Quick Update

Hi!  It is the eve of my return home.  Well, actually, for those of you back home I think it's actually the eve of the eve of my return - the time changes make it weird.  In fact, this Saturday December 18th will 39 hours long for me.

As many of you know, I am FAR behind in my blogging.  I've been in Thailand for 4 weeks now and have only gotten two posts up.  I have, in fact, done more than eat, shop and get massaged in that time.  I do plan to continue blogging when I get home to tell the tales of the rest of my trip.  I'm hoping to have it done before Christmas and maybe even retroactively add some photos to my last posts when I get my memory card sorted out.

I hope everyone is well and ready for a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Jolly Holiday or whatever else may apply to you.

Only 15 hours until I'm boarding a plane back to Vancouver!!

Shopping and Massages

I suppose my book title could also be something like Eat, Shop, Get Massaged.  Along with eating, we did A LOT of shopping.  Whether it be at various night markets, morning markets, all day markets, shopping malls, there was always something to buy.  I quickly gave up on the idea of returning home with just my pack.  There are just too many great things and wonderful deals here!  I have to admit, sometimes I'm not entirely sure whether I like something because I actually like it or because it's so cheap.  I guess I'll find out when I unpack all my treasures at home.

The hotel we were staying at (I'll get more into that in a later post) was right next to Patpong, a street notorious for its shows of all sorts.  It also has a large night market with the a very high concentration of knockoffs.  Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo and Tiffany seem to be favourites along with ripped off DVDs, which are surprisingly current.  This is a very touristed market and so good bartering skills are a must.  Even the best won't necessarily get the cheapest price you can get at other places in Bangkok.  Joe's aunt was certainly one of the best though.  She took us around Patpong one night to make a few purchases and we nabbed some amazing steals: sunglasses for 100 baht (around $3) and a couple of silk screened prints for me for 120 baht (down from 200).  As I suspected, I am a pretty bad barterer.  Sometimes I know I'm getting ripped off, sometimes not, but what it really comes down to is that I feel like a royal jackass fighting over two or three dollars with someone for whom that means more than a cup of coffee in their everyday life when I have voluntarily left a solid job to drop thousands of dollars on, essentially, a very long vacation.

Over the ten days, we hit up a few other nights markets along with the Platinum Fashion Mall and Chatuchak Market (an outdoor weekend market).  Both were overwhelmingly huge and busy.  You could easily spend DAYS wandering through either of them.

The other semi-regular event of my time with Joe's family was getting massages.  Joe's mum, Toy, has a regular person that she sees when she goes back to Bangkok, so this woman would bring along a few extra masseuses so that Joe, Joy and I could have massages as well.  Thai massage is nothing like the Swedish relaxation massages that are the norm back home.  Much more involved with deeper tissue massage and limb manipulation.  During my first massage, I took a quick peek to see just what was going on to find that I had a tiny little Thai woman standing on the backs of my legs.  It does feel quite good in the end even if there is a little pain along the way!

I had three massages in that week and a half, such a hard life I've been living, I know.  And a couple of them were two hours to boot.  It had never even occurred to me to have more than a one hour massage before I came here.  I didn't feel too guilty about it either since Joe's mum and sister were usually having three hours!  (Really, how can you resist at $7 an hour?!)

Okay, enough with that, on to the interesting Thai stuff I got to do!!

Eat, Eat, Eat

(Sorry to disappoint, but you won't be seeing any photos from now on.  A bunch of my photos seem to have been corrupted somehow and a lot of them correspond to photos I've uploaded to my blog - a.k.a. my favourites!  Not sure if there really is a connection, but I don't really want to take the chance.  I'll try not to be too wordy.)

