The Philippines (2016)

Business class

On the second leg of our journey to the Philippines, I somehow got bumped up to Business class while the rest of the peasants in my group wasted away back in their dungeon.

Free booze and some pretty nice headphones (considering) were included. I had a glass each of Kavalan and Johnny Walker Black scotches, as well as the glass of sparkling white wine pictured.

I was very impressed by the movie selection on Eva Air. Over the course of four flights that lasted I-don't-even-want-to-think-about-how-long, I watched The Big Short, Carol, Brooklyn and the deservedly-lauded Spotlight. While in Business class, I watched the new Star Wars whilst reclining in luxury with hot towels, fluffier blankets and pillows and a motorized chair.

The food was also better up front, but, I must say, the food was surprisingly good in all classes when compared to other airline food I've had in the past.

Manila

After 16 or 17 hours of flying and a layover in Taipei (awesome airport), we finally arrived in Manila; a big, stinking mess of a city. I'm still not quite sure if these are considered public transportation, but Jeepneys are everywhere, and everyone uses them. Each one is highly personalized.

This is the view from inside the Jeepney. The folks pictured are a few of my travelin' buds. Brandon is closest. Next to him, with face obscured, is Brandon's wife Isa (sp?), and across from them is Brandon's sister, Jennifer. Her boyfriend, Jamaal, is not pictured, nor is Brandon's and Jennifer's dad, Mauro, who is my co-worker and who so kindly invited me along.

I snapped a pic of Dunkin' Donuts from the Jeepney. The Philippines was a colony or territory or whatever of the US for the first half of the 20th Century until gaining independence after WWII. America's influence lingers on to this day, and heavily so. Most Filipinos can speak at least a little English, and many of them can communicate just fine with single-language dunces like myself. American influence is also prominent in the worlds of music and fast food. My anecdotal evidence suggests that Filipinos LOVE classic country music, which is just fine by me! Some American chain restaurants I saw were KFC, McDonald's and, of all places, Kenny Rogers Roasters (wtf!).

Irony

The fellow on the right is Uncle Eddie, Mauro's brother-in-law. He was quite a character. I snapped this in front of a random store, so I'm not sure who the other guy is.

Another random storefront...

B-ball

Basketball (another American import) seems to be the most popular sport in the Philippines. Even waaaay out in the boonies, where we eventually ended up, a court was never far away.

These guys are probably fighters. Cock-fighting, basketball and gambling are all popular pastimes.

I guess it's true of all third-world countries, but stray cats and dogs were rampant in both the city and the country. They were skin and bones, all of them, but friendly just the same. All the females had lengthy nipples.

I tried putting myself in their shoes--poor, uneducated, hopeless, but I just couldn't find a mindset in which I found it acceptable to trash my home like this. Judging from on high though I may be, this is disgusting and unacceptable.

The vast majority of Filipinos are Catholic (a remnant of the three centuries of Spanish rule that preceded America's tenure), and many yards had their own little slices of heaven, often centering around a shrine to Mary like this one.

Las Piñas

The neighborhood in which we stayed in Manila for the first night is called Las Piñas. Mauro's family has a house there, and it was our first stop after the airport. We had lunch. Lunch is not pictured.

I didn't get a picture of our hotel in Manila. It was called the Eurotel. Mauro, Uncle Eddie and I all shared a room, while the two couples each had their own. Our room cost about 3,000 pesos. One dollar equals just shy of 50 pesos, so the room was about $60. It had air conditioning, television, internet and the most marvelous shower. The shower assembly was about four feet tall and hung on the wall. It had like six different heads, all fully and independently adjustable, and it was glorious. Little did I know, but that would be the last shower I'd see for almost two weeks. Not only was it the last shower I'd see, but also the last running hot water, the last internet, the last phone and the last tv. I saw air conditioning along the way, but, alas, twas not for me.

This cute guy is puppy's friend. His name is Kit Kat. While in Manila, we participated in another Filipino pastime: shopping at malls. When we returned to the family house in Las Piñas, Kit Kat had deposited a huge pile of vomit on the driveway, which he did not eat.

Motorcycle taxi

Just like in the movies and on TV, motorcycles are the dominant form of personal transportation in SE Asia. I had no idea there were so many ways to customize a bike. Many were converted into what were basically minivans by dropping a camper shell-like thingy with wheels down over the bike. Like six people could then be hauled around with this setup. Pictured here, I, along with Eddie, are crammed into a covered sidecar. We were taking a taxi to the bus station. The dreaded bus station...

