The backpack is on again

What I will miss about the Philippines

joblogs — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:46:00 GMT

We left Japan last month in the snow and returned today to a balmy 22 degrees and sunshine. Spring has arrived! Takes the edge off being home at least. I thought my last blog entry should be about things I will miss about the Philippines.

Things I will miss about the Philippines:

1. The really friendly people. People are nice to you even when they aren’t trying to sell you something.

2. The beautiful landscapes; tropical forests lining the roads, beautiful beaches and interesting mountainous interiors dotted with volcanoes.

3. The food. This one was a surprise as our only experience of Filipino food prior to our trip was at a dodgy restaurant in Abu Dhabi called The Golden Fork. The sauces are rich and tasty. The fried chicken is yummy and nothing like KFC and . Filipinos love garlic – it’s in the most unexpected places…. cooked rice, crisps, peanuts….

4. Mango shakes. Actually mangoes in general.

5. Jeepneys. They are a really fun way to get around.

6. Everyone speaks English which makes life very easy for travelers.

7. The clothes shops. Why don’t we hear more about Filipino designers?

8. Everything is very laid back and relaxed – anything goes.

9. People don’t wear watches and couldn’t care less what time it is.

10. The native jewellery

11. The food being sold on buses: corn on the cob, peanut biscuits, quails eggs, chicken’s eggs, jackfruit fudge and coconut (buko) pie.

12. The way everyone calls us “Mam-Sir” or “Sir-Man” (like it’s all one word) pronounced mam-sure / sure-mam

13. San Miguel Light at sunset

14. The way strangers say “Hey Jo” when they see me.

15. This isn’t actually one of mine, but David has enjoyed being Brad Pitt for a brief spell. Wherever we go girls giggle, look at him adoringly and nudge their friends.

I must say that I won’t miss the crappy Lipton teabags however.

I enjoyed blogging on this trip. It always helps me to remember what we did. Here are some of my previous blogs if you are interested:

South America 2004-5 http://jomynard.tripod.com/traveljournal/

Malaysia/Borneo and Singapore 2005 http://mynardjo.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?from=20050827

California 2006 http://californiadreaming2006.blogspot.com/

UAE 2006 http://mynardjo.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?from=20060330

Indonesia and Singapore 2006 http://indonesiasummer2006.blogspot.com/

Hong Kong 2007 http://hongkongphooey2007.blogspot.com/

Bali and Taiwan 2007 http://balitaiwan2007.blogspot.com/

California 2008 http://jomynard.blogspot.com/search/label/california

Thailand 2008 http://jomynard.blogspot.com/search/label/Bangkok

Snowdonia 2008 http://jomynard.blogspot.com/search/label/North_Wales

Next destination? Who knows. I might go back to keeping a blog in Japan if I'm not too busy, but I will continue on my usual blog. See you there: http://jomynard.blogspot.com/

Out with Sheila

joblogs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:32:00 GMT

We had arranged to go out with our new friend Shiela when we got back to Manila. She met us at our hotel and we had a lovely evening at a nearby restaurant. She might be visiting Tokyo in May on business so we may be seeing her again soon!

It occurred to us that the Philippines is one of the only countries we have travelled to and actually made local friends while we were there. I am sure we will stay in touch with Sheila, Ferds, Carol and Lexy. It is such a friendly country!

Boat on stormy seas

joblogs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:24:00 GMT

We were booked on the 12.30 boat from Mindoro back to Batangas Pier. A lot of us were leaving and the staff did seem genuinely sad to say goodbye. They came out to the beach to wave us off and didn't stop waving until we were out of sight. We are really going to miss the sunset resort and I'm sure we will be back. Does anyone want to come with us?

The boat went to White Beach where we transferred onto a packed boat. The skies looked grey ahead..... what did I read about overcrowded Filiino boats and storms....

The sea was a bit rough and our bags got a bit wet, but it wasn't too bad. At the pier we got a bus to Manila easily enough and even stocked up on snacks from the multiple vendors hopping on and off the bus. My favourite was a kind of fudge made from jackfruit.

We got off the bus at Magellenes and took a taxi for 5 minutes to our hotel. It's funny being back in civilisation again after a week of barely even wearing shoes.

White Beach Fashions

joblogs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:43:00 GMT

If we spent any length of time at White Beach, I wonder if we would assimilate..... I'd be wearing a tie-dye sundress and a rasta coloured head band. David Would be in a vest and baggy white trousers. We'd both be wearing flipflops, have henna tatoos, dreads and arm fulls of friendship bracelets. Can you picture it?

Leaving Mindoro

joblogs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:13:00 GMT

I am really not ready to leave Aninuan Beach yet. This is where we just spent the past 5 days.

http://www.aninuanbeach.com/

The amazing thing is David researched and booked it. I think I will let him organise all of our trips from now on

Airline Slogans

joblogs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:48:00 GMT

I love airline slogans. In Malaysia we were amused with Air Asia's “Now anyone can Fly” and in Indonesia there's Lion Air's “We make people fly”. In the Philippines we have Air Cebu with “Every Juan to Terminal 3” and Zest Air's slogan “The most refreshing airline in Asia” and finally Air Philippines “We go the extra smile.” Brilliant.

