Days 197 - 206: The Philippines

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2064359&l=28472&id=1101094

We managed to wake to our alarms the following morning just after 4am, and a few hours later we were airborne, Manila-bound. Or at least we thought we were Manila-bound. We actually touched down at Clark Airport, formerly known as Clark Airforce Base, which was a good two hour bus ride north of Manila. But AirAsia, the only airline with cheap flights from Kuala Lumpur to Manila, only flies into Clark, so the bus ride was our penance for the cheap ticket.

We arrived in Manila proper in the mid-afternoon, fought our way onto a metro car, and got off within walking distance of the main hostel area in town. Already dripping with sweat, we checked into a place that had air-conditioned dorm beds for just under $10. Not exactly cheap, but as we'd find out, the Philippines is a bit more expensive than the rest of Southeast Asia.

We dropped our packs and set off for Intramuros, Manila's historical district. We checked out a couple cathedrals, a fort, and some charming Spanish Colonial architecture, but much of what once stood in the district was destroyed during Allied and Japanese bombings during World War II. Nevertheless, it had been nearly five years since I'd backpacked through Europe stopping at cathedral after cathedral, so I appreciated the sights. Right now it's mosques and Buddhist temples, not churches, that I'm sick of.

Walking through the streets of Manila, one thing quickly came to our attention: the large number of fat, old, white men who were walking around with young, good-looking Filipino girls. As we'd find out over the course of the next ten days, sex tourism is alive and well in the Philippines, probably more so than anywhere else in Southeast Asia (even more than in Thailand, which is quite a statement).

That night we ate dinner at a cheap Chinese restaurant (Filipino restaurants, aside from the dreaded glass cases, are strangely hard to find in Manila), and afterward we ventured out onto the Manila streets to check out the local bar scene. In the process, we ran across about 20 (no exaggeration) more old white man/ young Filipino girl couples, many of whom were sitting in the bars at tables near ours. The whole thing is quite pathetic; the couples don't talk at all (even though everyone in Manila speaks perfect English), and the girls, in particular, look supremely bored. It's clear that the trip to the bar serves only to make both parties feel better about the cash/sex transaction; if they go to a bar together, they reason, then it's not prostitution, it's a relationship. Right.

The best part about Manila nightlife, as it turned out, was San Miguel Beer, or "SMB" as it's known locally. At about 50 cents per bottle in a bar, SMB might be the cheapest beer I've ever drank, with the possible exception of random local beers in China. And it tastes quite good, too.

After visiting a couple low-key bars, we stopped in at a place that had live music and caught a couple local bands doing covers of Western rock songs. One of the bands was fantastic, and did an incredible cover of "Zombie" by The Cranberries; the other was awful, and we promptly left. But the experienced impressed upon us just how ingrained American culture is in the Philippines-- instead of the usual mainstream covers that you hear all over Southeast Asia, these bands played mostly off-the-run American songs, some of which I'd never even heard. These people know American pop culture better than most Americans.

And it doesn't stop with the music. American food, fashion, and entertainment are all over Manila, too. McDonald's is everywhere, which is no great feat, but so is Wendy's, which is. And if fast food's not your thing, how about T.G.I. Friday's? And everyone you pass in Manila is wearing American brands-- Nike, in particular, is everywhere. And the local movie plays nothing but American movies, none of which are dubbed or subtitled. And all the billboards are in English too. Get the picture? This place is a tropical USA.

Fittingly, then, the following morning I headed for none other than the US Embassy. I needed extra passport pages before I could get my Vietnamese visa, and my plan was to stop by the American Embassy, get the pages inserted while I waited, and then head right for the Vietnamese Embassy. No such luck. First of all, the embassy was mobbed, even though I got there ten minutes before it opened. I took a number and waited for it to be called, which somehow took an hour even though I was the tenth or so person in line. Then, when I finally got to the window, I was told that my passport wouldn't be ready for pickup until 3pm. What? It takes about two minutes to tape some extra pages into my passport, and I have to wait seven hours? Every other embassy I know of does it on the spot.

Then, as I was about to leave, I was told I had to go to the cashier, who was in a totally different room, and get a receipt for my payment. My payment? Weren't extra pages free? Yes, but I still needed a receipt. So I need a receipt that says I paid zero dollars for these passport pages? Yes. For a moment, I felt embarrassed to be an American.

I waited in line for another fifteen minutes for my receipt, and then I marched out of the building, without my passport, of course. I'd have to come back at 3pm on the dot if I hoped to make it to the Vietnamese Embassy before it closed.

