Dorland St.

Today I’m in an interesting mood. As the day started, I had only two vague plans: to buy some Philippine food items requested by Luis, and to visit his tatay (father) one more time. I managed to get the food but everyone I know here was busy, so I will do the family visit bukas (tomorrow).

After a long afternoon nap (my first in weeks), I wandered down to the Baywalk just in time to catch the crimson sunset. One of the first things I noticed, as dusk transitioned into night, is just how well my eyes are working. No kidding, it was a surreal experience: looking at my surroundings on the Manila skyline, everything seemed to be in sharper focus than I can recall in years. That feeling persisted even as I wandered into the shopping mall to buy some videoke (local word for karaoke) discs that I plan to use for learning Tagalog. (Regular DVDs almost never have closed-caption titles in Tagalog, for some reason. But every videoke disc does.) Looking at the shelves of merchandise, my usual feeling of visual overwhelm-ment was gone. How bizarre!

I made a couple of notes about the Baywalk that might be helpful for future visitors:

• The Mall of Asia (opened 2 years ago) has fireworks every Fri/Sat night, if you are standing near the Aristocrat restaurant, they are visible over a Sofitel hotel around 7pm
• The restaurants set up and tear down performance stages on the Baywalk every day; live performances start around 6:45 or 7pm. (Some of the acts are amazing; I watched covers of Queen, Van Halen, and Donna Summer this evening. The first performance sounded like a CD of the original music from my college freshman year!)
• Don’t forget to avail yourself of those masseurs by the fountain on Remedios St – they start work just after dusk and stay until the fountain is shut off sometime around 11.

Well I’m posting this from a Netopia cafe in the shopping mall, they gave a 5-minute warning so I’ll sign off from now and encourage you to read on about my alluring adventure in Sabang! I’ll never get that excursion out of my head!

OK everyone, I did not get hauled off by Abu Sayyaf terrorists, gang raped, tied to a tree and left for dead! Sorry for the long delay since I last posted anything, my dear Luis got through on a frantic phone call yesterday after days of attempts. I was living in a thatched-hut village of 300 people with no Internet and one cell phone tower, in what felt like a whole different time zone. Electric generators power the lights from dusk (6:30pm or so) until a bit after 10pm: you get a little over 3 hours each day to try to charge up your cell phone battery.

Words will fail me, in English and all three other languages I’ve tried to learn (French, Spanish, Tagalog), trying to describe the indescribable experience I’ve had the past several days. This is a life-changing event for me, an epiphany which may lead me to reprioritize some of the things I’ve wanted to do with my life. I have been a drifter career-wise, and my mind is now filled with different views than before the trip.

Why did I wind up in Palawan? Well, I got frustrated with my guidebooks and with my attempts to get specific ideas for excursions from the people I’ve talked to here; for example if you want to go to Banaue or Baguio to the north, to Batanes in the far north, or perhaps to the southern parts of this island (Luzon), just try going into a travel agent’s office to get solid advice. You’ll get a sales pitch for a pricy tour package. You won’t find your own private paradise that way.

So I took out my mental dart board, looked at the airline map, and chose Palawan because its airport is in a city of about 100,000 which is big enough to provide services I’m familiar with but small enough that I won’t encounter the overwhelming many-bus-station problem of trying to get pointed the right way out of Manila on its overcrowded highways. My local kaibigan Ferdinand helped me get the ticket a week ago; finding a long line at the Cebu Pacific ticket office, we found a late-evening travel agent who booked me on a different airline.

Before the flight I looked at my Philippines guide book (the German one, forget the name, which is a year older but a lot more informative re: Palawan than the ubiquitous Lonely Planet guide that I’ve grown to detest) to figure out a somewhat hazy plan: see the Carlsbad-like caves at Sabang, head up to Port Barton, stay a couple days at El Nedo to go on a boat tour of the Bacuit islands which are supposedly like the Phi Phi islands I saw in Thailand, only better. My trip would start with either a night in Puerto Princesa, or maybe I’d try to hit Sabang the first day. At the airport tourist-info counter, I decided to skip Princesa and try to catch the 10am jeepney to Sabang.

Well, remember my complaint about not being among gay people in Boracay? The second person I met after stepping out of the airport at Puerto Princesa (capital of the province), after the tricycle driver from the airport to the bus station, was the friendly, guapo, gay 30-something jeepney driver who told me that I’d missed the 10am one but I could wait for the noon one. We chatted a long time, and I chatted with a European tourist in the seat behind me. I basically got seduced into taking that jeepney, which this driver (Romeo, can you just believe these Filipino names?!?) conveniently forgot to tell me would be departing two hours after the noon one I was hoping for.

