Manila: Sound and fury, signifying … shopping?

Driving from Clark to Manila is the worst. I’m telling you, you haven’t experienced traffic until you’ve been in the back seat of a car that’s driving on top of the lane line and a motorcycle rider is close enough to kiss your window.

Makati is a little more quiet on the weekends and has green space that’s a gorgeous place to be when it’s not pouring rain. (Photo by Taylor Danser)

Metro Manila (which technically is made up of 16 cities) is big but doesn’t really seem quite large enough to have the 12-million-person population that it does. That’s why its claim to fame is being the most densely populated city in the world. So people live and work there. But, what do they do there?

Well, what it’s really known for among Filipinos is its shopping malls. I kid you not, they are the main attraction. But there is more to Manila than malls. On a recent weekend, we stayed in Makati City (one of the 16 that make up Metro Manila) and I found it a quaint, clean urban place I would definitely prefer living in over Clark.

We also spent an afternoon taking in some history of Manila. A couple of hours was really all we needed to see what’s still standing. We decided to do it through Carlos Celdran’s tour.

There’s one major difference in taking a tour in the capital of the Philippines vs. that of Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan or Taiwan. In this Southeast Asian country, there’s a big hole: culture. In Taipei, you can visit a really good museum that shows the evolution of Chinese culture. In Indonesia, you can watch native dances.

But things are a little less straight-forward for Filipinos.

The reconstructed main gate of Fort Santiago (Photo by Taylor Danser)

That’s because this culture didn’t really have a chance to develop on its own: being controlled by Spain then the U.S., there wasn’t a real chance to, so said our guide.

Celdran did take us around to see Intramuros’ Fort Santiago and Plaza San Luis. The buildings that remained were good to see, and as he mentioned, much more entertaining than a shopping mall.

What really stuck with me, though, was that he also mentioned the lack of one cohesive culture in the Philippines. That doesn’t mean it culture doesn’t exist, of course. There’s just a lot of blending going on. “A person may have Chinese eyes, a Spanish last name, but inside they just want to be American,” he said.

He related the Filipino soul to Halo-Halo, a dessert that sounds nothing of the sort to you if you’re American. The concoction generally has shaved ice and evaporated milk. Oh, and jello, boiled beans, fruits, sugar palm, sweet potato, cheese and caramelized plantains. Whether this layered recipe is served in a tall glass or a regular bowl, I think it’s an acquired taste.

The dessert can have a lot of ingredients in it — all sorts of things that don’t seem related, but they come together in a dessert that people here love. And, as our guide said, that’s the culture of a Filipino.

Filipino fast food chain Chowking has a better picture of Halo-Halo than I do — photographing it in a short plastic cup doesn’t give it justice. (Facebook)

Batad: Ancient landscape leaves you breathless

I haven’t been around a lot of things that are thousands of years old. When I am, they’re very small objects that sit well guarded behind plexiglass in a museum. But make a trip to Batad, Philippines, and you’ll be surrounded by a phenomenal landscape that has stood for about 2,000 years.

Batad is not a convenient destination for most people. But when you’re living in Clark, Philippines, it’s just about a seven-hour drive to Banaue, which is a nearby town where we roomed for the weekend. We stayed at a home stay known as Randy’s Brookside Inn. Randy was a welcoming, friendly guy who made you so comfortable, you forgot about the lack of air conditioning and tepid water in the shared shower. We stayed there because Batad is even more remote than Banaue.

After our long drive, we spent the afternoon looking at rice fields in Banaue, and were pretty amazed.

The next day, we woke up early to get in a trike — that’s a small contraption welded onto a motorbike, in case you missed my blog post on that — in which there was just enough room for myself, my husband and a backpack. We rumbled up a mountain in this vehicle, which somehow made it through the rocky paths where the road abruptly stopped. Finally, we made it to what’s called the Saddle, where we met the youngest looking 61-year-old I’ve ever seen, Vicent. This local of Batad would be our guide for our trek through the incredible rice terraces. But first, we had to hike about 40 minutes down a mountain to get to the small town of Batad, which is really kind of a valley surrounded by terraces. What’s different about these compared to Banaue’s, is that the walls are made of stone — the ones we saw the prior day have walls made of dirt.