During the middle of the day Ian and I went for a run and then caught a movie at the main shopping mall-- there just wasn't a lot else to do in Manila. At 3pm I picked up my passport without any trouble (besides the fact that it was sitting on a counter in plain view from 2:30 onward, but the woman at the window wouldn't give it to me because "pickup hours didn't start until 3pm") and headed for the Vietnamese Embassy, where, to my surprise, I received my visa in ten minutes. So, extra passport pages at the US Embassy are supposed to take half an hour but instead take seven hours, while a visa at the Vietnamese Embassy is supposed to take two to three days but instead takes ten minutes. And who is the modern, efficient country in this scenario?

Back at the guesthouse, we packed up our belongings and Ian went to get his BlackBerry, which he had left charging in an outlet in the guesthouse's common space. It wasn't there. We immediately asked everyone-- guesthouse staff, fellow backpackers, cleaning crew-- if they had seen the device, but no one had (and no one seemed particularly concerned, either). Clearly, someone who was most likely still in the guesthouse had swiped the $400 piece of equipment, and they had done it right under the noses of everyone else in the room. Had the theft honestly gone unobserved? Did the staff really know nothing about it?

We decided to call Ian's number from my Skype account to see if the phone was still turned on; we also hoped that we'd hear the ring if it was hidden somewhere in the guesthouse. But the perpetrator had already turned the phone off, and, by our estimation, very well may have already sold the thing as well. Fuming, but out of options, we left a notice for the guesthouse to put on their bulletin board that offered a $25 reward for the return of the BlackBerry, no questions asked. We checked at the guesthouse the next two times we passed through Manila, but they hadn't even posted the notice. We figured that was because they knew who had taken it and knew it wasn't coming back.

After leaving the guesthouse sans-BlackBerry, we fought our way onto yet another crowded metro train car and took the train to the bus station, where we'd catch an overnight bus to Legazpi. But before we get to Legazpi, a quick word about the metro: though overwhelmingly hot and crowded, it's fast and cheap, which more than makes up for all the sweaty bodies. But the particularly annoying thing, for us, was that all bags had to be inspected before entering any metro station, I guess because of Muslim separatist-related violence that has occurred in the past. For us, that meant unpacking our backpacks every time we boarded the metro, which was exasperating to say the least. Perhaps the most frustrating part is that none of the police officers ever actually inspected our bags; I could have had a big bomb at the bottom of my pack and they never would have found it. My feeling is, if you're going to inspect bags, then inspect them, and make absolutely sure that there's nothing suspicious inside. If you're just going to go through the motions, don't waste my time.

We arrived at the bus station and found a staggering variety of Legazpi-bound buses: regular, express, A/C, no A/C, 2x1 (seat arrangement), 2x2, 3x2. Prices ranged from 300 pesos (~$7) to 900 pesos (~$22). Predictably, we chose the 300 peso bus, which had no A/C and a 3x2 seat configuration.

What, exactly, is a 3x2 seat configuration, you ask? It means that three people sit on one side of the aisle, and two sit on the other. The catch, of course, is that a bus with a 2x2 or 2x1 seat configuration is exactly the same width as a bus with a 3x2 seat configuration, so a 3x2 bus is simply more crowded. In our case, we ended up on the 3 side of the bus, and even when Ian and I were the only ones in the seat, we couldn't sit up straight without our shoulders overlapping. We were less than enthused, then, when they tried to stick a third man into the seat.

Tried being the key word. He squeezed and clawed and held his breath, but it was no use. He just didn't fit in between the side of my body and the metal bar that served as the seat's armrest. So they stuck a kid next to me, instead; he didn't really fit, either, and I'm sure he ended up with a huge bruise on his leg from the metal bar that was pressed into him, but no one seemed too concerned about all that.

We passed the night miserably: with the kid in the seat with us, Ian and I couldn't both sit back in the seat: one of us had to lean forward, and the other had to lean back. We dozed on and off the entire night, intermittently changing our positions and slamming our foreheads on the window frame or the metal seatback in front of us. We arrived in Legazpi around 8am feeling about as fresh as the food in those Indonesia glass case restaurants.

In Legazpi, which is several hundred miles east of Manila but still on the same island (Luzon), we hoped to plan trips to Donsol, which was two hours south of Legazpi, to swim with whale sharks, and to Mt. Mayon, which was an hour north of Legazpi, to do some hiking. When we checked into prices for both activities, however, we found that hiking Mayon was fairly expensive, and based on the pictures we saw in the office of the company who ran the hikes, we wouldn't be missing much if we didn't climb the mountain. So, after a bit of deliberation, we decided to bag the mountain climb and just go to Donsol, and then devote the extra time to Puerto Galera, on Mindoro Island, so that Ian could get his PADI scuba diving certification.

We had to wait around for a couple hours for the minibus to Donsol to fill up, but once it did the trip was speedy and we arrived in just over an hour. We went straight to the whale shark visitor center, where we reserved seats on a boat that left the following morning. Then we headed to town and dropped our bags at a local family's home that doubled as a guesthouse.