After the Philippines, I moved onto Thailand, and more specifically Bangkok.  My friend Joe (who you heard about very early on in this blog from my Arizona visit) is Thai and has a lot of family in Bangkok, some of whom own a hotel.  I was meant to be heading straight through Bangkok to explore Laos for a couple of weeks, but I was feeling a bit tired of traveling alone and just a bit burnt out on traveling altogether.  As luck would have it, Joe and his mum and sister were arriving in Bangkok at the same time as me for a family visit and they invited me along!  It was a wonderful experience.  Joe's family was very welcoming and I got the chance to do some things that I wouldn't have on my own.

I've had a few jokes about me being on some sort of Eat, Pray, Love trip which isn't really true since I haven't fallen in love or done any praying.  Joy (Joe's sister) and I joked though that if I were to write a book about my time in Bangkok with their family it would have to be called Eat, Eat, Eat.  It is unbelievable how much food these tiny little Thai people can pack away.  Lunch and dinner were often big group outings and I learned quickly to have a very light breakfast as it was the only time I could control my food intake.  If I didn't eat enough with the family they would worry that I didn't like the food.  Very sweet, but my waistband definitely got a little uncomfortable at times!  That said, I can't blame it entirely on Joe's family.  The food was amazing (for the most part anyway - cow's tongue made me gag a little) and I wasn't necessarily that great at holding myself back. :)  Some of my favourites: panang chicken, tom yum soup and some sort of leaf wrap thing that I don't know the name of.

A tip for future travellers - Dukoral is a very good thing!  Definitely take it.  I ate (almost) anything that came my way and didn't have any issues.  Hooray for drugs!

Busuanga Island

I had a couple of days in Manila during which I didn't do much - caught up on some emailing, did a little shopping and saw a movie (Easy A - okay, not fantastic) - before taking off to Coron on Busuanga Island.  Busuanga is part of the Calamian Group of islands just north of Palawan.  The Calamian Group is a cluster of tiny islands full of gorgeous beaches and swimming holes and great snorkel and dive spots.  Most people come here to dive or to island hop.  The movie The Beach was filmed in Thailand, but the book was actually written about a beach in the Philippines and it is rumored to be somewhere within this group.

Unfortunately, my trip to Busuanga came with two little hiccups: 1) a tour of the islands was kind of pricey and I wasn't able to track down someone to split it with and 2) I was hit with a pretty bad cold just before arriving.  This wasn't such a huge issue as I was pretty happy to lay in a hammock on the deck reading for large parts of the day, a the while being serenaded by strangled cat karaoke renditions of cheesy love songs from the bar across the inlet.

The view from the deck.

I know it probably sounds a little ridiculous that I didn't go check out the nearby paradise, but it just didn't seem worth it when I was sick and pretty drained from being on the go for so long.  I did break up the day to have a massage or wander around town.  A few pictures from Coron:

Coron's version of the Hollywood sign.

My beloved hammock.

I flew back to Manila after a few days and spent one last night in my regular hotel - Malate Pensionne.  It was one last quick afternoon of emailing and a bit of shopping and a quick visit with Inken and Katrin (they booked their last night in the same place as me) before flying out to Bangkok the next morning!



Vigan

Next up was Vigan which meant heading out of the mountains and over to the far West of North Luzon.  It was a long journey as the most reliable route required heading 7 hours South to Baguio and then 5 hours back North on the other side of the mountain range.  The first bus was fairly rudimentary and a rather uncomfortable ride.  The second was much more comfortable, but again had the extreme air conditioning. At least I was prepared for it this time!  It was on this journey that I discovered chocolate popcorn - delicious!

As we passed through Baguio I noticed that they have loads of crazy jeepneys there.  I kind of wished I was spending a night there just to get a picture of a few.  They are painted crazy colours and have great names (one of them was Canada Dream!) and decorative objects all over them.  So fun.

When we finally arrived in Vigan, I had my first trip on a tricycle riding side-saddle on the back of the bike.  A bit dodgy, but not so bad since they don't go very fast.  We were dropped off at our accommodation - Grandpa's Inn - to find that they LOVE Christmas here and the place was decked out in great decorations (keep in mind this was November 8th).

