Cockfights in Cebu City

What we found in our neighborhood uptown was somewhat disturbing. There was a large traffic circle nearby called Fuente Osmena Circle. It was packed with pristine new buildings filled with a variety of local and foreign fast food joints, hotels, and upscale shops. This was a popular place for the richer segments of society. Interestingly, there was a lot of poverty downtown, but it was in this rich uptown commercial district that we encountered more beggars. It seemed unlikely that we would find a cheap and casual eatery in these parts, so we pushed further uptown. We were looking for a place that supposedly had live music and a youthful crowd. We eventually hopped on a local jeepney, getting off where it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, nobody around had ever heard of the place we were looking for. So we kept walking in search of something interesting.

We wandered into a surprisingly narrow side street that made us feel like we had stepped miles away from the glitzier “uptown” commercial area. This was about as average as a neighborhood gets, but it was surprisingly alive. Every shop, street vendor, eatery was open for business and it had a bit of a street festival feel to it. We also no longer felt like we were in a big city. The people greeted us as if we were walking through a rural village. A little shop caught our eye with its big brown jugs of tuba (coconut wine). We sat down and asked a teenage girl for a couple of glasses. Although people generally speak very impressive English in the Philippines, this girls’ abilities were exquisite. She was so excited to be getting some practice with native speakers. We could see her family behind her, lounging in their living room, watching a basketball game. This shop was just an extension of their home. They all smiled and waved to us, also intrigued with the unexpected presence of foreigners, especially since we were drinking the local brew. We chatted with the girl for a long time, and she talked about how she had family abroad working as nurses. The Philippines is one of the world’s biggest exporters of labor. Many are maids throughout richer Asian countries, nurses in the west, laborers in the Middle East or boat workers all over the world. This girl seemed open to working abroad, but did not seem too excited about being a nurse. She had started university, but wanted to do something different than her older sisters.

When we finished our glasses of tuba, we thanked the girl, said goodbye to her family and proceeded down this sociable street. We met a few more curious people before sitting down at a street stall where a teenage girl was making French fries. Even though it was just a cart, it was some sort of franchise, with a professional-looking sign and she wore a uniform. Filipinos have really taken this franchising of fast food to a new level. We asked for one serving of the fries, and she pulled out a bag of frozen fries, weighed out one portion on a scale, and threw them in the fryer. This bean counting and uniform and all really took the spirit and charm out of eating on the street. Worst of all, they were not really that good.

We went across the street to a dark karaoke bar. When we got there, only two other girls were there, drinking beer and singing. They actually had a wall running through the bar, creating two karaoke rooms. There can never be too many karaoke bars here. I wish I could remember all the ridiculous songs we would shamelessly sing. I do know that on this night we debuted our duet of “Barbie Girl”, which, to us, went over very well. One of Lise’s specialty’s was “My Heart Will Go On”. When she first said she was going to do it, I thought it was very ambitious, as it is probably the most famous and most played song worldwide (still, like 13 years later). She actually pulled it off quite nicely though, and would always get lots of applause with this choice. One unfortunate feature of the karaoke here, is that every machine has karaoke files from who know where. Each time you sing a song, the background music and lyrics could be completely different. Sometimes the lyrics are just plain wrong or don’t match the tempo of the music. This night, I tried “By the Way” by the Chili Peppers, but it lilted along painfully slow, and I had to make a huge effort not to get ahead of the music.

When we finally tore ourselves away from this little neighborhood, in the direction of home, we stopped at a casual little open air bar with a karaoke machine. We met a very interesting guy there who had spent years working in America for some sort of production company (putting on concerts I think). He had toured all over the country, so it was fun to hear all of his impressions of where he had been. He mentioned that he had noticed many Filipinos in Seattle, but was disappointed that nobody wanted to identify with their heritage. It was like as soon as they were in America, they lost their Filipino identity. It was true, I felt, that for how many Filipinos there are in Seattle, they were not that noticeable. Unlike other immigrants from Vietnam, China or Mexico, there are few Filipino-oriented businesses. Though he did say that the ones that were born in America do have the tendency to want to connect to their roots. I eventually asked him about something I had been curious about since arriving in the country: Cockfighting. I knew that the next day, Sunday, was the big day for it, so I wanted to know how I could go. He gave me all the details about where to go, when and how to get there. By this time, Lise and I were wondering why nobody was singing. This was a problem. So we asked the bartender if we could have a turn. He said at this hour they were not allowed to do karaoke because of the noise, but eventually relented and gave us one song each.

The next morning, we packed our bags, left them at the reception desk, and went on our mission to find the cockfighting. On our way there, we went to a restaurant to have a dish that Cebu is famous for: lechon baboy, or whole roast pig. Well, no, we didn’t eat a whole roast pig, just a portion of a big that was roasted whole. What can I say? The skin, which is bathed in coconut milk during the roast, was a perfectly crisp little chip of porky goodness. The meat was ridiculously tender and flavorful. Sure, it was a little greasy, but that’s the glory of pork. It’s one of the rare instances where I would say that western imperialism and colonization turned out for the better. If Magellan hadn’t arrived and sowed the seeds of Christianity, the Philippines would still be Muslim, and therefore porkless (not to mention probably San Miguel Beerless, which would imply karaokeless).

Now it was off to the cockfights. The jeepney route was a little bit complicated, requiring two transfers. We weren’t exactly certain where we were going but had some key words to help us along. On our second jeepney, we asked a young dude who helped us out. Turned out that he was actually heading to the same area. So he took us to the next connecting bus, and before we knew it, we were heading into the “D & C Coliseum”. I had always pictured cockfights as being fairly underground and informal. A few dozen guys waving money around in a circle on a dirt floor in a remote village or in an urban basement. The fact that it was referred to as a “coliseum” made me picture vast seating areas, light-up scoreboards, a sound system with music and an announcer, etc. Well, it was somewhere in between there. We could hear the pandemonium from about a hundred yards away. It was a good sign. The standard entrance fee was something like 75 cents, a buck 25 for VIP. Now, Lise and I won’t spend extra on hotel rooms with attached bathrooms or aircon, or meals in more formal restaurants, but we will throw down a little extra to have the chance of getting blood on our clothes during a cockfight, that is certain.

The Coliseum.

Tats were sick.

So many countries in the world (including New Mexico!) have cockfighting as a popular pastime. I was nearly ashamed that this would be my first chance to actually see one. Now, you can always criticize me for taking part in a sport that would fit under the category of “cruelty to animals”. I could argue against it by saying that at least the loser cocks end up on plates at the end of the day, or maybe that until the fighting, the fighting cocks are probably treated far better than the average fowl. But I don’t really think it matters all that much. I am not going to this because I am into cockfighting, but it is something that happens all over the world (not making it right) and I am simply going to see what actually goes on there and try to understand this phenomenon. I guess it is similar to my visit to the bullfight in Mexico City.

Placing bets.

