefs in this area are a magnet for divers, but I have come here to soak up
some sun. I had chosen to go to Sabang over the nearby resort area of Puerto
Galera which my guidebook described as a 'haven for foreign, alcoholic
retirees'. Well, that's not exactly me. No doubt those people are attracted to
the Philippines
by the cheap booze. A bottle of beer, gin, brandy, or vodka all cost about the
same as a bottle of water, some 65 cents. (On the other hand, a bottle of 2000
Chateau Mouton Rothschild at the Manila
airport duty free will cost you $1,015US.)
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| Street Cockfighting in Sabang |
Truth
to tell, Sabang was otherwise a bit grotty, and hardly a place to spend a lot
of time, but I did spend five days there before I headed further south to the
very famous beach on the island
of Boracay.
My
trip to Boracay was a bit of an adventure. I left Sabang at 8:00AM. It took me
about two and one half-hours by jeepney to get to Calapan, the major city on
Mindoro, where I was able to get a bus onward to the port city of Roxas. The jeepney was
jammed with people of course. And as I've said, I really dislike riding in the
back as you can't see anything. Instead, I opted to stand outside on the back
step and hang on. It was actually a pretty good ride. I hung on with the
Krypton grip I otherwise reserve for hanging on to my money, and the jeepney
bounced and swayed along the rough road, some gravel, some pavement. We wound
along the coastline, lush banana and palm trees growing right up to the edge of
the roadway, but at least I was enjoying great views across Verde Island
Passage. About one and one half hours into our journey, the people who had been
riding in the baggage rack on the roof got off, so I was able to clamor up to
take their place; that is, until we arrived in Calapan where the police stopped
us and made me get down.
My
connection at Calapan went seamlessly, and in moments I was on the bus to
Roxas, arriving at 2:00PM. Six hours of steady travel to cover 100 miles. Then,
my ferry, scheduled to leave at 5:00PM, was delayed for two hours, which in
turn meant we did not arrive at the small port city of Caticlan, the jump off place for Boracay,
until midnight, well after the last boat had left for Boracay. There are only a
couple of modest hotels in Caticlan and they were full, but luckily a port
policeman arranged for me to be let into the closed and darkened terminal where
I was able to sleep on the benches. At 6:00AM, when it was still dark out, I
was rousted up to scribble down to the beach to catch the first pumpboats
leaving for Boracay. With their wide bamboo outriggers, docks do not
accommodate pumpboats well. Rather, they just nose up onto the beach. So there
I was, still half asleep, splashing around in water over my knees, my bag on my
shoulder, hauling myself on board another pumpboat for the short trip to
Boracay.
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| Pumpboat for Ride Around Boracay |
In
the end, it was all worth it and I ended up spending a week on Boracay. Currently
it appears on many of the 'best of lists' as the best tropical beach in the
world. The island is quite small, almost exactly the same size as Savary, ten
kilometers long and one kilometer wide. The accolades mostly derive from the
allure of 'White Beach', a four-kilometer stretch of the
softest, most brilliant white sand I think I have ever seen. But also, the
island is surrounded by coral reefs for divers to explore, and azure blue
waters of every shading stretch out to the horizon. There are steady on shore
winds for sailboats, and it has become a Mecca
for windsurfers, hosting an annual international windsurfing event.
Apparently
the island's first industry in the 1960's was the harvesting for jewelry, of
shiny, white puka shells, washed ashore and bleached centuries ago. It was the
setting for a 1969 movie, Too Late The Hero, starring Henry
Fonda, Cliff Robertson, and Michael Caine (so that might be a movie rental to
pick up if you want to see how Boracay looked then). Next came backpackers, and
then Gina Lollabrigida, actress turned photographer, who did a feature on the
island, and development was on. Today, a couple thousand people live there,
catering to the steady stream of tourists, most of them from Europe,
and, again, mostly German and Swiss. Many of the tourist facilities seem to be
owned by foreigners who married local women. One bar/restaurant, 'Still
Standing After Fifteen', is owned by a Canadian ex-backpacker who landed on
Boracay twenty years ago. The name of the bar comes from a standing challenge
(no pun intended) whereby fifteen different shooters are lined up on the bar;
they are free, and you get your name etched on the wall, if you are still
standing after finishing them. It is nice to see Canada's unique and sophisticated
culture spread around the world.
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| Boracay's Famous White Beach |
There
are some lavish resorts, but most of the facilities are made of bamboo and nipa
palm, with cogon grass roofs, often with some driftwood thrown in. In fact many
of the shops and restaurants wouldn't look out of place on Savary, particularly
if situated beside Heider's At The Mint
Tea House. For my week there, each day was spent mostly on the beach, the
routine only broken by one boat ride around the island with several snorkeling
stops. On a couple of occasions I availed myself of the many masseuses that
work on the beach. One hour of massage is offered for about five dollars. My
masseuse's name was Lolita. It is pretty hard to beat lying on a tropical beach
in the shade of palm trees, being massaged by Lolita. Sheer bliss. It sounds
pretty great, right? Tropical beach, palm trees, massage by Lolita. But I guess
I should mention Lolita is 70 years old, a mother of nine children and
grandmother to thirty.
Well,
that is about it, my visit to the Philippines. I have set foot on
four of the seven thousand islands, so I can hardly claim to know it. I have
enjoyed my visit, but I have not seen enough to really know the Philippines. My
guidebook describes many more beautiful islands and interesting sights which I
did not get to visit. Moreover, I can not quite put my finger on a 'Philippine
culture'. Unfortunately, I think the several hundred years of occupation may
have stripped the nation of its original and distinct uniqueness, without
leaving a new one in its place.
As
some of you might remember, last year on my trip to South
America, I lost my camera. This year I am packing a new digital
one so I will try to attach a couple of photos. If it works, the ones attached
should show:
- Typical jeepneys in Manila (224)
- Street cockfight in Sabang (222)
- Boracay's famous White Beach
(201)
- My pumpboat for the ride around
Boracay (218)
- Boracay sunset (210)
I
am now off to New Zealand to
connect with Lorraine.
I hope you are all well.
Merv.
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