The bus trip

Lord have mercy. The bus company was called Florida, and our destination was a little town called Gonzaga. I'm not sure about the US connections to these names. The only parallels I can think of are Spain and Catholicism. The state of Florida was first colonized by the Spanish, so maybe the bus line and the state both have namesakes back in the madre land? Gonzaga the university is Jesuit, which is Catholic-y, so the college and the Filipino town perhaps share a namesake with something in the good book? I really don't know, though. I'm just throwing Hail Marys.

While awaiting departure, Brandon tried some flame-grilled chicken intestines. The vendor was also selling the famous Filipino delicacy, balut. Balut is a duck embryo that's just chilling there, mostly developed, inside its shell. It's got feathers, eyeballs, wings, bones, beaks...pretty much a little baby duck. To enjoy balut, one cracks the top of the eggshell off and flavors the good part with vinegar and salt. Then you slurp the juice off the top and eat the rest.

The hue of pink we would all be enjoying for the next 14 hours. Just kidding. I think they use pink for the same reason some prisons use pink for their prisoners' jumpsuits: to keep the inmates from rioting. It was night for most of the trip, and for some reason they made us close the curtains, so we couldn't even look out the window. In addition to not being able to look out the window, there was no wifi, no TV and no reading lights. So, our options were pretty slim. We could stare at the seat in front of us, talk quietly to our neighbor or try to sleep. If you know anything about Filipino drivers, you know that sleep only comes when exhaustion overpowers the discomfort of being thrown around like a rag doll and turns the CONSTANTLY beeping horns, which Filipinos have a strange and annoying love affair with, into a lullaby.

We made it!

Early in the morning, the pink bus pulled off the road and came to a stop with a pssssst from the air brakes. We all stood up slowly, careful that our stiff legs not cramp up or collapse beneath us. To my great delight, two huge speakers blared "Islands in the Stream" to welcome us. We would be staying at a compound consisting of three houses. The compound doubles as a working farm as well as a vacation home for the large family which has branched out around the world. We were the last of the family to arrive. The reason the family was coming together this year was to celebrate the family patriarch's 90th birthday.

The view from the middle house's second floor back porch.

The view from the middle house's second floor front porch. Construction had begun on a large awning that would be used at the birthday party/family reunion. The family I stayed with seem to be far wealthier than other families in the area. In general, the other homes are one or two-room cinder block shacks with a little land around them for farming rice. The patriarch, whose birthday we were celebrating, had built up a sort of empire over the years. His now-compound was once just a small house and a bit of land, much like his neighbors' homesteads of today. The entire "barrio," I think they called it, was invited to the party, so upwards of 200 people were expected to come.

The market

A fellow named Benedict, who runs the day-to-day operations of the farm, took me to the market with him on our first day there. We were only at the market briefly, so I didn't get a chance to take pictures of how they display the raw meat. It's just hung up or lying on the table with no packaging whatsoever and no temperature control. If you want a portion, they'll cut it off the slab for you. The market had stalls selling anything you might need. There were a few little restaurants mixed in, as well.

On a separate day, we all went back to the market for halo halo. It's a famous Filipino dessert consisting of crushed ice, various fruits, cream and other stuff. This one had a dollop of caramel on top. I gotta be honest, I found Filipino food to be underwhelming on the whole. I didn't really like it and was happy when I got back to the states. This has nothing to do with flavor, but maybe it does have something to do with food quality. In my travel group, there were five of us who are pretty much American. By that, I mean we had no experience with the Philippines or some experience that happened long ago. Anyway, each and every one of us five became sick at one point or another.

Filipino peso

As I mentioned earlier, around 50 peso equals one American dollar.

The farm

Though we were gathering for a reunion/birthday party, there was still farm work to be done. Here are some of the ducks and chickens.

Around the compound stood this formidable wall.

Look a little closer for a sharper image.

Plants on the farm

They have a banana tree growing in their yard, and they take full advantage. There were fresh bananas at every meal.

That's a banana flower on the end there. They eat it, but I'm not sure how it's used.

I had always thought durian and jack fruit are the same, but apparently I was wrong. This is a jack fruit tree growing on the property.

I never did figure out what these are, though I asked a few people.

Piggies!!!

They had several hogs. Some were breeders, so they got to avoid the slaughter. They became yuge! These gals must have been eight feet long and weigh half a ton, though those are complete guesses. The big ones were the friendly ones, too.

