believe me good will come

[26&27/1/06] Our main reason for visiting Bohol was to see the Chocolate Hills. These are around 1,200 individual mounds in the middle of the island. They’re about 50 metres high, and in the dry season they turn chocolate-brown (hence the name). They are thought to have been formed when the clay around them eroded, leaving the tougher marine limestone mounds (either that or a giant called Arogo fell in love with a mortal girl called Aloya. Aloya died in the giant’s palm, and his tears turned into the hills). 

   

We took a motorcycle tour through some of the local villages, clambered up one of the hills, and then came back to the main resort to watch the sunset.

  

[26/1/06] Andy and I stopped in on the tarsier sanctuary at Corella, on Bohol. Tarsiers are only found in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Tarsiers belong to the primate family (along with monkeys, lemurs, and the great apes). They are one of the smallest primates in the world; they have the largest eyes (in relation to body size) of any mammal; they can rotate their heads to almost 360 degrees.

 

Afterwards, it started raining. When it rains in the Philippines, it really rains…

[25/1/06] After Pinatubo, we all returned to Manila. Andy and I left the others in Manila and we flew south. Our destination was the island of Bohol, home to the famous Chocolate Hills and the Philippine tarsier.

The capital of Bohol is Tagbilaran City. The primary means of transportation in Tagbilaran are the motorcycle-tricycles:

These tricycles are fairly common throughout the Philippines. The interesting thing about the tricycles in Tagbilaran was that they all had religious slogans painted on them:

    

As did some of the buses:

Jesus saves - keep distance

Can’t quite see the same thing being allowed on Wellington’s buses and taxis…

These are some photos I took from our jeepney as we drove to and from Pinatubo:

When the USA left the Philippines after WWII, they left behind a lot of military jeeps. The locals stripped them down, made additions, and the jeepney was born. Read more here.

    

 [24/2/06] One of the highlights of my Philippines trip was climbing Mount Pinatubo.

Pinatubo is an active volcano that last erupted on a large scale in 1991. The 1991 eruption sent so much ash into the stratosphere that it reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface by about 5%, resulting in a drop in global temperatures of 0.4-0.6°C.

At 5:00am our two guides picked us up and we (Andy, Spencer, Patty and I) set off on the 2 1/2 hour drive to the volcano. We ran out of road after about an hour, and our 4WD jeepney navigated rocky river beds and lava channels for the remainder of the trip. When we reached the point at which the jeepney could go no further, we started the two hour walk to the crater.

 

The first half of the walk was like a moonscape - giant canyons strewn with boulders. The second half was through lush vegetation.

With Spence and our guides at the crater lake. We went swimming in the lake, had something to eat, and then started walking back down…

 

[23-24/1/06] On Monday, 23 January, Andy and I set off for the hellhole of Clark, a few hours north of Manila.

Clark is where you need to stay if you want to climb Mount Pinatubo (see next post). We also had to go to Clark as the rest of our travel group were landing at the airport there (the rest of the group were Spencer, Patty, Derek and Cristina. Cristina is from Chile, the others from the USA. All of them taught English in, or close to, Changzhou).

Andy and I arrived in Clark first, and we went to the hotel where the others would meet us. We sat in a cafe out the back, by the hotel pool. A particularly large, middle-aged, white male lay next to the pool. He was shouting at a young, scantily-clad, Filipino woman who lay next to him. An older white man sat at the bar. Another young Filipino woman was resting her head in his lap. Andy and I were feeling a bit grossed out. We went for a walk down the main road. The main road consisted of brothel after brothel, occasionally interspersed with bars and sleazy hotels. Groups of girls called out to us as we walked past. Some girls grabbed Andy and tried to pull him into their building (all I got was a “Hello, handsome” from two ladyboys…). We went back to the sleazy hotel to wait for the others. They arrived, checked in, and we all set off to find some food. Having two girls in our group definitely helped the situation. We were the only foreigners under thirty, and Patty and Cristina were the only foreign women in the whole town. Clark was full of young Filipino women and old, fat, ugly foreign men (and they were old - the hawkers tried to sell us condoms and…Viagra).

 

Clark exists because of the USA. The USA had a military air base at Clark until 1992. American military bases always seem to attract two things - brothels and bars. Clark was no exception. Angeles City is right next to Clark. There were an estimated 16,000 women and children engaged in the sex business in Angeles City, before the Americans left. The same number worked in nearby Olongapo City (I came across that statistic in this book. The book has several chapters on child prostitution in the Philippines - engaged in firstly by American soldiers and later by dirty British and Australian tour companies. Most of the foreigners I heard talking in Clark had Australian accents). Hopefully the prostitution trade has at least shrunk a little since the US left, but Angeles, Olongapo and Clark still have large red light districts.

