The Nicest People on Earth

Mabuhay (hello) again, from the land of hospitality.  Before describing beautiful beaches, blue water, bad food and weather, cockfighting (next webpage), poor roads, and other aspects of the Philippines, I will start off by saying that I have never met nicer people in all of my travels, particularly in Asia.  This alone is reason enough to visit here, but, when coupled with some of the other nice things here, the Philippines is becoming one of my favorite countries quickly, and gets the Ed nod of approval.

In my first three weeks here I travelled through five different islands, including some poor (click for photo) places like Leyte and Samar that see very little tourists.  Unfortunately, in these places the weather was particularly uncooperative, often confining me to my hotel, and I was a bit dissapointed.  I have realized that there is no clearly defined "dry season" all over the Philippines, but if varies from place to place.  As I am going all over the place I needed to accept that I will be spending some time in the rain.

I also got lucky, in that the first time I was in a picturesque beach spot (the tiny island of Panglau, off of Bohol - click for photo) I had four crystal clear days of sun!  Wow did I need it.
Alona Beach, Panglau Island (Bohol).
click to enlarge



I spent a couple of days beside deadly Mt. Mayon, sometimes called the "most perfect volcano on Earth".  Unfortunately, due to poor weather I rarely saw it - I only got this half assed photo snaped out the wiundow of a bus during a clear moment.  That is smoke coming out the top, and between eruptions and landslides it has killed thousands.
I visited some really unphotographic places so I had to take photos of whatever I could.  Here is a fish market in the town of Maasin, on the island of Leyte.
In the Philippines there are always churches (some very old and beautiful) to look at.  Often there are lovely and energetic masses going on inside.
One day two friends and I piled onto a rented motorbike and I drove us to a tarsier sanctuary.  These strange little monkeys (smallest on Earth), often described as looking like Gremlins, are native to the island of Bohol, but are endangered.

What else have I been doing?  On Bicol (the southern part of Luzon) I volunteered for a day with a relief organization (HODR = Hands On Disaster Relief, click for website) helping to clean up and rebuild the devastated areas where the typhoon hit (click for video).  One day wasn't much but atleast I was giving back something to the country, instead of always taking.

Unfortunately I have also spent a lot of time on busses and boats as I have covered considerable distance here.  Similar to the rest of SE Asia, busses or vans don't have set schedules, but often only leave when they fill up, which means I was sometimes waiting for hours.  Additionally, you can really see how some islands are much more neglected (in terms of government aid) than others, and this means that the roads are in severe disrepair.  The best roads I have found were on Leyte, and I read that this is a result of the fact that the flamboyant former first lady, Imelda Marcos, was from there.

Similar to Brazil, I have made all kinds of friends here - I have met some interesting travellers, but mostly I have made Filipino friends.  Different from Cambodians and Laotians, Filipinos have a very open culture, perhaps because of their history as a hub for all types of travellers, traders, migrants, and colonizers.  Often at night I start out walking, and am hailed by people to come and talk.  One night a group of five guys and two girls (they were in a local band) stopped me and I hung out with them for hours, talking and joking about everything.  Another night I sat down with five guys (three brothers and two cousins) and together we downed two bottles of burbon as they took turns playing the guitar and singing James Taylor and Jim Croce songs.  They refused to let me pay for anything (several times here people have paid for me, in jeepney rides, taxis, drinks, food ... this just didn't happen in the first half of my trip).

On another night, on the idyllic Alona Beach (Panglau Island) I spent a pleasurable evening at an after hours bar entertaining the staff and some tourists with my laptop, showing my photography and playing some music.  There was a German traveller who was so impressed that he was buying me drinks all the while, and said he is going to buy some of my photos for his office.  While this was all going on the two bar waitresses, (Cheryl and Mona Lisa) who were two of the most beautiful women in the Phililipines, both stood across the bar from me jockeying for my attention.  But who would like that kind of thing?  On Panglau Island I also became friends with two hilarious Filipina tourists (from Leyte) and we palled around for a couple of days (later we met up again in Boracay Island).

About the food ... I often write, or atleast mention this, because when travelling for long times, and are forced to eat out three times per day, food becomes an important aspect of the country.  Unfortunately, the Philippines has unimaginative food (at best).  In particular, whoever said that African Americans like fried chicken (or assigned that stereotype to them) obviously never went to the Philippines.  Here it seems that fried chicken is the national food, and even places where there are other choices (like restaurants and fast food chains) everyone is still just eating fried chicken.  The only explanation is that their obcession with eating fried chicken mirrors their obcession for cockfighting.  Perhaps they are unrelated, but an abundance of cockfighting (and here I would say that there is an abundance) does yield an abundance of fresh chicken meat.  Besides chicken, there isn't much more than other types of fast food, and Adobong Baboy (pork Adobo).  In general the eating habits here are quite unhealthy when compared to Cambodia and Laos (though not when compared to the USA).