They kept calling these "native" pigs. The others were large white. I think I scored some points with Benedict the farmer when I correctly guessed the breed of the other pigs as large white. Little did he know that I learned that tidbit from watching Babe.

In the Philippines, blacks and whites live together in harmony.

Awwwww, good piggie. Does that feel good? Their hair was so coarse, and their bodies so massive, but they were gentle and seemed to like being scratched. Their eyelids would get heavier and heavier until they closed completely and just enjoyed the moment.

Hogging the attention

I tried to capture how massive these gals were, but a picture just can't do it justice.

Hey, uh, you got any more of them slops?

Country road

The gang and I walked down a country road near the compound to visit Eddie's house.

Same road

First day at the beach

The last thing I expected to happen happened. It was cold in the Philippines! Down in Manila, it was hotter than a $2 pistol, but over the course of that long-ass bus ride north, it proceeded to get cooler and cooler. A storm front was passing through, too. In all honesty, the weather was very nice and temperate. It was probably about 72 degrees and overcast. The air felt cool and clean with a nice breeze which was perfect for pretty much any activity...except swimming. I was asleep the first time the group visited the beach, so I got one of the farmer's sons to take me over on his motorcycle. No helmet! A pretty nice beach was only about a mile from the compound, and secretly I clung to the hope that, though the air temperature might be a bit cool, the water temperature would have retained the heat from previous hot days and be warm as bath water. The water was warm (well, not cold), but I could only really wade in as deep as my knees. Jumping in would definitely have provided a jolt.

Despite the cool water, the view was still scenic.

These fishermen's boats made for a bright oasis of color on a cloudy day.

I believe this is where a small stream or river empties out into the mighty Pacific. It was kind of cool just standing in the middle of it as the water rushed by.

Filipino shower :(

I have said many times before that my favorite invention of all time is the hot shower, so you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered what we'd be bathing with for the next week plus. Did I mention there was no hot water? If you wanted a warm bath, you had to boil the water first.

Jet lag

I woke up very early the first morning on the farm and caught this guy napping. I had to be careful not to alert the dozen guard dogs that were tied up around the property, because as soon as one gets going, the rest chime in. I didn't want to be the insensitive visitor that takes the roosters' favorite job and wakes everyone up in a pre-dawn hour.

Here is the compound's shrine to Mary.

Orchids

The matriarch of the family, who is just months shy turning 90 herself, has a passion for orchids that has lasted a lifetime, and her experience and expertise manifest themselves in the brilliant colors she can produce.

In addition to orchids, the matriarch has a soft spot for roses, as well.

La Sam

We took a day trip to the hometown of Mauro's wife. A relative named Uncle Fred had a very nice house there...with TV! All week long, we had wondered if Bernie won Washington's caucus, and a quick perusal of the international news channels provided no information on that front. By that day, the caucus was days-old news, but with no internet or TV back on the compound, we were in the dark, a truly strange sense of disconnect. Pictured is a cemetery. Like in New Orleans, which my family and I had visited earlier in the year, the people in La Sam (and most other places I saw) keep their dead in above ground mausoleums. I assume this is to prevent grandma from washing up in a typhoon and floating away.

More evidence that Filipinos love basketball. The courts were more often than not filled with kids and young teens having fun. The gambling starts young, too, as I saw kids under 10 betting on their games.

My travel group standing on the banks of two ponds on Uncle Fred's property. One pond farmed tilapia, and the other farmed...

Catfish!

Uncle Fred was no different than many other Filipino men in that he loved his cock fighting. He seemed to be retired and living comfortably, pursuing his hobbies; his hobbies being cock fighting, cards and gambling.

Here's a close-up of Uncle Fred's cock.

A little bird I caught perched on a branch in La Sam.

Final preparations for the party

Upon our return from our day trip to La Sam, we discovered the awning was really beginning to take shape. The date of the party was drawing near.

The slaughter

I felt like it was my duty to watch this, like I owe it to the animals to know how they die just so I can eat them. Thankfully, they didn't mess with the Americano by making me do any of the butchering myself. Baby steps.

It was quite clear these guys had been butchering from a young age. Everyone knew what needed to be done, and someone would always step up to the task before a word was said.

