Last day in philippines
It was fun as long as it lasted but it is time to say good bye to Philippines. My feelings of the Philippines must be as divided as the Philippines in general. I was a bit unsure what to expect when coming in here but my general opinnion was that this must me quite like Saigon with some touch of unfamiliar culture. What I didn't expect was that I was about to enter a whole new world - a lifestyle I had never seen before.
First of all the whole country is devided in two. There are the rich and there are the poor. This apply as much to the people as to the places. In one place you may see a beaty unlike anywhere in the world and right beside is the most smelling sewege or a the ugliest waste mountain you can think of. Same goes with the people. On the same street you may see one of the rich entering a huge 4x drive city jeep and then there's this poor bastard begging for a peso or two to buy the only meal of the day. There are skyscrapers and there are the homeless living on the streets. And they all live side by side on the same blocks.
One of the things worth mentioning is the attitude of the peoples. The whole country seems to be living their lives according to a simplest rule. Don't care! This is for the good and for the bad. In a way it is strange to see that the people in Philippines doesn't seem to know the word stress. Really! They don't bother to stress them selves about mere mortal things like a hole in the roof, getting a job done or even going from one place to another in a some predicted time. Life goes on and jumping up and down is not going to help you. On the bad side is that the whole in the roof won't be fixed, the job is not going to be done and most sertainly you wont get from one place to another in some predictable time. So, if you ever get to Philippines.. Remember to smile and laugh and remember to leave a day or two before your flight.
Generally the peoples in the Philippines are kind and can be trusted (unless money is an issue). Also it helps that almost all of the philipino speak english fluently. If not for the stupid hangaround males with nothing usefull to say I would almost open heartedly suggest you to visit the Philippines. Almost..
What else? Beer is cheap, sometimes cheaper that a bottle of water. The Filipino food can be described as not worth it. The normal Filipino food in its simplest is plain white rice. With more money you get a grilled stick of beef, liver or chicken. If you're lucky you may get the meat spiced with a satay type of sauce. For example in Romblon the market places had some vegetables for sale but where ever you looked for a meal the one thing missing was vegetables. We didn't figure out at what time or on what occasions they eat the vegetables. Only if you go into a bit more touristic place you might be able to make an side order of vegetables or even get a small portion of mixed vege on your plate.
Toilets. CR is for comfort room and means a place with a toilet seat. That's it. As usual in countries like this they don't use toilet paper. Sometimes they don't even have water in the toilet to wash your hands or ahem.. clean your private places after you're done. No kidding! This is for real! Keep in mind to check before you go if you need to bring your own paper and most of all to make sure you have a place to wash your hands afterwards as the hygiene is not an everyday option in here.
Money and prices are an unknown variable. check for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggling for more.
Manila, Manila.. a mixture of the rich and the poor. Clean shopping malls, high hotel buildings and then the dust and dirt on the streets. It's a chaotic place where people get shot, robbed or tortured daily. There are ten million people living in Manila and the money is not evenly divided. Drug lords, business man and politicians rule the elite world and the poor, sometimes homeless people are the slaves of the city. There are places you should avoid in Manila, perheps too many places to be mentioned in here. This doesn't mean you shouldn't go wondering the streets but using your own good sense is adviced. The killings are mostly between the police, the drug lords, business men and the politicians so the turists are mostly free to roam safely through the city. Manila is a place worth seeing but i cannot suggest it for a longer stay.
It is hard to describe Philippines. It's a strange mixture of things and two weeks is not even close enough to understand the people and their culture. I might need to return to this place someday but at the moment I am more than happy to leave the dirt and dust behind and head for new adventures.
Latest pictures are on the net! .. and the other adventure in White Beach.
It's getting late in Manila but we've been uploading a bunch of pictures for you all to see. We haven't had time to organize then correctly yet but enjoy and remember to check for updates from time to time.
Ok, the adventure part two..
So we actually survived the devouring darknes and the hazards of the fast flowing river. The following day began as usual. We slept late =) So, the story told that on the end of the white beach there is a rock wall, higher than any tree. Up you go, using roots and rocks. Rise is steep so footing must be sure and when you're up you must come down. The path is far from done if one manages to the other side of the wall. So we did. Survived the wall and were on a small sandy beach watching at yet another wall but this time the wall was facing the fury of the sea. Below the stone wall were sharp rocks and wall itself was like pointed daggers to hang on. On we went and the wall got steeper and the waves from the sea got closer. And this was only the beginning.