Walang problema, I decided, I needed to readjust my internal clocks to a whole new “time zone” anyway. After the hustle-bustle of Manila city life, I could see this was a different place. Romeo insisted on parking my butt on the seat next to him. I wandered over to the fish market, discovered a stand selling pizza slices, so I shared pizza with my new kaibigan during the 3+ hour wait. The 75km jeepney ride is arduous, to say the least. A jeepney here is actually a medium-sized truck. On that route, it functions more as a UPS delivery truck that oh-by-the-way will haul passengers. I later learned that this particular dirt road, punctuated by occasional long stretches of concrete pavement, was opened in 1991. The jeepneys plying this route are important conveyors of commercial products to the various stores. I heard a tire blow out on another jeepney while waiting at the bus depot, so I recognized the sound when our own jeepney suffered the same fate en route. Now you know why there are so many vulcanizing (tire repair) shops scattered all over the Philippines.

I had not decided on lodging so I let Romeo drop me off at the Taraw cottages at the east side of the village. Check-in was a matter of getting pointed at a room: apparently this particular set of cottages was mostly rented out to a weekend tour group from Manila, whose 10 or so aircon vans materialized to spirit them away the next day. So the manager was clearly preoccupied, apologized for a brief delay to clean my room, and disappeared without requiring a guest registration card.

I wandered off to take pictures of the beach. Words won’t suffice to describe, I will add pictures to this when I get back sa (to) Boston. (This excursion served as an intensive Tagalog immersion class, among many other things.) Sabang is on the northwest side of the Palawan island facing the South China Sea (Malaysia lies 430km south, Vietnam 1100km east); at its center is a small pier, just big enough for jeepneys to drop off cargo and turn around. Aside from a couple dozen infrequently-used private cars, the only vehicles you see are a few jeepneys and motorcyles during the course of a whole day. (Next morning some wise guy busted my chops, saying there are “many aircon vans” heading toward the cavern area – not bloody likely over those mountain trails!)

The village started as a logging community circa 1949. The famous 8km cavern was discovered sometime in the 1970s, I think; tourists got there by boat until the road opened.

The coconut-palm lined beach area facing north stretches a kilometer or so in each direction; Taraw lies on the white-sand side to the east, and the other side west of the pier is dominated by a tidal reef and a cluster of the local boats (diesel powered outriggers, no sailboats). Two mountains lie behind the village; more mountains stretch to the east as far as the eye can see. Between the mountains lie fields of rice and other crops. At night the north star and big dipper lay low on the horizon. Already, one can see nourishment for the stomach and for the soul alike!

The nourishment started as I wandered back toward my cottage to see if the room was ready. A stunningly-handsome 20-something guy glanced at me and shimmied up the tree next to me (just like the one I reported here in Malate a couple weeks ago). I made a video of him harvesting a few coconuts. Noticing my interest, he took his knife and with a deft couple of slices opened the top and served me the buko juice inside. Satisfying my thirst long before the coconut was empty, I handed it back to him and with another 3 or 4 deft slices, cut it in half and made a scoop for me to eat the fresh buko within. He smiled and wandered off to carry out his other duties.

Tapos (then) I noticed something that gave me a bit of a jolt: the whole property is lined with slightly-modified rainbow flags, of the type you see in big-city gay neighborhoods of the USA (and occasional small towns like Juneau and one other place I remember from Alaska, just remembered that the shirt I’m wearing at the moment came from that 2002 trip).

I got a San Mig beer and then wandered around the village a bit at dusk (the jeepney got me there sometime well past 5pm). There are maybe 10 clusters of cottages, separated by refreshingly-long unbuilt vacant areas, most of which have a beachfront restaurant. I saw few other tourists: a couple of German guys, a mixed-race couple from Tanzania, maybe a half-dozen others among many dozen mostly-young local Filipinos. The entertainment I saw that evening was billiards and a gambling card game (pusoy?). After dark I sat down by myself to have a meal. My jeepney driver Romeo showed up with a couple of others, and pretty much from that point on I wasn’t alone in Sabang.

OK so it’s time to diverge from the chronology format because the essence of this excursion is the whole collage of amazing experiences. Here is a glimpse of what I will write about:

• A challenging hike through 5km of jungle hills, by myself save the macaque monkeys in the trees
• Dirty-dancing with about 20 of the native fishermen: 80s disco blaring on the stereo in their living room
• Going out on their bangka (motor boat) snorkeling to capture mussels and octopus, then hanging out for hours
• Lounging on the wreckage of one of the “big boats” that ply the El Nido route
• Feasting on seafood stew over the campfire, after catching it ourselves with bare hands and machetes at night by the light of a Coleman
• Watching the guys display their talent on the basketball court, guapo, shirtless and sarap
• Living life in the way of the village: no Internet, no aircon, less than 4 hours a day of electricity
• Watching boat-builders and hut-builders display their craftsmanship with bamboo and coco wood
• Getting embarrassingly wasted on the locals’ favorite drink, San Miguel gin

About 3 dozen locals (age 15 to about 50) adopted me at once and pulled me right into their community. It was love at first sight, in every way you can define the word love! When I finally had to leave about 30 hours ago, the mahal kitas (I love yous, in both languages) just couldn’t stop flowing!

By Monday morning I canceled the whole rest of my Palawan excursion and extended the date of my return flight just to have more precious days here at Sabang.

Ang ganda, mahal kita Sabang! You have stolen my puso (heart)!

[I’ll add more to this entry later, along with pictures.]

