Wanderlust Heaven!

My overnight in Hong Kong was uneventful.  In fact, I only recall two things from the little stint in Asia’s World City, those being:

-While en route back to the airport, we drove by an apartment building called ‘The Belchers’ – some builder must have visited Newport or Florida and gotten carried away with the names of the mansions there…

-Taking the motorized walkway to my gate, I saw a little brat run by me, away from his mother and go all the way to the end of the walkway itself.  He then proceeded to get his shirt stuck in the place where the rubber mat goes back under the walkway – a very dangerous predicament.  I recall some years ago, while having a drink with a friend in Hong Kong’s Soho district, we heard an ungodly wailing which turned out to be a dog who’d gotten his paw stuck in the famous Mid-Levels Escalator.  A number of us rushed over and we managed to free him without any lasting damage…but that dog probably learned a lesson.  This time, with that memory stuck in my head, I ran over to the lad and pulled him out of the danger zone.  His mother strolled over and said ‘I’m his mom’ and I told her to keep a better eye on her kids.  She didn’t like that, not one bit – I wouldn’t want to be the kid, that’s for sure.  And the situation didn’t exactly boost my desire to have any kids of my own… 

Hong Kong was even busier than usual – I think the economy is purring, for sure, but the major driver is probably the upcoming Olympics in China.  I go back to Hong Kong on May 13^th for a few days, and am bracing myself for long queues.  Then I go to the mainland, where things may be even worse…

Easy flight to Cebu…and that completed my free round flight between Asia and the U.S.  From now on, back to point-to-point flights. 

Back in Cebu.  Back to Casa Rosario, perhaps my favorite place in the city.  Dropped off my stuff and went out to do some errands.  Foremost was to find a tailor to repair a pair of pants and a shirt – had a terrible time tracking down a tailor for that.  Ended up going downtown, where I managed to find a dingy little shop that could take care of it.  Saw lots of shoe repair shops – which led me to believe that Filipinos probably mend their own clothes, but shoes are a tougher job and outsourcing makes sense.

Heard from my family – my sister and brother-in-law had their baby girl on May 1.  They’ve been waiting a long time for little Natalie to join them and they seem very pleased.  I wish I could have been there to welcome the baby into the world…but my flight ticket couldn’t be changed.  I need to get them on Skype video soon so I can see Natalie live – the emailed photos are well in hand but there’s nothing like the real thang.  I am a wayward uncle indeedy. 

Spent the next 2-3 days taking care of the usual ‘stuff.’  Got a haircut – that didn’t take long.  Caught up on my Internet banking.  Made sure my hotel points were in order for upcoming visits, in case I needed to use ‘em.  And I got some traction on my planned trip to Mongolia, in late May.  I’m trying to learn as much as possible about the country, given the lack of day-to-day info.  Lots of cool places to go and ways to get there – yak treks, sledding in the Altai Mts, Gobi camel tours, etc.  I’m planning to do the trip with an old colleague from Monitor, but it’s proving hard to coordinate with him and at some point I may just make my own plans and see if he wants to replicate them.  Had a good call with Nigel, the hubbie of a former client from Oz – Nigel is the only person I know who has actually been to Mongolia.  He gave me loads of helpful info, and exhorted me to ‘go, go, go before it’s too late.’  Roger that, Nigel…

The usual Philippines lack of efficiency invaded my life, as it usually does.  Went to get some cash – no ATMs seemed to work, turned out that the Weblink bank system was down.  Great – I only had a few hundred pesos left.  I could change US dollars, but want to conserve those for places without ATMs – read, rural Mongolia.  I eventually tried my US bank account card, and that worked – I guess it’s outside the Weblink system.  When you’re traveling like I am, you’ve gotta have a couple different bank accounts, obviously with different networks.  I’ve only had to resort to the second account 2-3 times, but that’s enough to make it worthwhile. 

Went for a tuneup to Dr. Pardis, the chiropractor I see when in Cebu.  My back is in good shape, but it’s good to get it checked out when I can.  He gave me some diving tips and off I went.

Went for dinner at El Gecko, an old fave of mine.  Had a large chicken tostada and a few San Miguels.  The bartenders at this place are always 1) cute and 2) fun.  And sometimes the customers are good fun as well – sometimes they’re broken-down old American/British/Aussie coots, but regular readers will recall that a few weeks ago I had a good chat with a Japanese woman there and you never know what you’ll find there… 

After dinner, went over to a nearby bar to say hi to waitress Annabelle, who has the same name as my deceased maternal grandmother.  Bought her a drink and talked for a while. 

