SEAfaring: The Philippines

Part 2 of “SEAfaring” involves my first trip into the Philippines in mid October. I would see Claire from Tokyo again for a week vacation on her time. It had been three months since we last met in Taipei, but we happily stayed in touch. We settled on the Philippines after an extensive back and forth of options, choosing Cebu, its second largest area by population as our focus. Claire had extensively traveled Southeast Asia and been once to the Philippines, but not Cebu. I let her handle much of the planning after a period of relatively high intensity work on my end around making my mad dash vanlife operation work in Australia. I don’t think either of us were quite sure what we were getting ourselves in for, but it turned out to be an interesting adventure for both of us.

Cebu’s famous in history for the explorer Magellan meeting his demise there at the hand of angry natives while trying his hand out as a colonialist stooge. Our reception was nicer, coming in to Cebu City on a midnight taxi together. I got one of the nicer hotels for us, while Claire had reserved a beachside resort on the island of Bantayan. It felt like a lucky coup to find an awesome vegan buffet a short walk away from the hotel on Saturday morning, with uniquely named dishes like mushroom sisig, halang-halang or humba for us to gorge on. After this great start, it was soon pretty clear that things here were a lot different than elsewhere I’ve been.

Claire and I thought it would be a good idea to go for a walk through Cebu City and see the surroundings. Normally this is something I really enjoy in a new city I visit and one of the first things I do. Sadly, it wasn’t a pretty sight on foot. Grime was everywhere, along with mangy animals (I had to step over a dead one on our last day) and completely unsafe road crossings and sidewalks. Poverty was evident on a painful, new scale for me. Perhaps most discomforting was how “seen” I felt. Almost everyone went out of their way to greet us in a superficially friendly way that always kept me on guard. Though I didn’t feel directly unsafe (except from traffic), the 5 km walk we did to the ocean and back were not something I’d have a desire to repeat again.

We still had a couple more days in Cebu City before we’d journey to Bantayan Island, so our further travels here mostly involved taxis. The public transit is mostly dysfunctional and thus the streets are clogged and chaotic. Cebu was where I started reading Wikivoyage for travel tips, which was a huge tip off to avoid taxi scammers. It does feel silly a bit to fiercely argue over what amounts to a few extra dollars, but it’s the principle of getting a fair deal to me. Often it was settled with a firm “use the meter”, but we also had to negotiate fares frequently. This constant battle was another reason that I didn’t much enjoy my time in Cebu.

Outside the city, we hoped for and found a nicer vibe amidst trees and seas. We took the ferry to Olango Island one day. It’s quite small, so we rented e-bikes, although Claire’s died and we had to double up on mine to close out the day. We went to each side of the island over a couple hours, and had a restful wade in a wildlife preserve. It was a good warm up for the day to Bantayan, which would be a several hours ride north. Even though a functional bus existed, we weren’t confident about making that ferry on time, though it was simple taking it back to Cebu City. The ferry had the pleasant surprise of Claire pulling out some natto for me, the controversial, stringy Japanese fermented bean snack that I’d become a fan of.

On Bantayan, our resort seemed like a magical, relaxing place. The omnipresent sound of surf in one’s ears, gourmet meals (even OK vegan options!) and mixed drinks, and daily fresh buko (coconut) I’d grow to adore. Claire spent a little big on it to really make it a special vacation. People tell me over and over that I should treat myself too, but this was just my life at this point. I’m a backpacker and even though I’d saved a good haul from my tech work, I’d rarely go for a splurge like this. I think back to my time in Hawaii in March and how desperately I tried to save cash then, and how it had a negative effect on my travel there with Elaine. But it’s also easier to splurge when the equivalent level of luxury would cost so much less as well. Maybe Southeast Asia really is where it’s at for a tropical vacation. Although our stay at the resort would be marred at the end. Claire sustained a thankfully minor foot injury from the pool decking collapsing, which involved a trip to the local clinic for a tetanus shot and bandages.

Besides that lame ending to our stay on Bantayan, we got up to a nice bevy of activities over our four nights there. First, another day of orienting ourselves around the island, this time with rented motorbikes. Good thing I got my practice in on Lanyu a couple months prior! I think for anyone interested in learning to drive scooters, tropical islands are a great proving ground without much stress over battling traffic. One day was enough with them, afterwards we just kept to a specific activity like snorkel touring, ocean kayaking the shallows or supping mangroves, paired with lots of lounging. It all felt very indulgent and peaceful.

We returned to Cebu City briefly before our trip came to a close, with one last day in that anxiety-inducing place. I requested a day in the mountains to counterbalance all of the ocean activities. How we got up there was interesting, by trying the ad-hoc bus system using vehicles dubbed ‘jeepneys’, which were like modified pick-up trucks with benches. Surprisingly, Google Maps had mostly accurate transit maps and times for them! Once ours dumped us out, we haggled for a couple of motorbike riders to take us up top on the back of their bikes in the pouring rain and hang around to get us back down; it was definitely a thrilling ride. It all worked out, and we got to see a small botanical garden and a Taoist temple in the gated “Beverly Hills” neighborhood that had me chortling and singing that silly Weezer song.

A funny aside on silly songs, by the way, was how “Raining in Manila” became the anthem of this trip. We were woken up early to the song playing repeatedly on Bantayan through tinny speakers nearby, with lyrics indecipherable. It was an infuriating moment, obviously, but sort of forgotten upon drifting back to sleep. Later, back at the vegan cafe in Cebu City, we heard the song for real, actually liked it and painstakingly realized it was that song that ruined the other morning. Upon asking the staff about the song, I immediately asked if they could play it again on repeat for us while we were dining, everyone else reacted a bit quizzically to that though!

My final thoughts on the Philippines in Cebu was that while it is painfully obvious to me now that it is a developing nation, that there is a democratic process and thus, hope for the country and its denizens. As an outsider though, it baffles me, possibly even more than Trump’s continued appeal, that the son of a former dictator whose family swindled the country was elected president last year. If you’re part of the voting public and you know that history, you’d choose anyone else… right? And while the Philippines doesn’t make being gay illegal like elsewhere in Southeast Asia, I was aghast to learn recently that it prohibits divorce. I consider that an essential civil liberty that we take for granted as Americans. Their government is currently considering loosening these restrictions, but until then it’s abominable and further evidence of the toxic machinations that organized religion foists upon people’s lives.

When it was time to go we headed to the airport for a not-actually-so-glum goodbye on separate flights, because we made plans to see each other one further time back on Claire’s home turf in Tokyo six weeks later. I decided here that my trip would end where it began, in Japan. There, I could see her again, as well as absorb more of the culture that has most influenced me in life and whose language I actually studied for real in my undergrad. As a bonus, the flights from Tokyo to the USA seem to be consistently the cheapest, and by now in the trip I was starting to consider my budget more consciously.

But first, I’d be flying to Bangkok for a month in Thailand. I originally had plans to visit India, starting in the state of Kerala and making my way to Mumbai. Unfortunately, India requires visas for all tourists, I delayed on getting one and found last minute that their dated website for acquiring one was a complete mess. It gave me so many fits in the brief couple nights I tried, that I gave up, booked a new flight to Bangkok and ditched my fairly meticulous travel plans to wing it in Thailand where things would be simpler. Tune in next for the final chapter of “SEAfaring” to see how that went.