Just pulled myself from the bog I plod through, after returning from vacation. I had conversations with more Filipinos in two days than with Japanese people in two years.
Taxi Drivers
There aren’t many photos because I didn’t feel safe shouting I was a tourist by pulling out my camera. The people get rave reviews, however, except for the taxi drivers! Nuisances.
At Manila International Airport (Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA – IATA: MNL), run from the first set that try to grab you. Take a right outside the final exit and join the line. Those are the yellow taxis that are supposed to be legit because they’re assigned. I found this out the second time around. The first time I got grabbed by the first group before I exited and the driver stopped the meter and charged me 800 Filipino pesos (about 17 USD).
Second time, I lined up for the legit yellow taxi driver. Five minutes into the trip the driver says, “Since there is a lot of traffic, you can pay me 400 pesos up front and I can stop the meter”. But now I know they’re THIEVES so I tell him that I’d rather wait and see what the meter reads. The meter read 250 PESOS when we arrived at the same place I stayed last time – Sohotel Malate Boutique Motel (2016 MH Del Pilar, Malate, Manila)! (Tacky rooms, but cheap and close to the action).
There’s more! I had a 500 peso note. He ain got no change! I said to him, “You ain got no conscience neither! I will get the change.” So I pay him…AND HE ASKING FOR A TIP! It’s still cheap, even when you’re getting robbed, though, so I let it go. Two hundred and fifty Filipino pesos is roughly six US dollars which is comparatively cheap. In Japan that ride would have been at least 20 US dollars or 910 Filipino pesos.
I am already Filipino
Hanging out with the locals, trying new foods, put a smile on my face. The touristy places can stick to postcards. A tuk tuk driver became my main man when he agreed to take me around for a price. On my first night in Manila, I said to him, “Take me to a village shop”. It was like being at the same in Barbados. “I’d like some local food,” was my next request, and the bar owner talked out her business in his absence. By the time he returned, two San Miguel Pale Pilsens (“Red Horse” on the bottle) were in my bladder and a crowd had started to gather. They came to buy items and didn’t leave.
Balut
Balut
After peeing on a wall like a dog, the tuk tuk driver encouraged me to try chicken intestines – zigzagging on a wooden skewer – and balut. Eating Balut – like raw turtle eggs in Barbados – is thought to boost virility. It couldn’t be a sweet pastry, it had to be a twelve-day-old fertilised egg. For perspective, it takes a hen’s egg about 21 days to hatch. At twelve days, this is what you feel in your mouth as you chew: toenails and beak. This is if you manage to slurp the juice that runs out when the shell is cracked as “that’s the best part.”
Telling myself It is just chicken, It is just chicken, did not succeed in disarming my gag reflex, and my eyes started to water with the first heave.
Stomach says “NO!” @ 00:35
Then, having learnt nothing from my natto incident, I put the entire boiled chick into my mouth thinking I could swallow it and be done. More gagging and eye watering to let my audience know, without a doubt, that this Filipino street snack is particularly psychologically revolting. Somehow I managed to swallow what remained, although it was like coconut when all the juice is chewed out. Then, the driver took me to a strip club where I felt sorry for a young woman’s poor acting skills. I asked him to drop me off at Muse club afterwards so he would have a confused look on his face in response to my saying “I know it is a gay club”.
I Broke a Dance Floor in Manila
Muse Bar (now permanently closed, which may be unrelated to the impact I had) was the best. My second night there, a barman who was just the right height and muscle tone, put a Jameson down on the bar before I sat. Why bother with the other bars after that? He knew how to feed the fantasy by being attentive and I tipped him shamelessly for it. He took care of my drink while I danced, made sure the DJ played enough RIHANNA, shooed the unworthy and the groupies and always accidentally touched my hand to take my glass to refill it.
Every country has got their thing: Japan is innocent racism and xenophobia under a veil of superficial niceties – speak to the Koreans living there who can’t rent because of their last names or to Ariana Miyamoto, the mixed race winner of Miss Japan 2015; Valencia, Spain, had no veil; Colombia’s poverty tends to make niceness opportunistic; Brazilians are overtly sexual; Costa Ricans have the chill drilled into them with their Pura vida saying; Panamanians use national pride as a form of xenophobia and, in the Philippines, there’s prostitution.
However! They were the nicest people I’ve ever met. You could have a conversation with or ask anyone for directions. The only thing I’d change is how timid they can be on the dance floor. I’d run on because…Rihanna, and people felt there was no longer a place for them (which, of course, there wasn’t…but I wasn’t given the chance to prove this to them). It didn’t help that doing this dance my foot went clean through the floor.
Muse Bar DJs
Baguio
A stocky redskin fellow who smelled like pencil shavings, told me to hold on to his waist so I didn’t fall off the motorcycle. He was my tour guide through the rice fields in Baguio and he got me some buyo or bunga (betel nut) to chew (said to be a gesture of friendship). Not sure if it’s supposed to give you a buzz, but I was told that certain drugs might not work on me because being buzzed is my usual state.
Party Promoter and Wuk up Consultant in Boracay Last Year
The opposite of last New Year’s Eve Boracay island party extravaganza, (resulting in my getting on the wrong transport, being taken to the wrong airport and missing my flight!) this year I ended up spending Old Years on my own at my hotel in Baguio, but that was my intention. With my friends gone, I traveled alone this year. Not too bad…but it felt a little scary to let people know that. I needed to be more vigilant. Anyways, back safe and sound and, luckily, tomorrow is a bank holiday here.
Got to do some washing and sort out lunch. Talk to you later. Much love,
Martin
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