We walked across them, taking in the view. We were given walking sticks, which neither my husband nor I thought would be necessary. But, even with those, I kept slipping into the muddy terraces while balancing on the small bit of dry dirt that was our pathway. At one resting point, a Korean came up to me, unable to speak any English, but laughed while pointing to my left foot, which was covered in grey mud. My left, muddy Asics shoe matched her left, muddy Nike shoe.

But Vicent had more for us to see, and a lot more to hike. Next up, we walked down to Tappiyah Waterfalls, which drops about 70 meters into a small pool of dark water.

It was incredible. But then, we had to walk back a solid two hours uphill in the rain. [Insert sound of wining violin here.] During it, I was cursing Vicent who was running ahead of us. But afterward, I decided the exercise was nice, and the scenery was definitely worth it.

The sordid side: venturing down ‘Walking Street’

You have to do what’s necessary to survive. Not everyone is born under the best circumstances, has access to education, or even knows of a world outside their own meager existence.

It’s best to keep this in mind as we go into this rather awkward blog post.

I’m in Clark Freeport Zone, the area where the U.S. used to have an Air Force base. It’s pretty nice and most people feel safe.

Just outside of Clark is the city of Angeles, where you have to go to get groceries and find most restaurants. If you’re more curious about the area, go ahead, google “Angeles, Philippines.” Wait, no. Don’t do that if you’re at work. Trust me, it’s definitely NSFW.

Unfortunately, this city is known for Walking Street, a strip actually named Field Street that closes off vehicles in the evenings and provides location after location for people to find “women of the night,” as my mother calls them.

There are normal clubs and bars here, too. If you hear someone say, “I’m going to Walking Street” tonight, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re paying a fee for sex. t’s also not a place where your personal space will be invaded by nudity or anything. But, there are also establishments offering local women.

Everything about this is awkward and upsetting — walking into this place, thinking back on it, and reporting it back to you. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything more depressing. They’re not strip clubs. These women aren’t Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or anything remotely close to that picture.

The women, dressed in something like short shorts and a bikini top, simply line up on some stage in the middle or front of the room. All a customer does is pick one out (by walking up or pointing, or getting a laser from a server to point), buy the girl a few drinks, then pay a little more than 2,000 pesos (that’s just more than 40 USD) for something like an “early exit fee,” which you can interpret anyway you wish. Each woman wears a tag, stating their name with a note that they’re “clean.”

I have no idea how these women do it. They’re in their young 20s, and if you talk to them, they’re just like any other girl with similar interests. But if you ask them why they’re here, they’ll tell you they don’t have any other option. Nowhere else to go, no other way to make money, no other way to survive.

Become a road warrior with a jeepney or trike

Getting around New York City, locals take the subway or taxis. In Dallas, it’s a car (unless you’re one of those who gets good use out of DART). In Haiti, it’s a tap tap. In Thailand, it’s a tuk-tuk.

But say you want to get around like a local in the Philippines. Are you getting in one of the allegedly sketchy white taxi cabs, or are you paying for a driver? If you’re a regular tourist, you’re going to be paying a private driver. But if you’re a local, you’re jumping on a jeepney or a trike.

The tricycle is perfect if you’re traveling with yourself or one other person, just enough that can fit in the sidecar that is welded onto a motorcycle. Some of these sidecars are larger, with a “backseat,” fitting two more people. Plenty of families go beyond that limit, piling five or six people on there in ways only years of practice could achieve.

When you pick up a trike driver, tell them exactly where you want to go. A couple of miles might be about 25 pesos. It’s not quite as precarious as it looks. The contraption looks like it might fall over at the slightest right turn, but it stays upright fairly well. That is, unless you’re going down a mountain after a rainstorm, then you might slide around, have to get out, and have to help push the vehicle out of a spot it’s stuck in. (More on that later.)

