Back in the states again.

In my last months in the Philippines I had allot of good times, from hiking to the top of Mount Pinatubo to a couple memorable nights out on the town in Manila. None of which compare to my time in Thailand, but were no less enjoyable for it! That said, I don’t think I’ll be posting about them here. If you want to hear about them you’ll need to take me out for a pint. -grin-

Living abroad, no matter where I’m sure, is a growing experience. One learns how little one really knows, while learning more about oneself. Culture shock gives us opportunities to learn about ourselves. While slowly simmering in Manila traffic I looked around and wondered why none of the Filipinos seemed to be bothered in the slightest; an opportunity to ask why and discover something about myself and about them. I know now that I have an attachment to being productive, that the amount of things I’m able to accomplish in one day is tied to my sense of self worth. Being stuck in traffic I was not able to get much done, for many Filipinos it’s an opportunity to relax and listen to music (loud music).

I was blessed to live with some of the coolest cats around. Thank you, David and Kellie, for allowing me into your lives. Living in the same house we were unable to hide from one another, good and bad. I hope that you have both been as blessed by the experience as I. I will miss most our languid Sunday afternoons on the couch just being, without an agenda, content just to relax. I miss you both very much already. Give those dogs a squeeze for me.

The things I missed the most about the states have failed to excite me. Perhaps it’s because I’m so used to them… like picking up a familiar coat that’s spent the night on a hook in the closet. It was so nice to drop into the grocery store and grab a few things on the way home, but I did not get the tingle of satisfaction I was anticipating. It has been terrific to see my family and friends again! That has it’s own challenges also.

I said goodbye to Manila and the Philippines while Roland (Kellie’s driver) drove me to the airport at 4 AM. No longer exotic, but not yet home it was easy to say goodbye to the city. Much harder to say goodbye to David at the door. I spent two hours in various lines before getting on the plane for Hong Kong. I was in Hong Kong by 8:30 and at Camilla’s hotel downtown by 10:30, we had a nice dim sum lunch and I escorted her to the express train to the airport. I would really enjoy spending some more time in Hong Kong! I think I’d need at least a week to get a feel for it, but my sense is that I could spend a year or two there and not get tired of it. A gorgeous city in an amazing setting, with culture to boot.

I was at the gate ready to board the plane by 5 PM and 12 hours later I was in San Francisco. Don and Jamie meet me at the airport and I was in bed at Don’s house by 10 PM. I got up at 3 AM (think you jet lag) and was in Twisp at 8:30 to have coffee with Chelsie (my cousin). Strange to go so far so quickly!

It’s COLD here! I don’t get much sympathy for that from people who live here, but I’m sure everyone from Manila could huddle under blankets and commiserate with me.

-Interlude of a couple weeks-

So, it’s taken me some time to pick this up again and get to writing. A train trip’s the perfect thing for it. I’m on my way from Seattle to Portland, OR for a visit with lovely Leah Nault. In a couple days I’ll go on to Eugene, OR to see my family.

I am excited about leaving the States again. I miss the hug of humid warmth and the vibrant life of the streets. If I were not leaving Guyana I would be saving to book a one-way ticket to Hong Kong, and a round trip ticket to Bangkok (to enter Thailand you need some proof that you’ll be leaving). I’m sure I could find a job teaching English, and finding a life amongst the hustle and bustle would be as easy as finding coffee in Seattle.

I’m sure that there will be things I’ll miss when I leave again, and I’ll defiantly miss my people, but I will not miss the life I had here. It seems so stressful, while at the same time prosaic… if that’s possible. Here we spend so much time doing, running here an there accomplishing this and that, planning our day’s with task lists and agendas. In many of the countries I visited in Asia, as strange as it seems, it’s easier to just be… to be where you are at rather than running here and there. If you see a group of people standing along the street you will probably wonder what they are DOING, while in Bangkok or Manila you would, after a while, not wonder what they were doing… and if you stay long enough you might notice that they are, for the most part, relaxed and content.

Permission, not to be lazy, but to exist in simplicity. I’d like a year or two to explore the bounds of purpose… what is, and what is not necessary or beneficial. I have some ideas (another beer conversation), but that’s what I’d explore while there.