Inken showing off the lovely snowmen.

Katrin and the Christmas tree.

Vigan (pronounced like vegan) was untouched by the bombings of WWII and so it still has a quaint Spanish colonial feel to it.  The first night we had a lovely dinner at an outdoor cafe - pretty much the only place still open at 9pm.

The next couple days were mostly spent poking around shops, enjoying the little cafes and restaurants and reading.  One day we took a horse and buggy tour around Vigan and some of the neighbouring villages.  Our guide took us to the bell tower, a clay jar factory, a garden and a loom weaver's shop.  We were quite the novelty in the small surrounding villages and I'm pretty sure part of the tour was designed just to put us on display for the locals.  I finally understand why the queen has such a prim and subtle wave - it can get tiring!  Everyone wanted to say hello!

Our tragic looking horse.

I had a bit more time than the Germans, so we parted ways in Vigan for them to head back to Manila a day earlier than me.  I spent my last day in Vigan hanging out in cafes and reading before getting the night bus back to Manila.  I opted for the deluxe bus (with lazy boy like seats) this time and still didn't get any sleep because it would stop all the time.  Sigh.  At least I was able to check in for a half day when I arrived at 4:30am to get some sleep in in the morning!

Sagada

The next morning Katrin, Inken and I packed up to head West to Sagada.  Sagada is a little village of about 1600 high up in the mountains and a favourite among backpackers for its outdoorsy activities and cheapness.  On our way to getting the jeepney over to Sagada, we were intercepted by a local who was driving a van to Sagada for a bit more money, but also much more comfortable.  We piled in with five other tourists making the same trip and headed out.  About two hours in we got a flat tire.  And I don't mean a slow leak, we should patch the tire kind of flat tire.  It was rim to the ground flat.  Luckily we were just outside the next town - Bontoc - and were able to make it there to get the tire replaced.  For some reason this took about an hour, so we went for a little wander.

Tricycles in Bontoc.  These motorcycles with sidecars are a common alternative to a taxi all over the Philippines.  Sometimes they'll jam 3 or 4 people in the sidecar with another passenger riding side saddle on the back of the bike.  Good thing they never get going much more than 30 km/hr!

Once we got on the road again it was only another hour to Sagada.  Katrin, Inken and I got checked into a guesthouse and took off to check out the tiny village.  Like the rest of the Philippines, Sagada is a mostly Christian town since it was colonized by the Spanish way back when.  But an interesting tradition from before colonization still exists here.  While many are now buried in the graveyard, some people still like to have above-ground coffins.  These people believe in an afterlife and don't like the idea of spending it rotting away underground.  In fact, the further from the ground the better.  Many coffins are hung off the cliffs in the area or put on ledges or caves in the cliffs.  It is important for important members of the tribe to been seen and remembered after death.  Interestingly (and kind of morbidly), part of this tradition is to make your own coffin.  When you start to feel that death is approaching, you go off into the woods, chop down a tree and carve out your coffin.

Hanging coffins.  The one with the white writing was just added earlier this year.

Can you spot the hanging coffins?

The next day was my first sunny day in the Philippines.  It was gorgeous and stinking hot - perfect for checking out some caves!  We walked down to one of the big caves only to find that we needed to have a guide or we'd probably die in there and that we were supposed to book one back in town.  Luckily, there was guide there with a small group about to head out and they very kindly let us join them.  We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into which was probably for the best, because I may not have done it otherwise.  It turned out that we had to wade through knee deep water and rappel down a small (okay, very small) cliff.  Us girls were quite glad that the group we had joined was made up of a few strong men because we might still be down there had they not been around to give us a lift up in a couple of spots!

Inken in the cave.



Emerging from our caving adventure.

Our guide also took us by a burial cave which was full of the coffins of people who didn't want to be buried underground but I guess weren't important enough to be put up on the cliffs.

