Travel Journal

After nearly two weeks on beautiful Boracay, my next destination was going to be the large island of Mindoro to the north. A large ferry brought me to the small town of Roxas, on Mindoro’s south coast, where I took a tricycle to have some lunch in the tiny town center. After some dreadful Filipino-style spaghetti, I walked out onto the street again, where I was surprised to find many people yelling at me as they came running out of their shops and houses to speak to me. Apprehensive at first, I quickly relaxed as it turned out they only wanted to know where I was from, how long I had been in the Philippines, where I was going, followed by repeated, excited instructions on how I could get to the busstation, and even though it was only 100 meters away, I was offered a lift on a motorcycle. At the busstation, basically a parking lot next to a house with a sign attached to it, people quickly gathered, smiled at me and asked me questions in their basic English. I guess they don’t get to see tourists that much in this sleepy town, and it’s quite refreshing that they are just curious and for once have no interest in getting your money, as they do in the more touristy places elsewhere.

After waiting for about a quarter of an hour, four people pointed the minivan out to me, that would take me to Calapan City, the capital of Mindoro on its northern coast. As we departed on our four hour journey, I immediately noticed how all the big leaves of the palmtrees were bent in one direction, almost as if they had been combed that way. Then, on the outskirts of the town, collapsed nipa huts, houses with their roofs torn off, and a Filipino man explained to me that this was part of the damage done by the typhoons, that raged over this area in November of 2004.

The journey led us through small villages, past military checkpoints (this province used to have rebellious activity), and we arrived in Calapan City around sunset. There, I was told that the last jeepney to the village of Sabang, my intended destination, or to Puerto Galera, the nearby town, had already left an hour ago. And as a jeepney really is the only way to travel there, I was effectively stranded in Calapan City. It’s the first time this has happened during my travels, but I’m sure it won’t be the last time. I managed to find a cheap hotel near the city center (accommodation can be quite expensive in the Philippines), and after spending the night in Calapan City, I departed on a packed jeepney, heading for the village of Sabang.

Along the way, I was once again reminded of how beautiful this country is, a landscape of hills covered with coconut trees, alongside green ricefields, thick forests with small nipa huts in the clearings. After a while, the asphalt road ended and a dirt track with potholes started, as we went over the mountains, with more gorgeous views of green valleys with the sea in the background. When we arrived in Sabang, I walked the small distance to Small La Laguna beach, a lovely stretch of sand with a handful of hotels, cottages and restaurants, and found a nice room there, where I would spend most of my last week in the Philippines.

A couple of small boats, including one yacht, had been deliberately sunk a mere 100 meters from the beach, and were now stunning diving sites. As we swam closer to the wrecks, shoals of large batfish accompanied our group of divers, swimming very close to us. The wrecks were teeming with life, home to so many different kinds of fish, including snappers, stonefish, butterfly fish, and the impressive lionfish again, looking fierce, holding still in the water. Inside the yacht, a large number of sleeping catfish, slowly crawling over eachother. In between the various wrecks, I saw some clownfish (Nemo!) in their anemones. And then there are some animals that really look like plants, or seaweed, but suddenly you see them crawling over the bottom of the sea, using their “leaves” as tentacles to move forward. A lot of nudibranches again in stunning colour, and a lone striped seasnake moving elegantly through the water. After Australia, the Philippines is really the number two country for diving in the world, but unlike the Great Barrier Reef, the dive sites here are very close to land, accessible by just wading through the surf, or taking a 10 minute boatride.

During my stay in Sabang, I met a Filipina-Australian, who was on holidays to her homeland with her son. We talked a lot about the Filipino food, about cultural differences, and also about the extreme poverty in the Philippines. She explained that most of the establishments in and around Sabang were owned by foreign investors, or foreign pensioners who had moved to this area and opened their pubs or restaurants, as it was now near to impossible for common Filipinos to start their own businesses, the costs are just too great. And I noticed again here what I had noticed in Moalboal on the island of Cebu: many older western men, with a Filipina 30 or 40 years younger by their side. A so-called Puti at Pinay ("white and Filipina") marriage therefor isn’t frowned upon, it is accepted as merely a way out of poverty for these young women. Some are quite worse off as “working girls” at one of the many bars, euphemistically called “discotheques” or “music lounges". And then there are the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Filipina women who work as nurses or maids in many countries around the world, sending back money to help their parents or other members in their family. My Filipina-Australian friend explained that this is unlikely to change, due to the high rate of unemployment in the Philippines, and the corruption and mismanagement at the higher levels of government. It is quite sad to realise this, and the seedy areas in the touristy parts of popular towns or villages do take away a lot of the charm of the Philippines.