Bangkok

I fear that this post will not due justice to my experience in Bangkok. This, in addition to my general laziness of late, has been the reason for my delay in posting. At this point I’m resigned to failure and am willing to savor the experience myself and share what little I can in this medium. My one regret while there was that I had not brought someone along to share the experience with.

Compared to Manila, Bangkok is cleaner and easier to get around. It did not impress me with nice buildings, beautiful parks or terrific surroundings. Manila is situated in a location more to my liking: surrounded by lush mountains and pushed up against Manila Bay. If Manila took advantage of these it could become an amazing, gorgeous city. (I don’t recommend holding your breath.) Bangkok’s skyline cant shake a stick at any number of cities I have been to: Seattle, Vancouver, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Paris, all of which have more impressive skylines and nicer parks. What sets Bangkok apart in my mind is more elusive and hard to define, but if forced to say, it would be the spirit and grace of the people there. Most of the time I felt like an honored guest.

Of course there are the normal things that a western tourist must deal with: the taxi cab driver that wants to scam you, the guides hocking their services outside attractions, and paying more cause you look like you have money. I know now that the taxi cab driver went the long way around the city from the airport to the hotel and had me pay the expressway toll to do it. One begins to expect these sorts of things when traveling. They are the cost of being new, an initiation of sorts.

I spent my time trekking off to Wats (Thai Buddhist temples), markets and the Grand Palace, eating fantastic food in hole-in-the-wall restaurants near my hotel, and drinking copious amounts of Heineken with my book at the pool. If you are in Bangkok you absolutely must go to see the Grand Palace, it lives up to its name. It is a large compound, but nothing like the size of some European palaces such as Versailles. What the Grand Palace lacks in size it more than makes up in richness; absolutely everything has character and in most cases meaning. As you can see in my photos below it’s gorgeous also.

It was so surreal to be on my way to the 7-11 for beer and need to wait for the elephant to pass by before crossing he street. I had two such occurrences while in Bangkok and it was a bit shocking both times. One min I am going to cross the street and instinctively stop for the large object coming my way (in Thailand they drive on the left side of the road – a bad habit they got from the Britts), and then you realize that its walking and flapping it’s ears. The first time it happened I stood dazed for a moment before grinning like a kid at the zoo.

I LOVED going out wandering after dark. At first I was a little scared, but I got over that quickly. Streetlights are not ubiquitous; the streets are lit, for the most part, by shop signs and light spilling out of restaurants. Along the sidewalk are food carts with glowing charcoal on which some Thai dish is cooking. In-between the shops and the street are people sitting out eating and talking. Cats lounge around waiting for a fallen scrap. They look so at home with people walking near their resting spot that you might mistakenly think that you could pick one up to pet.

If I were not leaving for the Peace Corps, I would have seriously considered staying in Bangkok for a year or two teaching English. I enjoyed it that much.

Inside The Grand Palace:


Fountain inside Wat Pho:


Wat Arun from Mae Nam Chao Phraya:

Singapore

Several days after returning from Cebu City I got on another plane to Singapore. Thank God that the plane was not full because this discount airline has asian size seats. I was able to have a row to myself where I could sit sideways, otherwise I and the person in front of me would have been quite uncomfortable. The three-hour flight went by quickly with my iPod and book. My longtime friend Ronnie Jones was at the airport to meet me. He’s been working for the Singaporean subsidiary of Microsoft for a couple years now, and had kindly (and forcibly ) invited me to visit.

Singapore is a well-oiled machine; it hums with productivity and efficiency. The contrast with Manila is jarring: it could take you two and a half hours to get across Manila, while getting from one side of Singapore to the other only takes 25 min on public transportation. I don’t go out much in Manila because it’s just too much of a headache, but I felt very comfortable getting around Singapore after only 6 days. Clearly my impressions of Singapore are colored by my time in the Philippines. I wonder how it would seem coming from the States.

I imagine that, if I were to live in many places in Southeast Asia, I’d save up to go shopping in Singapore. Shopping is, somewhat jokingly, referred to as their national sport. When I visit Hong Kong I’ll let you know which I think is better for shopping. Not that many reading this will ever really care which is better – know this though, for expats living in Manila this will be valuable information. You should have seen Davie’s eyes when I told him that I saw a home-brewing store in Singapore. (You mean we don’t have to have it shipped from the states!?) Where Manila has great malls (I could write an entry just about malls and culture in Manila), Singapore has shopping along many nice streets.