Although we had paid extra for VIP seats in the section closer to the ring, it was already overcrowded and the usher (funny to think of an usher at a cockfight, funnier to think of Usher at a cockfight) tried to treat the individual seats as bench seats. Therefore, I would get a seat, and Lise would get the concrete slab between two of the seats. Being a man, I had the seniority to get the seat, but I explained that this would not do. Eventually all the other guys around squeezed in, letting us each have our own seats. Although we were completely out of place, everyone was very welcoming. One young guy, with a haircut identical to mine when I was eight, appointed himself as our guide. He sat very close to me, explaining everything that was going on and telling me who he was betting on. Everyone was trying to get us to place bets, and I couldn’t tell if it was just because that is what you’re supposed to do at a cockfight, or they figured that we would not know who to bet on and we would just be making the pot bigger. We actually considered betting a couple times, until we found out that the minimum bet was 500 pesos, or about $12.

This adorable little dude was our voluntary guide. He cleaned up on the gambling too.

Some of the high rollers sitting in front of us.

Lise's "Shinkansen" bag promoting the Japanese bullet train.

Everything was so overwhelming. Other than the fact that the rooster that doesn’t die wins, we had no idea what was going on. All of a sudden cheers would go up, or people would start yelling furiously, putting various fingers in the air, or throwing wadded up money around. We eventually figured out how it went. First, the two cockmasters (that is the name I am making up for the rooster trainers) would come to the middle of ring, holding out their cocks, letting them peck at each other and get all riled up. Based on this, people would place their bets on which cock would come out victorious and odds were made. Once all the bets were in, the covers would be taken off the razor blades strapped to the cocks’ feet and they would go at it. I had a tough time being able to tell what exactly was going on and who was winning. To me it just looked like two birds jumping around and running into each other. Everyone else, though, could follow every detail as if it was in slow motion. The guys next to me would explain to me who was winning. Most matches didn’t last more than a couple minutes before one of them fatally sliced, sometimes squirting blood all over the ring. Sometimes it was gruesome and seemed to go on forever, both cocks near death while the referee kept throwing them at each other trying to make one of them finish the other. Other times it ended so quick and painlessly I barely realized what had happened.

Picking up the two nearly dead roosters, dropping them to restart the fight.

As much as I wanted to throw my hands up and cheer, I had to be careful that I didn’t accidentally place any high dollar bets. Every round, the guys asked if I was going to place a bet. I would decline, but say that if I was betting, I would bet on such and such cock. Usually I was right, except when I bet on the funny looking blonde bird. They told me they call the blonde ones “gay cocks”. It was ignorant, but still kind of funny.

This man appeared to be something of a bookie. He would yell stuff, then after the fight people threw little wadded up bills at him and he would always catch them.

The novelty wore off after an hour though. This goes on basically all day every Sunday, and I really understand why it is all about gambling. The entertainment is not the actual fight, it is the excitement of betting. Of all the vices in the world, I find gambling the hardest to understand and I have never been able to enjoy betting. Some of the more serious people (including our self-appointed guide, who turned out to be an unstoppable gambling force) had official “D & C Coliseum T-shirts”. I wanted one, so Lise started asking around if it was possible to buy them. One guy said it was for “members only”. Another guy said he could get us one. He yelled something out to someone and told us to wait. After 15 minutes of waiting we gave up and decided it wasn’t quite worth it. Plus, we had an evening boat to catch and had to navigate about 5 different jeepneys to get there.

Dirty Digs in Cebu City

August 4, 2011

We arrived in Cebu City, the Philippines’ second city, around 9:00 PM. We had taken enough looks at the map to have a good idea of how to get downtown from the port on foot. The Lonely Planet suggests that you should not stay downtown as it is very difficult to find something acceptably clean, even if it is only $2. They suggest to go uptown and spend about 5x as much. That sounded like sane advice in hindsight, but it still didn’t convince us, and the thought of $2 rooms sounded pretty nice.

When we finally stumbled into the downtown area after wandering around lost for a while, we could get an immediate feel for the sketchiness. Nothing good seemed to be going on after dark in this part of town. There seemed to be quite a few rough looking hotels, so we picked one. Indeed, they had rooms for $2, but they said they were full. I actually believed them at the time, but now I just realized that having foreigners staying in brothels made the staff a little nervous. Another hotel nearby told us they were also full and directed us to the hotel we had just come from. Then we went to one with a big garish sign that seemed attached to a night club. They advertised “theme rooms” and a “Mexican room” for $4. We didn’t know what a Mexican room, but the receptionist told us it was for “members only”. We didn’t want to know what it took to become a member.

We started to get worried, but then we stumbled into another fleapit that was being operated by a few giggly guys in their young 20s They were surprised to see us wanting a room, and their amusement seemed to lead them to be more open to letting us stay there. The cost was about $3 for the tiny room. As we put our things down, the guys got immediately into hospitality mode. They enthusiastically got us fresh sheets, and one of them asked if we wanted a cabinet. I didn’t understand, but said, “sure! Let’s have a cabinet”. The cabinet actually had a lock on it, so that was very reassuring that they thinking of our safety. I doubted other people got locked cabinets. Then one of the guys arrived with a spray bottle with a mysterious liquid in it. He started spraying it on the walls and the door jam, smiling and saying “No more germs! No more germs! Make it clean! Everything’s cleans.” It was as if they acknowledged that this place was filthy and they felt bad for us staying there. They made me feel really comfortable in this rough part of town.

We didn’t linger, though, and just headed right outside. It was the kind of place that is chaotic and busy during the day, but due to safety concerns can barely support any but the most immoral or low-budget businesses at night. Brothels, McDonalds, a couple of dirty-looking nightclubs and a produce market were all that remained in our vicinity. When we exited, we walked past a row of scruffy horses with wounds and disease that were attached to carts for local transportation. Down the dark street, dozens of people slept on the sidewalk next to or on top of large piles of garbage. A little further on we approached a market. Before we got there, I saw a man bring his daughter out next to the sidewalk where there was an exposed sewer drain so she could relieve herself. I don’t think I have ever seen a market quite like this. It seemed that the only reason it was open at this hour was that entire families lived at this market, so the best way to keep their goods safe was to keep it open 24 hours. More than half of the people at the market were sleeping on various surfaces around the produce displays. Most everything was being sold off the ground. Nobody had stalls. It was 11 PM and it was clear that this was a 24 hour market. It was hard to imagine an entire family’s life existing in such a small space. Their little territory was there home, their business. What I saw around downtown Cebu that night shocked me. It was probably the worst urban poverty I have seen outside of Kolkata.

We needed to get out. It was hard to find a place to eat, but somewhere there was a tiny food court. Of course there was karaoke, which we were quickly becoming addicted to. We got a couple of cheap burgers, a beer and waited our turn for karaoke. Then we walked and surprisingly found a strip of nightclubs with a youthful vibe. Most of them were girly bars, but one of them seemed chock full of college student age people. This was appealing to us, since most of our nightlife had been the equivalent of Midwest saloons or dive bars. Of course, when we got in, we were a little disappointed. First, the beer was too expensive, and they didn’t sell them in the large liter bottles. Those are probably looked down upon by the more classy segment of society. Also, everyone was so well-dressed and into their image. It is probably the same materialistic vibe as you would get in any night club in the world. Still, it was nice to hear some different music on a quality sound system, even if we didn’t go to the dance floor (that would have meant a $2 cover). As we finished our small beer, a young Filipino guy invited himself to our table. The place was crowded and we had some of the only seats left. Then he bought a bucket of beers and insisted we dive in. His girlfriend came over, though she wasn’t drinking. This was one of the few places that we did see women, particularly young women, drinking freely, so we were disappointed that she was not joining in with us. She seemed really shy, which contrasted this guy’s extroverted behavior. He was a nice guy, but he was too drunk to get very far into the bucket of beers. We also quickly realized that we saw things very different from him and he had the kind of upper class arrogance one might expect from people at this club. As dirty and classless as we were, he was probably happy to be seen hanging out with westerners. He was using us for this, and so we didn’t feel bad drinking his beers. We wouldn’t have even stayed otherwise. I am always amazed at how much about nightlife is about showing off. At least it is possible to have an unpretentious night out dancing in America, but in much of the third world, it is just impossible (though I would say it is possible in West Africa).