I’ve had a mellow day today, decided to post again because I almost feel guilty about my last posting, which doesn’t reflect my feelings about the Philippines at all. Scammers exist in Boston and every other city where I’ve lived: it could happen just as well at home as on the road. What makes us susceptible to scams is availability of free time (not being in a rush to get from point A to point B) and/or the need for information (being unfamiliar with the procedures to make something happen, such as the purchase of a transportation ticket, or a decision to move investment cash from one type of account to another).

I’ll point out something else about the scammer’s mind: there seems to be a point of honor among this species, that they never take something the way a pickpocket would – they enjoy the challenge of convincing their victim to part with money by their own action. This afternoon I got reminded of the honor ethic of all the Filipinos I’ve met: as I sat down in a park, a 4-year-old kid pointed out the travel-guide book that had fallen out of my pocket. Later, as I pulled something out of my pocket on the trolley, my trolley ticket fell on the floor: a 20-something guy picked it up and handed it to me. (Even the hustler I wrote about the other night had more than one chance to pick my pockets – never happened.) So my overall impression of the people here is more positive than the guide books suggest in their warnings about people on the streets.

OK enough said on that topic. Moving on to the day’s events, I had lunch at the Robinson’s Mall again. Noticed there is a 39-lane bowling alley on the 2nd floor, where you can bowl a game of tenpins for 85 pesos. Might try that if I have time after my next excursion.

Decided that I had enough time for a walking tour of Quezon City, so I took the LRT to the MRT to the Northern Ave station. It’s a long haul through the city, you get a real sense of the vastness of this place as you look out the windows sailing along the elevated tracks. A suggestion to the future traveler: if you’re going more than a few stops, make sure the aircon is working before moving into the train. Wait for the next train if it isn’t.

Contrary to what the guidebooks suggest, many things actually work better here than back home. Trains run more like 15 to 20 times an hour vs the 4 to 8 in Boston. Airplane flights that I’ve taken so far have run more like clockwork than anything back in the USA. Restaurant service is usually better, aside from a policy at some fast-food places of giving you a number placard and making you wait for food delivery at your table rather than the service counter. Overall I find that I can get more done, predictably, during the course of a day than I can back home.

Did I already point out enough just how vast the shopping infrastructure is here? When I got off at Quezon City, the first thing I noticed was a mall complex half the size of Crystal City (an urban district in the DC area in which I once lived) going up all at once at the edge of a shanty town that had obviously been pushed back to make space. Just past the construction project (one of the hunks waved at me and beckoned me to make a video of him, sarap!) is an existing mall. They don’t seem to tear down the old malls when they make new ones; they get grafted together like Greenbelt and Glorietta at Makati City. Every one of these is bigger than any of the malls in greater Boston. Yet there are so many of them that in the metro Manila area alone (population just over 20 million) there are probably enough to rival the size of the entire Simon Properties mall empire in the USA. Shoemart and Robinson’s are the names attached to most of them. I have already been in about a half-dozen of these malls, and have yet to explore even a tenth of the stations on the trolley system let alone the vast stretches of cityscape outside the reach of the 3-line trolley network. (Trolley tip: get a stored-value card a la the Charlie Card for 100 pesos, instead of single-fare cards. They don’t have fare dispenser machines and the waiting lines for single-fare purchases are ludicrous. Trolley fare is 10 to 15 pesos, as cheap as the Path trains in New Jersey were when I lived there, oh, about when the World Trade Center was first completed.)

Tomorrow I jump on a plane to Palawan and find out what life is like outside this big city once again. The city has been growing on me for the past 36 hours. Have I said how friendly and helpful the people here are? Good, I had to say it again!

Bess reported good news on the family front; her tatay (father) is settling into the new home (Paranaque City) and regaining his appetite.

OK all you guys who suggested I be careful can now say I told ya so! I probably should write about this tomorrow but decided to post it now while it’s fresh in my mind (and besides I can’t go to sleep yet, it’s just 10 minutes to midnight).

In an earlier posting, I commented that the only things I’m worried about are violence and kidnapping. Add one more to that: (potential) trouble with the cops.

Maybe this explanation (which isn’t clearly spelled out in the guidebooks writeups about scams) will help you to avoid trouble: what a scammer/hustler seeks to do is lead you through a sequence of actions which will lead you into a no-win situation. Basically, your tacit or overt yes response to each step of the sequence will eventually lead you beyond a certain threshold – your no response after that point will carry negative consequences for you, and the scammer now holds the upper hand. The only way out is to pay up.