That afternoon we went for a jog and then spent a couple hours on the beach, which wasn't particularly attractive or clean. But then, we hadn't come to Donsol for the beach. That evening, we ate some Filipino window food with a couple other backpackers-- a girl from New York and a guy from Paris-- and then all four of us went to the local basketball tournament that was going on in the park.

This was no pickup, shirts 'n skins basketball tournament, but an organized affair complete with coaches, uniforms, and even announcers. And the entire town was present. Literally. When we arrived we couldn't even find a seat. But then the locals saw the poor foreigners wandering around looking for somewhere to sit and took pity on us, and before long we were sitting courtside, at midcourt, between the two teams' benches. I felt like Jack Nicholson.

We watched two games, and both were fantastic. The first came down to the final seconds, and the second involved a huge comeback and then a four-point play with only a few seconds remaining to send the game into overtime. All in all, it was some of the best entertainment I'd had on the entire trip, and best of all it wasn't made for tourists in the least. Finally, I felt like I was experiencing actual Filipino culture. And Filipinos love their basketball.

We didn't make it to bed until quite late that night, and we were still groggy when our alarm rang the following morning at 6:45. But we successfully dragged ourselves out of bed and down to the departure point for the whale shark boats, and a few minutes later we were out in the open ocean, with our eyes peeled for the largest fish in the world. An hour later, we still hadn't spotted anything, and Ian and I were passed out, to the other passengers' amusement.

This went on for another couple hours, and by 11am, our supposed ending time, we still hadn't seen anything. But the crew of the boat took pity on us, stopped to refill the petrol tank, and took us back out to sea. About an hour later, we had spotted a whale shark. It was a baby, measuring "only" four meters.

We approached the shark and when we were close enough, the boat crew gave us the go-ahead and we all plunged into the water. A few seconds later, we were swimming right beside the huge fish, which was itself swimming slowly in a circle just below the surface. It didn't seem at all disturbed by our presence, and I was able to swim in front of it and take a look at its huge, distinctive mouth. For a while, it was only the eight of us in the water, but then some of the other boats got wind of our find and came motoring over to join the party. Half an hour later, the place was a mob scene, and something like 40 snorkelers surrounded the shark. I'm amazed the thing didn't just swim off. When we had had enough, we climbed back out of the water and into the boat, but not before I slid my hand down the fish's monstrous dorsal fin. I just couldn't help myself.

That afternoon we caught a jeepney back to Legazpi, and from there an overnight bus to Manila. Wait, you say, what the hell is a jeepney? Well, it's a strange looking vehicle with a jeep for its front but an elongated back that holds two benches (much like the Thai sawngthaew) and packs the people inside it. The first jeepneys were made from old American jeeps, but now they're made from scratch. They're usually painted in bright colors, and they're prevalent all over the country, but especially so in Manila, where one passes about every 1.3 seconds.

Anyway, we passed this particular jeepney ride on the roof of the vehicle, because the inside was full. That was good for climate control, but not so good for our rear ends, which were in bad shape by the time we arrived in Manila the following morning.

Our overnight bus arrived in Manila at 4:30am, and we waited out the sunrise at a 24 hour McDonald's just down the road from the bus station. Then, once the metro started running, we caught a train to Friendly's Guesthouse to check on Ian's BlackBerry (no luck), and from there we started an epic journey to find the Chinese Embassy, which no one seemed to be able to locate. In the end, the journey was pointless, as I'd have to be back to pick up my passport while we still planned to be in Puerto Galera. I decided to wait and get the visa in Hanoi.

We caught a bus south to Batangas port and a boat from Batangas to Mindoro Island, and in just a few hours we were on Sabang Beach in Puerto Galera. Well, beach is a stretch, as the sand was now basically taken over by countless restaurants and dive shops. But that was ok, because we were there to dive.

We decided to do our diving at a place called Capt'n Greg's, which was owned by an Australian who talked in an accent that was totally intelligible, even to his closest friends. We just waited for him to finish talking, and then everyone laughed politely. He could have been cursing us all out, and still we all would have given him nice, polite laughs in return.

Ian booked his Open Water course, and I decided to do my Advanced course, which involved five "Adventure" dives that I most likely would have done anyway. We were content to go to bed early and get a good start on our courses the following morning, but my instructor, a Welsh ex-military guy named Mark, was determined to take us out and introduce us to Sabang that evening. Totally unaware of what we were getting ourselves into, we said sure.