We slept in the next morning, having little ambition to get out. We were considering leaving to the neighborhood for the more middle class “uptown”, but it just made sense to stay. When I went out to the reception to pay for another night, there was a different staff. They asked if we wanted another 12 hours. I said, no I want another night. They told me the price was per 12 hours. I explained that the night before we had checked in for a night, not a 12-hours. Their English quickly deteriorated in a manner that seemed intentional. They turned into a broken record just repeating their “12-hour” price innocently, no matter what arguments I made. I went and got Lise. She is good in these situations, but she didn’t get any farther. The guy was being completely ridiculous, though maybe he was simply annoyed at his late-night staff at letting us stay there. Finally, Lise said, “So, do you just want us to leave?” The two men looked at each other and just said, “yes,” nodding their heads. Bitterly we went back to our room and slowly packed our stuff. Now we had to go uptown. There was a place supposedly only a km or two from downtown, so we tried to walk there. It was a long way in the heat, especially in the daytime chaos of downtown. I would say the difference between the city at night and the city during the day was like night and day, but that would sound ridiculous. The sidewalks were filled with pedestrians and vendors of all sorts of stuff. There was a block that seemed lined with shoe repairmen, another with key-cutters and of course everywhere people selling different kinds of drinks and snacks. After emerging from the downtown chaos, though, we weren’t able to find the hotel we were looking for. The next one that was semi-affordable was only a km further so we kept walking. By the time we finally found the place, it seemed that we had used most of our day already. Sure, it was far nicer than where we had left, but wondered if it was $9 nicer. We didn’t even have an attached bathroom.

We still had some time in the day, so we decided to go back downtown to get some culture. Although Cebu is famous as the place where Magellan landed back in 1521, this was no “discovery” and there were already foreign ships there from Siam and Arabia. He brought religion though, and although he was killed by Chief Lapu Lapu soon after his arrival, his initial visit would be one of the most important event in the course of the history of the Philippines. Most of the principle sights of Cebu relate to this history. First, we visited “Magellan’s Cross”, which actually still has some of the original wood from the cross that he planted here nearly 500 years ago. As interesting as the cross, and the 160 year old paintings in the rotunda it was housed in were, our fellow tourists were fun to watch as well. A Japanese-speaking Filipino was leading a large tour group around the site, as they each took their turn having their pictures taken in front of the cross. One tourist recorded video with his iPad. Filipina women wandered around, trying to sell candles for them to light and plant around the cross. One shady character approached me holding a watch and a pair of sunglasses. He seemed desperate to sell them. He kept lowering the prices I hadn’t cared to know. It wasn’t until I started to ask him where he had gotten these two items that he finally left me alone.

One of the Philippines’ most important churches is the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino. At 450 years old, I can only assume it is the oldest operable church in the country, although it has been burnt down three times. It is an important pilgrimage site for Filipinos, who come from far and wide and wait hours to have a moment of prayer in front of “Santo Nino”, a small statue of an elaborately dressed Christ child. Outside, people were capitalizing on the abundance of pilgrims and tourists, selling miniature and not so miniature replicas of the Santo Nino, candles, and other religious paraphernalia. Inside, the church was of a typical style of the era, and I felt like I could have been in an old church in Spain or France. It was peaceful, and Lise and I sat and watched as the pilgrims filed in, having their moment in front of the glass-encased Christ child. There seemed to be a general ritual that family’s would go through. A prayer, kissing the glass, wiping off the glass, lifting the kids up to do the same, then waving goodbye. The people coming to say prayers in the pews around us would also stand up and, just before walking out, would wave goodbye to baby Jesus. I have a lot of respect for religious ritual, but there was something that just seemed too comical for it to be real. I felt bad for wanting to laugh, but waving goodbye to a statue of baby Jesus just seemed too silly. I decided that after I said my prayer, I would also stand up and wave goodbye before leaving. I thought it would make it seem more real to me. Unfortunately I had to strain my lips from curling into a smile as I waved goodbye.

We walked over to the Fort San Pedro, where Magellan’s replacement, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi had built a base as he conquered the Philippines. It cost something close to a dollar, and there were enough informative plaques outside for us to get a feel of what was inside. Lise predicted rain, so we decided to lay low in a gazebo in a plaza in front of the fort. Some teenagers were hanging out in the plaza, practicing their break dancing. When one of the boys took his shirt off, I heard a whistle blow from a uniformed man nearby. He yelled at the boy for his indecency and the boy had to put his shirt back on. Then the rains came, as Lise predicted and everyone rushed into the gazebo. We already had the best spots. Some of the teenage girls were quite taken with our presence. They bashfully came by, after I watched them mull over it for some time, and asked to take pictures of us with their cell phones. For such a westernized country and in a large city, I was really surprised that we would be seen as so exotic. A few child ruffians were wandering through the plaza. When they started to splash around in the puddles, the uniformed man blew his whistle at them too. I don’t know what the problem was, but this guy was really serious about maintaining order. The kids ran off to a different spot. When they started splashing around again, I wondered if the officer would actually risk getting soaked by the pouring rain to stop this barbarism. And he did! He ran towards these boys and they ran away from the plaza.

Within twenty minutes, the rain was over, and we went to check out one of the main markets. Although it takes up a small place on the map, it bleeds out for blocks, crowding streets, seeping into whatever open space is available. It was predictably chaotic and smelly. We found a sweet old lady serving halo-halo, the over the top shaved ice treat. This one was truly inspiring. She had about ten different preserved fruits to put in the cup, as well as peanuts and fresh avocado. We rarely saw this being served in such a humble street side stand, but we wished we could find it everywhere.

Further along in the market, we came across some guys shooting around at a puddled basketball court. They waved to me, and I asked if I could play. I had seen pickup games going on all over the Philippines in towns big and small, and always wanted to play. I felt this was my chance, even if it was for five minutes. I took my sandals off, split the six of us into two teams and said we would play first to three points. Lise didn’t seem so interested so I wanted to keep it short. It was a lot of fun. Everyone’s fundamental skills were weak, but it was street ball and there was a lot of spirit. When it was over, I didn’t mind that my team had lost, but did mind that I had cut my foot open and now was walking through dirty puddles. Still totally worth it. Lise had wandered off, so I went to go find her. It was getting dark, so we decided to go back uptown and see what it would be like up there at night.