I’ll give the G-rated version of my story because although it might be embarrassing to some, I have nothing to hide. The young guy I mentioned in a couple of earlier entries rematerialized last night, I agreed to have a beer with him at that point and to meet up with him at 8pm this evening to see Intramuros at night and to discuss my plans for Baguio. He showed up an hour and a half early, and we toured Intramuros without any trouble. (Aside from the fact that there wasn’t much to see…)

He wanted to give me a massage (a legitimate one as far as I know) and to take a shower; I bought us merienda (snacks) at 7-11 and we went to my hotel. The desk clerk called upstairs to inform me that unregistered visitors are not allowed in the hotel at any time, please send this guy downstairs. So then the scam sequence became this:

• Guy (calls himself Josh) can’t produce ID for desk clerk
• We proceed outside to chat, finish our snack
• He says there are short-time motels here for a couple hundred pesos ($4-$7)
• He leads me to a bicycle-powered tricycle for a mere 3-block ride
• As we walk to entrance, I ask whether he will ask for any more money than I’d given him before; he says no
• We sit in a somewhat strange waiting room, during which time I contemplate that maybe we should check into a different place than this
• Clerk leads us to a regular-looking hotel room
• Josh takes shower, suggests I do same before massage

Having tacitly accepted all the above, a game of hardball then ensues. This is a guy half my age and about 2/3 my weight: not someone I’d ever consider threatening in any potential way. But watch out! You won’t read the rest of this in any guidebook.

• Josh informs me that he needs to tell me something; I ask what
• “I lied”, he says sorry to have to say this, wants money
• Naive me tells him that if he’d simply asked for money up front before paying for taxis and a whole new hotel room, I’d have been accommodating but now my answer’s no. Little do I realize the setup!
• He then reveals the kicker: both of us have to check out of the hotel at the same time, I can’t leave by myself. (It’s one of those love-hotels that don’t ask questions and don’t ask IDs up front. Ever been in one of those? I hadn’t!)
• He’s sitting there wearing nothing but a towel and refuses to get dressed. I stormed out and asked him to follow.
• I summon manager, pay bill.
• Next kicker: guy demands that police be summoned, won’t explain what he’s planning to tell the cops other than that I’d agreed to pay him some unspecified amount. I hand him 500 pesos ($10.50), witnessed by manager, but he won’t back down.
• Manager asks me to wait for police to show up.

What would you do in that situation? Well, work up a lot of adrenalin and contemplate just how readily you fell for this latest scam. But it’s got much larger consequences than someone filching your wallet or even your passport.

So it’s two hours since my hasty withdrawal from the whole situation; I’m wondering whether it’s safe to return to my hotel. Remember, this whole thing started at the entrance to my hotel. Tomorrow I will move someplace far away.

I can’t say this won’t ever happen to me again–con artists are very creative and clever–but this is the sort of lesson in street smarts that won’t ever be forgotten.

It all starts with tacitly (or gullibly) allowing a sequence of somewhat unfamiliar eyebrow-raising actions to take place. Remember to say no early in the sequence. Else you’ll face a no-win dilemma like mine.

And don’t believe everything you believe in those scam-avoidance guides. More than one that I’ve read suggests that if you aren’t sure about someone but want to have a private space with them (be it for business meeting, massage, or something naughty) then it’s better to rent a separate hotel room besides your own. As you can see, this advice can’t be accepted at face value.

Comments welcome, unfortunately I haven’t yet debugged this blog software to enable commenting but you can email me.

Last night right after my previous entry, I ran into one of the famous horse-buggy touts along Roxas Blvd. A petite young man, actually quite good-looking, ran up to me after the buggy-driver first called out to me. Once he latched onto me, it took about 3 blocks of zig-zag walking before he finally let go. This was supposedly to garner a 20P fare up to Intramuros. (Guide books say to watch out for these guys, some of whom are scammers, but given the dearth of tourists this week, these guys were probably legitimately desperate for a fare.)

I learned a tip worth passing along: easiest place to find a no-nonsense masseur. During my early-evening walk (I have been doing a lot of walking, enough to get chafing on my left thigh!) last night, I remarked to myself just how pleasant the weather was. Bubble-gum pop music was playing through loudspeakers next to the fountain (where a bandstand is set up on weekends), young kids were running around playfully, the stars were out, humidity was low and the breeze off Manila Bay was quite pleasurable. Next to the fountain across from the Aristocrat restaurant, I noticed a cluster of a half-dozen masseurs touting their services. Wandering back toward them a few minutes later, I stood 30 meters away watching them with some other customers. Then I approached and agreed to a 30-minute session. No-nonsense, professionally trained, quite good actually! And their little area serves as a shield against the touts offering all manner of other items, you can enjoy the stars, the music and the well-maintained fountain while getting a really good massage. Yes, you’re sitting outside in a cheap plastic chair not lying on a tatami mat in a private room. But this ambiance was somehow better for me given my mood last night. (Including 20% tip, the cost was about $2.50. No kidding.) I think I’ll go for a 60-minute session tonight!

I’ve discovered some cheap fast food, too: there is a burger joint on the Baywalk across from Aristocrat that serves a pretty tasty whopper-sized garlic-mayonnaise burger. And if you climb up to the food court at Robinson’s Mall (huge mall not quite a kilometer from my room, opposite direction from even huger Mall of Asia), you can get a square meal of pancit (with beef liver chunks) and fried pork chop, with a Coke Light, for 80 pesos ($1.70) at the Chin’s stall.

