July 26, 2011
I had looked thoroughly at the map of Zamboanga and felt confident that we could make it to one of the two cheaper hotels without incident. As we neared the center, drivers of various types of vehicles trailed, shouting at us, asking where we were going. Along with all the chaos of these guys and the traffic, young grinning men greeted us in an emphatic, but almost condescending tone. Everyone seemed to be laughing at us, and probably the increasing look of stress on our faces. We came to an intersection and I knew that we needed to turn right, but the street name was not the same as I had written down. It would not have surprised me that it had changed, but I also did not want to take the risk. We also did not want to slow down for being overwhelmed by the taxi drivers and whatever sort of hustler was in town.
We saw a nearby hotel, which I knew was close to one of the cheaper options. We asked there about prices, which of course were astronomical ($25) and they directed us to the place we were looking for. Unfortunately it was full. Trying to get oriented again was a failure. The crowded movement of the streets did not permit us to stop and take our time though, and to avoid too much attention we had to just keep walking. As an aggressive pack of beggar kids started to surround us, demanding money and getting a little to close to our pockets, we decided to give in and ask for a “tricycle” to take us there. This tricycle was basically a motorcycle with a sidecar welded on. We knew it was no more than 500 meters away, but he asked for a ridiculous amount of money and wouldn’t negotiate knowing we were desperate. Then a group of high school-aged girls came and saved us. They said they would take us there. It was probably out of their way, but they were willing to show us. Long story made less long, we found a place that wasn’t in the guidebook for less than any listed. Typical story. One of the cheaper room rates on their sign was coyly listed as “special night”. We asked what that meant, and they said it was the price for a room after midnight.
In our hotel we were already discovering a few legacies of American colonialism. First, they arrange the date month/day/year, unlike any other country I know of. The outlets are the same as ours, an anomaly outside North America. Lise claimed the shower was American style, but I didn’t really understand that, perhaps because I never became too intimate with showers…anywhere. Best of all, though, was what I discovered on the TV. This country has an obsession with basketball, not soccer like almost every other country on earth. I appreciate soccer of course, but basketball is my thing. I have a basketball jones, but seeing it played outside America is rare. As Lise showered I sat back and watched a show of highlights from slam-dunk contests of the 1980’s.
We found some dinner at a “turo-turo” or “point-point” as we just pointed at which dish we wanted from the pre-cooked display. Some sort of stewed meat with rice (not adobo). It was tasty and we enjoyed it with the Philippines’ insanely cheap lager San Miguel. We would become dear friends with Senor Miguel and his older brother Red Horse by the end of the trip. The table next to us was enjoying watching music videos on the videoke (karaoke machine with videos) machine. They liked it when we sang along with Toto’s Africa. It was a nice atmosphere so we stuck around for a few minutes and chatted with an increasingly drunk guy that had wandered in earlier. Halfway into his liter of Red Horse, when he got to be too much, we decided to move on.
We wandered into the next bar we saw, which looked like some sort of third world cowboy bar with karaoke. We weren’t even sure if we wanted to go in there, but a couple guys from inside were waving us in so enthusiastically it was hard to refuse. We walked up to the dingy bar, where a scantily clad lady was chatting with the bartender. As we tried to figure out their drink selection (two beers, two sizes) one of the guys that had waved us in came up to is, shaking our hands, putting his arms around us and slurring about how happy he was that we were there. The bartender saw that he was making a fool of himself so he had the girl take him back to his table. He continued to smile and wave back to us as he was led away.
After the introduction was out of the way, we ordered what seemed to be the popular drink, a liter of Red Horse, the strong version of San Miguel. The drunken guys screamed into the videoke machine’s microphone. The words ran across the screen in front of stock footage of women in bikinis posing and rolling around on beaches. It went nicely with the sexy lady posters that decorated the bar. This “bikinaoke” as it came to be known between us was a bizarre feature to this karaoke machine, but nobody even seemed to notice it. The people involved in the karaoke were far too engulfed in the music to even notice women.
Again, the guys were getting a little too excited at one point, so we decided to finish our beer and get ready for the next day. After all, we couldn’t stay in this haven of “terrorists” and “criminals” much longer, or we could be in grave danger! I tell you, based on the people we met, we were only in danger of being hit by their bodies as they fell down drunk.
On the way home we ran into a guy who was collecting recyclables. He was excited to meet foreigners and practice his English, which was surprisingly good considering his profession. His wife, who was standing off to the side, was shy and didn’t want to meet us. The man insisted, though, and eventually got her to come shake our hands. He had lots of questions for us, so we indulged him. After a while, though, we noticed he was asking the same questions a second time. When he asked our names for the third time with no indication that he remembered that he had at least asked us before, we realized this man was on repeat. He seemed so coherent at first, but when he was going into all the same questions for the third time, the guy went from friendly to a little bit sad. We had to tear ourselves away from him or he would never be satisfied. We said goodbye and started to walk away as he tried to ask us again where we were from.
Of the few sites to see in Zamboanga, we chose not to bother with them. We had a long distance to go to Manila (basically the entire length of the country) and it would probably be slow.
We didn’t know exactly where we wanted to go when we got to the bus station, but there were plenty of people there with suggestions. Aggressive men tried to hustle us into a variety of buses, their destination remaining a mystery. We wanted to end up in Cagayan de Oro, on the northern coast of Mindanao, but there were no direct buses from here, so we considered stopping halfway in Tubod. Lise was hesitant to take anything too far, as there was frequent talk of highway banditry at night in this part of the island. We had also considered hitchhiking, and even though I thought it would probably be safe, if something happened to us, the whole world would have said, “I told you so”.
As we ate our pre-bus trip meal at a nearby stall, hordes of vendors of everything made a pass at us. I was getting really annoyed, more than I normally do in this situation. I hadn’t figured it out yet, but something about their demeanor was rubbing me in a wronger way than usual. They were in my face with big grins and loud voices, something I was not excited about in the mid-morning heat.
I was relieved when we got on the bus. It was a slow ride, but we were glad to be on a non-AC clattertrap on rough road, as opposed to all those “comfortable”, but freezing buses in Malaysia. The rural life was far different than Malaysia, and far more interesting. Flooded rice paddies and ramshackle huts hugged the road tightly as kids scampered around while the older folk lazed around at bars and food stalls. There seemed to be a lot of life, and I found myself glued to the window-TV. In Malaysia I usually just read, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the new sights around me. Most of the journey was rural, but it didn’t mean there weren’t many people. It seemed that we would stop to drop or pick people up in every minor settlement, sometimes stopping several times in the 300-meter stretch of bamboo huts. The distance on the map did not look far, but it was slower than I could have imagined. We arrived to our bus’s destination after dark, and decided that it would be better to continue busing through the night to Cagayan de Oro, and save time and money on a hotel.
The nice thing about being on a bus for 24 hours is that you get a glimpse of what life is like in a place throughout the day by simply sitting and watching. When we left we were watching people going about their days working and eating lunch. Eventually the kids were let out of school, and we could see the mass of pupils crowding the street, buying street snacks on their way home. Many of them came onto our bus for a while, making it jam-packed for about thirty minutes. Then we would watch people in their leisure activities in the evening, young men playing basketball, anyone else singing karaoke at a roadside bar or restaurant. Then in the morning, arriving Cagayan de Oro we saw the city wake up. Nearly empty streets gave way to people hustling on their way to work or school, women firing up their stoves to get the tapsilog ready for breakfast and the adobo ready for lunch. It was a perfect introduction to the Philippines and the Filipino way of life.
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