Scariest Boat Ride Yet

Camiguin was nice, but with visas limiting us to only three weeks in the Philippines (stupid policy Philippines!), we had to get a move on. The ferry schedules that we had were a little vague, and nobody could give us a certain answer about times and from which port and to where. Supposedly we could get an early morning boat to Cebu, smack in the middle of the country from the port near the town we were in. So we woke terribly early, as all the kids were making their way to school and hired a tricycle to take us to the port. Of course, he could have told us there were no boats leaving at this hour (taxi drivers know these things), but then again, why would he? The next boat would be in the afternoon on the other side of the island. Back to the hotel, back to sleep for a few more hours. Score another point for the tourist office worker who said I would regret it if I didn’t visit the tourist office.

Instead of going to Cebu, we would be going to the smaller island of Bohol, south of Cebu. We had little interest in Bohol, mostly because it is a get-in, get-out tour bus kind of destination where people come from all over the world for two bizarre, and probably overrated little attractions. One is the tarsier monkey (you’ll recognize it if you google it), and the Chocolate Hills, a weird geologic phenomenon that has created a landscape of small hills, which in the dry season turn brown. While these things are probably interesting, we felt doing karaoke with lady boys was more worthwhile. But still, going to Bohol was our only option.

The three-hour boat ride to Bohol started off normal enough. For some reason this was a nicer boat, and we were in a big air-conditioned cabin with a typical absurdly violent movie on the flat screen TV. Up ahead, though, the sky was looking dark. Before we knew it, our boat was rocking increasingly violently. Lise, who has a tendency to get seasick had to stay calm and focused, but she was taking it pretty well. Then the swells got absurdly large and water came crashing up onto the decks. I casually laughed and acted like I was enjoying the whole thing (which I was for a few minutes). I looked around to see if anyone else appeared worried. I assumed that if this kind of thing was normal, nobody would be reacting and I would have nothing to worry about. There weren’t many people on the boat, but I did notice a young couple, the husband holding his wife tightly as she kept her eyes closed. I didn’t get really worried, though, until I saw the crew start to assemble in the cabin, some of their faces looking downright panicked. They appeared to be manning their stations for some sort of emergency. My faux giggles disappeared and I gripped Lise’s hand tightly. It didn’t help that I had just read My mind raced, imagining the most logical escape and survival plan if our boat did in fact capsize. I was probably more panicked than Lise. The boat rocked violently as the waves crashed in all around us. I looked into the distance, wondering where the end of the storm was. It definitely was not in the direction we were going. I knew it was typhoon season, but I couldn’t imagine that a captain would knowingly take passengers directly into a violent storm. I looked out the window and saw a swell that dwarfed our boat, and I thought, “If we are going down, it’s going to be on this one.” Somehow, though, we rode over it safely and sighed relief. The most violent parts of the storm went on for a good hour before the island blocked the storm’s momentum. At this point in time, I think I can honestly say that that was the second most scared I have ever been in my life. Funny thing, the first would also be in the Philippines.

When we got off the boat, everything seemed absurdly calm, as if our new environment was mocking us for having some leftover adrenaline. We spoke with that young couple we had seen. They said that they had never been on a boat ride that crazy in their lives.

We were in the town of Jagna, like a good percentage of towns in the Philippines it was a medium-sized port town. Although the relatively small island of Bohol is touristy, this town was pretty off the radar. We considered moving across the island to the town where we could get a boat on toward Cebu, but it seemed that all the buses had stopped running for the day. So we tracked down the town’s only hotel.

On our walk through the town towards the tiny night market, we passed a strip of tiny makeshift bar/restaurants with karaoke machines, all battling for sound space. We saw one that had a few large jugs of a brown liquid. I asked what it was and they said, “tuba”. A young girl stepped forward, and in impeccable English clarified that it was coconut wine and that glasses were only 5 pesos, or about 12 cents. So we sat down and asked for two glasses. I noticed that the three walls of the diner were all made from different materials: bamboo, an assortment of plywoods, and corrugated metal. Its back hung over a filthy river that drained into the sea a hundred meters away. When the girl and her mother stepped outside for a few minutes, and we quietly sipped our home brew, we noticed a dozen cockroaches creep out from hiding places all around us. When the girl came back in, the all skittered back into their crannies. The wine was nice and although a different flavor, reminded me of other home brews I had had in other places. The girl suggested that our next glass was mixed with Pepsi, which was the way most locals drink it. This would be one of the weirdest combinations I have ever heard of for alcohol, but we figured why not. And yeah, it was good, but preferred the straight version in the end.

We went over to the tiny night market to track down some grilled meats served with sticky rice cooked in little woven raffia pouches. We ordered an array of sausages and pork skewers. For the first time, we tried one of the most ubiquitous skewered meat: chicken intestine, intricately kinked back and forth and intricately impaled. Neither of us were excited to try it, but it was everywhere and also so cheap at about 7 cents per intestine. And actually they were quite awesome. The hardest part was psychologically, but if you get that past, the meat was tasty and tender.

And now that we had built up a bit more confidence with karaoke, we chose one of the various karaoke bars and took some seats. To my delight they screen on the videoke machine was playing what we referred to as “basketballaoke”. Unlike the more offensive “bikiniaoke”, this was a series of basketball highlights from the 1990s. All my favorite players and some of the most memorable moments from the NBA in the 90’s were flashing across the screen before me. Sometimes when I would sing, I would improvise songs about Michael Jordan relating to what he was doing on the screen. Nobody seemed to notice or be amused, but it entertained me. Some of the other popular background videos were “chateauaoke” which featured aerial footage of many of Europe’s finest castles, “Animalaoke” which showed either incredible feats of the world’s most impressive creatures, or perhaps the cutest animal antics, and “natureaoke” which was footage of some of the world’s more beautiful landscapes.

In the morning, we had hoped to take a bus to the opposite side of the island on the road that goes directly across the center. Unfortunately, we found out that this route would actually be slower and more expensive than taking the coastal road all the way around. The first bus, that led us halfway to our desired port, was expectedly slow. Something like two hours for 60 km. At the bus station in Tagbilaran, the island’s main city, all the bus touts would not leave us alone, demanding to know where we were going. Usually we are very adamant that we will not answer these people. In many places, these people receive commission from a certain bus company for bringing customers their way, which naturally will inflate your ticket price. The weird thing in the Philippines, though is that in these situations it didn’t add up to this always. Sometimes, when we really couldn’t find our bus, we would ask one of these people and they would casually point us in the right direction, or maybe even to two different buses going that direction. The commission thing didn’t seem to be coming into play. So it made us wonder who was paying them, and for what service exactly, and why they were being so aggressive. We had also noticed that the phrase “where are you going?” was so regularly asked to us that it seemed almost like a greeting, like “what’s up?” Usually it was moto taxis and the like who were asking this, but we even heard random people greet us with that either out of curiosity or perhaps to help. One of the biggest challenges for us in the Philippines was figuring the difference between the truly genuine people and the people trying to rip you off. In the end, though, the fact that these two group’s behavior was so similar, unlike in other countries where the difference is obvious, made it seem like far more people were not on our side than those that were being genuine. This could not be further from the truth, and the aggressive nature of the Filipinos made me completely mislabel them from the get go. After a week, though, we were really getting into the social tempo of the place, and appreciating the people far more than before.

