Cultural encounters, quests and shocks, or: Two (broke) girls in the Philippines

Hello dear friends!

Long time no see. Some of you have asked me why I haven't posted any updates for quite a while. The answer is: Because I simply lacked time and energy. As you might know, Essi and I had been on a big trip through South East Asia and South Korea for almost a month, staying at each country for around five days. Then, my parents and my friend Katja from Siegen took turns visiting me in Tokyo and we travelled, once again, through Japan. This time of travelling and being a tour guide was exciting, enlightening and enriching, but also exhausting, so that I could do next to nothing the following weeks. Still, I had to plunge back into university life without a break. So now, having accustomed myself to a working routine again, I am going to start, little by little, to reconstruct my experiences for you. It feels good to write again and is hopefully worth reading too! 

You might have guessed: This post will not be about Japan, nor will the following ones - there is just too much to tell. We set off to Manila, Philippines, on February 13th and parted ways in Seoul on March 9th. This was our route in total:

Primitive representation of our travel route

Why we parted having reached our last destination: While Essi went back to Japan after Seoul, I proceeded to Singapore to meet my dad. But this is a story for a later post :)

So: Welcome to "my" Manila!

Valentine's day in the capital

Coming on February 13th, we stayed in Metro Manila (Manila for short) for five days. Our first culture surprise was the drink we could buy from a vending machine for 40 Philippine pesos (PHP), which is roughly 74 cents. 74 cents for a cup of melon lemonade from a machine! Just as cheap was the bus from the airport to our airbnb  (I don't remember the exact price, but it must have been around 2 euro). By the way: If you ever go to Manila, don't ask the airport staff for a bus. They will tell you there is none and suggest you take a taxi. But the busses are parking right in front of the building, so who are they trying to fool? We suspected they have an arrangement with the taxi companies or drivers, ripping off clueless tourists. 

Anyway, the bus drivers here are extraordinarily nice, or at least ours was. I have misremembered the name of our condominium, so I chased the poor guy around the city twice, passing our destination on the way. He just laughed it off and took care that we were left out right in front of the door. Once arrived on a top floor of a fancy apartment building, we were greeted by a sweet Korean lady renting a room in her apartment*. She welcomed us with a glass of juice and a choco pie each, before letting us rest.

Port view from the apartment in the morning

The next day, we went to explore Rizal Park. José Rizal was a writer, doctor and the leader of Spanish occupation resistance, La Liga Filipina, founded in 1892. No wonder he is a national hero of the Philippines now, with a whole park dedicated to him.

In the background: Rizal Monument

I can't tell if it was because of the festive mood or an everyday phenomenon, but there was cheerful music playing from speakers all day. Around the park, there was also a small garden for which you had to pay, a Chinese garden and a Japanese one, and several food stalls (mostly selling burgers and hot dogs though, too much for the hot weather - it was over 30 degrees even in February!).

As brown and depressing as it looks like, much in contrast to the rest of the park, there were still people hanging around the place...

...even couples...

...and people sleeping on mats

Make a wish!

The Japanese garden...

...obviously not quite like the real thing...

...but nice overall, and has obligatory lakes, stones, bridges and greenery

Mini wannabe tori

Entrance to the Chinese garden

I love the lanterns everywhere!

And the colours

Wise citations were written on these pillars

 

We happened to arrive on the day of the lovers, which was evident by the music, game events and decorations set up in Rizal Park...

... and by last-time gift shoppers in the Robisons mall, a large shopping center near our accommodation.

The nearby Intramuros, which was a Spanish colonial government seat back in  the 16th century, has still preserved the Catholic culture brought by the Spanish, as well as some artillery. As you can guess from the name, it is encircled by a wall, like a small fortress. It has barely one square kilometer of area, still some tuktuk drivers wanted to make us believe we cannot walk this area of the city by foot. But it was easy to get rid of unwanted offers by saying "no", whereas ignoring them, as you may be used to from other countries, just resulted in eager drivers following you around.