Stopped by a travel agency after trying to dig through my Lonely Planet guide for a couple hours looking for excursions next few days. My local friends here are busy for whatever reasons so I figured I’d find a way to go on my own a couple days. Now’s when I really miss Luis’ travel-planning expertise! The agent made photocopy fliers of a couple of really expensive tour packages priced respectively at $450 and $750 for a 2-night trip to Donsol or a 4-night trip to the sights around Baguio. I’d rather just hop on the bus myself and book the hotel directly, skipping all the rest.

Batanes still beckons. I’m tempted to just call the Asian Spirit reservations desk and plop myself down there to see what adventure awaits. It’s a really remote place with only 3 or 4 flights per week.

Oh, I wanted to note some things my local acquaintances of told me about their lives. Won’t name names because of course this was told to me in confidence but it’ll help you get a glimpse of what life as a Filipino is like.

• One young man (age 21) here in Malate is taking his college graduation exam tomorrow morning. He studied hotel management and hopes to get an assignment in Canada, the USA or France.
• A 33-year-old who has spent several years in Saudi Arabia received an overseas job offer this week. It was $750 per month for executive-secretarial work; he countered at $1000 and is in negotiations. The workplace is in some town in Iraq (he said he’d need to look at a map to see exactly where). He assured me that the paycheck would be much more than he can make here.

And here are three notes on obscurities that I’ve noticed here:

• Filipinos like ice in their beer.
• The Starbucks outside my hotel doesn’t open until after 9am. In fact the only shop I’ve found open by 8am is one of the two Figaros.
• The LRT mass transit line closes at 9:33pm.

I started writing some more of these down in my room. Guidebooks are kinda incomplete. My biggest beef with the two guidebooks that I have is that their “getting there” section for each destination never seems to be accompanied by a “getting back” section. Without this info it’s impossible to plan a day-trip; you need to know when the last bus leaves. (Example, we got stuck in Valencia when we found out sometime after 6pm that the last jeepney is at 5pm. Distance was short enough to hire a tricyle, but wouldn’t it be nice to know ahead of time?) Travel agents aren’t much help because they are so focused on package-tour sales.

Well I think it’s time to finish this up, maybe I will check out of my hotel and leave Manila tomorrow or maybe I will linger for a while longer. Life in Malate has really been kind to me so far!

I got two reminders of politics back in the USA today. One was in the Manila Times, which reprinted an article from the Boston Globe about whatever scandal just befell the Mitt Romney campaign (something about a leaked memo bashing the French). Run, Mitt, run! The other was from a former business client of mine, who is helping with the draft-Gore campaign. He pointed out that the website he’s working on got a huge number of hits after Gore won an Oscar. So a lot of things in my life are tied together somehow in weird ways.

It’s another hot summer day in Manila. I am escaping the heat–and an aggressive street hustler who spotted me outside my guesthouse an hour ago after we chatted a couple nights ago–in the aircon comfort of the Internet cafe.

Luis is back, our house is safe & sound thanks to the kindly efforts of our house-sitter, but Boston’s cold and here I am smugly ensconced in summer 3 months ahead of time. Sorry, Luis! I’ll be suffering again before you know it!

Speaking of aggressive hustlers, I’ve been getting mysterious text messages and even a few voice-call attempts on my mobile from a gal who goes by the name of Josephine. Were I inclined that way, I could have a new kaibigan (friend) / text-mate. There aren’t any phonebooks in the prepaid cellular world so I guess she just goes down a list of random phone numbers. My grandmother always said make lemonade if life hands you a lemon, so to challenge myself I switched to Tagalog in a response to Josephine. Now she texts me in Tagalog so I have opportunity to learn a bit more language.

When I’m on my own, for meals I gravitate toward counter-service eateries rather than sit-down restaurants. But tiring of Chowking and Jollibee, I sat down at David’s Tea House along Remedios not far from the Baywalk. Had a dish of sotanghon beef hot-pot, served literally boiling in a clay bowl. Very sarap (tasty) for not much more than a tired old Jollibee hamburger value-meal.

Just noticed now an older guy who gave up on the PC next to me a while ago, saying it was slow, who is now grumpily arguing with the attendant about the bill for his Internet usage on the 2nd PC. (28 pesos, a 45-minute minimum equating to 60 cents, clearly displayed on-screen.) I roll my eyes – along with the friendly Asians here – at the ill behavior of many of my own race…in part because I used to run a small Internet business myself. The main problem with owning your own business is you have to have…customers!

Yesterday I saw two different acquaintances whom I’ve met here: lunch with one in Makati, and dinner with the other at Aristocrat. In between I went to the United Airlines office where the absolute most friendly ticket agent in the world works. Her name is Grace and if you ever come to Philippines, it’s worth the extra $115 change fee just so you can get to meet her. (Well, it’s also worth it to get some extra time for your trip…!)

Ferdinand (more about him further down) said the museums aren’t very good here, and I have determined for myself that the locals don’t seem to appreciate parks. Yesterday I took a closer look at my guidebook (published June 2006) and have concluded that developers have almost completely sabotaged a wonderful park space in Makati: what remains of Greenbelt Park is a courtyard surrounding the church, about 80% of the park is consumed by the building under construction across from our first hotel (BSA Tower). In fact it’s quite noticeable how much more of the building exists now than 3 weeks ago when I first saw it! The last thing Greenbelt needed was yet another shopping mall. Another park appears on the Lonely Planet map: Ayala Triangle.