So by this time, we were more likely to trust these guys to actually help us, and we made it to our connecting bus. The next leg of the journey was another two hours and we arrived in the late afternoon to Tubigon, a really scruffy little port town. We walked past all the cycle rickshaws and tricycles wanting to take us to the port. It was about a km, but we figured we would save our money. When we got there, though, we were told we needed to go back to town to buy our tickets. So we slogged back in search of the ticket booth and some dinner.

There seemed to be tons of places to eat, though there was little of interest. Lots of fried chicken places, a couple of basic diners with leftovers from lunch (which meant the worst dishes, served cold) and some surprisingly expensive rotisserie chicken. We wandered through the market and arrived on the other side into an expansion of makeshift market. The place truly wreaked and even I would have been hesitant to eat anything served among the garbage and open sewage around here. We did find a really down home little drinking hole, and decided to bide our time with some tuba, the coconut wine. We crowded into the little wooden shack, our bags obstructing walking space. They served all the “other” alcohols here. Coconut, “Chinese Fighter wine” (which is basically like “bum wine” like Cisco), homemade liquors and Tanduay rum by the shot to go. Even their beer wasn’t the usual San Miguel but some weird off brand that simply said “Beer” in the same font as the San Miguel. After a glass of wine, and some chatting with the local drunks stopping by, we went back on our food search. We settled for the rotisserie chicken. Although they had several chickens on spits, we were served a cold half chicken. If I was alone, I would have passively eaten it, while shooting dirty looks at the vendors. Luckily Lise doesn’t work like this and she took it back them. They acted surprised as if they didn’t realize that they had decided to serve the cold one to the ignorant foreigners. They simply chopped up a new half chicken and the problem was solved. Now my real problem, though, is not if the chicken is cold, but if there is no chili sauce or anything. Filipino food is not spicy and usually the only chili sauce is almost like a syrup with an unperceivable amount of chili flakes. Sometimes there is a real chili paste, but it is rare. By this time, I was getting into the habit of just taking bites of fresh red chilies as I ate. It gave me the heat I became addicted to, like a smoker being forced to eat nicotine gum instead of smoking.

Karaoke With Lady Boys

Our second full day on Camiguin island was a little ambitious. Inland from the road that circles the island there are quite a few attractions. We wanted to visit a waterfall and a hot spring, but supposedly you need private transport to reach both of them. We had had good luck with hitchhiking in rural areas, and the fact that there were villages near these things always means that there will be someone going there.

We tried asking at the tricycle stand in town if anyone was going to Itum, a village on the road to the waterfall. From there we thought we would be in walking distance. Most of the people acted like they had never heard of this village (bad pronunciation?) and nobody seemed to be going there. So we took a public tricycle to the turnoff for the hot spring instead. From there it would be just a few km walk, or we could hitchhike. Well, we walked the whole way, which wasn’t bad, but it was gruesomely hot that day. The walk was worth it, though, as we got to meander through some tiny villages and rural settlements. We were shocked to see, at the entrance to the hot springs, tons of souvenir stalls. The whole walk had made us feel completely off the beaten track, and now we were arriving at a series of tables and stands with people selling handicrafts, t-shirts, cheap Chinese toys, etc. Even more surprising, this was not some wild hot spring but a resort with bungalows, several pools, a restaurant, etc. For what it was, though, the dollar entrance fee seemed reasonable, and after debating it for a while, we decided to go on in.

Everything except the swimming cost money. To bring your own food or drink, you had to pay corking fees, or to use one of the gazebos there was a fee. Luckily we didn’t need anything. We surprised ourselves with how much we enjoyed it. I thought a hot spring in this weather would be an awful idea, but in the jungle shade, they felt nice. Most of the people there were Filipino and Chinese tourists, with a few old white men with their Filipina “escorts” and one girl who I would have guessed was in the peace corps, though I don’t know how she managed to stay so pale. Desk job, I guess.

We gave up on the waterfall, and decided to lounge a little longer. Our ambition was dwindling. We did manage to drag ourselves out, though, with enough time to accomplish our last goal. We were thoroughly wrinkled when we made our way back to the road. On the walk back, we saw a couple of Chinese tourists buying coconuts direct from the source, and, naturally we wanted in on that. An old man was cutting them open and we said we wanted two. He sent a young boy into the palm grove behind him to shimmy a hundred feet up the trunk and haul us down a few coconuts. They were something like $.35. Philippines is the #1 (or maybe #2) exporter of coconuts in the world, and I considered it a crime that I wasn’t drinking them every day. After finishing the milk inside, we had the man chop them open, make a spoon from the husk, and we scooped out the gelatinous meat, letting it wriggle down our throats. No lunch necessary.

Our next mission was the so-called “Sunken Cemetery”. Apparently back in 1871 an earthquake on the island sent a cemetery sliding into the water, and now it is a popular snorkeling spot just off shore. Lise isn’t the biggest fan of snorkeling. She considers it on the same level as bird watching, which is a mortal sin in our relationship. But this actually sounded appealing to her. We managed to get a jeepney to the other side of the island by late afternoon. Again, there were plenty of souvenir stalls at this place as well. It seemed so odd to have them, while we had barely seen any tourists on the island. We only had one snorkel, but the restaurant there was renting them out. They said $5 at first, but we bargained them down to about $2. Then a man came up to us and said that we needed to pay the “entrance fee”. We said, “what entrance fee?” He said it was 100 pesos per person (about $2.50) to go to the sunken cemetery. At first we thought, “jeez, that’s expensive, do we still want to go?” Then we were like, wait a minute this doesn’t make any sense. We explained that we had never heard of any entrance fee, and even the sign out front that says “Welcome to Sunken Cemetery” does not mention anything about a price. Furthermore, “who are you? Do you work here? Where is the ticket booth or something official?” He gave some sort of official title of a city council seat or something from the nearest village. I asked if we would get a receipt, and he said yes. I said that it used to be free, and he said something about “new official ordinance”. I think he thought those big words would fool us. He vaguely motioned to a nearby sign explaining some sort of new ordinances. I read through all of them, but they were all regarding fishing laws. I asked why there was no sign saying the prices and he just said there was no budget. I wondered where they had gotten the very well-made sign simply welcoming us to the Sunken Cemetery. He said he would go to his office and get the papers showing the prices and the laws and everything. Lise was on the ball with this one, and she insisted that we go along with him. He said, no, it’s far, in the next town, which was a kilometer or two away. We told him simply, we are going to go snorkel now, and if you want to prove to us that there really is a fee, why don’t you go get the paperwork and the receipt book and we can talk when we are done.

We figured we wouldn’t see him again, and we climbed down the stairs and rocks into the ocean. The water was a little rough and we swam out a hundred meters to a giant concrete platform with a 30 meter tall white cross coming out of it. This marked the spot and the new memorial for the graves that had fallen into the ocean more than a hundred years ago. The waves constantly crashed into us, making it difficult to climb up the slippery steps. After a short rest from the swim (neither of us are expert swimmers) we slipped back into the water, looking for what we expected to be a collection of gravestones, perhaps some skulls, you know, real morbid stuff. All we saw were some colorful fish, some coral, and lots and lots of dead coral laying along the sea floor. The Philippines has a bad reputation for trashing their dive sites, usually, I think, with relentless dynamite fishing. We swam all the way to a nearby beach, wondering if we had missed it. On the beach there were two men, one younger, one very old. They were preparing their spear guns for fishing. They didn’t speak much English, but I tried to talk to them about the Sunken Cemetery. They just pointed in the general direction we had come from. Then I checked out their spear gun. Like most awesome things in the Philippines, it was home made and looked pretty dangerous.