Nonetheless, this is a wonderful country to visit, its friendly people proud of being Pinay (Filipina) or Pinoy (Filipino). The natural beauty of the country, with its paradise-like scenery, is just breathtaking. The enormous Catholic cathedrals found everywhere are such an unusual sight in an Asian county, as it is to find that the shopping just stops in the supermarkets at 6 pm, when everyone stands still to listen to the prayers, read out through the loudspeakers by the resident supermarket priest.

After a short visit to the town of Tagaytay, where I admired the beautiful view of Lake Taal, with the small dome of the volcano with the same name in the middle of the lake, I went on to Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International airport. There, a Thai Airways flight would take me to Thailand, the first country during my current travels that would be a little familiar to me.

After entering my name on a passenger list, I boarded one of the small motorbanca outrigger boats, that are great for short distances on calm seas, but should really be avoided once the waves get any higher than one meter.

The great thing about the small island of Boracay is that most of the buildings are hidden behind a line of palmtrees along the beach. When you arrive, you see just the wonderfully white beach and the lush green of the vegetation behind it. I checked into a nice room and went for a walk on the sandy path in front of all the shops, cafes, restaurants and hotels. Boracay seems to be Korea’s number one holiday destination, with many signs and menus in both English and Korean, the Korean tourists outnumbering the locals. Perhaps that is the reason why prices for about everything are higher than in the rest of the Philippines, and as the so-called holy week holiday sees the biggest number of tourists (including Filipinos) on this island, rates climb even higher. Still, compared to the western world, it’s very cheap, and once you see the wonderfully white beach with the calm see in various shades of blue, you forget about the rest and just adore this paradise-like environment.

In the evenings, the palmtrees are illuminated with lamps and the lights you usually see in Christmas trees, and a surprising number of Filipino boys are selling luminescent sticks, blinking earrings and laserpointers, which they aim on the sand near your feet to try to get your attention. Children are asking for a few Pesos for their big sandcastles, or the flower-like patterns they have created on the beach, beautifully crafted and lit by oil lamps placed inside.

Boracay, like most parts of the Philippines, suffers from frequent electricity blackouts, sometimes several times a day. For up to half and hour, everything is pitch black, apart from the more luxurious resorts that have their own generators, and candles and battery-powered lights are quickly brought out. Because not all areas are affected, they call these “brownouts” (I suppose “partial blackout” is not in their vocabulary?).

During the day, I went for frequent swims in the cool, clear blue water of the sea, or worked on my suntan. As a dark skin is considered undesirable by Filipinos (and actually by the people of most Asian countries, hence the popularity of skin-whitening creams here), the locals usually went for a swim just before sunset, and then still with most of their clothes on. The Filipino men also have another, weird way to cool off: by rolling up their t-shirts to just under their chest, exposing their bellies and lower backs. You see lots of men walking around this way, and I just hope it’s as effective as it looks silly. In the evenings, I went for cheap San Miguel beer at some of the many bars and cafes on this island, where both locals and travellers go for a good night out, or I tried some of the cocktails they have on offer.

During Christmas day on Boracay, groups of Polynesian children walked around singing English Christmas carols with beautiful voices. Unfortunately, most of the other indigenous people on the island are beggars, mothers with their children sitting in the shade on the beach, holding up their hands, as restaurants put out signs with their Christmas Day turkey or roast beef menus.

I was in my room, in the early evening of Boxing Day, Sunday 26 December 2004, as I received a text message from a family member in Holland, informing me about an earthquake near Indonesia, and a tsunami that followed. As I walked outside, quite a number of tourists and locals alike had gathered in front of the restaurants and cafes that had televisions with BBC World or CNN, and even the staff watched silently as the news was unfolding. The Philippines has had more than its share of natural disasters, like the many destructive typhoons that have raged over its land, and the deadly eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which was the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. But nobody was quite prepared for the horrible images that we were seeing, watching in disbelief, unsuccesfully trying to comprehend the enormous scale of this natural disaster. After that, and as the death toll grew exponentially in the following days, it was quite surreal to be on a tropical island with its beautiful beach, not unlike those places on the west coast of Thailand, that have now been wiped away. It sends shivers down your spine to think how it must have been for the tourists on those beaches of Thailand and India, for the people in Aceh who had already suffered so much because of years of violent conflict, for those Sri Lankan fishermen, and for the tens of thousands of children, who died or are now orphans. You count yourself lucky, as you inform worried familymembers and friends that you are okay. Six weeks ago, overlooking the lava valley and the volcanoes of the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park on Java in Indonesia, I was thinking how insignificant we humans really are in the face of the power of nature. As the death toll is still growing, and recovery of the affected areas is likely to take several decades, this catastrophic event is once again painful reminder of that insignificance.