The Manila Cathedral of Intramuros

Broken bridges over Pasig river

Intermezzo: Little catastrophies and social justice

This first day was memorable for us for another, less pleasant reason. Both Essi and I did not take much cash with us to exchange, relying on our credit and debit cards to withdraw some. However, none of our cards worked at any of the ATMs in the whole city. You can imagine how distressing this is, being in a foreign city with practically no money.

Adding to our distress was the heat, the poverty and dirt so visibly displayed everywhere, and people constantly honking at us and paying attention by greeting and attempring small talk (I'm not exaggerating - almost every driver that passed us by let us know that he has noticed two white girls in temperature-appropriate clothing. But honking seems to be a means of communication in the incredibly chaotic city traffic). While Essi seemed to enjoy the attention, I just felt like sinking in a hole in the ground. On the second day, however, I just thought: "What the hell" and stopped caring about it. Actually, people in the Philippines are generally very friendly and helpful which you can appreciate once you stop being self-conscious. Everyone passing by wishes you a good day and little boys make you compliments. And they speak excellent English! (Unlike other Asian countries - ahem...). What I could not get used to is being called "Ma'am" in every sentence by every member of service staff everywhere. Seriously, do we look that old? However, we did not mind too much because the service was overwhelmingly good.

But back to "business": How did we solve the money problem? With no intention to advertise, we just used Western Union and transferred money to ourselves, which we could pick up the next day. You can't imagine how relieved we were finally holding the bills in our hands. I'm not trying to say money solves every problem, but in any case, it makes life easier and in our case more enjoyable. As my dad said: You can't buy happiness, but you can buy things that can make you happy. Like this coffee for instance.

We learned two things on this day:

1. Take cash with you wherever you travel. Hide it or save it for bad days, but make sure it's there.
2. You only truly realise the importance of something once you are lacking it.

Now it may seem inappropriate or even barbaric to talk about money like that, considering the people living and begging on the street all over Manila. But maybe the only thing you can do for a developing country is to support the economy - and it's what tourists basically do. You cannot fight a corrupt and dysfunctional government on your own, and without deep understanding of people's lives you are in no position to judge it.

Just a few weeks ago, at one course at my university, we have been discussing the question: If you see injustice in a foreign country, should you accept it or not? The answer, probably, lies somewhere inbetween. Accepting is out of question for most of us, but recognising that it it's a different culture and probably learning a lesson for one's later life is the first step. Our host, who has spent decades in Manila, has told us not to give in to children, however poor and miserable looking, begging for money or food.

The reason why, however, has dawned to us weeks later, thanks to a sign near the Angkor temples in Cambodia: If you support the begging, you teach children and their families that it's more profitable than going to school, thus inhibiting their education. Immediate relief, encouraging the status quo, vs. withholding, leading to change - the eternal dilemma of social justice? Please feel free to comment if you disagree with me. :) 

Scary art and heavy shopping

On another day, we wanted to see a different kind of culture and went to the Metropolitan Museum, which displays modern art as in contrast to the free National Museum (which we somehow missed). Little did we know that the exhibition followed a rather dark theme. Ronald Ventura and his Shadow Forest exhibition - meet the carousel of your nightmares...

If cartoon characters were real..

...they would look like this inside

This guy could shine in different colours

   

The museum was on the way to the Mall of Asia, which was once the biggest mall of the country (City North EDSA expanded in 2008 is now the biggest, but both are still huge). It took us around an hour on a straight road from our accommodation to get there, which was a pleasant walk partly along the seaside (with police booths at every corner for some reason).

Manila pays credit to its bravest journalists along the seashore

Halfway to the Mall of Asia, we treated ourselves with an iced coffee...

...and got these tea-frappuccino-mix thingies for free! Yay to Valentine's day

Once we arrived, we realised where this mall got its reputation from: It's basically a small town. A paradise for shopaholics, stuffed with everything you can imagine through all the price ranges.