Venturing to the other side of Ayala Avenue, what I found in the triangle was rather curious: a big piece of land, probably more than 50 acres, with a big garden area occupying maybe 10% of the space up against an office tower, with the rest relatively wild. A security guard looked at me somewhat quizzically when I wandered in, and I noted that despite proximity to the foot traffic of one of the world’s biggest urban centers, the space was deserted! Conscious of the many pesos in my pocket, just returning from the ATM, along with my return airline ticket, I went in anyway. Among the weeds and trees I saw a hut with 3 guys playing cards; bushwhacking my way through to the other side–not really much in the way of trails!–I encountered some occupied shanties, then a construction area that looked like it’s supposed to become gardens but probably shut down soon after work started years ago. Then along the way out I saw a sign that said the area’s private property. Hmm. Mysterious. This is all in the shadow of tremendous skyscrapers. Being a lover of skyscrapers, I must say that skyscrapers without parks, or boardwalks without places to rest away from touts and vendors, are simply less valuable.

Well let’s see, not a whole lot else to report in this entry, I’m taking a bit of a breather from the frenetic activity of our Visayas itinerary. Had breakfast with Ferdinand (San Sebastian alum) this morning, in his charming and gracious way he mentioned a couple of potential itineraries outside Manila. There is a place to the south to go swim with the whale-sharks; he followed up later to report that his friend who lives down there said the boaters there have yet to spot any this season. And he also suggested a place to the far north, the Batanes islands, which my Lonely Planet guide concurs with Ferdinand as a great place to see people who live and look different from those inhabiting the rest of the Philippines, and which can be explored on bicycle. But I have to find out the weather conditions, since I do not have clothes with me to handle cold.

I paid for two more nights in Malate but after that I might go exploring beyond Manila.

Yesterday afternoon we flew back to Manila from our 24-hour stay in Boracay. I had arranged a few days earlier to get together with Bien Cruz, the quite guapo brother of Luis’ relative Emily who lives a few minutes’ drive from us back in the States. He offered to pick us up from the airport so we had a wonderfully smooth time getting launched back into the Manila urbanopolis. We took him out to the Havana Cafe pub near our newest hotel the Malate Pensionne, after he and his family offered their gracious hospitality at their home in Paranaque City.

We had a couple more highlights in Boracay on Friday. At breakfast, we ran into a friendly group of older gentlemen who spent an hour with us. A dozen of them were preparing for an annual gathering of their Rotary Club group. Two of them even insisted on giving me their phone numbers. Then during a walk on the beach (this time to the south end), we saw two tourists and a local up ahead; the Filipino tourist recognized me from the evening before and asked if we were staying at Orchids Resort. Turns out they are a gay mixed-race couple, 13 years together, not too different from us. They are (recovering) Mormons who met in Salt Lake City and now live in Seattle. Yet another mobile phone number added to my growing list of contacts here!

Luis wanted to recover his sunglasses from our predatious boatman of the day before – he’d tucked them into a life vest and forgot them on departure – so after many text messages back and forth, we were reunited with the glasses. And of course the boatman! We are both enamored of him and his “crew” (three cousins ranging from 17 to 25 years old). We decided to hire them to take us directly to the airport, yet another terrific reminder of how easy it is to arrange for private transport. A sailboat directly from your hotel to the airport, that’s how I always fantasized the way Pacific islanders can live their lives! Alas, most of them can’t afford it – I am forever getting reminded of the gap between haves and have-nots in our world. I’m glad that I am equally comfortable (if not more so) spending time with people at the bottom rungs of the ladder as with those near the top.

This morning we had our Saturday morning coffee-and-newspaper routine at the Figaro Cafe here in Malate. The news is filled with the upcoming Philippine senatorial elections. The business section noted that Smart, one of three major cell phone companies, has reached 25 million subscribers and has coverage reaching 99% of the country’s population. These are numbers that would make American companies stand up and take note. The numbers I like are the subscriber fees and service policies: take those 2-year contracts and 15-cent-per-SMS fees and shove ’em!

On Boracay I noticed a handful of for-sale signs along the commercial strip. Two ideas occurred to me: one, I could buy one of those and open the very first gay guest-house and probably make a killing; two, the local government should buy up as much land as possible to create some public park areas from which street vendors are restricted.

Tomorrow Luis leaves for the States. I have a wide-open agenda, starting with a trip early this coming week to the United Airlines ticket office in Makati City to confirm my return date. Luis suggests a side trip to Baguio. The weather forecast shows rain and chilly weather so I’ll have to look into it some more before deciding. Meanwhile my cell-phone address list full of friendly Filipinos’ numbers beckons!

Mar 1 -Today we made it to what many would call the highlight of their Philippines trip. I’ll start with the good points about Boracay and then mention some of the issues I have with this place, from my perspective growing up in some of the world-famous coastal resorts of the USA.