Singapore is by far the most attractive city I’ve been to in while in Asia. The buildings, cars (licenses only last for 10 years), stores, etc. are all new. It has nice parks, even if it is too hot to go for walks in them. All the food I had was good or great, even if the service is not. Singapore says its at the crossroads of the worlds waterways (probably true – one of the busiest ports in the world), and they defiantly live like it.

For most western travelers, I don’t know that Singapore has anything compelling to make them visit. That said, if you are spending time in SE Asia, even as a visitor, it would be a terrific pit stop. Flights to and from many destinations in Asia are quite inexpensive making Singapore a great hub for someone spending time here. If you are interested in economic development Singapore defiantly merits your interest, it truly is an amazing experiment gone well.

You can read more details regarding Singapore at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

A special thanks to Ronnie and Rose for making my stay in Singapore so pleasant. It was so nice to visit with both of them and have Ronnie show me around. We walked so much! It was just my style.

I think these are a kind of Bird of Paradise. Took this photo in the park near Ronnie’s home.



Lotus flowers for sale outside the temples.



Typical intersection along Orchard Street.

Cebu City

My introduction to Cebu City was through the docks which are not her best side. I hopped in a taxi and asked for a certain hotel (I forget the name) he said it was no good and that I should stay at another. Getting in this taxi was my first mistake and my second was taking his advice. When we showed up at the Hotel de Mercedes the jerk wanted 150 Pesos for the taxi ride. I looked at him and asked “What does the meter say?" “No meter sir.” I told him that it was a rip-off and that he should be ashamed of himself. He was suitably shocked, and I paid him. (Truly it was a rip off… should have been a third of that.)

The Hotel de Mercedes is a block off of the main drag of downtown (not uptown) Cebu City: Colon Street. I don’t have any photos of Colon Street because I did not feel comfortable walking around with a camera. It has to be one of the most (if not the most) disgusting places I’ve been. Dilapidated, unpainted cement buildings covered in grime, dirty smelly air, sex industry establishments, dirty begging people following and touching. I had set out to get on the Internet and get some food, but I gave up. Not because I could not find either… I just could not handle either. I saw the sign for the Internet access place, but could not bring myself to go down that ally. I spent a day at the hotel with the air con on and Hollywood movies. I took my meals down in the hotel restaurant with the older European men and their younger Filipino girls. I only stayed here one night. It was truly a strange experience.

The next day I was able to meet up with Jeff Hopp, a friend from my days at Microsoft. Jeff, Melissa, Keri and Jay were in Cebu City for the opening of a new call center there. It was so great and strange to see familiar faces in such a place. They were staying at the Shangri La Resort on Mactan Island, which is the site of Magellan’s death in the Battle of Mactan on his way around the world. It was fun and relaxing to hang out with Jeff et all by the pool and on the beach. Jeff and I took a snorkeling trip, which was amazing. Jeff has photos, which I hope to be able to share at some point in the future. For now, some photos of us drinking will need to suffice:



View towards Cebu City from the Shangri La:

Bundok

The word boondocks (see http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=boondocks) became a part of the American lexicon after GIs returned from the Philippines post WWII. In most Filipino languages bundok means ‘mountain,’ and in the Philippines there are many mountains. In Alaska boondocking means to go to uncharted country; trekking off to where nobody else goes. Portions of the Philippines, I have been told, have yet to be mapped properly… they are the domain of the jungle; monkeys are still kings in some places. Some of the islands are so rough that tribes on opposite sides of the islands speak different languages that are incomprehensible to the other tribe.

I wish that I could write to you about some true boondocking, but I am truly not ready for that. Perhaps after I’ve got some Tagalog under my belt, and don’t feel like a fish out of water when out and about in the Philippines I’ll go off for some rural Philippines experience. For now my trip from Boracay to Cebu City will need to suffice.

I took a pump boat from Boracay to Caticlan and jumped on a bus to Iloilo. This six hour bus ride cost me just over $6, it was one of the best investments I’ve made while in the Philippines. The grossly underpowered bus chugged along gorgeous beaches, rocky cliffs, jungle and terraced rice paddies. Green everywhere!