Thanks for the warning.  I wasn't planning on it though...

Random tidbit from Sagada - the cleaner at the guesthouse was using a halved coconut husk to clean the wood floors with.  It picked up all the dirt and polished it at the same time - amazing!

Banaue and the Rice Terraces

So I have to start this off by telling you a little bit about the bus company I used out of Manila.  Because, despite being run in a much more rudimentary fashion, I found it far superior to our own Greyhound system back in Canada.  They had different types of buses to choose from.  A regular bus was the equivalent of a run down Greyhound.  But they also had first-class buses which were a roomier version of a Greyhound, deluxe buses which has lazy-boy like seats and sleeper buses with reclining chaise longue bunks.  Brilliant!  And nevermind that, they had a system of running the buses that was actually efficient that included things like actually posting the destination(s) of the buses and time of departure on the front of the bus.  Seems basic, yes, but sadly Greyhound Canada hasn't worked this one out yet.

Anyway, enough about that.  The only bus option I had for my 8 hour trip up to Banaue was a regular bus, so it was less than comfortable.  The one perk was that the bus was air conditioned.  And air conditioned it was.  I'm pretty sure the only setting on that thing was Ice Age.  Luckily, the vendors at the bathroom break stops have caught on to this and I was able to buy a cheap blanket part way through the trip.  Otherwise, I probably would have reached my destination with no feeling in my toes.

We got into Banaue around 5am.  I was a little concerned about what the heck I was supposed to do with myself at that hour, but myself and the few other tourists were quickly herded into a nearby restaurant to have coffee and wait until the hotel opened and sent someone to come pick us up.  This is where I met my new German friends Inken and Katrin.

Not only were Inken and Katrin lovely to spend time with, but they also came in kind of handy over our next few days of traveling together as it saved us all a lot of money to do tours together.  After a bit of a snooze, the three of us headed out for a day tour of the surrounding rice terraces.

View from hotel balcony - morning #1

View from hotel balcony - morning #2 (glad we did the tour the day before the fog came in!)

What was meant to be a 4-5 hour tour ended up being more like 7-8 because of all the crazy rain.  We kept getting caught in these torrential downpours and would have to wait them out under the awning of someone's hut.  Not that I'm complaining.  In the least.  It turns out that I missed what the tour guide claimed to be the worst typhoon the Phillippines has ever seen (or maybe just ever in his lifetime) by about two weeks.  This meant that the roads were really bad due to all the recent landslides which added to the trip time as well.

So the tour itself took us to the lookout points of the rice terraces in Banaue and for a "trek" through the terraces of neighbouring Hungduan with a stop at the hot springs and at a hut owned by the guide's family for lunch.  The trip was beautiful despite the fact the rice had already been harvested (usually the flats of the terraces would be vivid green with rice shoots) and it was interesting to learn all about rice (really).

Enjoying the company of some of the local headhunter tribal elders.

Our jeepney for the day.  The first jeepneys were modified army jeeps left by the Americans after WWII.  Jeepneys are still used as a mode of public transit and are available for hire all over the Philippines.  The new builds stay true to the original design.

These red plants are used to indicate the boundary of a family's rice terraces.  Pretty much all families in the area grow their own rice for personal consumption.

Filipino chicken coop.

Soaked and starving.  Ready for a delicious lunch of red rice (I had no idea such a thing existed) and stir fry!

After lunch we got ready to head back to the hotel, which was a bit dodgy.  When someone asks "So will we be able to make it back?" you never really want the response to be "I'm not sure."  If the answer is yes, great.  If the answer is no, it sucks but you find somewhere else to sleep for the night and figure it out in the morning.  "I'm not sure" could mean getting stuck and stranded on some remote road with no way out.  Not so cool.  We did end up making it home that night after a very slow drive and having to stop and wait for the road to be cleared in one spot from the landslide that happened just that afternoon from all the rain.  We were very glad to make it home in one piece!