Many locals use jeepneys to get to their work. These are similar to the tap taps in Haiti in appearance. They get their name because these vehicles were originally made from the jeeps that the U.S. military left in the country after World War II. The word “jeepney” comes from “jeep” and “jitney,” which is a small bus that carries passengers on a regular route. There are stations all over the place with jeepneys — there are usually plenty of trikes there, too — and they do follow routes. You’ll see on the sides of the vehicles (which are now other makes in addition to Jeeps) which stops they visit.

For one local I know who lives in Angeles, she takes three jeepneys to get to her job in Clark. With some walking, this 30-or-so kilometer trip costs her 50 pesos.

Regardless of the vehicle, even if it’s a regular-old motorcycle, there’s no need to follow rules. I’ve heard that you’re supposed to wear closed-toe shoes when riding a motorcycle, but most of the time, you’ll see the driver perched on the bike wearing flip flops.

As for capacity limits, there must not be any. Families of five can be found on a single bike (that’s including babies wedged in between people). The same number can be found crammed in a trike. And for the jeepneys, it’s as many as can fit inside, on the sides, above and — who knows? — maybe below.

 

Mt. Pinatubo: World’s forgotten volcano full of ‘Jurassic’-like scenery

If you’ve had the chance to read Jurassic Park (or, fine, seen the movie), you can easily picture the kind of terrain that was around before humans were on earth. If you can’t recall that image so easily, just make a trip to the Philippines and hike up Mt. Pinatubo, a volcano that last erupted on June 15, 1991.

I actually learned about the eruption last fall when I interviewed Jim Thornton, who is in the Navy Reserve and helped people in the surrounding area escape. He sort of looked at me in awe that I hadn’t heard of it before he mentioned it. It was the second-largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century, producing high-speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, mudflows and a cloud of volcanic ash.

It is called Mt. Pinatubo because most people didn’t know it was a volcano, our guide told us. He was also in the town just outside of Pinatubo when it erupted. It was midday, and the whole sky went dark, “like it was night,” he said. The next day, “it was raining sand.”

More than two decades later, this area is now a destination for hikers to spend a day climbing over rocks and creeks to a crater that is now filled with water. Different companies in the area offer trips, taking guests up in a beaten-up Jeep before making the two-hour hike to the crater.

If you’re making a trip to the island of Luzon in the Philippines (that’s where Manila is), then make the day trip up to Angeles, Clark or Tarlac, spend the night, then dedicate a day to making this trek up Mt. Pinatubo. The scenery will make flying around the world then sitting in traffic worth it.

Photo by Amy McCarthy

Bob Wagner finds his ‘own personal Valhalla’

If you make a trip to the Philippines, you’ll find that there’s not a whole lot of diversity among the population. Most people are around the same beautiful tan color. But every so often, you’ll see an older white guy, taking advantage of this place for retirement. The warm climate and inexpensive living has to be a lure for that.

Another place you’ll find an American man is maybe an unsuspecting place, a Spanish restaurant in Clark Freeport Zone. But Robert Wagner isn’t here for a relaxing retirement. He’s the kind of guy who introduces himself casually as “Bob,” keeps his head shaven because it can get so miserably hot here, and isn’t afraid to tell you what the heck he believes is upside down about this country he loves and now calls home.

Marine Private Robert Wagner joined the service in 1974.

He’s also someone who, in the 1970s, people would have called a bit crazy. He willingly joined the Marines and found himself in Vietnam. Coming from a long line of family members who were in the military, the then-17-year-old who attended Richardson High School, just north of Dallas, Texas, forged his mom’s signature to get enlisted. A little while later, in 1975, he floated in with his troop, which was evacuating fleeing Vietnamese to Subic Bay in the Philippines.

“I always knew I would come to the Philippines,” the now-58-year-old said.

What he didn’t know was that he would actually be stuck here: When he arrived, the rest of his unit went home to the States and he was in the infirmary being treated for malaria.

“You could call it divine intervention or what, I don’t know,” he said.

After moving around the world, consistently returning to the Philippines, Bob has made his home here in Clark with a mission to help the education system. His organization, humbly named The Robert T. Wagner Foundation, raises funds to introduce new computers and SMART boards to classrooms in schools that need them the most.