Aninuan Falls

joblogs — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:46:00 GMT

Today we thought we'd hike to the local waterfalls. Apparently they are very beautiful and relaxing. Since we have been here about 50 people have offered to guide us to the falls and maybe we should have paid someone to take us (to give back to the community and all that), but we honestly just wanted a quiet walk. We didn't need a guide – you just follow the stream.

It was a hot walk initially on the road and then through a village and then through lovely tropical forest. Along the way we saw wild orchids, chickens, goats, cows, pigs, dogs and lots of people. Everyone asked us “where are you going?” It was pretty obvious where we were going; we were on the path to the falls. I felt like saying “to the mall.” Of course what they really wanted to say was “let me be your guide” .

We got there after just 45 minutes and hung out there for a while. It was very relaxing and pretty popular with locals – especially on a Sunday. We didn't stay too long and it was getting hotter it is our last full day to enjoy our beach resort. My temperature has just about returned to normal now.

Gallery: Aninuan Falls

joblogs — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:06:00 GMT

Lexy's Scrabble Challenge

joblogs — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:48:00 GMT

I love Scrabble. When I can find humans to play with either in person or via Facebook (Lexulous), I play robots on my computer. We discovered that Lexy, the owner of our resort also loves Scrabble so the three if us sat up until 2am last night playing Scrabble by the sea. I did drop my letters in the sand a few times... Lexy rocks at Scrabble. I was thoroughly humiliated. Great fun. Oh! We added a new rule. If you can sing a song including one of the content words on the board, you get an extra 5 points.

Officials

joblogs — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:49:00 GMT

Each town in the Philippines is divided into “barangays” and each baranguay has a series of officials. Officials, mayors, governors are given a lot of respect here and there are posters dedicated to them in towns. We were lucky enough to meet an official once. She did massages at the beach resort we stayed at in Bicol and this is how she introduced herself: “I am Jinkey. I am San Pedro barangay official, Santo Domingo” The population of Santo Domingo must have been no more than 5000 and it's not unusual to have more than 20 Barangays and subdivisions or “sitios”.

White-knuckle tricycle ride

joblogs — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:43:00 GMT

The main town here is called Puerto Galero and has nothing going for it. It's a couple of hot dusty streets crammed with tricycles and lined with shops selling the same stuff. We bought sun block in a stiflingly hot supermarket from a surly sales assistant. If I had to work in that heat all day I think I'd be a misery guts too. There was a bar on the corner which we considered stopping in, but the only clientèle were 3 skinny 60-something foreign guys with deep tans, bare chests and tattoos. We had read that there are a few foreign alcoholic retirees living in the town. I guess we had found them. We didn't hang around.

The best part of the trip to Puerto was the tricycle ride as a lot of it was free-wheeling down hills. Absolutely terrifying but kinda fun. On both the outward and return journeys, the drivers first stopped for petrol and just put a few pesos worth in (asking us for part of the fare in advance). That's hand to mouth for you.

3 in 1

joblogs — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:45:00 GMT

I read that the Philippines is one of the top ten coffee producers in the world. It makes me mad when we keep getting served bloody “3 in 1” instant Nescafe sachets. Don't get me started on the tea.

Girls who are boys and boys who are girls

joblogs — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:34:00 GMT

We are staying on a lovely quiet long stretch of beach in the north of Mindoro. There are only two small resorts here and no shops, restaurants or bars. It's perfect. Around the headland is another beach called “White Beach” which is where the party is. Dozens of boats arrive everyday depositing groups of Filipino revellers and gay couples from Manila at the bars and resorts of White Beach. We have visited a couple of times since we arrived. To get there, you can either scramble over the rocks like we did the first time, or walk along the dark road which we did the second time or take a tricycle which seems hardly worth it for a 5 minute journey.

The first time we went there, we were just there to have a walk, look at the market and maybe get a drink at a beach bar. The bars line the beach and are very lively. What we didn't expect was that most of the staff would be lady-boys! The staff are very friendly (especially to David!) and sometimes tell us their stories. Nicky is from Visayas and works at a Mikkos Bard on White Beach for six months of the year. She chatted to us while she worked the beach generating interest from passersby in grilled meats and the the nightly transvestite dance show.

“Are you on your honeymoon?” she asked us
We laugh. “no, we have been together a long time”
“How long have you been lovers?”
Lovers! This also gets a laugh! We tell her how long we have been married.
“You must have many babies”
We disappoint her: “no, no children”
“Why?” she asks “you don't want to lose your figure?”
That's a new one.
I do what I always do: make up a reason and change the subject.

A while later: She sits fanning herself “Wow, it's hot”
I nod
She whispers to David with a mischievous grin: “but you are hotter”

Ayana is a waitress-come-pole dancer and bats her extended eye lashes at passers-by to get them into the bar. She really seems to love her job. We are sitting on a bench right on the beach and Ayana skips to the bar with our order smiling and winking at everyone she passes. They must both make good tips. Nicky, Ayana and her friends are very glamorous and scantily-clad. It's easy to forget that they are actually men. In addition to being good waitresses, they are great dancers. We stayed for one show where the staff performed all the camp favourites with several costume changes: Whitney Houston, Gloria Gaynor......