Pretty much nothing went to waste. A few organs were discarded. I think a sack with bile (?) in it was discarded. One of the fellows squeezed whatever the liquid was in the sack out onto his fingers and licked it, making a bitter beer face instantly. He then hung the sack on a nearby nail. I didn't catch what they were, but some parts of the reproductive system were also tossed. The blood, following the initial slit, was gathered in a large bowl. It coagulates, then is cut into cubes, skewered and grilled.

Some of the nasty bits being prepared for cooking.

I didn't catch the name of this small fish, but after doing a little cleaning, lime and salt are added, I believe, and the dish is served kind of like ceviche.

Lechon

This is the famous Filipino dish known as lechon. As far as I can tell, lechon doesn't necessarily have to be a whole pig. It just has to be a whole something. Lechon describes the cooking process more than the ingredients; the process being to slowly barbecue a whole animal. We outsourced this process to someone at the market, and Benedict the farmer, his adorable son Jell-O (short for Angelo) and I all went to pick up the delicacy. A very important job was entrusted to us, and I feel relieved I didn't drop it.

The day of the party

The expectations were fulfilled. There were at least 150 people there and possibly upwards of 200. You can see in the picture how nicely the bamboo awning turned out once the cloth was draped upon it. The two in white are the guests of honor, the patriarch whose 90th birthday we were celebrating and his wife.

There was a full band and an MC. The MC asked that only family members sit off to the side in the family-only area, so I, not wanting to impose, found a place among the natives. Where we were (the Cagayan Valley) is pretty durn rural. I know that I was the only white person I saw on the entire trip, and I'm willing to bet that for some of the younger folk, I was the first white person they'd ever seen in person. Apparently, people were stopping by all week just to get a look at the Americano, and there was no shortage of painfully awkward introductions to people's single daughters. So, there I am sitting alone amongst all these strangers. To be honest, even among the group I traveled with, I only knew Mauro, my co-worker. I had never met his children before, so I was pretty alone. The MC kept things running smoothly. He introduced the grandkids and the kids who all had birthday wishes they'd prepared and which they read after commandeering the mic. A cute little girl had prepared a Hawaiian dance, which always makes me feel uncomfortable. Do I, a virile young man, stare at a gyrating pre-teen girl? Yikes, I called upon all my skills of balance to walk that razor's edge. Some older ladies then got up and took the mic and sang a nice birthday song for the birthday boy, and these little presentations went on for about 20 minutes. And then I heard it. I had mentioned in days prior that I played the guitar, and I JOKINGLY said I would be providing the entertainment for the party. That was a joke people, as signified by the laugh which immediately followed the statement. Apparently, it was taken seriously, though. The MC said something like, "And now, we have a very special visitor who has traveled all the way from Washington D.C. (I'm from Seattle, but no one seems to have heard of Seattle or Washington state). This young man has prepared a short demonstration for you all." At this, my heart sank, and I truly began to panic. Mixed in with panic and nervousness, I was also pissed. No one told me a goddamned thing, and now I was expected to make my international debut in front of 200 strangers. Not even international debut, really. I had never performed to begin with. So I ran and hid. I knew these Filipinos. They're all about peer pressuring you, so I knew that if I stayed it would be this big back and forth in front of EVERYBODY. I just avoided the situation completely, stood up with all eyes upon me, and went inside to get some coffee for 10 minutes. My plan worked, and by the time I got back, the procession was over, and everyone was eating.

"Everyone was looking for you," was what they kept saying. "Where were you?" "I was ambushed! That's where I was." In all honesty, it was a very embarrassing experience, and it made me pretty angry, but now that it was over, I calmed down a little. But, it wasn't over. Far from it. For the next few hours, people whom I had never met kept walking up to me and playing air guitar, pointing to the stage. The band was great, and the guitarist was awesome, so that made things even more intimidating. After the billionth time someone requested I play, I finally began to relent. I hadn't planned on drinking, but if I was going to do this, liquid courage would be a necessity. I started downing drink after drink, and when the booze ran out at my table, I made my way to a table right next to the stage and drank some more. Something that gave me courage happened when the band's singer opened up the stage to whoever wanted to sing. I thought Filipinos love karaoke, but apparently they're just as shy as I am. The band leader kept prodding the crowd for someone to come up, and, finally, someone did. It was the birthday boy himself walking up to the stage to thunderous applause. He sang the most adorable rendition, in broken English, of "God Bless America." Following that, he motioned for his wife to come up to the stage. He got her a chair and sat her down, facing him. He then presented his love with a long-stemmed rose and began to serenade her. It was one of the most touching things I've ever seen, and now I felt ready. Just one more drink. I didn't even have to ask to go on stage, because the peer pressuring had never stopped. The lead singer himself came over to me and brought me up on stage. He gave me a very nice introduction. As for the music, I fell back on the tried and true, a generic 12-bar blues. Once I started, the nerves all began to melt away (not!). As I eased into the song, and the band picked up what I was laying down, things began to fall into place. The dance floor, which had been sparsely populated up to that point suddenly flooded with dancers. I'm sure they were being supportive, having seen how nervous I was when I ran away earlier, but their support helped a lot. I only played a few minutes, and when I was ready to end it, I turned around to the drummer (who was previously the guitarist) and signaled to wind it down, and just like we'd been playing together for years, we hit the outro perfectly and to thunderous applause. I thanked the crowd for having me, and returned to my seat. I was surprised, because I thought I sucked, but I think the band, who did gigs like this for a living, was just stoked to see someone that was halfway decent. They liked me enough to ask me to play with them for the rest of the night! That wasn't happening, but I did go up and play once more. I hate, hate, hate being peer pressured, but without it, I'd never have gone up on that stage and would not have this great story I'll be able to tell for the rest of my life.