We swam all the way back to the platform, staying a little farther from shore this time. We saw more typical snorkel things, but nothing resembling a cemetery. We circled the platform and still nothing. At this point we could see the man up on the shore, waiting for us. We took our time. We weren’t completely certain that this guy was trying to fleece us, but we were not going to part with any money in such suspicious circumstances. Plus, we were disappointed to have not seen any sunken cemeteries!

When we arrived at the shore, the man started to come down the stairs, but I told him to stay where he was and that we would be up in a minute. He seemed too eager. When we got up there, Lise went directly to the bathroom to change, while I sat down with him to see what he had brought me. He wrote out a receipt on an official receipt paper from the village of Bonbon. The village name was printed on it, but it still said nothing about the Cemetery. Still I was getting worried. Then he showed me a stapled together packet of papers that had a cover page about new ordinances in Bonbon, dated June 2009. He kept control of them, and turned right to a page with some numbers on it. I didn’t get a chance to fully read everything, but I did see the words “Sunken Cemetery”, “foreigner”, and “100 pesos”. My heart sunk, not only feeling bad about giving this guy a hard time, but also about the money we might have to pay. Still I wasn’t fully convinced, and I wanted to read the details. Could this scam really be so elaborate and was everyone standing by silently getting a piece of our $5? Before I got a chance to examine it further, Lise emerged from the bathroom, and headed straight for the exit. She didn’t even look at him, and just said curtly, “Come on, let’s go.” I looked at him, and I looked back at her, and followed her out. I thought the man would cause a fuss, but he just sat there silently. Of course, I expected the worst, and thought we might get in trouble for this. We were hoping to flag down a passing car or jeepney, but the road was quiet. We later found out, from asking several locals including someone at the tourist information office, that there was absolutely no fee for visiting the Sunken Cemetery. This was just some conman trying to scam the tourists. I imagine his persistence was evidence that it usually worked on people, especially since, for most westerners; the fee he was requesting was not worth arguing over. In fact, if it wasn’t for Lise just walking away and saying, “let’s go”, I might have considered paying up.

We walked until we came to another cemetery, so we walked in to have a look. It was completely overgrown, and it was nearly impossible to walk through without accidentally stepping on graves. Two women were also walking through and I spooked the younger one when she stepped around the corner of a mausoleum to see me standing there. She was very friendly, though, and explained that she was visiting from abroad (I forget where she worked) and was coming to visit her father’s grave. After chatting for a few minutes, we moved along and I came across her father’s grave. They had left some candles burning, but one of them had fallen over, so I stood it up and relit it. We hobbled back to the road and flagged down a passing semi-truck, since we had been told there were no jeepneys after 5PM. There was only one seat left in the cab, so we lapped it all the way back to town.

That night we knew we couldn’t go back to the same bar as the night before. Mr. Tourist Office might grill me again for not consulting him first before setting out on our day. Then again, he might have had a point as we had almost gotten ripped off at the snorkeling spot. Karma? No, just the travel gods making fun of us.

Just around the corner, though, there was another bar that I had seen the day before when I was looking for a Coke. It had looked far more makeshift and sketchy than the one we had been to the previous nights. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure of the gender of the staff/clientele hanging out there. Lise said it sounded like a good idea. That is why she was a great companion for the Philippines. When I say, “Lady boy bar?” she says, “how high?” So off we went. The place was empty save for a few lady boys hanging out. They got downright giggly when we said we wanted to sit down and have a beer. Now, these were not the elegant, and convincing lady boys that fool many-a-drunk men into bed in Thailand. No, these were rough and tumble dudes in ladies clothing with too much makeup, bad skin and skanky clothes. But they were so sweet and so welcoming. One of them, who seemed in charge, but was relatively new there, came and sat with us for a while. She spoke great English and was very charming. She was so excited that some foreigners would even want to come into their bar. I am guessing it is not even that popular among the locals. After our long conversation, the three of them came up to the table and ceremoniously presented us with the karaoke song book. They desperately wanted us to do some singing with them. We were only halfway into our first beer, though, and we knew there was no way we could do it at this point in time. We had promised each other that we would try to make this night a little more calm, but when ladyboys say “sing karaoke,” you say, “how high?” The night before we had tried karaoke for the first time, but had accidentally selected from the “music video” book, so basically we just watched the videos of the songs we had wanted to sing.

So we promised them that we would definitely sing, but we just needed a little more beer. Meanwhile, they sang songs by Beyonce and Alicia Keys while we gave generous applause for them at the end of their songs.

Finally, Lise and I made our debut with Poker Face, sharing the microphone as we didn’t have the confidence to go solo yet. Even though the audience consisted of three ladyboys and a younger boy (in training, or just a barback?) they made us feel like rock stars. And out the window went our promise for a low key night. Even the fact that the karaoke cost a few cents more per song didn’t hold us back. We sang that Spice Girls song (do I have to remember the name of it?), which was a big hit, and we even went solo. Lise sang a Tracy Chapman song, and I sang King of the Road. It was a lot more fun than we had expected, and basically from that moment on, our daily itinerary in the Philippines was more or less decided: Take a bus, drink a beer, sing a song. And that was about it, and we were happy with that.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

After our weekend party in Cagayan de Oro, we decided to move north and visit the island of Camiguin, just off the northern coast of Mindanao. Because it is technically part of Mindanao, tourists tend to stay away because of the dangers associated with that island. We considered this a plus. We took a couple of typically slow buses, getting to the port just in time for the last boat of the day.

The boat was large with an open-air deck, preferable to the AC cabins in Malaysia. The boat didn’t take too long, in fact we could actually see the island from the port. As we stepped off the boat, we were swarmed with hustlers trying to offer us hotels, transport, tours, etc. We were surprised there was so much attention, as it didn’t seem that this place would be very touristy. Our boat was filled with Filipinos (unsure if they were tourists or local) and a couple other backpackers (just about the only backpackers we would catch a glimpse of in the whole country). We knew where we wanted to go, but getting the right price, was proving difficult, so we just walked out to the road and decided we would wave down the next jeepney. One man in an empty jeepney offered us a price just above the correct price, but his vehicle was empty. He said he would take us both for about $.30 more than the right price. This didn’t make sense, since he had no other passengers, so we just kept walking. This basically shot us in the foot, though, because the passing jeepneys had only left when they were full, so they wouldn’t stop for us, and once they had moved everyone from our boat, there was nobody else to take. We went back to the guy and agreed to his price, still unsure of how he could make the 17 km trip for about a dollar. We found out later that he was just going home, and figured he would try to get a little from us. He wasn’t being greedy at all, and we felt bad for being so mistrustful. That would be a recurring feeling throughout the Philippines.

Mambajao, the capitol of Camiguin Island, did not represent anything close to a tropical island paradise. In fact, I couldn’t imagine a smaller town that still seemed sketchy at night. We found a public “tricycle” (think locally made tuk-tuk or autorickshaw) going to one of the outlying beach villages where we would look for a place to stay.