That excited feeling when you hit the water, then a final check before you slowly descent into the dark blue depth, your equipment not heavy anymore as you’re now weightless. The only sound you hear is the hissing of air through your regulator, and then, as you exhale, the release of the many bubbles, slowly climbing to the surface. You look to see if your buddy is okay, you give eachother the okay sign by making a circle with your thumb and index finger. Then, you slowly drift past a bank of coral, there’s suddenly just too much to look at, the rock-like brain coral, which really does look like an enormous brain, rounded-bubble coral, slowly moving back and forth with the currents, small multi-coloured Christmas-tree worms, that retract into the coral quickly when you move in close, and slowly fold out again. You find nudibranches, best described as small underwater snails but in the most beautiful of colours. And then shoals of fish, quickly swimming past, their movements so synchronised, a big green turtle lazily swimming over the coral. Camouflaged scorpionfish are preying for food, a scared octopus quickly changes colour and hides. You do forget about time, but still regularly check your depth and the remaining pressure in your tank. You watch as a pair of yellow-black butterfly fish swim in front of you, and then you notice a ghostpipe fish, resembling more a cactus than an animal. Hovering in between the coral is a fierce looking lionfish, zebra striped, with its feathery pectoral fins and its venomous dorsalfin spines. Towards the end of the dive, you go shallower, golden rays of sunlight piercing the water, illuminating the coral with its many colours, every meter is a world of discovery. Then, when you get back on the boat after nearly an hour of diving, feeling tired but exhilirated, you just want to go back again, as soon as possible, to that strange and beautiful undersea world.

Moalboal (pronounced Mo-all bo-all) is a small town on Cebu’s north-west coast, and along the Panagsama beach there are a dozen of hotels and guesthouses, bars and restaurants, and many dive shops. In 1984, while still recovering from typhoon Maring the week before, the region was devastated by monster typhoon Nitang, with its 275 kph winds, nearly wiping out the entire town, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless on the southern islands of the Philippines. A Filipino confided in me that although rebuilt, Moalboal hadn’t been the same ever since, the coastline changed, its beach now a rocky strip, a lot of the coral destroyed. It’s a quiet, sleepy town now. Some foreigners have chosen this place as their home, their enormous sea-side villas in stark contrast with the surrounding huts and shacks of the Filipinos, who earn their living as fishermen, or by taking tourists on their motorbanca outrigger boats. The locals are friendly, greeting you as you walk on the small, unpaved road, the smell of barbecued fish or meat coming from the small foodstalls. At night, the stars are bright, the sound of the crashing waves only interrupted by groups of young children, singing Christmas carols and then holding out their hand for a couple of Pesos.

After a week of diving in Moalboal, I went back on a bumpy busride to Cebu, enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. There, I booked a flight for my next destination - the small island of Boracay, off the coast of Panay. At the check-in desk in the departure hall of Cebu’s Mactan airport, I at first thought they made a joke when the attendants asked me to step on the luggage weighing scale, but no, they were serious. I started wondering how small the aircraft would be, as I made my way to the departure lounge. It turned out to be the smallest airplane I have ever been in, a 12-seater LET, painted bright red. From the cabin, you had a view of the cockpit and the back of the heads of the pilot and co-pilot, as they started the first propellor, and then the second one. A member of the groundcrew quickly yelled the safety instructions to us, before she left the plane herself and closed the door behind her. The craft needed only a small part of the runway before it ascended steeply, leaving Cebu behind us. After an hour, flying high above the water dotted with islands, the plane descended, and just when it seemed it was flying into the mountains of Panay, it made a sharp turn. We were flying 30 meters above the surf, then fishing boats and beach, followed by houses and palm trees, and we flew so low that it seemed almost possible to grab some coconuts. Ten seconds later the plane touched down on the airstrip, followed by the sound of the screeching of brakes. The plane taxied to a tiny parking lot with one other, bigger airplane, a helicopter and a handful of ground crew, and the pilot neatly parked it next to the other airplane. He then removed his headphones, turned his head around, and personally welcomed us to Caticlan - Boracay airport. It was four days before Christmas, I was looking forward to exploring Boracay, unaware of the impending disaster that would shake the world, only five days later.