Second day at the beach

Oh, boy. All riled up from playing, I spent the rest of the night at the party dancing my behind off. Women, men, groups. I danced with them all, and we had a blast. We closed the party down, which would have been great except for one small detail. I mentioned how no one had remembered to tell me I was scheduled to perform. Well, no one remembered to inform me that the plan was to leave at 5 a.m. the morning after the party to go to the beach. Uggghhh... I was feeling it, and not just the hangover. I was getting sick. I think booze weakens the immune system, and I think I weakened mine enough the night before to allow something to take hold.

We had hired a van to take the whole clan to the beach. As an example of cultural differences, while we all played at the beach, the van drivers we hired also chilled on the sand...with a bottle of liquor they were downing. Hilarious to see, and something you'd never see in the States.

This day was much warmer than the first few rainy, overcast days. In fact, it got downright hot, but the water remained a bit chilly for my taste. Besides, as I mentioned, I was getting sick, so I stayed out of the water for the most part and slept on the sand instead. I applied sunblock, but I didn't do a good job, as evidenced by the fucked-up red splotches, which are now peeling, that give me the appearance of leprosy.

Another fisherman's boat.

This guy set up his own floating fishing shack. It looked very relaxing to me.

I'm not sure what the sticks are for. I'm guessing they are used in netting fish somehow. To find out the true reason, I'd have to go to school. Get it? School?

My last day on the farm

The weather was beautiful. Sadly, I had spent most of the previous two days in bed sick. I'm not sure what I had, but my symptoms were fever, body aches, lots and lots of congestion and coughing, headache and pretty severe weakness. My hosts really came through for me, and I am forever grateful. They waited on me hand and foot, and even got me some antibiotics, which are sold OTC there.

One of the farmhands got a hold of my camera and took some shots of his cute little boy.

Last trip to the beach

My travel group was staying another two weeks, but I had to leave earlier to get back to work. I could not have asked for a more perfect Filipino sunset than the one we enjoyed that night.

Low tide let us explore the abundance of life in the tidal pools. There were starfish everywhere, and sea urchins, fish, crabs and many other things from alien planets.

For all of about 30 seconds, the setting sun popped out from behind the clouds and played a brilliant swan song before retiring beneath the waves.

The bus trip home was even longer...ugh

17 hours. 17 hours on a bus. Mauro had paid one of his relatives to accompany me to Manila, so I wouldn't have to travel alone. That was very thoughtful of him, but this gentleman spoke barely a word of English, and I spoke barely a word of Tagalog or Ilocano. There was not much conversing for the duration, but that's ok. The bus' sound system, with bass cranked classlessly loud, filled the silence with American classic country from the likes of Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, Patsy Cline and on and on and on. I personally love the genre and found it to be a pleasant surprise. Once the country playlist ran out, they switched to soft rock. I never dreamed I'd hear Eye in the Sky by the Alan Parsons Project on a Filipino charter bus. Oh, and what's up with this picture, you say?

Now you see.

Taipei airport

The Taipei airport was pretty incredible. It was very techy, and they put a lot of effort into giving the place a touch of class. They had many areas set up for relaxation, like the one pictured. Massage chairs are just out of frame.

Here's one of the many high-end shops they had up and down the terminals. I thought the glassware here was really beautiful, but way out of my price range! Sorry, Mom!