Wanderlust Heaven!

“Don’t you know there ain’t no devil,
There’s just God when he’s drunk.”
-Tom Waits

Received a funny Jewish joke via email recently – remind me to share it with you at some point, it’s too long to stick in here. I’m looking forward to sharing it with my father – it’s great to hear him laugh at a good Jewish joke, he really goes off.

Traveled from Cebu to Ormoc, Leyte Island on a stormy Saturday afternoon. The sun was about gone when I got off the ferry and wandered out of the terminal, hoping that my hotel – the Don Felipe – was close by. A fellow in a Cebu bar who knew the city told me not to bother with a “trike,” one of the little motorcycles with a sidecar, as my hotel was close by. I found it pretty quickly – it was literally the only high-rise in the city, and I could see it above the scores of tiny shops and BBQ joints. The stormy weather made my otherwise nondescript journey to Ormoc a bit more dramatic and poignant – after all, I had largely come here to see the World War II sights, and I imagined myself “coming ashore” like a modern-day General MacArthur. OK, so I had a laptop and an iPod instead of a pistol and fatigues, but we all need to fool ourselves from time to time…

Ormoc has about 150,000 residents, and from what I could see nearly all were directly involved in the process of BBQing pork and chicken and selling them to each other at breakeven prices. The wharf area – and most of the city – was almost entirely given over the one-man, one-grill operations – actually, make that one-woman, one-grill operations. I didn’t see many men working, except driving the jeepneys and trikes. It made me consider more carefully some points I’d been told about the gender situation in the Philippines – the Pinay (women) more than pull their own weight, often to the point of going overseas to work as domestics and not seeing their own families for months/years at a time. The topic of women in the workplace was a semi-interesting topic in Western countries some years ago…but you never hear a thing about it in the RP, because women must work or their families won’t eat. And the government seems pretty happy with the OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers) situation, because overseas remittances account for a huge portion of GDP…so the government can sit on its hands and not do much about the unemployment fiasco because the money keeps rolling in from HKG, Singapore, the US, etc. In fact, the government runs ads in magazines touting the industriousness of Filipino workers – I recall one such ad which showed a hearty, beaming Filipino construction worker. I think a more accurate ad would depict an exhausted, harried Filipina maid, but advertising is meant to elicit dreams, right? It’s truly pathetic, and the situation is exacerbated whenever there’s an overseas disturbance, i.e. in the Middle East. The government makes a lot of noise about evacuating the 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon, and probably has some sort of plan to help. But the real issue is that these people couldn’t get good jobs at home, so had to go to Lebanon to work in often shitty settings – dangerous construction, washing toilets for abusive families, and so forth. Such are the wages of shitty government.

Ormoc was hit by a horrific flood in 1991 – 8,000 people died. Logging in the hills above the city was blamed for most of the damage. I think I can recall reading the reports years ago, but am not sure…there have been so many calamities in the RP that they somehow seem to run together. There was the world’s worst peacetime maritime accident, where a ferry hit a tanker and more than 4,000 people died. There have been several collapses at massive garbage dumps, where a literal mountain of garbage collapses and buries those picking around for stuff. You could go on and on…it’s really quite sad. Many of these accidents and disasters have a man-made element, and it makes you wonder what the fuck we’re doing to this world. Ormoc itself has a nice bay – but it was quite surely far nicer before man starting crapping it up. Same goes for Tacloban, where I went next – the San Jacinto Bay is ringed by mountains and trees and could be lovely, but the grimy markets and derelict vessels make the place decidedly grotty. Am I sounding too much like Al Gore here, people?

The Don Felipe Hotel was perfectly fine…room was big enough for me to unroll my yoga mat and stretch out my aging frame, and I could observe all the waterfront mayhem from my 4th-floor window. I noticed that the door had 3 locks; that made me briefly concerned about the security situation in town, but I quickly forgot about that and worried instead about some other trivial oddity. I soon went out for a bite, and walked around the “city center” which took about 10 minutes. As I said, the bay wasn’t bad – there was a long walkway along it and that was relatively clean and calm. Ormoc doesn’t offer much to do, even on a Saturday night. The fellow in Cebu told me that there are no ‘regular bars’ in Ormoc, just Pinoy (Filipino men) joints, with gambling, billiards, perhaps a good cockfight or two. All vices which I’m partial to. Anyway, I cruised around, didn’t find much that was particularly captivating, ate a couple of pork skewers (2.50 Pesos apiece – 5 US cents), and relaxed. The mysteries of the town more or less unlocked within a half hour, I made another loop around the place and tried to figure out what to do with myself for a few hours. I’ve been to a number of places which seem to give themselves up quickly – Takayama, one of my favorite places in Japan, really just has one main street and you can read the guidebook on the train, get off, and see most of the things you just read about within 15 minutes. That said, there are layers and layers to the place and I’ve gone back 4 times – it’s really a wonderful little place. So I was holding out some hope that Ormoc might have some layers, too.

