Parade!
A parade was flowing down the city’s main street at precisely the hour Beth, Manny, and my not-so-secret admirer (Hi, Jun) were to fetch me. A few marching bands later, and we were on our way to a swimming hole in the country side. Kind of.
Things that have crossed my mind or that I’ve seen as of late:
Went to the movies and forgot a warm layer. I don’t know why I can’t remember that as soon as I step off the sweltering streets, I’m at risk for pneumonia.
The movie theater allowed people to bring in their own food, and lots of it! Starbucks, Pizza Hut, take-out… it was amazing. More amazing: most people seemed to eat their very own medium pizza!
She wears spike heels, she’s not quite five feet tall, she drives a new Hilux pick-up truck, and she carries a hand gun. She’s my new friend, Beth!
Windowless hotel rooms have obvious disadvantages. Here’s one you probably didn’t think of: rolling blackouts. I woke up in the pitch black this morning. Among the blessings I counted were that 1) I had a flashlight, 2) I knew exactly where it was, and 3) I’d set out my running gear the night before.
Unwanted attention makes me shrivel like a fish in the desert. I’ll go to great lengths to avoid it. Sloppy dress is my number one anti-attention tactic. Anything to get rid of the unshakable western-glamour attached to my physical appearance and the $ sign that floats above me most places I go. I’ll even stretch my showering schedule from every second day to every third. Amazingly, even at my most disgusting, I am still greeted with, “Hello ma’am… you are so beautiful.”
Settling in to third-world travel can be rough. I guess the nice term for it is “Culture Shock.” It might be more aptly called, “getting-used-to-the-stink-of-urine, broken-uneven-sidewalks, trash-everywhere, being-constantly-stared-at, being-propositioned-every-minute-by-a-peddler, choking-on-the-stench-of-moth-balls-at-grocery-stores, never-having-a-proper-toilet, not-being-able-to-eat-foods-you’re-used-to, and sucking-in-a-disgusting-amount-of-pollution.”
My Couchsurfing host - Japs (and his two phones - work and play). Love it!
It wasn’t too hard missing Thanksgiving last year. When no one around you is celebrating, when the weather isn’t cool and crisp, when the leaves on the trees aren’t falling, when there aren’t Pilgrim and Feast displays at the grocery store, when no one even knows what “Black Friday” means… it’s not hard to not be homesick. If you’d asked me a month ago what I was doing for Thanksgiving this year, I probably would have said “avoiding Facebook.” Thanks to my couchsurfing-host-turned-posse-connector Japs, I ended up at an “American Thanksgiving!”
This story takes place in 2011. Please forgive the younger version of me for her writing style.
On the plane ride from New Zealand, I perused a Philippines guide book. I came to the “Diving” chapter and automatically thumbed past it. I’ve never traveled longer than three months at a stretch, and I’ve always traveled on a tight budget — never spending more than $1,000 a month. Learning to SCUBA dive runs $400 at best, making it an activity that could never be part of my reality.
As I read entry after entry about “world class diving,” I started to re-think my position.
Since I’d landed back in Manila, I decided to brave the Immigration Office. I had planned to get my visa extended in one of the smaller provincial offices to avoid the rumored headache of the main branch. I rocked up just before 8 a.m., filled out the paperwork, got chatty with a young guy from California, was friendly with the clerk who did my intake, had to beg 30 pesos off my new friend (why did I buy that water?!) to pay the inflated fees, and settled in for my one-hour wait. End relatively-normal-bureaucratic-process.
The shirt that I picked up in Chinatown
My second day in Manila was a lot more interesting than the first. (The first having involved long hours spent at a bank, cooking, and going to bed very early). Nelienne had her heart set on exploring Chinatown. Besides being crammed full of treasures from every corner of Asia with fruit stands spilling into the clogged streets, it wasn’t really like any Chinatown I’ve ever been to. In fact, one of the city’s most beautiful Catholic churches and a gorgeous mosque are the focal points of the area. And almost nothing was in Chinese!
Hungry for more? More time? More money? More health? More wholeness?
Hungry for less? Less rushing? Less pressure? Less stress? Less fractured attention?
Please come on in! I’ve been collecting wins and losses for a few decades (and counting). I hope sharing them helps you on your adventure through your one wild and precious life.
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