I arrived at Cebu’s airport, which is located on the Mactan island where Ferdinand Magellan introduced Christianity in the Philippines in 1521, and where he found his demise, killed by local chieftain Lapu-lapu in the Battle of Mactan.

A taxi took me over the bridge, connecting Mactan to the rest of Cebu, and we went through busy Lapu-lapu City with its many packed jeepneys. After 45 minutes, I arrived at Cebu City, where I checked into a nice budget hotel, and ventured out into the city.

The jeepneys are again the most convenient (and cheapest) way to get around town, although it is a little difficult to find out which one will get you closest to the place or street you want to go though (although everyone is very eager to help, fellow passengers erupting in a heated discussion on what is the easiest way for me reach my destination). Unlike in Manila, here in Cebu, sometimes a husband and wife operate the jeepney, with the husband driving and the wife sitting in the back, collecting the fare. My fellow passengers usually have a towel or small piece of cloth, to deal with either sweat or the pollution, as the jeepney continues its journey, stopping frequently to let passengers on or off.

Cebu City’s Colon Street is reportedly the oldest street in the Philippines, and boy, it sure shows. The buildings are dark grey, sometimes completely black from all the pollution, as the wide street is busy with traffic, many jeepneys, cars, trucks, and taxis. On the side of the road, vendors are selling fruit, watches and clothing, next to big, old-fashioned shopping malls, fast food restaurants and cinemas. In the evening, when the vendors have closed their stalls, the homeless take their place, sleeping on the concrete in front of the closed doors of the shopping malls.

The northern part of Cebu City couldn’t be more diffferent, with luxury hotels, relatively expensive bars and restaurants, and modern shopping malls. To the northeast, adjacent to slums, lies an affluent, gated area, aptly named Beverly Hills, where the rich of Cebu reside in their large villas or luxurious apartment complexes, as always with security guards present. In this part of the city, up in the hills, a Taoist temple is located, painted in white with red and green decorations, a dragon on the roof, porcelain statues of bearded men inside. In the main temple, a board provided instructions on how to get answers from God to all your questions, by throwing wooden kidney-shaped blocks on the floor. The position in which they ended up would represent a “Yes", “No", or a frustrating “Maybe". Outside, a well-kept garden, and a nice view of Cebu City in the distance, with many ships sailing to its busy port.

I met some Korean students, who were studying English for up to six months in Cebu City. Never say South Korea - there is only Korea and then that isolated country to the north, with its dictatorial regime. Explaining which country I am from is easy. “Do you know Guus Hiddink?", I ask them. Their face brightens immediately as they exclaim “Aah! Hiddinku! He’s our hero!” [ Hiddink was the Dutch football coach who led the Korean 2002 World Cup team to the best ever showing by an Asian country in the tournament’s 72-year history. He now has, for instance, a stadium named after him, the Guus Hiddink Stadium in Gwangju ] The students introduced me to Korean cuisine, pork belly (which coincidentally also is a Filipino favorite), which you cook yourself with onions and garlic on a hot plate. We had a very spicy vegetable mix called Kim Chi, and a very nice alcoholic (almost vodka-like) drink called So ju. We discussed Korean and Dutch culture, the influence of Confucianism in Korean culture, and the change in customs and values for Korea’s younger generation (with for instance, the abandonment of arranged marriages). As they had been in Cebu City for a while, they showed me around to nice places, including a lovely coffee shop called “Off Roads Coffee", where you sip your coffee on the roof, under the stars.

After a couple of days enjoying this nice city, I would continue on to another part on the island of Cebu, the small town of Moalboal, as I was looking forward to finally doing my first scuba diving in the Philippines.

I have been receiving a lot of e-mails, asking me if I am okay, as the news from the worst earthquake in recent history unfolds.