The trip was like a venture into many of the movies depicting Vietnam. Most of the movies regarding the Vietnam War are filmed in the Philippines, a fact which Filipinos are quite proud of. Scenes of rice terraced carved out of the bamboo, palm and vine jungle from movies seemed to be displayed before my eyes. The only thing missing was the big beige hats on the bent workers in the patties; Filipinos wear old shirts over their head.

I had thoughts of staying the night in Iloilo along the way, but as soon as I was there I knew I wanted to move on. I arrived in Iloilo at 4:30 and was on the over night ferry to Cebu by 6. The ferry was not entirely uneventful: I got a massage onboard. At the end of the message the woman asked me if I’d like a ‘happy ending.’ I looked at her, apparently my confusion was evident… she grabbed my nethers and shook them. “You want?” She shook her head, my eyes grew large and I shook mine – the opposite direction she was shaking hers.

I arrived in Cebu the next morning rested and knowing which way to shake my head after a new question.

Rice patties along the road:

Boracay

The day after Thanksgiving David, Kellie, Matt and several other expats from Manila meet in Boracay for the weekend. We flew from Manila to Caticlan on Panay Island, which is not much more than an airport and boat terminal, then got on a pump boat to Boracay. When you arrive in Boracay be sure to be wearing shorts because the boat drops you off about 15 feet from the water’s edge.

Boracay is a little island: a couple hills several kilometers apart with a narrow strip of sand and jungle running north-south between them. White Beach is on the west (leeward) side of the island, and is probably the best-known beach in the Philippines. Clear, shallow, blue water bordered by fine white sand stretches for 3 kilometers. At the top of the beach, behind several meters of palm trees, is the sand path that is the pedestrian thoroughfare running by resorts, restaurants, dive shops, etc.

While in Boracay we did things appropriate for a tropical island: read books on the beach, swam, sunbathed, ate, drank cocktails while watching the sunset, etc. Matt finished up his scuba certification, princess 1 (Kellie) and princess 2 (Rachel) had a day at the spa, and I had three days of kite boarding lesions. For the five days spent there I have the following: a bit of a tan, scars on my knees from being dragged across coral by a big kite, a higher chance of developing skin cancer, a card that says I still need kite boarding lesions, and some very nice memories.

When it was nice out I was not towing my camera… so there aren’t allot of pictures of my stay in Boracay:

Sand castle on White Beach:


The sunset reflected in clouds:


Rainstorm from my hut:


White beach:

Corregidor

I wrote this post on the last weekend just after our trip, but the upload process for the photos crapped out and I've just got back to finishing it.

I don't think I can do this place justice; imposable to capture the echoes of distant events ringing there. So I'm not really going to try. Just know that I was affected by this place: connected to a part of history that until my visit had seemed so remote and obscure.

Corregidor's known history starts in the 13th century when Chinese pirates used it as a base of operations. When the Spanish showed up in the Philippines they used it to protect Manila bay and impose taxes on trade in and out of Manila. To the south of the island a sea battle occurred between the Spanish and Americans... the American's one ship destroyed the Spanish’s fleet. To be fair, the one ship was made of steel and had guns that could fire several miles, while the Spanish were in wooden boats with cannons that could only fire a mile.

In WWII it was the last hold-out of the US before the Japanese took Luzon (the big island that Manila is on), and the site of MacArthur’s speech "I will return." (MacArthur had called the Philippines home for many years at that point.) It was also the last battleground when the Americans retook the Philippines.

It's hard to communicate the violence that took place there... at one point the Japanese, unwilling to surrender, detonated their own munitions killing two thousand of their own men and hundreds of Americans and Filipinos. In the end, they say, not a single tree was left standing on the whole island.

Despite our sappy tour guide and his stories of seeing ghosts, I did get a sense of the spirit of the place. It's hard to believe that we do that kind of stuff to each other.

If you'd like to learn more about Corregidor a good place to start is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corregidor

Leaving dirty smoggy Manila behind… Corregidor is about 50 Km from Manila.


Arriving.


The bombed out ruins of the Officer’s Club.


The jungle is only as old as the ruins are.


















So many bullet holes.


















Looking west towards Manila 50 Km away. The sky eats the sea here... a contest to see who can hold more water.














Kellie arranged our outing. From left to right: Paul, Camilla, Kellie, David, Matt, Janet and I.