15/9/2009
I remember seeing movies about the Vietnam War and there would be a macho looking guy with a t-shirt wrapped around his head to protect himself from the sun looking cool about the situation. It was not cool and not macho when Frank is wearing a t-shirt around his head because the 16 hour bus ride he is on is so friggin cold and the driver would not turn down the air conditioning.
In Yemen, I have my office and trailer near the absolute zero so I don’t really get cold that easy so I was surprised to be cold in the Philippines but no matter where I rested my weary head there was a draft that was threatening to blow out my pilot’s light. 16 hours of this. Thankfully I had Eric’s shirt that kept me warm (as an aside Eric’s shirt will have seen 16 countries by the end of this trip.)
I was also near the back so I kind of felt a foreign ogre compared to the smaller Philippine people. Little kids would gasp and run when I lumbered their way.
Well worth the trip however. The rice terraces and an ancient and modern marvel. I also go to meet some indigenous people.
The long bus rides generally don’t bother me. I generally have my head in a book, look out the country side or talk to the locals. I have lost track of how many broken down buses, vans and trucks that I have been on over the past 5 years so it did not surprise me that our bus broke down. It took about 2 hours for the other bus to come but as luck would have it we were right beside a rice field. After the incident with the water buffalo in Vietnam I wanted another shot at rice cultivation. I was watching the local cut some rice and he asked me if I wanted to try. After a few lessons with the knife I was a natural. I quickly harvested enough rice to feed a family of 8 provided that family of 8 was ants and did not eat rice. I basically scooped up grass. Much to the laughter of the local gent and some of the bus passengers.
17/9/2009
I am amused and refreshed by the sunny, bunny demeanor of the people of the Philippines. I think smiling is a national pastime. It doesn’t matter what you are doing or what they are doing they always greet you with a Hello Sir. I was walking by some construction workers that were doing back breaking, blister inducing, sweat bathing, ass busting, pennies an hour labour and sure enough as I walked by they all stop and say Hellooo Sirrrr.
There are as helpful as the Japanese and almost everyone speaks English. A really easy country to visit. Manila is an ordinary city with an American feel to it. Bland high rises and US franchises everywhere.
This is a different type of trip for me. I actually know people in every country that I will be visiting. Besides Cory’s wedding I met up with a guy that I work with in Yemen as well a guy I use to work with a few years ago.
Philippine food in my opinion is pretty bland. National dish is plain rice and plain fried chicken or pork. No complaints but now I am off to the land of one of my favorite food-Lebanon.
9/18/2009
I went to the island of Corregidor today to learn more about the war in the Pacific. Now you are probably thinking Corregidor isn’t that where MacArthur said, “I shall return”. Not bad as many people think that but he was actually in Australia when he said it.
The Battle for Corregidor was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. The fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942 ended all organized opposition by the U.S. Army Forces Far East to the invading Japanese forces on Luzon in the northern Philippines. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armament, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, was the remaining obstacle to the 14th Japanese Imperial Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. The Japanese had to take Corregidor; as long as the island remained in American hands, they would be denied the use of the Manila Bay, the finest natural harbor in the Far East.
The U.S. and Filipino army recaptured the island in 1945.
Over 1,000,000 bombs and shells landed on the island and it was said that not even a blade of grass survived the onslaught.
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