View from one of the largest malls in the world

Food street of the mall

Dinner: A Mexican feast

We got each a free rose at the restaurant. Double-yay to Valentine's day!

The beautiful way home

Another journey took us to the Greenbelt Mall in Makati area. Slightly smaller, this one still encompassed a lot of greenery along with its shops. Makati is a rather fancy area, and farther away so that we had to take the metro (called LRT and MRT) to get there. By the way, the metro in Manila is as fully packed as that in Tokyo. ;)

Valentine's day apparently lasts for at least a week here - or even the whole year?

Cute little chapel at a lake

There are (probably Japanese) koi carps in there!

Art knows no boundaries. If I remember well, this one is related to the war

Fountain near our street

On that day, we actually wanted to visit the American Cemetery with a famous chapel in Makati as well, but were late since it closes at 5 pm. Well, you always have to leave something for next time, right? At least we found a small festival-ish market with streetfood on our way where we tried fancy kinds of ice cream... 

The race to Taal volcano

For our last day, we preserved a real adventure and set off to Taal volcano in Talisay. Thanks to my dad's colleague who is originally from Manila (Thank you, Cherryl!), we got to know about this place. On this most adventurous day, we returned home all tired and sweaty after six hours on the road in total.

The journey itself was a great part: We had to take the metro, a bus, a jeepney, and a tricycle to get to the lake where the island is where the lake is where the volcano island is in. In this order. A boat and a great deal of walking was included as well.

But let me first tell you about jeepneys, unique modes of transportation. These were once American army jeeps, which had been rebuilt and decorated to make a mini-bus of them to accommodate dozens of passengers (squeezed together) sitting on two opposite benches. Unfortunately, we haven't taken a photo, so here is a representation from the internet:

(source)

These things are awesome. Although it gets crammed in there and it looks like a cage, it's very comfy and not even hot because of the airflow while riding. So much fun!

Our next mode of transportation was a tricycle. Similar to a tuktuk, these things consist of a motorbike and a two-seat trailer on the back. Again, it was a lot of fun and quite adventurous to ride curvy, lonely country roads in that. Not recommended for the city though, because of the exhaust gases you have to breathe in sitting right behind them.

Again, stolen from the internet (source)

After roughly three hours on the road, we arrived at the city of Tagaytay where a boat should take us to the island Luzon, on which you can find the volcano with its Taal lake. At this point, we didn't know that the real adventure just lied ahead of us.

At the boat station, there was noone but us and a lonely tourist. It was quite late, around 4 pm, and the boat apparently only ran until 5 pm. Just in time - so we wanted to get on as quickly as possible, but the tourist started to speak with us in a quite agitated manner, and had apparently been arguing with one of the workers at the boathouse. He did not speak a lot of English, but it turned out that he was Russian, so I reluctantly admitted to speak his language just to find out what he wanted. Apparently, the Russian tourist was waiting for someone to share a boat, since it was quite expensive to pay alone (around 30 euro, I believe). Separated from the group of Japanese he was originally with (apparently deliberately by the workers, to make more money), he had been waiting for hours to find someone to accompany him on the island. The poor guy also told us that at another boat station the fare was cheaper, so he wanted to take us there. The worker, however, threatened to call the police if we left, since it was "illegal" to offer a lower price for the fare, which made us want to leave even more. Then it turned out that both were the same price. At least we could divide it by three and finally got on the boat after a distressing and time-consuming argument...

Enjoying the waves!

View of Mt. Balantoc on Luzon island

Once arrived at Luzon, you have to pay an entrance fee and are finally allowed to climb quite a steep hill to have a great view over Taal lake in the volcano's crater. There was an option to hire a horse, but fit (and penny-wise) as we were, we chose to go by foot, the Russian guy in tow. Meanwhile, the latter was creating a vlog of his journey and filmed us as well. Who knows, maybe we are going to become Youtube stars one day ;) What was most impressive is that he had spent five weeks travelling the Philippines, without speaking any English at the beginning, and had some crazy adventures to tell about. His tales of breathtaking landscapes and dangerous waterfalls has made me want to visit other parts of the country as well at some point. Five days is very short after all...