But there simply wasn’t a hell of a lot there that I could see. Most of the young people (not that I count myself in that category, mind you) were hanging around the Jollibee restaurant. No McDonald’s in sight, otherwise I could have made a direct comparison between bored young Filipinos hanging out at McD’s in Ormoc and bored young Americans hanging out at McD’s in my hometown of Framingham, Mass. You thought your hometown was dull…come to Ormoc and feel forever grateful about your life. From what I could see, people’s abodes were quite modest – and that probably contributed to their desire to hang out somewhere else, even at a BBQ stall or Jollibee’s. The streets were pretty busy all through the night…and the walkway by the bay featured a few folks sleeping under a large umbrella. I suspected they weren’t ‘camping out’ for fun, and hoped they didn’t have to sleep there every night.

All that said, I still harbor the belief that you can have fun anywhere for a short while. But I should also say that I have often put that belief to the test and pushed it to the breaking point. There are many places I wouldn’t want to stick around more than 1 night – many of these places, of course, are in Africa. And just when I was starting to question my theory as it related to Ormoc, I did find something to do. First, I had a plate of sisig at a little stall that looked reasonably clean and trustworthy. Sisig is a uniquely Filipino dish – it’s probably 50% fat, 50% protein – consisting of various cuts of pork from a pig’s head and tongue, and with some chicken liver thrown in for good measure. I hadn’t tried it before a night out in Dumaguete, where some guys had me try their sisig and I kind of enjoyed it. Very, very rich and greasy – if you’re planning on getting stoned soon, hop on the web and get the recipe, then cook it up right before you take a few hits and you’ll be in paradise. Anyway, after chowing my sisig I asked one of the guys there if there were any decent bars in Ormoc, and he pointed me to a place right behind the bus terminal called Sheneil’s. It turned out to be a girly-bar and was a diverting place to spend a couple hours. No ladyboys there, thankfully.

On the topic of ladyboys: they’re common on the ground in several Asian countries, most notably Thailand but also in the RP and a few others. Many have had surgery and I think the methods have improved, because they can now remove the adam’s apple, which used to be the tell-tale sign of a ladyboy. It’s a weird phenomenon, and a bit disconcerting for Westerners who aren’t used to dealing with it. I suppose it’s a nice sign of acceptance and tolerance in the East…but at the same time it’s just very odd. In Thailand I can more or less understand how the Buddhist religion accepts everyone as they are…in the Philippines it’s less clear, because the church certainly does not dig gender benders. My personal theory draws on some recent studies which draw a correlation between second/third/etc. sons and homosexuality. Apparently any sons born after the first are more likely to be homosexual – although the why isn’t clear yet. Some hypothesize that the mother’s body reacts to having the first-born son and generates antibodies (or whatever) against future sons; others believe that it’s more an environmental situation wherein later sons admire the eldest and assume a submissive stance. Anyway, my (probably hare-brained) point of view builds on the meta-finding of those studies, and is really just a mathematical extension – because families here have so many children, and boys, within each family, there’s a larger pool, and some of the later sons might cross the line. I think the average # of children in a Filipino family is 5-6, versus 2 in the West. Anyone who has a point of view, feel free to chime in here – I’d be happy to be set straight if I’m off-base in any way.

Back to Ormoc and Leyte. My main reason for coming to Leyte was to see the island’s WW2 sights. MacArthur and the Americans had invaded Leyte in October 1944 to huge acclaim from the locals, who had suffered immensely under the Japanese occupation. They probably had suffered noticeably under American occupation previously…but I suppose the Japanese really were much worse, and most of us tend to place the most recent grievance foremost in our thoughts. So MacArthur and his boys received a hero’s welcome…more on that shortly. In Ormoc there was fierce fighting, apparently it was the Japanese’ final redoubt on Leyte and many perished there. The only memorials were a granite statue along the bay promenade and a Japanese-built memorial build in 1978 in the nearby hills. Two little Filipino boys were playing next to it, and seemed blessedly clueless about the reasons why the Japanese felt compelled to build this “Japanese-Filipino” temple. So that was about it in Ormoc, and I moved on to Tacloban, where much more was to be seen.

Outside of major cities like Manila, Filipino bus stations tend to have an unusual but quite sound system. There usually aren’t posted departure times, you simply turn up at the station and find the bus going to your destination, and board it. When it’s full, it leaves. I assume at some stage they would leave without being packed – every hour or so for major destinations – but I did like the fact that I didn’t need to get my hands on a timetable, I could just show up and get on a bus, which would probably leave within 20 minutes. My bus to Tacloban was decent…full but not uncomfortably so. Bags of animal feed lay in the aisles, and the bus stopped frequently to let people on and off. Pretty uneventful ride…nice scenery, though. Leyte, like most islands in the RP and elsewhere, has a mountainous interior and once had volcanos. It was good to escape the city’s fumes and grime and get out into the countryside.

