Friday, May 13, 2005

Week 1 Manila and Boracay

I must say the response to my first blog is amazing. Maintaining the level of detail I placed in that first post is going to be very daunting. Since entering Manila the trip has been anything but an adventure. Its been more of a vacation. Lorenas family and friends have been very hospitable to the three of us. We haven’t spent a dime in Manila. Friends of Lorenas family have a house in Manila for there kids who usually attend school here. Their main house is in Palawan an island we will be going to tomorrow. Besides letting us use there house they’ve given us the services of there maid who cook us meals and a driver who has driven us anywhere we want to go. People here are use to it but I’m not. Its like being famous. Everyone is serving you and everywhere you go they look at you because you’re the only white guy and are twice as tall as the average person. We stand out everywhere. It has its blessings and curses. Everyone treats us like we’re the richest people on earth, security at airports, malls, and everywhere else (they have a security people at EVERY entrance) hardly look at us. Unfortunately at markets and tourist hot spots this means every vendor wants us to buy from them. This was especially prevalent in Boracay the tourist hot spot of the Philippines. Ever minute we’d get a jet ski ma’am/sir, Rolax ma’am/sir, sunglasses ma’am/sir, ride ma’am/sir…. Its amazing how real counterfeit goods look. 20 dollars for a Rolex really does look like a bargain.

Manila is grubby, has high pollution and the traffic is amazing. I’ll leave explaining the traffic in a later post (because it needs that level of detail). Manila is nothing really special. Most of it looks far worse than the worst parts of Calgary. Its so strange to see a combination of very rich people and very poor people in a very grubby setting. Because we were driven around most of the time I really never had an idea where we were in the city. My favorite parts of our stay here has been our current accommodations (with Lorenas friends), our one day visit to a golf and country club with a friend of Lorena’s mom, and our picnic and dinner with Lorenas Aunt and Uncle. The malls which I’ve heard so much about are nothing great. Most of the ones we’ve gone to are for the rich in Manila which means nothing is at great value. We did visit Green Hills which is a market like I’ve never seen before. Hundreds of vendors all selling counterfeit goods at unbelievably low prices. Some parts of Manila are really beautiful. This includes a mall we visited last night which has a beautiful food court and where we had dinner with Lorenas uncle who owns a club in a richer part of Manila. The dinner was in a super trendy and expensive bar. But it was their opening night and an open bar.

Lorenas uncle was very nice and also took us on a picnic with his family. I must say I’m getting use to this Filipino food. The only thing that continues to surprise me is that they seem to eat the head of almost anything. In Canada the heads are always chopped off. It seems in the Philippines you always eat the head. I’ll try everything once! For the record I like squid head but not shrimp heads and I haven’t had a fish head yet. Its really best not to know what it is such as the pig blood I had for lunch. It tasted good but I could only have a little of it because I thought about it to much.

On our second day here a friend of Lorenas moms (none of us had met her before) invited us to go to what I’m sure is one of the nicest golf and country clubs in town. While none of us have any idea what her or her husband does for a living its pretty obvious they are well off. She told us that her and her daughter go to the golf and country club (called wok woks) everyday. We enjoyed a nice swim in a large pool by ourselves as the place was pretty empty mid week. We then had a one hour full body message. I haven’t had a message before and this was definitely an experience. We finished the day off with dinner. These sort of days remind me of you guys back in Calgary and Red Deer. Every time we are really enjoying ourselves we look at our watches and confirm that people in Calgary are working and it makes it that much more fun. I heard it snowed in Calgary yesterday!

We just got back from Boracay the tourist island of the Philippines. Boracay felt really safe. I think this was because the locals really milk the tourists for as much money as possible. Everything had an international and a local rate and for many things it was obvious that they had huge mark ups. We spent four days in Boracay the highlights were the beautiful white beaches and blue water, the sea food, and the walks I went on. For an island that is supposedly a party island I was surprised to find that restaurants were never full (always at least half empty), and things closed down at 10 to 11 at night. Its hard to get use to darkness at 6pm and always finding it much warmer outside then inside. Despite being peak tourist season in Boracay there were very few Caucasians, and it never felt crowded (like in the super super busy stores in Manila). The water was very clean but the sand had a fair bit of garbage on it… especially smoke butts. There was hundreds of palm trees. The vegetation, and sunsets were amazing.

Lorena and Peter weren’t much for walks but I took the time to go on a few long ones. I had several conversations with locals who felt a lot more comfortable approaching someone that was walking off the beaten path alone (once again I remind you that Boracay felt a lot safer than Manila I don’t think I was every in danger). Unfortunately because of the language barrier these conversations didn’t amount to much more than where are you from, where are you going, what is your name, how do you like it here. Still I felt that I learnt more about how it is to live in the Philippines with just a few of these conversations then 2 months of being paraded around by a driver could ever make you feel. Its amazing how little these people had. Still I’d love to be in there shoes for just a month to feel it. Its hard to understand what it would be like, but I think you can get happiness from a lot of sources and money is only one of many sources. I’d like to go into more detail about how I was humbled by the experience but the truth is I haven’t strayed far enough from the tourist path to be humbled by my experiences. This is one of the reasons why I look forward to breaking away from Peter and Lorena.

Most of this trip so far has been planned by Lorena and while its been nice, its also been difficult making sure everyone is happy all the time. At times its been a struggle to find a happy medium between the three of us and for the most part I’ve given up and just followed what Lorena and Peter wanted to do. The alternative, doing it alone, would probably not be as fun, as Lorena’s family and friends have been great hosts for us. Plus, I’ll have plenty of time to do it a lone and despite a few conflicts traveling as I have been is very relaxing (far more than finding your way by yourself).

The next part of my trip is a week in palawan then its one day by myself in Manila and then off to Kuala Lumpur to start the real adventure. Please feel free to ask me questions in the comments section of this post. I’ve missed a lot of details that I’d be glad to expand on if anyone is interested. Its far easier to answer questions then try to remember a week worth of activities.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey bud, glad your having a blast. We found lot's of very scary keystroke loggers out there, but no prophylaxis yet. Will keep you informed. If you need to upload let me know and then we'll change your password. I'll send by email.
Maybe if engineering doesn't pan out you can get a gig as a Travel Blogger.
Just have to get a way to get yer pals to pay for the privilege of reading your rants
cul8r
u.l.

Anonymous said...

Another super column from the "Travel Blogger."

How's the tan coming? Sounds like you are getting lots of sun.

Lorena and her friends sure were wonderful to show you the "life" in Manilla.

I'm curious about the amount you packed. What is it like living with only a couple of outfits? Are there things you wish you had taken?

Love - Mom

lukecs said...

Well this part of the trip hasn't really been back packing. If I was to do it again I'd probably have packed more and then just have Peter and Lorena take back the extras. Theres a few things I could have brought but I'm fine without them. I've used almost everything I've packed. I'll have to see how things turn out though. The adventure starts now!