From the moment you head out for Boracay from your connecting airport (in our case it was Mactan, ie Cebu), the process of getting here feels like an adventure. A 19-seater turboprop of a different variety than the typical Beechcraft one finds in America deposits you on a landing strip across the strait from here. (It really is a landing strip! Your pilot takes a U-turn on the same runway on which you landed toward a “terminal” where some guy grabs your luggage claim tags, has you sign something, leads you out of the terminal and disappears for 5 minutes during which you’re wondering whether you will ever see the luggage again now that you’ve signed everything away…) More on that process later.

About 90 minutes later you’re at the one hotel you’ve been able to book because all the others were full. (Later you conclude that it’s a mile and a half from everything and further from the actual waterfront than anything else.) This place is big! We took a walk from our end where the hotel is along the white-sand beach. It’s one of those beaches dominated by palm trees. Closest thing to it I can remember–and I’ve seen a lot of beaches–is Luquillo on Puerto Rico. What makes it different from everywhere else is how the “boardwalk” is actually just a stretch of sand about 10 meters wide between the palm trees and the storefronts. We got here in the afternoon, so because the beach faces west, the trees provide shade for the long walk.

Most beachfront resort areas are 3km long, give or take; usually a little less. This one is a full 3 miles long, a fact I didn’t realize until I looked at a map in the early evening. All except the northernmost half-mile are lined cheek-by-jowl with storefronts: restaurants, resorts, dive centers, and other shops. A handful of vacant lots are being developed into bigger things than whatever was there previously. Further to the north, some big multi-story resorts are under construction (two cranes are visible) but most all the existing facilities are 3 stories high or less.

There are no motorized vehicles along the waterfront, and all the commerce is lined up along the waterfront save one section called the D-mall which forms a large block running out to a road 200 meters or so over from the “board”-walk area.

Highlights of our day included a terrific sailboat ride–piloted by two really cute/friendly 25-year-old locals–all the way around the 6-mile long island, culminating in an absolutely stunning, clear sunset. After the 3-mile walk back to our hotel (no, the sailors couldn’t drop us off at our end of the beach, alas), we showered and had a fabulous grilled buffet dinner right out on the sandy beach. Looked for a masseur (a couple of touts had reached out to us earlier) but only found masseuses. Had a drink at the bar outside Nigi-Nigi Noos Noos, as suggested by our friends Ramon & Ed. Now we’re here at the Internet cafe not so far from our room. (Well, probably a kilometer from our room, but who’s counting? ;-))

Some recommendations for future Boracay visitors:

• Make sure you have a full 1000 pesos’ worth of small change before getting onto the plane here – 20 and 50 peso notes – because you’ll get hit up about 10 times just getting here (taxes, ferries, drivers, porters). All these compliance requests became an irritant to me because I didn’t realize this ahead of time and it really differs from other Philippine destinations. A wad of 500-peso notes doesn’t cut it.
• Look at the map and site your lodging accordingly. If you want a boat, seek a place in the center or at the opposite end of where we are. (Boats are to the north.)
• There are only a handful of ATMs. And only the BPI branch is connected to Plus/Cirrus networks. Grab cash before coming here.

Now some of my comments…

The environmentalist in me is appalled by the development here. Sure, it’s quaint having restaurant tables and live entertainment out on the beach. But there is an actual sewage outflow installed right on the beach, vendors dump leftover whatever (I saw a guy pouring dregs from a tray of seafood onto the sand), and customers are surely not going to take much interest in where their trash and crumbs go. You could see litter on the beach and in the sea. Over time, this will despoil the environment. I’m glad the beach can be traversed by the public–it doesn’t have fences blocking walking access the way many places, like Key West, have gotten to be. But there is a lack of respect for the environment on which everything–including all the commerce here–depends.

The strip is less than one block wide, and is very long. By failing to construct public rights of way leading inland, the development sprawled too far along the waterfront.

I’m a gay guy and am most comfortable around others like me. I have found “my own kind” everywhere else I’ve wandered here in the Philippines, usually within a matter of minutes. Here, despite recommendations from at least one well-traveled couple we know, I’ve found only a sea of straight people. Unless I’ve missed something, I would not recommend this place to other gay travelers given the plethora of other places one could go — if you care about such things. I do.

Tomorrow we return to Manila. I’ve kept in touch with a couple of people there so I can start making plans for the 2-week trip extension; we plan on a Saturday dinner at the Mall of Asia with some of Luis’ high-school friends.

Feb 28 – The bus ride back from Dumaguete seemed longer and more arduous than the one down there. Maybe I am wistful: the people of Dumaguete really are quite special; I can’t figure out whether it’s because they just don’t see many white guys so they were curious about me, or because they’re just plain more friendly. It really is likely to be the latter; it may be mainly a college town, but it’s also got plenty of resort accommodations.