We got to Tacloban after 2 or so hours. Tacloban is the capital of Leyte province, and the home of the Romualdez family, the most prominent member of which is Imelda (Romualdez) Marcos herself. There’s a street named after her great-grandfather, and her fingerprints are all over the city. It quickly became clear to me that besides the WW2 sights, getting closer to the Marcoses would be a major theme of my 2 days here.

I should mention here that during my entire trip to Leyte, I had the feeling I was a ‘spy.’ Obviously a very poor one, because almost everyone stared holes in me and I caused a few bike crashes simply by walking around. What I mean, though, is that I felt incredibly privileged to be able to drop right into these places, then leave whenever I want to. It’s like my earlier point (sorry for being self-referential on such a simple idea) about freedom and the ability to choose – I’ve got the full breadth of choices, can go anywhere I want, and got the hell out of Ormoc right when I wanted to. I imagine that many residents dream their entire lives about a single step up – making it big in Cebu, for example – and never even get there. So there was a tiny element of mystery in my mind – perhaps linked to WW2 – as I wandered around Leyte.

A fellow walked up to me in the street in Tacloban and said “the Marines are coming.” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at – so I just smiled and said “I know.” We then parted ways. It reminded me of being in Bombay in 1992 and having a random fellow come up and warn me that “Israel, Saddam is coming!” I mentioned that old story in my first post, and it came to mind there in Tacloban.

A few km outside Tacloban is Red Beach, Palo, where MacArthur and the Americans returned to the RP. “I shall return” was his famous statement, and helped make his reputation. At Red Beach there’s a MacArthur Park Resort – which had a nice setting but looked a bit tattered – and a well-known statue of MacArthur and several aides standing in a pool of water. If you stand back a ways it looks like they’re coming out of the ocean onto the beach. Quite impressive, if a bit macho – anyway, what do you expect? And I’ve gotta say that I was moved by the sight – I’m not much of a patriot, as you can probably tell from my posts, but I think that all men (at least straight ones) have an inner affinity for history and war stories, and I’ve always loved tales of the Civil War, WW2, etc. So I got a lot out of my visit to Red Beach. Reminded me a bit of various trips to Paris and seeing the Arc de Triomphe, which for some reason always makes me think of the righteousness of the Allies and the triumph of good over evil, as simplistic as that may be.

There were a couple German fellows checking out the statue when I was there. For a moment I felt like making a snide remark – like telling them that former Axis citizens could only visit the statue on V-E and V-J Days – but thought the better of it and merely smiled at them. Unfortunately, I find it difficult to find any love in my heart for Germany and Germans, although I’ve known quite a few decent ones. I’m probably not the only Jew who feels this way…I wish I could put it aside, and will continue trying, but I suppose that’s my own personal racism.

The resort had a few photos of ‘the real thing,’ but a better repository of photos is Alejandro’s Hotel in the city. This building was the home of a Filipino doctor (Alejandro) and his family, and at various points also housed US military and Japanese generals. It’s a beautiful old building, and there are hundreds of excellent photos of the war, MacArthur, the Japanese occupiers, etc. Well worth the visit.

So that took care of the WW2 experience – certainly was worth the trip, and made me think more deeply about my own nationalistic impulses. We all have ‘em, it’s more a question of how we interpret, shape and project them. I’ve always considered myself a skeptic with regard to US power and propaganda…but at the core I am generally happy I’m American and feel that the US has acted with good intentions, if often without wisdom and maturity. As I pondered the photos in Alejandro’s and the statue at Red Beach, I had very little doubt that the world would be far worse off if the Germans or Japanese won the war. Doubters, please chime in.

The other big topic to cover was the Marcos regime. I vaguely recall the rise and fall of the Marcoses from my childhood, but had only heard the stories. In Tacloban there’s a building called the Santo Nino Shrine, which Imelda had built as a luxury guesthouse, at immense (public) cost, but was never used. You get a guided tour of the place – I had two young Filipinas show me around, and it was unbelievable. Marcos was in power for 20 years, and received some stunning gifts over that time – priceless ivory carvings from Mao, golf clubs from Jack Nicklaus (there are some classic photos of Jack and Ferdinand joking around), Faberge eggs from the Russians, etc. The guest rooms themselves – there are 12, I think – are decked out in themes that reminded me of Graceland, but even more garish and over the top. And in every room there are matching photos of Ferdinand and Imela – really egomaniacal. I did notice that the toilets were American Standard – we may not have priceless ivory and jade, but we know how to make good crappers.