I’m on the small island of Boracay, in the Philippines, far away from the affected areas, and apart from the news, there is nothing here that would indicate that such an immense catastrophe just took place. As most of you will know by now, the epicenter was off the coast of Aceh, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which I visited a little over three weeks ago. I was planning to visit the areas in Thailand in a couple of weeks, that now have been badly hit, so naturally I will have to decide if I still go there. For now, I will stay here in the Philippines, and I’m planning on flying out to Bangkok, in Thailand, around 12 January 2005.

In some restaurants or cafes here on this tropical island, there are televisions with continuous coverage of the news by BBC World or CNN. A lot of tourists and locals are watching the horrible images in disbelief, unsuccesfully trying to comprehend the enormous scale of this natural disaster. The thought of the tens of thousands of people who have died is immensely saddening. Most of the affected areas are very poor, and it will take them years if not decades to recover, not to mention the difficulty of overcoming the grief of a lost one.

Jose Rizal - Mi Último Adiós (My Last Farewell)

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.

On the fields of battle, in the fury of fight,
Others give you their lives without pain or hesitancy,
The place does not matter: cypress laurel, lily white,
Scaffold, open field, conflict or martyrdom’s site,
It is the same if asked by home and Country.

I die as I see tints on the sky b’gin to show
And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night;
If you need a hue to dye your mutational glow,
Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so,
And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light!

My dreams, when scarcely a lad adolescent,
My dreams when already a youth, full of vigor to attain,
Were to see you, gem of the sea of the Orient,
Your dark eyes dry, smooth brow held to a high plane
Without frown, without wrinkles and of shame without stain.

My life’s fancy, my ardent, passionate desire,
Hail! Cries out the soul to you, that will soon part from thee;
Hail! How sweet ’tis to fall that fullness you may acquire;
To die to give you life, ‘neath your skies to expire,
And in your mystic land to sleep through eternity !

If over my tomb some day, you would see blow,
A simple humble flow’r amidst thick grasses,
Bring it up to your lips and kiss my soul so,
And under the cold tomb, I may feel on my brow,
Warmth of your breath, a whiff of your tenderness.

Let the moon with soft, gentle light me descry,
Let the dawn send forth its fleeting, brilliant light,
In murmurs grave allow the wind to sigh,
And should a bird descend on my cross and alight,
Let the bird intone a song of peace o’er my site.

Let the burning sun the raindrops vaporize
And with my clamor behind return pure to the sky;
Let a friend shed tears over my early demise;
And on quiet afternoons when one prays for me on high,
Pray too, oh, my Motherland, that in God may rest I.

Pray thee for all the hapless who have died,
For all those who unequalled torments have undergone;
For our poor mothers who in bitterness have cried;
For orphans, widows and captives to tortures were shied,
And pray too that you may see you own redemption.

And when the dark night wraps the cemet’ry
And only the dead to vigil there are left alone,
Don’t disturb their repose, don’t disturb the mystery:
If you hear the sounds of cithern or psaltery,
It is I, dear Country, who, a song t’you intone.

And when my grave by all is no more remembered,
With neither cross nor stone to mark its place,
Let it be plowed by man, with spade let it be scattered
And my ashes ere to nothingness are restored,
Let them turn to dust to cover your earthly space.

Then it doesn’t matter that you should forget me:
Your atmosphere, your skies, your vales I’ll sweep;
Vibrant and clear note to your ears I shall be:
Aroma, light, hues, murmur, song, moanings deep,
Constantly repeating the essence of the faith I keep.

My idolized Country, for whom I most gravely pine,
Dear Philippines, to my last goodbye, oh, harken
There I leave all: my parents, loves of mine,
I’ll go where there are no slaves, tyrants or hangmen
Where faith does not kill and where God alone does reign.

Farewell, parents, brothers, beloved by me,
Friends of my childhood, in the home distressed;
Give thanks that now I rest from the wearisome day;
Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way;
Farewell, to all I love. To die is to rest.

In stark contrast with Indonesia, where they hardly celebrate this Christian holiday, Manila has an abundance of Christmas decorations everywhere. At night it’s most visible, with thousands of blinking lights that can cover entire walls of buildings, huge neon Santas, and the inevitable birth of Christ scenes, including a plastic Mary and Joseph. And of course there are lots of cheezy Christmas songs playing everywhere at cafes and restaurants.