Not an easy job for the horses, going up and down all day

Finally arrived! This little thing on the right is the volcano island

Local settlements on the hill

On our way down, we bought a coconut for refreshment (oh delicious coconut water!), and were followed by an elderly local woman who attempted some small talk in English, and told us we were beautiful. Friendliness and pleasant surprises wait for you at every corner - when you least expect it.

Clever wordplay too great to be left out. Nevertheless, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has become our new favourite coffee chain on our travels. But I guess you will notice in later posts...

The myth of Filipino culture?

What has striken us probably most in this country, was the apparent lack of culture. For me, one of the first things I am curious about at a new destination is the food. However, in Manila, all you can find is American fast food chains, Chinese and Japanese shops, and cafés (now I don't say we don't like cafés, we spent a lot of time in them in fact). What Filipino food looks and tastes like is still a mystery to us. 

Chinese...

...Italian...

...and more Chinese

On the last day, eventually, we had something resembling local, traditional food. There is one aspect about food in South East Asia: Fruit vendors at every corner, selling juicy, delicious and amazingly cheap delights.

Presumably local dishes: Rice, steamed veggies and meat

During these days, we thought: Sure, Manila pays honour to its national hero Rizal, has got  artists and preserves historical treasures. But what else does the capital have to offer? The Philippines are mostly associated with stunning natural landscapes, waterfalls and beaches, none of which can be found in Manila. What is left here is mostly shopping, shopping, shopping - and eating. The sheer amount of shopping malls (16 major centres and dozens of regional ones), including two of the world's biggest, make Manila the world capital of shopping. You can spend days in them, hanging around in air-conditioned micro-cities. But this is all modern stuff - what about traditions and indigeneous life?

We had a hard time trying to find a book on Filipino history and/or culture in several bookshops we came across. Because we wanted to find out what this is and if this actually exists. The Philippines have been victim of colonialism: First by the Spanish, making it the only Christian country in Asia, then by the British. Lastly, Japan brought a lot of suffering as well as significant changes to the country during their occupation in World War 2. Thus, our conclusion was that the Philippines simply did not have the change to develop their own culture, since they had not been independent for almost four centuries. It is even named after a Spanish king! Although there was, of course, a traditional culture brought by the indigeneous people from all corners of Asia, it has largely been "overwritten" by occupation. Japanese culture is as evident by the presence of numerous restaurants and shops like Daiso, as well as karaoke boxes.

There are, however, a few things that characterise local culture. One of them is language: An advantage of the Western influence is that along with Filipino, English has been declared the official language. Meanwhile, Filipino originated from Tagalog, the language of the capital, encompassing other regional nuances and expressions as well. And if you read magazines in English in the Philippines, you will be surprised to find words or whole phrases that you don't understand - because they are in Filipino. It seems normal to mix both languages up and create a unique local version of English.

What is also westernised is the way of clothing. Most people (not counting those in fancy areas) wear simple, often light clothes, not paying too much attention to their looks or bothering about their body shape. A refreshing attitude in contrast to the Japanese way to dress which is in no way revealing (at least above the waist) and always tidy.

However, our last culture shock waited for us on our way to the airport, where our taxi driver got out of the car halfway to our destination - just to take a piss on the street. Without washing his hands. Oh, we were certainly not sad to leave Manila at all. But as we now think back at our time there, the five days turned out to be relaxing and exciting, and went by a little too fast, leaving a very mixed impression of the country.

The aim of this post is not to shed a negative light the Philippines - it is certainly much richer in terms of experiences of all kinds. One just has to spend more time in different places, dig deeper and keep the mind open. Meanwhile, the still developing country has way to go to reveal its full potential.

This was, however, just the start of our journey through South East Asia. Next destination: Bangkok!


* If you are interested, you can check out our accommodation here.