All in all, the Santo Nino Shrine was the perfect memory jogger – a depressing if campy reminder of the extent of human greed. It’s hard to say who was the greater criminal in the Marcos marriage – perhaps they fed off each other – but seeing the possessions of the Marcoses and recalling their regime and demise brought to mind some synergies with WW2, albeit on a far smaller scale. Both were struggles for freedom and democracy – that’s pretty obvious, right? – but both were also struggles for decency and ‘doing the right thing.’ If there’s any righteous deity out there, s/he cannot have looked upon the Marcos regime without a tear in the eye – it was so grotesque, and, at times, brutal. Perhaps the only more depressing thought is that today, in our world, there are probably 20 regimes of the same ilk. We’ve still got lots of work to do, people.

Took off the next day – bus back to Ormoc, ferry to Cebu, and bus to Moalboal, which is a major diving centre on the west side of Cebu Island. I came here almost 3 years ago with my old friend Ken Hart, and we had a fine time diving, drinking, dining, and chilling. I decided to come back and do some serious diving, and to see how the place has changed. It hasn’t much – a few new bars and dive shops, that’s about it. The diving was superb – I dove with Neptune Divers, my divemaster from Dumaguete set me up with Jesper, who runs Neptune. Did 5 dives across 2 days and got my fill. Had a bit of breakfast before the first day, Neptune has a little café atop the shop. Ordered yogurt – they were out of it. Ordered a ham omelette – no ham. Finally scored with the bacon omelette. Waitress yelled something to someone, and two minutes later a young boy bounded up the steps with 3 fresh eggs. Talk about just-in-time inventory – I don’t think they had much sitting in the kitchen!

Went diving with a good collection of characters associated with Neptune. Ian – soccer yob from Manchester with MCFC (Manchester City Football Club) tattooed on his calf. Non-stop talker, was going for his divemaster qualifications. Unbelievably clumsy underwater – almost kicked my mask off during a night dive, which would have probably been the end of me. Orm – unemployed Swedish lad who was sent here by his government as a way of ‘training’ him and getting him off the dole. The Swedish government has programs like these, and actually save $ by not having to pay him huge amounts of benefits in Sweden itself. Sounds like a very sound idea. Jesper – also a Swede, came here 20 years ago and fell in love with the place. Has a Filipina wife and 2 kids. Great guy.

First day, went to Pescador Island. This is a tiny little rock 3 km from Moalboal, and has excellent wall dives. Did a couple dives there, saw some colorful sea life. At one point we were 25 metres down, and I looked down and imagined I could just sink down forever into the blue abyss. It seemed endless and like a seamless door into another world. That night we did a night dive on the ‘house reef.’ Different sorts of creatures are on the reef at night – lots of shrimp and crabs. Johnny, the Filipino divemaster, picked up one crab that looked like a horseshoe crab, huge shell on its back. When he put it back down it scurried down under the reef and hid out there – which was the perfect natural reaction to being manhandled, but surviving. I wondered what the fish were thinking – three big guys diving around the reef with flashlights in the night, it must have been a shock for the fish to see any light at nighttime.

The next day we did a couple more dives. The first featured a sunken airplane – I didn’t know it was there and was damn surprised to see it. Apparently it’s not real – one of the dive centres built a wooden airplane and put it down there so that it could claim ‘wreck diving’ and thus get a PADI 5-star rating. Anyway, it was quite a sight – looked real to me, seemed metal and all that. Towards the tail of the plan some coral tentacles were growing – seemed like the plane had sprouted pubic hair. A bit like the car wrecks I saw in Dumaguete – weird mix of manmade and organic matter.

We also saw a couple massive turtles during our dives. First was just hanging out under some coral, we almost missed it. It seemed to look at us calmly. The second was swimming towards the surface and almost blocked out the sun – it was actively using its long flippers and making good speed for a turtle. Really enjoyed being under the waves and listening to my own steady breathing. As I was down there I reflected on my need to be on a different timetable – by that I mean that I have come to deeply dislike having to travel when everyone else does. Friday night, Sunday afternoon, Xmas, etc. Being on packed planes and competing for taxis, restaurant bookings, and the like really give me the shits, and I hope I can mostly avoid these situations in the future. One of the best aspects of my journey is being able to travel and eat whenever I want – I can choose to do so at busy times if I want company, but usually choose the less common options. Am I misanthropic? Probably, to a fairly high degree.

I’m well aware that most people lack this flexibility – but at the same time wonder if they’re often in a prison of their own making. Opinions, anyone?

Final, random factoid: a Swedish girl in a bar told me that she hadn’t taken a crap in ten days. Perhaps she was exaggerating, but if it was even only half that, it’d be disturbing. I half-imagined feces coming out of her mouth, eyes, and ears…and I’ll leave you with that thought because I’m heading off to get in one more dive. See you next week.