Supposedly, according to our guidebook, we would be able to find a beachside bungalow for around $10. After going from place to place in a few villages and talking to various locals, the best we could come up with was $20. It was especially surprising because they all looked pretty desperate for business. We had no choice but to go back to Mambajao, the gritty town, and find something we could afford. It was disappointing as we were hoping for something like we had had in Malaysia: a basic bungalow on the beach for $10, but it wasn’t meant to be. This would just mean our time in Camiguin would be quite different from most tourists, though still enjoyable.

We found what people had told us was the cheapest place. It was a tall, modern looking place that surprised me with their low prices. We asked to see the room, but they said no. I seemed like a joke. The receptionist said that after 5:00 it is not permitted to show the rooms. Now it seemed that the only reason they would do this was because something was wrong with the room. We checked in anyway, and when we got in, sure enough, the fan and outlets did not work. Apparently this was not the plan, though, and they switched us to a different room immediately. We later concluded that their weird policy about showing rooms after 5 had to do with security reasons. This city seemed nervous for a small town. Two grocery stores were open 24-hours, but after dark they closed the store, and did business through a front counter. There was a warning about thieves posted at our hotel, with a photo of two local men considered to be armed and dangerous. Some holiday.

So that night we went on a stroll through town to see what was going on. We thought we might find an interesting local bar or some good street food. By the time we were on the street it was 10:00 PM and the food options were looking grim. A few local watering holes or simply curbsides displayed drunken middle-aged men beckoning us to come drink with them. Alone, I might have gone and had a sip or two, but we were new to town and the men seemed a little too aggressive.

Not far from our hotel we came upon a karaoke bar that, while lacking anything resembling class, it looked like the least intimidating establishment we had passed. It was terrifyingly hot inside, especially since we didn’t get the lone table targeted by the single fan in the joint. Even here, people were a little too friendly. It was a little too male-dominated (expected) and everyone seemed a little too serious about their karaoke and their drinking. We were the only table drinking beer, while the rest of the people had bottles of Tanduay Rum (the ubiquitous drink in the Philippines available for about $2 for a big bottle) mixed with an iced powdered drink mix. Our nightlife in Mambajao was looking depressing at this point in time, so it didn’t take long before we decided to go get some sleep after our long day of transit.

As usual, we were slow-moving the next morning. We move along casually, our route dictated primarily by what is least touristy, most practical or cheapest. Other travelers in the Philippines (or anywhere) are driven by hobbies, whether that is diving, hiking, prostitution, partying, etc. We just move with an open mind, waiting to see what we find. It is always unexpected, but it also doesn’t pull us out of bed so swiftly in the morning. There were plenty of things to do on the island, but many of them are aimed at a specific type of tourists; a mold that we don’t really fit into. Lise is not certified to dive, and I have never been wealthy enough to pay for diving. Climbing one of the islands many volcanoes apparently requires a guide, an expense we weren’t prepared to fork over. Some points of interest required private transport which is out of our budget. So our first day on the island completely lacked ambition. But then again, there is no problem with that because there is nothing wrong with having little ambition while trying to get into the mindset of island life. We would spend most of our day lounging around the beach near the bungalows that we had checked out the night before.

Surprisingly the beaches were deserted, even near the hotels. It seemed that even the tourists and backpackers had little interest in what were pretty relaxing beaches. A little swimming, a little sunning, and we felt a need to explore a bit. A short walk down the beach revealed breathtaking views of the volcanoes that sprung up from the islands interiors. Apparently there are more volcanoes (over 20) than towns on the island. We walked past fishing villages that fronted gorgeous beaches. We came to realize why many of the tourists had little interest in the beaches here: they weren’t very “private”. Village life carried on a little too close to the hotels, making the tourists too uncomfortable to do their beach thing freely. We later noticed the term “privacy” was frequently used in the Lonely Planet to gauge a beaches value. I was a little surprised, though admittedly naive, that people would be so offended by being close to the local life. For us we found being around the fishermen and the kids coming home from school more fun and interesting than a boring day laying in the sun. Of course, yes, we felt a little awkward doing the western-style beach thing of getting a tan in our scantily-clads and frolicking about in the water.

As we sat watching the village life go by on the beach, we noticed a gaggle of children making their way towards us. They eagerly sat beside us, and started asking a few questions, casually. Some of them spoke good English, while the others lost interest and just played games in our vicinity, partly to entertain themselves, but also to entertain us. They started by doing various acrobatics, and eventually switched to digging holes. Then they climbed the trees around us. Then they buried each other. And yes, it did entertain us. One of the young kids had to be repeatedly stopped from eating the sand. Eventually they started to yell out “Slipper box! Slipper box!” or something like that. They started playing some sort of game with their flip-flops (slippers). Half the kids were in the middle of a circle of the other half. It took a while for us to get a basic understanding of how this game worked, but when we did, we joined in. Basically the group in the middle had the task of stacking all the slippers in a pile in the middle, while the people on the outside would throw a slipper at people in the middle. Like dodgeball, if you were hit with the slipper you were out. When the team in the middle stacked all the sandals, that was a point (though I don’t think anyone was keeping track) and the whole stack would be thrown in the air and the stacking would start over. Of course, it was a lot of fun and the kids were really sweet.

Back in town, we had to find some dinner. Everything was either expensive or just uninteresting. The Philippines has some really great food, but in this town the typical eateries always had the worst-looking food. One night we went into a place that was a little more modern and hip, catering to the upper class young crowd. We wanted to try the Filipino version of spaghetti. The sauce contained sweetened condensed milk and sliced hot dogs. It was interesting and I appreciated their bizarre twist on the dish. We followed it with the notorious Filipino desert Halo-Halo. It is similar to the Malaysian shaved ice “ABC”, but even crazier. It was served in a huge bowl and contained crushed ice, purple ice cream, purple cake, about eight different kinds of jellies (cubed, little strands, assorted colors, etc.), condensed milk, sweet corn, beans, preserved fruit and a few things that remained a mystery. This night, however, we wanted something different, and we scored. One of the most ubiquitous Filipino foods is Lechon Manok, or rotisserie chicken. We found a place that served a quarter chicken with rice for less than a dollar. We were not very optimistic about it because, I mean, it’s just chicken and rice. I don’t even feel like describing it. I think you just need to get out of your seat and go to the Philippines right now and order an entire roast chicken and see for yourself. We ate at the same place for about half our meals during our stay in Camiguin, washing it down with a cold Mountain Dew. Yes, another reason that the Philippines is amazing: ubiquitous Mountain Dew, so that eventually replaced instant coffee as our primary source of caffeine.

It was our second night on the island, and we wanted to see if we could find something a little more interesting than the night before. Well, we couldn’t so we ended up back at the same karaoke bar as the night before. This time, though, the atmosphere was far more friendly, and there were actually quite a few women there too. We went with the trend and ordered a small bottle of rum with a jug of what was basically a local version of tang. People were a lot more friendly this night and some of the karaoke singers were actually very impressive. One man, who had a unique look and spoke very good English started a conversation with us. He seemed genuine for a while until he mentioned casually that he was a guide (and that his father, who he has never met, was from Italy, apparently expecting to garner a bit of western street cred with us). When he realized we would not be needing any of his services, he eventually lost interest and went back to his table, where he got exceedingly drunk. Occasionally he would come back, sit down, exchange a few greetings and then leave again.