In Cebu City I timed my visit to coincide with fabulous Sinulog festival.  This occurs each year on the third Sunday of January, and it was quite a spectacle of religious devotion, street dancing  (click for video), and general revelry.  It is a Mardi Gras of sorts, and the entire city was overwhelmed for two days (click for video of downtown Cebu at night).  See the photos below (click to enlarge, then "back" to return)


There were legions of dancers in all kinds of costumes.  Unfortunately, as the street dancing part was a bit unorganized they spent alot of time sitting around.
Sinulog is a festival celebrating Santo Niño, the baby Jesus.  Everywhere you could see people carrying around statues, and, interestingly, sometimes they were dark skinned.
The costumes were quite elaborate and the singing and dancing very energetic.
Again, I cannot resist photoing lovely girls - it is like I was born to do it.


Carnival and Mardi Gras festivals worldwide often are a time where people celebrate homosexulality, and Sinulog was no exception.  There were many groups of all gay dancers, and others of ladyboys.
At times the dancing was intense.  Although I was mostly dissappointed with my ability to show the motion of the dances, using slow shutter speeds atleast gives some sense.
People were very receptive to photograpy - more so, they were constantly asking to be photo'd, and were very happy when I obliged.
Iglesa Santa Rosario, one of the large churches in Cebu, buzzed with masses round the clock.

So, what else is good about the Philippines?  For sure, all of the whining I did before about tourist pricing and cheating in Cambodia and Laos ... was completely justified.  What I mean by that is the Philippines is almost completely devoid of that, and even though they are also poor, Filipinos openly scoff at the idea of cheating a tourist.  Here, in general, the idea of a foreigner as a special guest in your country is very strong, and they bend over backwards to make your experience here special.  That is really wonderful, and is something that other countries ought to take note of.

What is wrong with the Philippines?  Here, just like many places, the people, even the educated ones, suffer from a lack of perspective.  For instance: though the Philippines is poor, the conditions here are the best of the countries I have visited in Asia, yet the people think they are sooooo poor, and they are trying harder to flee their country than people of much more desperate countries.  This means that in the Philippines there are three types of people:

1) People who are trained, educated, or skilled - these are all planning/trying to legitimately work abroad.
2) Unskilled and/or uneducated women - these are all trying to marry a foreigner in order to live abroad.
3) Unskilled and/or uneducated men - these are stuck in the Philippines, though also dream of escaping.

Because Filipinos are such nice people I more than welcome them to emigrate to the USA.  However, it is unfortunate that they have absolutely no faith in staying in their own counrty, and also, the fact that the upper echelon is GOING to leave, means that the Philippines will always lag in advancment.  If every skilled health care professional immediately moves abroad, then how good could their health care system be (or any sector of society)?  Also, #2 above can lead to some interesting consequences.  Women here latch onto anything that has white skin and moves.  Everywhere you see humongously fat, fifty year old white men with twenty year old Filipina women.  This sounds like a dream for fat white guys, but really it is a lame scene, with women golddigging more than anywhere else I have seen.  Here is a subsection of a conversation I had with a girl the other day:

Girl: "I don't date Filipino men, I only date foreigners"
Me: "Why?"
Girl: "Filipino men are not attractive"
Me: "That's ridiculous, there are many good looking Filipino men"
Girl: "Yes, but they are not rich"

Need I say more?  Yes, a bit more.  I was foolish enough to hang out with this girl and her friends one night - they were friends of a friend of mine and invited me.  True to form, she (they) were very uninteresting company, ordered beers and food without me (and another white guy) even knowing it, and when the bill came they made not even the slightest inclination that they would contribute some money.  As I didn't eat anything I refused to pay for the food, but was stuck paying for half of the beers.  I was furtherly dissappointed because that night I had passed up hanging out with a true friend - a gay guy who was really cool, educated, sophisitcated ... aka, not a stupid golddigger.  When I mention the friends I have made in the Philippines, they all pay (or atleast volunteer to pay) their share of expenses, and often pay for everything.  The next webpages will describe really wonderful hospitality, more idyllic beaches and islands, and, as promised, cockfighting.

Love,
Ed