Lounging in Mindoro

joblogs — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:23:00 GMT

This resort is incredible and we want for nothing. Endless lounging possibilities, soft white sand, clear blue sea, beach bar, extensive menu and cocktail list, massages on demand and even wireless. I am blogging from the comfort of a hammock. Does life get any better than this?

See "Mindoro" pictures on the gallery

Gallery: Mindoro

joblogs — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:50:00 GMT

Day out with Vic and Olive

joblogs — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:21:00 GMT

We got a lift to Batangas Pier from a couple in their late 50s called Vic and Olive Hernandez. They own jewelery stores, but Vic does a bit of driving on the side. He had brought Olive along with him on this trip so that he would have some company on the way back. It was like being out with a favourite auntie and uncle. Uncle Vic made endeeringly corny jokes and teased toll booth staff and Auntie Olive “navigated”. I assume that derecho means the same in Tagalog as it does in Spanish, but if we had actually taken Olive's advice “derecho derecho” we would have ended up on the wrong side of Luzon.

Vic and Olive dropped us at Batangas Pier. It was more like a giant ferry terminal which I guess isn't surprising. With over 7000 islands in the Philippines, they need a lot of boats. We bought tickets from a company called Commandos who ferried us and 4 other couples to the island of Mindoro. They dropped us off outside the resort that David had booked us into.

Gallery: Lake Taal

joblogs — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:15:00 GMT

The girl from the doughnut

joblogs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:46:00 GMT

The reason we came all the way to Talisay, a place in the middle of nowhere, was to visit the crater lake. This was the lake we had seen from the sky a couple of years ago when flying from Taipei to Denpasar (Bali). Where we are staying is situated on the banks of lake Taal which is a crater of a volcano. Inside lake Taal is an island with another crater lake inside it. We wanted to hike across the doughnut of land to see the second crater lake.

We hired a man called Michael to take us over on a boat and a beflipflopped 15 year old guide called Julius to take us up to the ridge where we could look down and see the lake. It was a very hot but very nice hike through a village, past various animals through the jungle until the path became steep and dusty. It was a short hike there, only 40 minutes, but very enjoyable. A sun shade had been built at the top which was a relief and it was a great place to sit and enjoy views of the green lake below.

On our return, we stopped and chatted to some villagers selling cold drinks from an esky. We asked if they had any coconut (after hiking through hot coconut palm forest for an hour, I really fancied some coconut juice. One of the village girls asked where we were from. I usually say Wales first, but less than half the time it gets a reaction. I end up saying “the UK”. Anyway, this girl had heard of Wales and in fact intends to go there for work: “I used to work in Surrey innit, but it's too expensive. I heard Wales is cheaper to live” It turned out Michelle had spent 2 years in Redhill, Surrey working in a nursing home and really liked it. She told us she missed the rain. We finished our coconuts, said goodbye to Michelle and her family and went back to the place where we had left Michael and the boat.

It was a small deck area surrounded my a couple of basic huts on the lake and was called “Crater Lake Resort.” The place smelled of horse poo (there were a lot of tired old nags for hire). My concept of what makes a resort has really shifted since I got to the Philippines.

Gated Community Resident

joblogs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:30:00 GMT

It was one of these posh residential communities in the holiday home market for wealthy Filipinos, but they also let rooms and villas. It was a really beautiful place and did take credit card so we decided to check in (we went straight back to Green Lake and cancelled our room – they didn't seem surprised).

This is our second night at Balai Isabel Resort. The place is incredibly beautiful and the rooms are very comfortable, but I think they are unused to having guests. Especially foreign ones. They seem thrown by every question and everything is a production. Even things like getting change or buying bottles of water seems to send the entire staff into a tizzy. Anyway, it is a relaxing place to be for a couple of days.

Green Lake Hell

joblogs — Mon, 9 Mar 2009 12:29:00 GMT

It was very run down. They really should flatten the place and start again. The fact that it had a pool wasn't a plus – it was a grimy concrete thing with a ton of leaves floating on top. The room was tiny and basic with a dribble of water from the shower, a noisy aircon unit with space all around it on the wall to let mosquitoes in and a curtain rail holding a thin ill-fitting piece of fabric. The whole thing kept falling down every time you went near it. We were tired and had been travelling since 6am so took the room anyway, but as they didn't take credit cards, foreign currency or travellers' cheques, we needed to find some cash fast. The staff couldn't tell us where the nearest cash machine was. I also needed to send an urgent e-mail, but the staff didn't know where I might be able to get online. We were used to the convenience of relatively affluent towns of Naga and Legaspi, this was a shock to the system.

We set off on a tricycle to look for a cash machine and an internet cafe. We took all our valuables with us because the windows in the room didn't lock. We found no cash machine in town, but I did find a ramshackle hut that had a row of old computers connected to the internet. Brilliant. I sent a quick e-mail and then we walked back along the road a bit to where we had seen the signs for somewhere that looked like an upmarket resort. They might take credit card and enable us to escape from the Green Lake hell.