Students at Air Force City Elementary School take a look at the new technology Wagner’s foundation provided. Wagner (back, left) said he’s been able to provide more technology than he imagined so far.(Facebook)

He is five years into this 25-year effort and has put 800 pieces of these technologies into teachers’ hands, helping teach them how to use it to get students interactive and interested in learning. He says that’s more than he expected to accomplish in this time, and he already has plans to give more to a school in Pantao, Bicol, in the Philippines. Even so, he says it’s just a very small way to help a society that needs major revamping.

“It’s going a lot faster than I thought it would. I’m happy with my supply partners … but it’s difficult to ship,” he said.

He flies products around in his own aircraft. Bob likes to tell the story of how when Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan got here (before he was killed by natives) he stayed overnight then found supplies stolen the next morning. He later would refer to islands in the area as a land of thieves.

“Things get stolen a lot around here,” he said. “If you take a look at the Filipino politicians, plenty of the country’s finances, the same could be said today.”

Bob believes he can maybe make an impact by helping the improve education and bring a few situations to justice. He’s been here a while and has settled in as a community leader with the Clark Development Corporation. Among his varying interests, Bob Wagner owns and runs D’ Tapas, a Spanish restaurant that has been open here for about two months.

He chose the cuisine because he misses the Cuban food he had enjoyed in his youth, before his family moved to Richardson. He says he’s gotten a great response so far from expatriates and locals for the menu designed by Cuban chef Pedro Carbajal. He’s even been told that the food is better than most restaurants in the area. (This is probably true. Not just because his food is good, but because so many restaurants here have quite terrible excuses for meals.)

Wagner’s latest interest is in his tapas restaurant in Clark.

It’s also one of the few places you can find real iced tea in the area. Locals around here drink a lot of Nestea, and, boy, do they like the stuff sweet. But he brews good-old-fashioned Lipton, letting it sit in the sun like his grandmother did when she lived in Georgia.

Wagner (far right) doing flight training out of Ormond Beach, Florida last year.

Bob’s plans for now include keeping the restaurant functioning and keeping the funds coming in for his foundation. He also has a fun bash planned for an American Fourth of July celebration, the first year for the event that will have a picnic, band and all of the American goodness (prepared and performed by Filipinos) that we’ll all be craving once July comes around.

“The Philippines has never had the will to get things done,” he’ll say. But, still, he loves this place. “I would die if I were forced to live in the States,” he said. “This here, in the Philippines, is my own personal Valhalla.”

Highway to the danger zone? Not quite

Where an old U.S. Air Force base once stood, a fairly quiet suburb now sits. Even with an international airport, Clark Freeport Zone is still the kind of place where the most you’ll notice in the afternoon is an extra wave of heat in the not-frequent-enough breeze.

But lately, giant aircraft have been spanning the sky, as if pilots are trying to break the sound barrier.

Just weeks after President Barack Obama made his first trip to this country, a hotel lobby in Clark looks like this:

They’re not taking over, of course. The U.S. maintained Clark Air Base from 1947 until 1991, as well as Subic Bay Naval Complex through 1992. U.S. forces are currently train in the country, which is all that military men would tell me.

The Subic Bay area has also had an influx of men who look like non-locals. For the first time in the past three months, I saw the restaurant of a particular hotel more than a quarter full (and I never thought it would be by a bunch of Americans). It was good to see that these guys were also finding time to drink beer at the hotel and take advantage of the waterslide that winds down into the pool. That is, when they weren’t piloting some seriously scary looking aircraft through the sky.

Different points of view can be more than skin deep

A lot of people (myself included) appreciate having a golden-brown tan. Young women have spent hours in the sun, stretched into tanning beds or stood tall in spray-tan vestibules.

This isn’t surprising — in the United States anyway. I was recently sitting beside a young Filipino woman who eagerly struck up a conversation with me, despite saying that her English was terrible — which didn’t seem that way to me at all.

“I like my job,” the massage therapist said. “I don’t have to be outside.”