The wall of daggers ended into yet another small sandy beach but this time the waves hit the beach and we needed to stay on top of the rocks to keep somewhat dry. In front of us the wall got higher and if one would fall the damage would be terrible. Sharp blades of rocks waited below and the wall was between 85 degrees and sometimes few degrees negative. Thought of falling didn't sound like an option. At this point Carina did the best choise of the day and chose to swim around the rocks as her back and shoulder might not enable her to stay on the wall when going around the negative wall. So i was to carry my and Carina's bag plus hang on the wall. Whee! At this time i guess i must have left my brains to the beach we left.
So, finally the long waited beach was in front of us and the whole trip was more than worth it. Isolated beach with good snorkling waters and not a single lady offering masage or stupid men selling beach trinklets. Whole day of pure relaxation on a most beatiful beach one can imagine. But this isn't the whole story.. On our way to the beach we didn't remember the small thing. It was a low tide when we get there. Now, on our way back to the White beach the sea level was higher, much higher! And the waves.. Two and a half meter high wall of water when the wave broke into the sharp rocks just in fron of the wall of daggers i was about to climb. At this point I remebered our conversation with the Canadian couple. "you look a bit like andventurous sort of people" and we were like "Yeah!"
Pure madness I tell ya!
ps. it's a miracle my camera is still working after I got hit by the waves on full force when I tried to get a footing to the wall. I had no dry spot on my clothes when i got to the other side and my camera was on my bag. At that time i was sure that it was the end of my old digicam.
About to leave white beach
So, Carina wrote all the missing parts of my story so I'll continue from where she left. We're still on the White Beach but the boat to Batangas will leave in 25 minutes or so.
We met an Canadian couple on one of the lovely coctail bars and heard few really interesting stories from them. They noted that we look a bit like andventurous sort of people and we were like - Yeah! So, they continued with their story of an hidden waterfall, far up in the mountain, accessed by small mountain trail. Well, you know how we are.. So, we slept late, slept some more and then some =) on the beter part of the day we pondered if we should hike to the waterfalls. So, we went upwards, almost unbeaten track, visited only few small huts with some locals on the way. And what we found? It was a paradise of real life. Hidden far in the mountains there was a river with beatiful pool of small waterfalls filling the pool from several directions. It was a pure dream come true. Now, if you remember we left to the waterfalls on the later part of the day so it was getting dark when we left the waterfalls. We followed the trail on the side of the river and while it was getting darker we met more and more people coming from the white beach and surroundings, finding their way up to their mountain homes. You'd never have thought of that when lying on the water front on the White Beach.
There's also another story the Canadians told but it must wait for another time. I got a boat to catch.
White beach, Mindoro
So you take 80 million people (good thing they are quite small), put them on numerous big and small islands in the sea and voila, you get the Philippines. There was a time when I thought all Asian countries were quite similar to each other. Now I know that the Chinese are hard working, the Thais pretty and excellent with tourism. The Vietnamese are tidy and keep everything very clean. The Philippines differ from all of these. They take a lot of influence from the US when it comes to lifestyle, but mainly they seem like they cant be bothered with too much. Friendly as they are, laidback is a good word to describe them, lazy could be used if wouldn't want to be nice. What makes travelling here so easy is that everyone speaks english. Thats an asset the Philippinos could take advantage of much more...
To decide where to go in just 2 weeks in this massive place was hard. We decided we wanted to see both the native country as well as the touristic side. So, from Manila we got ourself to the Romblon island group in the Visayas. Apparently I was the first female Finnish person ever to set foot there, and during our whole stay I saw one other white female. The day of our arrival, we were the news of town... The attention got almost too intense at times, especially when walking without Raine, but by the next day they had gotten used to us =) They were all really friendly though, not pushy, just curious. Romblon is one of the poorest provinces in the Phils, but to us it seemed they were living quite a nice life. Life is much harder for those who try to make it in Manila without success.
The weather got a bit cloudy (although still hot), so it was time to move on. Mindoro Island and White beach next, which is where we are now. Prices more than doubled, the locals ware labels, but with European standards its still very cheap. Tourism is the main industry, its your perfect little resort. You have the beach bars with 80's music amd colorful drinks (its really like Coctail =), nice restaurants that serve great grilled fish and meat. Went snorkling today at Long beach Coral gardens, which was great and also good exercise cos of the strong current. My favourite was a fat black fish with sparkly bright yellow dots all over, and some more yellow things around it =) Although swimming through heaps of colorful fich was a good second.