We weren’t the only ones disgusted by what we saw in Clark. A group of young Evangelists on Clark’s main street. They are holding a banner that says: “Where will you spend eternity - with God or Satan?” and there’s a verse from Revelation about people being thrown into a fiery lake.

I couldn’t think of any really effective way of expressing my disgust. But I did tape this sign to my pack on the day that we left Clark. As we walked down the main street I made sure I turned my pack to face any approaching dirty old men…

[22/1/06] Andy, Natalie and I took a day-trip to the island of Corregidor, which lies 48 kilometres west of Manila, at the entrance to Manila Bay. Corregidor was of great strategic importance during World War Two.

General Douglas MacArthur used the island as the Allied headquarters in the Philippines until March 1942. The Japanese conquered Corregidor in May 1942. In 1945 USA and Filipino forces took it back. Most of the military installations and other infrastructures have been left untouched since the end of the war.

 

The remains of American military barracks (left) and a gun-emplacement (right).

 

The Malinta Tunnel was the last stronghold of the Philippine/USA military forces before the Japanese takeover. It is now home to an audio-visual presentation detailing the events that took place on Corregidor during the war.

  

A statue of MacAruthur; a monument to the fallen in the Japanese garden; a Buddhist statue in the Japanese garden.

[20-22/1/06] Here are some photos of the nightlife along Manila Bay. There must have been thousands of people stretched along the waterfront. Every twenty metres of so there was a different bar, usually with a live band. It was a great atmosphere, with whole families out having fun.

  

The beggars and hawkers were out in force at night. Most of the beggars were street kids who were as happy to receive offers of food as they were to receive money. The hawkers would try to sell things such as peanuts, crafts, or fake watches.

Joe, one of Manila’s hawkers. We bumped into him so many times that he stopped trying to sell us a fake Rolex and stopped for a chat. He was from Mindanao, the predominantly Muslim island in the south of the Philippines. Mindanao is very poor and has been treated badly throughout the Philippines’ history. Joe came to Manila hoping to make money to send back to his family. However, at every interview he would be asked what his religion was and, when people heard he was Muslim, they wouldn’t hire him. So, instead, Joe tried to sell fake Rolexes to stupid tourists.

In the foreground: a wall dating back to the sixteenth century. In the background: McDonalds…

  

Intramuros (which means “within the walls”) is the oldest settled area of Manila. Before the Spanish, it was the native settlement Maynilad. In 1570 the Spanish destroyed Maynilad, founding the settlement of Manila on the same site. This became the centre of Spain’s new colony. The Spanish surrounded their settlement with a series of high defensive walls and moats.

The ruins of the Spanish fort in Intramuros.

We took a horse-drawn buggy tour around Intramuros. The highlight was San Agustin Church, which dates back to 1587. It is the only building in Intramuros to have survived World War Two intact (Intramuros’ six other churches were destroyed). It is the oldest church in the Philippines, and is a World Heritage site.

 

San Agustin Church, outside and inside.

Manila Cathedral was another impressive building. However, unlike San Agustin Church, it hasn’t weathered the storms of time so well. Manila Cathedral has been re-built six times. The first cathedral, made of bamboo, was built in 1581. It was damaged by a typhoon and then burnt to the ground in 1583. The next, made of stone, was made in 1592. An earthquake destroyed it in 1600. The third cathedral was completed in 1614. It was toppled by an earthquake in 1645. In 1863 another very strong earthquake damaged the fourth cathedral. The bell tower fell off in the earthquake of 1880. The fifth cathedral was destroyed by bombing in World War Two. And the present cathedral, the sixth, was completed in 1958 (Perhaps God is trying to tell them something…).

Manila Cathedral VI.

[21/1/06] Andy and I flew into Manila from Hong Kong. We met up with Natalie, who Andy knew as she had taught at Changzhou International School the term before he started there. Natalie comes from Wellington, New Zealand, but was in Manila for 6 months on some kind of university work exchange scheme. On our first full day in Manila we set off for Intramuros (see next post). We stopped in at Rizal Park on the way.

Rizal Park lies in the heart of Manila, next to Manila Bay. It is a place of great symbolic importance. The park is named after Dr Jose Rizal, the Philippines’ greatest hero. He was the key player (and martyr) of the independence movement against the Spanish. There’s a big memorial to Rizal at the park entrance. You can see a cool panoramic/360 degree shot of the memorial and surrounds here. It was at Rizal Park that the Philippines’ independence was declared in 1946.

Nowadays, the park is one of the few open green spaces in central Manila. It is a popular picnic spot for locals. It is also home to Chinese and Japanese gardens, the National Museum, the National Library, the Orchidarium and Butterfly Pavilion, and a few lakes. 

Andy and Natalie in Rizal Park.

Looking back across the main lake to Rizal’s memorial.

The Chinese garden.

This is either the National Museum or the National Library…