It’s More Fun in the Philippines
The Philippines were devastated by a Typhoon, but nobody seemed to have told the rest of the country, because it was business as usual. As a courtesy to my readers, I added some puddle photos—we had to drive really slow and careful through it. It was devastating.
We went to the island of Boracay which is rated 4th nicest beach in the world. We immediately wished that we had visited one of the top three and were disappointed at being 4th, but nevertheless it was beautiful.
After a missed connection and flying 2 hours out of the way, we arrived 4-hours later. We took the “scenic route”, with a boat ride from Captain Josie, who we believe was 12-years old, and possibly a group of refugees.
Activities
We picked up a tour guide named Brian who spent all day trying to separate us from our money. We had an action packed day with jet skis, ATVs, and a zip line.
They wouldn’t accept a bill that had a tear in it—maybe that’s why the country is so poor, because they limit the currency to brand new crisp bills.
The preferred method of transportation was a “tryk”, similar to Thailand’s tuk-tuk’s.
The island had small streets and alleyways filled with shanty houses. They looked like they were built out of a few branches and cardboard, covered with some sheet metal.
It was as if the houses were erected by a few five year-old kids that decided to build a clubhouse. The houses were everywhere, even the airport runway was lined with shacks. The entire country needed to get a visit from Ty Pennington and Extreme Makeover.
Beach Hustlers
On the beach it was filled with tons of hustlers peddling their wares, not unlike other poor countries, only it seemed comical that every single peddler sold exactly the same stuff.
Logic would dictate if you want to make money, you try to sell something unique, but there were twenty people hanging around the same fifty feet with the exact same rack of sunglasses and waterproof pouches. The entire situation can only be described as stupidity.
A potential customer walks by their area with ten guys offering him glasses, and if he politely declines, that’s when he steps in and approaches you five feet later with the exact same crap. He must be thinking that maybe after walking two steps, you may have changed your mind and realized: “Hey, I do need sunglasses! Thank god there is this guy here to accommodate this need that I was just made aware of, and now I don’t have to walk back ten steps cause I can purchase it right here.”
Or maybe they figure the reason I declined the first five people selling sunglasses is because I did not like the way they looked or dressed, but “I just picked the right wardrobe today”, and he will be the one to fill the dollar-sunglasses-void in life.
Massages
We were offered massages everywhere we went, and the entire economy seemed to be supported by the massage industry. You would think the stress level in the country was at epic proportions, but ironically their customer base was strictly tourists on vacation.
They say prostitution is the oldest business in the world. In most of the countries we visited, we found lots of artisans with biblical skill sets. No, thanks.
We did not taste any of the local cuisine, but we took lots of pictures of it. It’s safer, and keeps the sewer system of the country working properly.
The boats in the country have special stabilizers made out of bamboo. I only mention it since I have been all over the world, and I have not seen this design anywhere else. The actual engineering of it was so simple, yet unbelievably effective, and left me wondering why no one else used it. Why didn’t it catch on?
It may be since the seas are a bit rougher out there than normal, or it just may be a very dumb idea like the sunglasses sales, and I just don’t know enough about boats to know why.
Leaving Boracay was an adventure in itself. They canceled our flight the morning we were supposed to leave, and we found out later that this is a normal occurrence for Cebu Pacific. Their flights get canceled all the time if they don’t have enough passengers.
However, you can convince them to fly if you have a good enough reason. You have to debate and convince a major airline to fly the plane and route that you already paid and were ticketed for, because they were not in the mood to take off. They just need a little prodding.
Imagine if that worked in the US, and the next time you were stuck at an airport, all you had to do was convince the check in counter to take off. They are already power tripping on whether to allow your hand luggage on, or whether your baggage is an ounce overweight. Picture if they were also in charge of deciding whether to fly.
We had to fight our way onto the flight that had six people booked on it. They weighed us at the check in counter—yes they actually weighed US, not just our luggage, so they can maintain the balance of the plane correctly. Needless to say flying on an airplane that had a seating plan based on weight was a bit unsettling. I apologized that I ate a big breakfast, hoping my gluttony was not about to cause a plane crash, and we were off to Manila.
Manila: The Concrete Jungle
Manila is called a concrete jungle. The women are friendly, the exchange rate is good, the corruption is rampant, and everyone is available for sale. I like going to places where you can buy your way out of trouble so you never end up on an episode of Locked Up Abroad.
The Hotel
We arrived to our hotel, which greeted us with a metal detector and bomb sniffing dogs. A funny story happened when we arrived.
My friend ate something that was really bad, dropping really offensive hints all day that he needed to go to the bathroom really bad. We finally made it to the hotel and he hit the bathroom like a home run in the ninth inning. He gave that toilet such a beating that the toilet just gave up and refused to flush.
He needed to call the front desk and to his chagrin had to tell the cute front desk girl that he just finished flirting with that he has so many turds in the toilet, he needed help getting rid of it. So they sent up someone with a name tag that said “Engineering” on it. Something tells me whatever trade school he went to didn’t prepare him for what laid in store for him.
In any case, I ran out of the room before anyone could come. I did not want to face him or have him think that whatever was there came out of me or was somehow connected to me. They fixed the toilet, but the staff kept giving us weird smiles after that.
I wonder if it’s because we were so handsome, or if it’s that every time they saw us they knew that we were capable of turning the entire hotel into one giant outhouse, and can stuff up the system to a point where they would have to row their way out of a turd infested typhoon. (That was the closest we came to feeling any effects of the typhoon in that country.)
Nightlife
I met an old friend Shay; he runs a few companies there and is involved in all kinds of international wheeling and dealing. It was great to catch up with him.
We went out and partied all night hitting up some clubs where we were treated as a VIP, which was a bit weird because I had a 300 pound security guard follow me from the VIP section to the bathroom every time I had to pee and wait at the door to escort me back to my table. Since I have a weak bladder, I was able to keep him busy, but I am glad my stomach wasn’t in the condition as my friends or it would have been pretty uncomfortable for both of us.
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