Filipino Oddities

Well, unfortunately things have continued on a pretty rapid downward trajectory with my mom's condition, but we are all trying to cope the best we can. She's resting again right now though, so I thought I'd try to post another severely-delayed blog entry from our trip. Here are some of the strange things we saw in the Philippines:

Ooo... magical placenta whitening soap! Gives me that baby-soft skin I've always wanted...

Everywhere we went in the Philippines, the locals were extremely pro-American, calling America their 'second mother' and attributing the success of the Philippines to America - and I guess maybe the "Obama Grill" on White Beach is just another token of their affection. :)

A small tree-root toilet to add to my toilet photo collection...

Rice drying on the side of the road

Alright, so this is a terrible photo I took of the TV, but I was trying to capture this odd karaoke channel that was showing soft-core porn in the background. The song playing in this image is "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". :)

Banana Ketchup - blech!

Why go to a gas station when you can just buy your gas in a bottle on the side of the road? I just wish I had gotten a picture of the stand we passed that was selling gas out of Coke bottles...

Ice-cold sarap. Coke na! (For some reason I thought a lot more English would be spoken in the Philippines than actually was - Filipino seemed to be much more prominent. In addition, there are 13 indigenous languages with 1+ million speakers apiece, with most Filipinos learning one of these as their native language.)

A Filipino woman wearing a snake vertebrae 'necklace' on her head to protect from lightning strikes

We saw people peeing everywhere, despite these signs, haha.

Wooden scooters ridden by the Ifugao tribes (I'm not sure how they get them back uphill!)

A bag with chewing substances - areca nut, betel leaf, lemon/lime, and spices. These are chewed together for a stimulant effect - and are the cause of red-stained teeth and lips of many locals. (Areca and betel are also carcinogens.)

And last, but certainly not least, another lovely toilet picture! This is a relatively clean FEMALE trough squat toilet - the gals just back in and pee in a cozy row. I decided just to hold it. :)

Beautiful Rice, Hanging Coffins, Collapsed Roads, and Bad Karaoke - Welcome to the Cordilleras!

Once again it has been awhile since I have posted... Brian and I have been back at my family homestead in Tennessee for almost 2 weeks now, and unfortunately things are not going well. The cancer has spread to my mom's brain, so we would really appreciate if everyone could keep her in their thoughts and prayers, as the prognosis is not good. It's been quite a shock for us to one day be strolling through Asia planning our next destination and then the next day to be catching a last minute flight back to the US to stay with my parents indefinitely, but we are really glad that we have the luxury of this flexibility so we can be with my family at this time. I have a few minutes free while my mom is sleeping, so I thought I'd continue with the blog where I left off a couple weeks ago...

From Boracay we took the tiny propeller plane back to Manila and jumped on the local Victory Liner bus for the 8-hour ride to Baguio, in the northern Philippines. Getting to the Cordilleras requires long, grueling bus and jeepney rides no matter which way you go, due to unpaved bumpy mountain roads and a lack of any other transportation method. Luckily, most of the road up to Baguio was paved, so that ride was fairly smooth, but we did have to deal with people jumping on the bus to hawk goods at us repeatedly (see pic). We arrived in Baguio around midnight, and decided to check into a room at the Microtel above the bus station to get a few hours of sleep before our 6am bus the next morning for the 5.5-hour ride to Sagada. Morning came way too soon, and we boarded the rickety bus with schoolbus-like seating and off we went up the jarring mountain roads. About every 100 feet we could look down and see sections of the road that had collapsed down the mountain; luckily we never spotted any buses down there!

Once we arrived in Sagada we found a clean private double room with a bathroom to rent for $8.50/night (little did we know it also included a strong stench of sewage and a rooster outside the window that thought the sun came up at 2am!), and set off on the hiking trail through Echo Valley to visit some of the hanging coffins, caves, and an underground river. Even today they still hang some of the coffins - here's a pic of some more recent ones.