The best conversation of the night, though, was with a drunken old man who had invited himself to our table. This guy had just a couple teeth and the most infectious laugh I have ever heard. Basically our conversation would go like this: Question, response, repeat response, lots of laughter.

“Which country?”

“America”

“America!?”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

He was slapping knees, and almost falling out of his chair. This went on for a while until he started repeating questions. Then I switched it around, and by this point, the whole bar seemed to be paying more attention to our aimless conversation than the screeching karaoke.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a fisherman”

“You’re a fisherman?!”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!”

Perfect bar conversation. Then the man disappeared to some corner, and Lise and I were invited to share drinks with some guys at a different table. We got into our respective conversations while the men kept topping off our glasses. Everyone else seemed too drunk to finish theirs, so it just kept getting funneled into ours. The large young man next to me started out friendly enough, until he asked why I had not visited the tourist office when I got to town. He works there and said that it is really important to always go to the tourists office. He seemed to take his job pretty seriously and I didn’t really have a very good explanation that would satisfy him. Basically, I went into some rhetorical babble about travel philosophy which he couldn’t have cared less about even if it had made sense. He went on and on criticizing tourists, probably because nobody took his tourist office very seriously. The last ten minutes of our conversation was basically him making me promise that I would come to the tourist office the next day, and then I would have to promise, and repeat back to him his name and the location of the tourist office. I am not proud to say it, but no, we never did make it to the tourist office. It was pretty much a boldfaced lie.

Filipino Feasts

July 29, 2011

Cagayan de Oro seemed like your typical large town in the Philippines, even though we had not seen much of the country. Better yet, it seemed like your typical large third world town. A little bit crowded, plenty of traffic, trash, a distinct dichotomy between rich and poor. We arrived in time for breakfast, but having slept very little on the overnight bus, we didn’t mind spending most of the day sleeping. Before we did, though, we had a beer. Call us crazy, but it doesn’t count as a breakfast beer if you haven’t gone to sleep yet.

We had arrived in town just in time for their weekly night market/street festival. Most of our activity in Malaysia had been at night markets, so it seemed fitting to hit one up here asap, and this one was supposed to be good. We hit the town a little too early though. All the food stalls were getting ready to set up, firing up the barbecues, and putting liters of beer in the coolers. We were hungry already, so we waited for the first stall to display food and we were on it. We shared one of the Philippines’ signature dishes, sisig and a plate of something that could be described like a Filipino ceviche. Sisig is basically hacked up pork face fried up with hot spices and served on a sizzling plate with an egg cooking on top. It was spicy, greasy and delicious. Obviously. The ceviche was a little lighter and fresh, and a real shock to the palette. The flavor was intense, and we needed more. Unfortunately by the time we were finished we had a limitless supply of food stalls serving all sorts of dishes. The rest of the night was another food party of grilled meats, flavored drinks, fried snacks, and Red Horse beer.

By 9:00 the street party was packed and bands were playing on two different stages. It wasn’t the anything goes wild festival that it had been described, but it was still an admirable effort for a city to put this on twice a week. That is almost a party every three days on average! Forever! When we were full, we took a stroll through the non-food half of the market, as Lise was in need of some new sandals and I was in desperate need of a new shoulder bag as mine had been falling apart since Mali. At a stall full of secondhand bags from developed countries, we both found exactly what we needed. I got a bright orange bag from Korea that had piano keys on the outside pocket and Korean script. I just found out yesterday from Korean travelers in Kolkata that the bag is for some sort of music academy. Makes sense. Lise’s bag was to promote the Japanese bullet train, and had cartoons of the train with cute faces on it.

We headed out of the market, looking for some sort of nightlife. We found an awkward night club with lasers and fog and a big screen with a light show. It was awkward because we were by far the oldest people. We stayed for a bit, but there was nothing there for us. Before turning in for the night, we tried a local karaoke bar. We were all but ignored, and when we did get a beer served to us, we were overcharged. Other than the market, it was not our night.

The next morning we decided to try out Jollibee’s, the Philippines’ original fast food restaurant. The Philippines has more fast food restaurants, both local and foreign, than any country I have seen outside of North America. It is also the only country with McDonalds, in which McDonalds is not the most successful. Jolliibee’s was a little bit creepy. They greeted us at the counter in a big bright smile and a bubbly voiced accent that reminded me of Hawaiian ditz. “Hello, welcome to Jollibee’s,” the girl shrieked superficially. I had thought this greeting was reserved for foreigners, but that was standard, Filipino or not. In fact they would operate with everyone almost entirely in English. Of course, this worked because, unlike in America, the fast food restaurants are popular among the educated upper class, and especially college students. They are also far cleaner and well-managed than those in the states. The chicken sandwiches were nothing too interesting, but a step up from McDonalds in my opinion. I was curious about some of the Filipino sections of their menu, like the silog, which is a choice of meat served with an egg, rice, and unusually a side of gravy. It was actually closer to Hawaiian Loco Moco disassembled than to authentic silog.

The rest of the day we wandered different parts of the town. I wanted to see the river, so we just went in a straight line towards it. As can be typical in developing country cities on rivers, the river was hard to access because it was lined with slums. We went through the narrow paths until we either felt too awkward with all the stares of “what are you doing here” (because we wouldn’t have a good answer) or we hit a dead end. We decided to get a view of the river by crossing the bridge. This made a little more sense.

This half of the city was far more loud and chaotic than the center. We had to constantly be on the lookout to not get hit by one of the barreling jeepneys or zooming little motorbikes. By this time it was about beer:30 so we found a humble little drinking hole with a couple of sleepy looking men smoking cigarettes and ordered a cold one. Of course, it wasn’t actually cold, like normal in the Philippines. We were brought some chunks of ice to melt some freshness into our beer. It makes a lot more sense in these circumstances why everyone drinks the strong, 6.9% alcohol beer. We exchanged small talk with the men hanging around. They were amused with our presence. The only foreigners we had seen in town were a couple of dirty old men with their terribly young Filipina “girlfriends”, and that was during the night market. It seemed that foreigners would be a pretty rare sight in this part of town.

We made a point of not getting to the night market so early the second time around. Basically it was about the same as the first night. I was tempted to try the balut (google it if you don’t know, but Lise said she wouldn’t support me in my attempt. I knew I couldn’t do it alone, so I passed again. Later in the night we stumbled upon a karaoke bar that was friendly and lively. There was barely room for us, but we found a spot towards the back. The girls at the table in front of us mostly had short hair and boyish clothes with a lot of black. I am not one to assume someone’s sexual preference based on these stereotypes, but I can’t say that I didn’t notice that about five or six of these girls did fit that stereotype. It wasn’t long though, that we started to notice some handholding and subtle kissing. I noticed that it wasn’t just them, though, but there were a few other gay couples scattered through the bar. The most interesting thing, though, was that this was not an exclusively lesbian bar by any means. I can honestly say that it was the most affection I have ever seen gay women show in public (including on Capitol Hill and Seattle Storm games), and nobody seemed to take notice. It was something that would become a common thing throughout the Philippines, that it appeared to be one of the most gay tolerant places I have ever been. It was so impressive, especially considering the ignorant and narrow-minded views toward gays I am used to encountering when traveling in developing countries.