During a hot afternoon, I went for a walk through Rizal park, with its memorial for Dr. Jose Rizal. A doctor of medicine, writer and activist, he headed the non-violent protests against the Spanish occupation, until he was executed on December 30, 1896. That turned out to be the demise of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, as Rizal’s execution caused an uproar that united the whole country, and the Spanish were defeated in the following two years. Now he is the national hero of the Philippines, and Rizal’s last poem, which he wrote in the days before his execution, is on display in three languages at the memorial. Titled “Mi Último Adiós", it’s a farewell to the country he so loved. I entered the small park, part of the memorial, where larger than life statues display the very last moment in Rizal’s life. His face frozen in a look of pain and anguish, his body bent slightly backwards as if he is about to fall down, his hands bound by his sides. Behind him, the execution squad, the soldiers aiming their rifles with one eye closed, a concentrated yet malevolant look on their face. Further to the back, Rizal’s friend and attorney, in tears, and a priest, holding a bible and small cross.

Within walking distance of the park, there is the Intramuros area, the oldest part of Manila. Like most of Manila itself, this part was almost completely destroyed by Japanese and American bombs during World War II. The large walls enclosing the area have been rebuilt, and inside there’s a busy hum of activity. Lots of students going to their medical college, little cafes putting chairs and tables out on the streets, a small orchestra playing music in a garden, and officials readying their papers for a local election, voters standing in line in front of a dull, grey government building. In the north of the Intramuros area, overlooking the Pasig river and Manila Bay, Fort Santiago is situated, the former military headquarters of the Spanish, British, American and Japanese regimes. Before it too was destroyed, by American forces in 1945, it was used as a prison by the feared and hated Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, who tortured and executed hundreds of men and women. It is now a monument and park, a memorial cross marking the common grave of approximately 600 bodies of guerillas and civilians, found inside the underground cells after the war. To the west, there is a small yet interesting museum dedicated to Dr. Jose Rizal, featuring many excerpts from his prose and poetry, artifacts, paintings inspired by his life’s story, and yet more translations of his final poem.

The following day, I took the LRT to the northern part of Manila, as I intended to visit the famous Chinese cemetery. I got off, walked on the busy street until I got to a smaller, quieter area, where jeepneys were parked with their drivers enjoying a siesta on the back bench, kids playing basketball on the streets, the walls of houses covered in ivy, their small balconies decorated with lots of plants. I walked through a large gate, marking the entrance of the Chinese cemetery. The wide, ascending two lane road led me past a row of houses, almost like villas, big and elaborately decorated, in all shapes and styles of architecture, some buildings over 15 meters in height. To my astonishment, these were actually mausoleums for the deceased. They had large windows, sometimes glass doors with gates in front, and in the middle of the house, the tomb of one person, or a husband and wife, or sometimes a whole family. Behind them, the photos of the deceased and their names, in Chinese script, together with a poem or their life’s story, engraved in marble. I was a little uneasy at first, with that dreadful feeling you get at a cemetery, but my curiosity quickly took over, as I took a peak through the window of many of these houses, - mausoleums -, a lot of which had their own toilets, and sometimes a small kitchen together with tables and chairs. A number of these mausoleums were built as churches, some with big neo-classicist paintings, with coloured glass windows featuring a picture of Mary, with giant crosses on the top of the spires. Some had their own well-kept gardens with yellow flowers, a small fountain, stone benches and tables. I walked for quite a while through this enormous town-within-a-city, it reminded me of the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but then hundreds of times bigger and more elaborate. I followed a small alley that led me past many buildings, one more expensive than the other, and I sat down in one of the gardens for a while, writing my diary, enjoying the quiet, solemn environment, before I went in another direction. I was stunned to see that a small number of the mausoleums were occupied by the living, someone cooking lunch in the kitchen, laundry hanging to dry in the garden of one of these houses of the dead, kids playing in front. I suppose that when your house is built from cardboard, these houses must be extremely luxurious, although living among the dead surely must take some getting used to.

I took the LRT back into the center of town, and had some dinner at a foodcourt of one of the big, air-conditioned shopping malls. While enjoying my Tagalog food, I thought about the following day, with a flight on my itinerary that would lead me down south, to the island of Cebu.

Unfortunately, the usually very customer-friendly Singapore Airlines company had made a mistake with my original request, in Indonesia, to postpone my flight to the Philippines. So, as I arrived at Singapore’s luxurious airport, I was told a dreaded message that no airline traveller ever wants to hear: “Sorry, Sir, your name is not in the system". After being directed from one service counter to another, and after being waitlisted on the flight I had originally booked (and subsequently being told there was no seat for me), I was finally put on a later flight, that would arrive in Manila in the evening.

