The Philippines

After being in the Philippines for a week or so I have come to have very mixed feelings about it. Some of the most beautiful pictures I have taken so far on this trip have been from here. Unfortunately its difficult to find internet fast enough to load a webpage, which leaves uploading pictures completely out of the question.

While I was staying in South Korea in a hostel with many other travelers everyone seemed to have the same opinions about the Philippines. It's dangerous. Don't let people see your valuables or you will lose them. Beware of scammers. This left Andrew and I a little wary about our choice, but we already had plane tickets and beds arranged with couch surfers.

While we were searching for some places to stay in the country I had gotten about a dozen requests on couch surfing from locals. While some of them did seem a little sketchy, a couple of them looked really solid. One guy offered to pick us up from the airport and drive us around, but having no friends and no references was a bit wary and there was no way I was going to get into a car with a stranger. We ended up staying with two different couch surfers that had a ton of positives references over at least 3 years. This was absolutely the best decision we could have made.

The effects of US imperialism are immediately apparent, even in the airport. The airport was full of US fast food joints with everything from Cold Stone Creamery to KFC. Through out the cities you can find 7-11's selling Coke, Pepsi, and Vitamin Water.

Most people visit the Philippines and skip Manila, which is a massive and densely populated city, and head for the islands and resorts. When we landed it took us a while to figure out how to catch a taxi. The first set of taxi's wanted to charge 1400 pesos (~$28 USD) but our couch surfing host told us it should cost closer to 200 pesos, so we kindly declined.

After another hour or so of wandering around the airport and getting yelled at for trying to enter the wrong part of the airport (more than once) we found a local taxi with more reasonable prices. It was on that taxi ride that we got our first real glimpse of the Philippines. The city is full of massive sky scrapers towering over shanty towns made of tin sheets and wood scraps. It was immediately apparent that the income inequality was much more massive than anything I've seen in the US. Later on while talking to locals we found that US outsourcing, which is slowly destroying the middle class in the US, is helping tremendously to build a middle class in third world countries like the Philippines.

The taxi driver eventually dropped us off outside our couch surfers place and we checked out his place. It was the epitome of minimalism, which Andrew and I have been increasingly more fond of. Our first couch surfing host was with a local named Nuki and it was incredible. During our stay there we ended up hanging out with about 6 other couch surfers, and when his place got full Nuki opted to sleep on the floor with just a blanket for a pillow. I came to realize that this isn't a one time thing, but it's how he lives his life. He opens his house up to strangers traveling the world, cooks for them, and shows them around; asking for nothing in return but to exchange cultures and experiences.

Manila has some of the worst traffic I have ever seen. Traffic rules are generally seen as guidelines and cars will often drive on the wrong side of the street to pass others. I realized that this system is actually necessary and if everyone followed the lines on the road no one would get anywhere and the entire city would gridlock worse than it already does.

There is a lot of humidity here. I thought it would be difficulty to adjust to the heat, but after a few days I almost forgot it was even hot. After a while it almost started to feel comfortable. I adjusted so much that I needed a blanket to survive the air-conditioned bus rides. The only real problem I had was the mosquitoes. I think I've gotten over 100 bites since I've been here, and that number gets a little bigger every day. Mosquito repellent is mostly a joke, although it does help with the itching.

Food here in incredibly cheap compared to Seattle. Since I have been here I've had some of the best food I've ever tasted. Both of the couch surfing hosts we had went to the market and got fresh ingredients to cook for us. The dishes they made included noodles, pancakes, and chicken stew. The rest of the food here hasn't been that great. There is a chain store where you can buy a whole roster chicken, and one of the resorts had really good fried rice; but aside from those everything else felt cheap and inauthentic. My impression is that the locals are trying to compete with all the American fast-food chains. Instead of focusing on high quality dishes, like our hosts served us, they have to focus on providing the lowest prices they can, and that often means serving smaller portions, using lower quality meats, and in my case a solid 36 hours of food poisoning.

Our second host had a room with two bunk beds. He also had one of the coolest chill spots I've ever seen that included a fog machine and lasers. In a random term of events, he got us into one of the most amazing clubs I've ever seen including a table and free drinks all night at no cost to us. Most of us were slightly underdressed, seeing as we're backpackers traveling around Asia. The club had advertisements for all-you-can-drink Tuesdays to Thursdays for about $10 USD. It's interesting that alcohol and coconut juice is much cheaper than Coke here.

We took a 6 hour bus ride to one of the beaches near Baler. We stayed in a little bamboo hut and one of the girls working there did my laundry by hand for $4. We spent a couple of days surfing and playing in the infinity pool. The resort was only half-built, and construction was on-going even while guests actively use areas underneath some of the areas being build. Surfing is hard. The first day I got to rent a foam board, and it was pretty easy to stand up and balance, but nearly impossible to steer or turn. The next day I rented a plastic or fiberglass board, and it was clearly easier to turn but I was mostly unable to stand up or balance on it. We met a lot of locals from different parts of the Philippines while we stayed there and made a few friends. I was excited when I found someone willing to discuss the political climate of the country and how it compared to the US. Andrew ended up getting a really bad sun burn and didn't want to stay at the beach much longer, so we headed back to Manila the next day.

Later on we headed to an island called Puerto Galera. I ended up getting a fever, cramps, and a few other problematic symptoms the first night there. I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning, but there's no way to know fur sure. It only lasted about a day and a half, and we were able to go snorkeling before we left for the mainland. We got to swim above coral reefs and play with giant clams. We paid 10 pesos (which is about 20 US cents) for bread and swarms of fish come to eat it out of your hand. I think the fish aren't that exposed to white people, because a good number of them got confused between my fingers and the bread and tried to eat my fingers. The guide said he never had this issue, and the fish didn't try to eat Andrew's fingers. Their teeth aren't sharp enough to do any damage, but it made me laugh every time they did it. I got to dive down and play with clams and starfish. If you push a little water into the clams they close up really fast. The water was nice and warm and we had a great time.

The most amazing thing about the Philippines isn't the food or the resorts, its the people. People here live with traffic and poverty every day in conditions that are very much outside the comfort zones of most Americans. Despite all of that I have to say that people in Seattle (and probably most of the US) are completely miserable compared to the people living here. The locals are super friendly and go out of their way to help you out. You can find people willing to open their homes and lives to you, while in Seattle you can barely find someone willing to give you directions without feeling like you were a burden to them. When you meet someone in the US one of the first things you ask them is what do you do for work. The people here don't care where you work, they want to know who you are and what your interested in.