That evening we went to a local restaurant expecting once again to be sorely disappointed by the selection of vegetarian food (usually only mayonnaise sandwiches - I'm not kidding!), but the chef offered to make us the traditional Filipino "pork" adobo dish, using seitan instead of meat. Where they got seitan in this tiny remote town I have no idea, but it was fantastic! (see pic) And even stranger, we had traveled 14 hours by bus over remote dirt roads into the northern Philippines mountains to find the T.V. in the restaurant showing the most recent episode of American Idol! :) After dinner we had to hurry back to our inn to make the mandatory 9pm curfew in town (left over from a conflict during the Marcos era).

The following day we hired a local guide and made our way to Lumiang Burial Cave, where ancient coffins are stacked from the floor to the ceiling (see pic). Apparently, sometimes the guides will even open the lids and shake the bones around, but we passed on that. Afterwards we hiked by some nice rice terraces (see pic) on our way to the Sumaging Cave, where we descended down steep, slippery, guano-covered rocks for what seemed like hours until we finally reached the pools of water (see pics). We were feeling pretty gross with the humidity and bat poo, so we didn't stay long at the bottom!

Lumiang Burial Cave	Sagada Rice Terraces
Sumaging Cave	Sumaging Cave

The next day we got up early to catch the 8am jeepney for the one-hour ride to Bontoc. Jeepneys are the most popular method of public transportation in the Philippines, and were originally made from leftover WWII US military jeeps. They are essentially lavishly decorated extended jeeps with benches in the back for passengers - although many passengers also ride on top. The destination is written on the side, and rather than having a time schedule, the jeepney driver just leaves when he feels he has sufficiently crammed enough passengers into (and onto) the vehicle. So needless to say, it's not the most comfortable ride! Once we arrived in Bontoc we searched for a jeepney that was making the 3.5-hour trek to Banaue. We found a rickety blue one that was making the journey, but we had to wait another 2 hours for enough passengers to show up - at least by getting there early we didn't have to ride on top! We were crammed in pretty tight on the benches, though, and the jeepney was carrying fruit wine jugs that were leaking all over our bags and shoes... and then we had to stop for another hour for "road construction" (see pic). It was on this jeepney that we met one of the only two Americans during our time in the Philippines - a 74-year-old backpacking granny from Minnesota. You go girl!

After the long, bumpy, uncomfortable ride, we finally arrived in Banaue, which is home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site rice terraces. We spent the night, and then chartered a jeepney and a guide to take us out to the tiny villages of Batad, which has amphitheater-shaped stone-walled terraces (the Banaue terraces have mud walls). We drove on the bumpy roads for an hour and a half, passing many terraces and a house perilously hanging over the side of the mountain (see pic) before we reached the end of the road and set out on the long hike down to Batad (many of these Ifugao villages don't have road access yet). We finally reached the terraces (see pic) and continued hiking down them all the way to the Tappia Waterfall at the very bottom (see pic). And then we had the grueling hike back up, where our huffing and puffing selves were humbly passed by old grannies carrying tree trunks and giant baskets of food. :) We didn't finish the hike until late afternoon, and boy were we sore... I can see why they are all so thin here!

Beautiful Banaue	Downtown Banaue
Hanging House	Batad Rice Terraces
Batad Rice Terraces	Tappia Falls

The following day we had a few hours to kill before our bus left in the evening, so we listened to some of the bad 24-7 karaoke coming from the bar down the street from our inn ("I'm a beeeech, I'm a lover..."), then walked about an hour up the hill to the Banaue viewpoint (the scene on the 1000 peso bill, see pic). Unfortunately, it's been so dry this year that the terraces aren't in their full bright green glory, but they were still fascinating to see. We then toured the Banaue Museum of Ifugao Culture, had one more nasty mayonnaise sandwich, and boarded the bullet-hole riddled Autobus (see pic) at 6pm for the frigid (A/C on full blast) 10-hour trip back to Manila, where we were treated to obscure Japanese movies such as "My Wife is a Gangster 4". We arrived back in Manila around 4am, and promptly got ripped off by the taxi driver on the way to the hotel - ah, southeast Asia! :)

Banaue Viewpoint

Bus to Manila

Flying High on Boracay!!!