What I miss here is good coffee. They serve a strange instant mix that has coffee, whitener AND sugar all in one. Yuc... Tonight Im looking forward to trying their blue-green-yellow parrot fish for dinner - the food got much much better when we got to the tourist area. Local Philippine cuisine has only one great advantage, its very cheap. Period. Now I know why at home we eat Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malaysian food. But not Philippine.
Still have to mention the kids. Philippine kids are so cute! They seem to really have fun with whatever they do, and they smile all the time. Hope I don't do the Madonna thing and come home with one of them =) (just kidding!)
We'd love to upload some pictures that we have taken plenty of, but apparently USB is still not standard in Philippine computers..., hoping to find that in Manila!
Time to stop,
till next time
Carina
Short on internet time but alive and kicking
Hah! Finally we managed to get ourselves to the local internet provider. It's been a long time since I wrote but here's a quick update. The one day flight roulette was a pain in the ass but we made it all the way to the Manila, capital of Philippines. It seem like we found the cheapest dorm in the whole city but it was nice to find out that the owners were really kind and the ugly athmospheare was quickly changed to a warm welcome.
Our Manila visit was a quick one. Two nights and one day of searching for the route to Batangas, port to the southern islands. Damn.. times out.. the story will continue later =)
Anyway, we're alive & fine =)
Raine
Have you started packing already?
Many of my colleagues and friends have been asking me if I have already started packing (two weeks ago). Well, here we are, less than 12 hours from the first part of our journey and we're starting to consider what we should take with us. Although we've been doing some preparations, including medicines, cosmetics, printing usefull data etc. We're still in the early phase of the packing. Anyway, I'm sure we manage to pack everything by tomorrow morning.
The journey begin tomorrow morning when we drive to Tampere airport where my father should be wating. We will leave all our winter gear and my car to my father and take the Ryanair mornign flight to London Standsted. From there we have six hours to switch to the Heathrow terminal 3. I hope we don't encounter any flight delays or heavy traffic on the ground. From Heathrow we will fly to Singapore with Singapore Airlines and switch to another plane that takes us to the Manila, Philippines. We just decided not to make a reservation for a dorm in one of the hostels so we'll have to wait and see where we spend the first night. I'm sure we'll find a place to sleep for a few hours.
Ah, but I should be packing...
Thoughts a week before / Mietteitä viikkoa ennen
So, this is mainly gonna be a journal for myself, I'm not going to watch my language or censor my thoughts, and in general my way of writing is very different from Raine's. Anyone who wants to read is very welcome to though!When I first came up with the idea of travelling for more than a normal vacation I was a student and my main concern was finances. Now, even with a semi-decent salary it has to be said that money not at all is the biggest issue. But the organising! Time off from work, apartment to let out, visas, tickets, plans etc, it's no breathe... Not for anyone who isn't really up for it. Luckily, that part is almost over, and it's time for nicer things.Since my first time in Australia and maybe even before that I've been restless. So now I'm lucky, cos I'll get to travel until I probably just can't stand it any more =) Is there a limit? Afterwards maybe I'll get the feeling of wanting to settle down for real. Meanwhile, if I can figure out what I really wanna do with my life, that would be nice =) Or, I could just opt for relaxing, taking the day as it comes, meet people and enjoy myself. The more realistic option...At the time I am however leaving with mixed feelings. As much as I wanna go, there are things that are hard to leave. Not the Helsinki weather =), but people I will miss. But I also know we'll be off for such a short time many wont even properly notice we're gone! Also, living with my still not perfect back and not beeing able to do everything I want to and am used to is hard to accept.Oddly, one of the things I'm looking forward to is living on a budget. Back to basics, eating cheap Chinese food and skipping lunch should be a great way to stay slim =) (she says and comes back 10 kg heavier...) Taking away a lot of the extras that surround our normal life seems strangely appealing. I'll inform you when I get over this, I'll give myself two weeks! Not knowing what tomorrow holds is an empowering feeling, and easily addicting. I wont write again until I actually have something to say, this was the compulsory start off. Till then, take care, have fun!-Carina