Over the course of the next few hours, Mark took us to a series of "discos" which were not really discos at all. They were strip clubs. No, that's not exactly true, either. They were strip clubs that doubled as whorehouses. At every one of the clubs, every girl who was sitting on a stool, dancing on the stage, working behind the bar-- you name it-- was a prostitute. Mark was nice enough to explain for us the rules of the game, which I'll summarize for you now:

There are no pimps in Sabang. Instead, there are mamacitas. Each prostitute works for a mamacita, and if you want to take a girl out of the bar, you have to pay her mamacita 1000 Pesos ($25). From there, you negotiate directly with the girl, but Mark said the going rate was another 1000 Pesos. Is that a good deal? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but based on the number of old, white men who were hanging around the discos in Sabang, it must not be a total rip-off. Seriously, you've never seen so many Johns in your life. Sitting there watching them all made my stomach turn.

But despite what seemed to me to be a preponderance of Johns, according to Mark it was the low season for (sex) tourism, and that meant that the girls would be more aggressive in trying to drum up business. He said it with a smile, as if it were a good thing, but let me assure you that it was absolute hell. At every club we entered, girls would come up behind Ian and me and put their arms around us and rub our chests, or our legs, or... well, they rubbed lots of places. It was possibly the most embarrassingly awkward situation I'd ever found myself in, and the worst part was that we couldn't leave because we were a guest of Mark's, with whom I'd be spending the next three days underwater. Put it this way: I wasn't about to do something to make the guy dislike me.

Mark, by the way, and another Westerner who was with us whose name I don't recall, were free from the girls' attacks. That was because they each had their "girlfriends" along-- Filipino girls they had met in Sabang that had, at one point, been dancers in these very clubs. I guess their girlfriends were relieved to be rid of the chore of dancing in these clubs, but they were still very much involved in their original trade, prostitution. It's just that now it happened to be monogamous prostitution.

As the night wore on and Ian and I continued to ward off the advances of the many girls who felt it was acceptable to grope us, Mark clearly grew impatient. He obviously wasn't going to be satisfied until we had picked out two of these girls and taken them home, and at each club he would pan the room and then say, "OK, which one do you like?" "Um, how about, NONE OF THEM?" Some of these girls were seriously 14 years old. It was disturbing, sad, wrong, all of the above... but mostly I just found it disgusting.

Finally, when we had visited at least six or seven different "discos," Mark finally got the hint that this wasn't our scene and said he was off to meet a friend. Thank God. Left alone in the last club, we waited until he was safely down the road and then bolted back to our guesthouse, shivering the filth from our bodies as we walked.

Over the course of the following three days, we learned to hate Sabang and everyone in it. There are really only two types of inhabitants of the town: Filipino girls, all of whom are prostitutes, and white men, all of whom employ said prostitutes. There's nothing else. What about the dive shops, you ask? Well, the men who work there are white and pay for sex, and the women who work there are Filipino and are prostitutes on the side. I'm dead serious. It's just that simple.

And another thing about Sabang's flesh trade: it's not the discreet form of prostitution that exists in many places across the world. It's completely in your face. Fat, old, white men walk around holding hands with their prostitutes. They take them to restaurants and bars. They go scuba diving with them. As far as I'm concerned, they might as well do the dirty deed right in front of me too-- I probably wouldn't be much more disgusted than I already am.

But one thing did change for me during those four days in Sabang-- slowly my anger toward and condemnation of the men involved in this dirty business changed to something else: it changed to pity. I looked at these disgusting excuses for men and found them to be not morally reprehensible, not fatally flawed, but totally and completely pathetic. If these men were able to look themselves in the mirror each morning and say, "Yes, this is the life I choose to lead, and I'm proud of it," I'd be shocked.

Perhaps the most disheartening moment during those four days for Ian and I was meeting Bob's wife. Bob was Ian's dive instructor; an American ex-Marine now in his 70s, Bob had been responsible for surveillance of Russian submarines during the Cold War. He was now retired, and sometime over the past 15 years his wife had died, and he had remarried and now lived in Sabang and worked as a dive instructor. During the first two days of Ian's course, he mentioned his new wife multiple times, referring to her as "the light of his life." Ian and I both assumed he had met some American girl after his wife died, married her, and moved to Sabang with her to live out both of their last years in a tropical paradise. Then we met his wife-- a Filipino girl who couldn't have been more than 25. That was the breaking point for us. Even Bob, who seemed like a genuinely good guy, was in on the scam. The question we were dying to ask was, "Hey Bob, so how long was she your prostitute before she became your wife?"

The diving in Sabang proved to be excellent. I did six dives over three days, three of which involved exploring underwater shipwrecks, a first for me, and one of which took me to a new depth limit of 35m. The coral was in great shape. Fish were everywhere. I saw hideous moray eels, spiny lionfish, odd frogfish, and dozens of other rare species. And all I'll remember twenty years from now are the prostitutes.

Our dive courses complete, we returned to Manila for our flight out to Kuala Lumpur, which left the morning of the 29th. After ten days in the Philippines, we felt certain that we'd gotten a decent taste of the country, though we were far less certain that it was a taste we liked.