So I had several hours to kill at Singapore’s airport, not the worst place to get stranded for a while, and after many coffees, newspapers, magazines and some time at the free Internet consoles in the departure lounge, I got on my flight, which took a little over three hours to reach the Philippines.

At Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I was personally greated by Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the President of the Philippines, albeit on a poster, and I suspect in a paintbrushed version.

After spending the night in a dingy hotel room, being kept awake by the loud music from karaoke bars in the street (I would later change hotels), I ventured out into the big city on a bright, sunny morning. Somehow, I had expected the people of the Philippines to have more Spanish features, but most are of Malay descent, with some Chinese, and only a small number of people sporting the typical Spanish facial features. Some were quite clearly the result of a mixed Filipina-Western marriage, usually their long nose or white skin giving it away. Their main language, Tagalog, has the same mixture of influences, with words derived from Sanskrit, Spanish, English and Malaysian/Indonesian.

Even though this country was ruled by the Spanish for many centuries, there is surprisingly little of that influence left, except for the enormous Catholic churches, the little courtyards you find in the quieter parts of the city, and the food (meat, meat, meat and seafood). The Asian influences are more apparent, with small foodstalls everywhere in the city, but a lot of them are serving barbeque meals, with skewers of meat or seafood.

Most visible are the American influences. Everywhere, you’ll find the American stores, cafes or restaurants like 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Wendy’s, McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts, and probably because of those, there are more obese people here than I’ve ever seen before in an Asian country. The “No Guns Allowed” signs at the entrance of many cafes and restaurants took a little getting used to (they need signs for that?), and at almost every place, your bags are searched and the guard usually has a quick feel around your belt to find out if there are any hidden guns. The banks have three or four guards at the entrance, carrying the biggest pump-shotguns I’ve ever seen, and the black and white police cars have “To Protect And To Serve - Manila’s Finest” printed in big letters on the side. The apparent gun-culture is a little intimidating at first, but so far I haven’t felt unsafe or uneasy (although I must admit I’m being more careful here than in, for instance, Indonesia), and the people seem to have the same Asian friendliness and hospitality.

I took the LRT, or above ground metro, to the south of the city. It has a seperate platform section and metro carriage for women, something I also have never seen in Asian countries before (although according to a recent poll, 64% of Japanese women said they had been groped on Tokyo’s metro. A big change in this country with its strict social etiquette, where once yelling “seku hara!” (from “sexual harassment") was enough for all men in the same carriage to raise their hands in a “I didn’t do it!” gesture). The short and cheap ride on the LRT brought me further south, where I got off at Vito Cruz station, went for a short walk, and then took a typical Philippines way of transportation - the jeepney.

The jeepneys are great, a little like the Indonesian angkots, although they look much different. Remnants from World War II, they were originally converted jeeps from the American army, but are now usually custom built, long aluminium cars, painted in the brightest of colours, with two rows of benches in the back and their destinations written on the side. They usually have slogans on the front or the back, like “Mother of Perpetual Help", “Jesus the Saviour", or a simple “God Bless Our Ride". I paid my fare, about 5 cents, and off the jeepney went, criscrossing through the busy traffic, accellerating and then stopping so quickly that you had to hang on to the handrail suspended from the ceiling, if you wanted to stay seated in the same place. As I approached my destination, I was warned by my fellow passengers, and I told the driver “Para!", which means “Stop!” in Tagalog, and I got off.

I was now near the Makati Central Business District, the most modern (and probably most expensive) part of Manila. My first place of visit was the building where the Dutch embassy was located on the ninth floor. Pictures of flowers (of course) and earmarked black-and-white cows (typically Dutch?) on the wall, but also here, something I had seen in my hotel and in many cafes and restaurants, big emergency lamps, in case of the apparently not so rare power outages. This was my first visit to any Dutch embassy, and I wanted to get some travel advice, as there are some areas that I’d better avoid due to the risk of terrorist attacks and kidnappings (this turned out to be North Luzon, north of Manila, and Mindanao in the south), and other areas in this large country that were severely affected by the recent storms and subsequent floodings (rest of Luzon and Quezon provinces). I thanked the consular officer, left the building, and felt truly ready to start exploring The Philippines.