Took a cab back to Casa Rosario.  The cabbie was friendly and we talked about the country’s problems.  I didn’t neglect to mention the problems in my home country, of course…which I suppose pale before his, but still need to be highlighted – particularly as he wants the US to annex the RP, a la Hawaii.  There’s about a -5% chance of that happening, but it was an intriguing idea, not one I’d heard before.  

Walked around Osmena Fountain area the next morning.  More street kids than ever before.  The high price of rice and other staples is really hitting lots of people – they estimate that for every 10% rise in rice prices, another 2.3 million Filipinos are plunged into poverty.  Yikes.  Given that rice prices have almost doubled, that’s approx. 20 million more poor people here, in a country of 90 million.  Of course, we can’t blame the Catholic Church for any of this misery…

Meanwhile, every time I go back to Cebu, there’s another new building going up.  In many ways the place looks great – but with inflation the core is rotting.  What a dichotomy – spiffy new malls being built, all the while people going hungry because rice is expensive.  High commodity and staple prices – wasn’t that a 1970s problem?  I hate to jump the gun and declare myself a Malthusian; after all, that position was considered laughable 10 years ago, in the time of plenty.  But what if Malthus was right, after all?  You have to consider the timeframe, perhaps Malthus was off by a few hundred years, maybe the planet can sustain 5-6 billion people, but not 7-10 billion, which is where we’re now headed.  I hope Malthus isn’t right, but in my opinion the jury’s still out. 

It’s sort of like the Jared Diamond hypothesis about Western dominance laid out in ‘Guns, Germs and Steel.’  It’s a great theory and seems to hold up well…but what if we look a hundred years down the road, when China and India are heavyweights and the West looks more like a set of Switzerlands, producing small lots of boutique products?  After all, 500 years ago China was probably the world’s greatest/most technologically advanced power…and perhaps the past half-millenium was an aberration now being corrected.  Again, it’s a question of timeframe – in 2100, Diamond’s son might write a book about how China’s rise was inevitable given its tradition of learning, competitive government exams, culture, etc.  Food for thought…

Went into a Watson’s drugstore to buy some condoms.  Many different brands and varieties for sale – ribbed, flavored, thin, lubricated, etc.  Thankfully the shopgirls were on hand to offer their advice – it was pretty funny to hear them arguing for the strawberry-flavored ones.  That’s the Philippines for you – the same girls were probably going to church that afternoon, but for now they were just having some fun and being slightly provocative.  Who knows if they had actually tried the product – they certainly felt comfortable teasing me about the subject.  You wouldn’t get that type of experience in the West – it does tend to spice up your day. 

Raining a lot these days .  I’m not that used to random rains, in India it almost never rains outside monsoon season.  I’ve been caught out without an umbrella a few times and it sucks.

Time up in Cebu (for now, anyway), time to head back to Dumaguete to see friend Steve and new girlfriend Marnely.  Took an early a.m. cab to the port, in the rain.  Stopped at a red light – cabbie called over a newsboy and said something, then took a paper.  He scanned it quickly, then gave it back to the boy and handed over a coin or two.  He had, wait for it, rented the newspaper for a minute and read the headlines.  These folks are truly inventive – I always thought selling single cigarettes was creative, these guys rent newspapers by the minute!  Of course, this speaks to the level of poverty in the RP – if you can’t afford to buy a paper, that says something right there.

Steve and Marnely picked me up at the Dumaguete port, as they did a few weeks before.  Drove to Steve’s hacienda in Dauin.  He’s building a small apartment building on his land that he plans to rent out – the construction is coming along nicely and it’s getting fairly close to completion.  Went for a dive with Steve – was nice to get back in the water and cool off.  I recently bought a cable to connect my dive computer to my laptop, and over the course of a few days in Dumaguete I figured out how to get that working.  I downloaded my past 50 dives (that’s the capacity of the dive computer) into Suunto software on my laptop, and it’s quite interesting to look at the graphic profiles of my dives and analyze the assorted info.  Really amazing what you can do with electronics these days.  Do I sound like an old fart when I write that?? 