Our hotel back here treated us remarkably well, handing us the key and sending a porter up with our bags moments later. Such a relief after a 5.5-hour bus/ferry ride. (Spoiled only by the grim bathroom facility in the room…;-)) Went shopping afterward – Luis insisted we need additional luggage to cart our stuff back to the States, which is why we collect new luggage on so many of our vacation trips – so I found myself in a department store rummaging through the socks & underwear section, starting to get that detached/bored expression that Luis knows so well. But the shirts captivated me; I remembered how cute one of his fellow alums looked at the reunion, and Luis remembered the brand name of the shirt so sure enough, I found a couple shirts that I liked. Very much nicer than what I find in boring American department stores.

To stave off my increasing grumpiness at being in a store for too long, Luis took me over to the McDonald’s. He wanted to experience the McSpaghetti, and I got a McRice burger. Don’t find those things in the States either, but I remember going to Honolulu back in 1987 and finding Japanese noodles on the McDonald’s menu.

Speaking of Mickie D’s, there’s a new one going up in the center of Dumaguete. I used to rank towns by the number of McDonald’s outlets to be found (when I moved to MA in 1980, I settled into the “2 McDonald’s town” of Marlborough). As noted in an earlier entry here, major construction projects like this operate at least two shifts: two nights ago we walked past the Dumaguete site at 9pm, and could see full work crews creating the familiar McDonald’s interior on the ground floor and adding steelwork to the structure high up on the 3rd floor. Everywhere you see a Jollibee in the Philippines, chances are you’ll find a McDonald’s no more than 2 blocks away.

A familiar sign you find – on many walls and buildings – is a tribute to the ill behavior of many of those great-looking, friendly guys you find in the urban centers: Bawal umihi dito (prohibited to piss here). Luis and I have witnessed many examples of this crude behavior, which seems to be part of the culture here but which clearly drives property owners stir-crazy. Public restrooms are far easier to find than in most any US city but some guys…

Another sign you see very often – next to cash registers – is from the BIR (don’t remember the acronym, it’s the Philippine IRS). Sales tax (called VAT pretty much everywhere but the USA) is assessed at 10% to 12% and almost always included in the price tag. The signs remind customers to always demand an official receipt bearing the store’s TIN, because evidently many merchants try to under-report sales volume.

Back to my wistful thinking about Dumaguete: yesterday I got up and decided to get some exercise. We’re eating 3 square meals plus snacks each day, and we’re not doing our usual exercise. So I ventured out to the promenade/boardwalk of Dumaguete, which is 780m long plus a stretch leading out to the dock, and made about 1-1/2 laps. Despite living a lot of my life on coastal beaches including Virginia Beach, Daytona and Fort Lauderdale, rare has been the day I’ve been up early enough to go out and look at the sunrise. It was remarkably pleasant to go out in 75F weather and glimpse my shadow cast all the way onto the buildings across the street as I jogged along the waterfront. This morning I repeated the exercise, not quite early enough to catch the sunrise, forcibly insisting to Luis that he join me. He too had a great time of it!

Ah, so many memories but so little time during the trip to write about them… one other thing I’ll mention before signing off here tonight is the German guy we met after a motorbike ride up to the waterfalls near Valencia (south of Dumaguete) yesterday. He appeared to be in his mid 60s, and struck up a conversation with us at a coffee shop. He’d been living there permanently for 3 years, after a number of visits. He’s got a Filipina wife whom he said was not “cooperative” in making permanent immigration plans. I got the sense that she wanted to raise their kids in Germany rather than Philippines, but didn’t inquire about that further. He said he chose to live about 15km outside Dumaguete for the cooler weather. Only 150m elevation, on the eastern slope of a higher mountain, makes a difference of at least 5 degrees Fahrenheit. So he said he gets access to all the comforts of the town without having to cope with the heat. I asked him how he’s treated by the community, since I know that as a permanent resident people treat you a lot differently (usually with competitive suspicion) than if you are a temporary visitor. He got off onto a tangent about a property-line encroachment dispute with a neighbor so I didn’t learn much. But I was very much thinking about how the Japanese tend not to accept foreigners no matter how much they assimilate. Filipinos, I think, are much more accepting even though I can plainly see that white people are only a very tiny minority here.

Luis and I contemplated future resettlement plans. Very much on my mind is the rise of Asia (exemplified here in Cebu by a tremendously tall building whose unfinished frame and construction crane dominates the skyline) and the seeming loss of common purpose – potential decline – in the USA. But the example of Luis’ father, who tried to make a new start in a foreign land in his 40s, serves to remind both of us that our home is the USA so at least for Luis the next 20 years or so will probably be rooted to a medical-research career in the USA. I have no idea what my own career will be; everywhere I turn here, I can think of money-making ideas that have yet to be implemented. In the USA, I can never come up with something that isn’t either already being done or which would get stomped into oblivion by well-established corporate giants the moment a hint of profitability becomes apparent. That’s why there is such an air of possibility here, at least for the myriad people here whose entrepreneurial spirit is similar to mine in my now-past career.

Well, all that said, I’ve opted not to return to USA for another couple of weeks. Philippines, you’ll have to live with me until (at least) the 18th!

Tomorrow we fly from Cebu City to Boracay for a one-day stay in the most famous white-sand beach of this island nation. Reaching our 7th island (8, I guess, if you count the neighboring island from here where the airport is), we will have seen 0.1% of the islands in the country.