Well, sure, it’s hot here. But that wasn’t her issue.

“I stay out of the sun as much as I can,” she said, then pointed to my skin with a coveting finger. I did the same to her tanned arm. I told her how people in the States like a tan — they’ll do a lot to get it, like by putting on tanning lotions or risking a sunburn.

In the Philippines, it’s easy to find products or methods to lighten the color of skin. (Photo by Taylor Danser)

Here, they make the effort and buy products to be paler. Soaps and lotions fill some aisles in supermarkets, promising a whitening effect. Spas have “skin-lightening procedures” such as body bleaching. Before you go thinking how dangerous that sounds, think about the wonderful, healthy benefits from a tanning bed. A quick google search on either whitening products/procedures and tanning efforts show that there are risks of long-term damages.

We sat there looking at each other, clearly not understanding the viewpoint of the other. Who knew that on the other side of the world, such desires could be so opposite?

Chocolate hills, resort-style living and big-eyed primates: This is Bohol

Cracks on sides of buildings, trash piled up on the sides of roads and a target for natural disasters. Is that what you think of when you think about the Philippines? Or do you think of cute forest creatures, secluded beaches and welcoming people? You’d be right if you thought of each or all of those circumstances. But for now, I’m going to introduce you to more pleasant scenarios in the form of some experiences on the island of Bohol.

A cruise takes you down Loboc River in Bohol. (Photo by Michael Danser)

To tell you the truth, this entry was almost something along the lines of “Here’s what you need to know about the Republic of the Philippines” to give you an introduction to these islands. But, I’m not from here, have only been here a few weeks and am not a good expert for you. Google if you want to find more. But I will tell you that Bohol is one of the more than 7,000 islands that make up this country. It’s also a location that’s worth a “tourist destination” label. Locals are aware of this, as there are plenty of beach-side resorts. If you want a really quiet one with a view below, check into Anda White Beach Resort. (It’s so secluded, your driver from the airport might not even know how to find it.)

The sand is white and person-less at Anda White Beach Resort in Bohol. (Photo by Michael Danser)

Sorry, those aren’t giant mounds of dark and milk-chocolate morsels. They’re still cool to see, though. There are about 1,268 of these formations of limestone, which you can see by air with an airplane tour or by land. A convenient viewpoint has been constructed for you to visit, you just have to climb the 214 steps — not a set you want to slip down on. In these photos, you’ll see they look green because they’re covered in grass. At the end of the dry season, they turn more of a chocolate brown — hence, the name.

“Legend has it that the hills came into existence when two giants threw stones and sand at each other in a fight that lasted for days. When they were finally exhausted, they made friends and left the island, but left behind the mess they made. For the more romantically inclined is the tale of Arogo, a young and very strong giant who fell in love with an ordinary mortal girl called Aloya. After she died, the giant Arogo cried bitterly. His tears then turned into hills, as a lasting proof of his grief.” – bohol.ph {Photo by Michael Danser}

If you find tarsiers during the day, they’ll probably be sleeping. (Photo by Michael Danser)

If piles of land aren’t your thing, take a look at this weird creature: the tarsier. This little tree animal is native to the Philippines and is technically a primate, despite looking like some kind of a rodent. Each of these nocturnal animals is about the size of your hand. These small animals are protected now, so you can find them in their natural habitat at the Philippine Tarsier Foundation. It might feel touristy, but it’s your chance to see their oversized eyes as they crouch in the trees. Maybe I’ve buried the lede, but I might’ve saved the best for last. As I mentioned earlier, the Philippine islands get their share of natural disasters. No doubt you remember the typhoon last November. Just a month earlier, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit Bohol and did some major damage to historic churches. The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Baclayon is one of the oldest churches in the Philippines. The first structure of the compound was built in 1595, and the church’s building is from 1727. There’s now a museum there, which you can visit for 50 pesos (about 1.12 USD). The slideshow below doesn’t have photos from the artifacts in there (photos weren’t allowed), so, you’ll have to visit those yourself. However, there are more than enough opportunities to photograph the sanctuary. Take a look for yourself to see a bit of history:

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