It's been awhile since I've posted, and as some of you know, Brian and I are currently on our way back to the US due to my mom's health condition. We've spent an adventurous past 3 weeks in the Philippines and Singapore, though, so for the time being, I'll continue to post of our travels for at least a couple more weeks.

Our journey from Phuket to Boracay Island in the Philippines was an arduous one, with an 8-hour layover and airport change in Bangkok, a very odd 3-hour “overnight” flight from 12:30am-4:30am (a one-hour time change) where they kept us awake the whole time trying to hawk “duty free” items, another airport change in Manila (the airport shuttle driver refused to take us because we were only 2 people, even though driving the shuttle was his JOB), a short flight on a SEAIR propeller plane to Caticlan airport (most airlines have stopped flying here because the runway is just *barely* long enough in good weather conditions – there have been a few recent mishaps), a 20-minute boat ride over to Boracay Island, and finally a ride in a motorcycle sidecar (a "tricycle") to our guesthouse. Whew!

Ferry to Boracay

Tricycle

Once we arrived at White Beach though, it was all worth it. We stayed down at Station 3, on a quieter end of the beach, and spent a lot of time just walking up and down the sandy path along the beach, lined with restaurants and shops, free from traffic and those freakin' tuk-tuks! The only negative was all of the hawkers, trying to sell tours, sunglasses, jewelry – you name it. Our guesthouse wasn't great, but it did have a couple of very cute 1-month old kittens! (see pic)

Beach Path

Kitten

We got settled in, and spent our first evening watching the sunset (see pic), eating halo halo for dessert (a Filipino specialty of shaved ice, milk, ube ice cream, fruit gel cubes, corn, boiled beans, and other assorted fruits, see pic), and strolling up and down the beach listening to all the live music that kicks up after dark. The chill vibe in the evenings was really fantastic – probably the highlight of the island. :)

Sunset from White Beach

Halo Halo

The following day we took a tricycle up to Mt. Luho, and hiked up to the top for stunning views of the entire island (see pic). Then we made our way to the Puka Shell Beach, named after the large number of puka shells found there (see pic). After dinner back on White Beach, we were surprised by a spectacular random fireworks show over the water, coming from one of the wooden boats. They even launched parachute flares at the end! (see pic) We later surmised that this fancy display may have been in celebration of People Power Day, which commemorates the People Power Revolution of 1986, when Marcos was run out on a rail.

Puka Shell Beach

Parachute Flares

The next morning we decided to take the ferry back over to Caticlan to do some hiking on the Island of Panay up to Nasog Point. We got as far as taking a tricycle to the town of Malay before things really started to go downhill. We had some vague directions from the internet, but Southeast Asia doesn't really follow a concept of “marked trails”, so after a long arduous uphill climb in the heat, we were lost with no idea where the point might actually be. We made the mistake of stopping to ask some locals, whereupon one of the very drunk men agreed to lead us on the trail (expecting a hefty “tip” of course). As we walked, more people kept joining in to follow us, also in hopes that we would pay them a little something too. After about an hour of this, we arrived at a random beach, but still no sign of Nasog Point. By this time we were just ready to be done, so we got the “guide” to lead us back to the road, and then paid him off to leave. It definitely makes it a lot harder to interact with the locals when every single thing they do for you, whether it is giving directions, holding a door open, letting you take a picture, pretty much anything, is met with the expectation of receiving a “tip” in exchange. But it definitely was an interesting day!

We decided to get adventurous the next morning and go parasailing off the coast of White Beach. It was cheap – only $39/person! (I don't know if that's really a good thing or not, haha.) It was a little bit scary, but we got some great views of the island while flying high in the eerily quiet air. And the crew of the boat took some pics of us, too:

Up	Up
And Away!

Overall, we enjoyed Boracay a whole lot more than Phuket – less crowded, very few Americans, better food, lack of a 'bar girl' scene, and altogether just a better atmosphere. :)