Steve dragged me out the next day down south to Tanbobo, a lovely cove where he wanted to check out some land and boats.  We had a massive lunch at the Tondo Sail Inn, a small complex owned by a fantastic character called Nigel, a Brit who builds impressive boats right nearby.  Steve is sort of in the market for a boat (well, he’s sort of in the market for anything he can find for a decent price), so we potted around there for a few hours, looking over land plots and boats.  Some fairly serious hiking was involved, and I was fried from a lot of diving, so when we were all through and went back to Dauin, I was ready for a nap, which I summarily took.  I think I was still jet lagged, and that plus diving is a reasonably serious one-two punch.  Plus I’m generally pretty lazy these days – Steve gets turned on by investigating and buying, whereas I prefer to throw things away and read books.  But we get along very well and play off each other.

Even though I had a solid nap, I was in bed (with Marnely, natch) by 9 that night.  I was starting to think something was wrong with me – why was I so tired? – but the next morning I was back to normal.   

Marnely had told me she was interested in trying scuba, so I got her a ‘Discovery Dive’ session with friend Mike Feeney.  Steve’s helper Michael also joined.  Marnely did very well, and Feeney called her a natural.  Not so with Michael, who had trouble clearing his mask of water, and who, later on when underwater, felt cold, was shivering, and had to be taken back to shore by Steve.  Not a natural – which is too bad, because Steve could use a regular diving companion for times when I’m not there and he can’t find another interested foreigner to join him.  Steve knows the reef quite well, and dives there most days, but it’s still not advised to dive solo, and he knows that.  Hopefully Michael can get the hang of it one of these days…

Got an earache from all the diving – swimmer’s ear, which I’ve had before.  Steve’s wife Tina found some eardrops, I used them and they helped immensely.  I was cruising for a brutal night sans sleep, but the drops reversed the condition and by evening I felt 80% better.  Early intervention is my preferred approach with things like this – I’m generally right about my medical concerns and am comfortable leaning into them early on. 

Felt well enough that night to take Marnely and 8 others in Steve’s household out to Dumaguete.  It was Wednesday night, Reggae Night at Hayahay Bar in town.  One of the girls, Tina’s cousin Leah May, was about to turn 18 and it was appropriate for us to celebrate.  I can’t recall my own 18^th birthday, only my 21^st, when I reached legal drinking age – that’s a story for another posting.  Stayed at Hayahay for a couple hours, then moved over to Why Not Disco, where we hung out and danced until I felt barely able to drive Steve’s monster Toyota SUV back to Dauin.  Got home fine, but I again felt exhausted.  Was it all the diving?

Awoke feeling better.  Got ready for another dive with Steve.  Couldn’t find my swimsuit, had laid it out on the back porch railing the previous day.  Steve thought he had moved it during the night, when it started to rain. Asked Tina – no dice.  Went diving in my running shorts, no problem.  Came back, looked around the front of the house, saw the swimsuit hanging on a metal cage.  The dogs had gotten to it and ripped apart the inner mesh lining.  Ugh.  I really liked that swimsuit, it was a Tommy Bahamas.  Oh well.  Things are things and dogs will be dogs – I resolved to pick up a new pair shortly.  The incident did not increase my general dislike of Steve’s dogs, two Rottweilers and a Doberman. 

Saw a movie that night on one of the movie channels, about the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Burundi (next to Rwanda).  The movie was pretty crappy, but did feature an impossibly huge croc called Gustav who is inspired by a real animal (on Lake Tanganyika?) that is supposed to be 6 meters long and has killed lots of animals and people too.  Check out the various Gustav videos on YouTube.  I told Marnely that Gustav is my alter ego, and will emerge shortly to take revenge on Steve’s dogs for destroying my swimsuit…

A cyclone hit Burma and killed tens of thousands.  Frightful.  And the junta again fucked things up by delaying entry to humanitarian and governmental outfits.  This just may be the time for the US to invade and rid the people of this scourge.  Of course, this would also be the final time that foreign aid would ever be allowed into such a country, but in my opinion it would be worth it. 

Said goodbye to Steve and Marnely and departed Dumaguete a few hours ago, en route to Cebu.  We’ll see where things go with Marnely – she’s good fun, but I still feel like wandering (physically and spiritually). 

Favorite shots from the week:

My near-term sked:  Cebu for 2 days, Manila for a couple more.  Then to Hong Kong for 3-4 days, Shanghai for a week to get ready for Mongolia and meet up with my friend, then up to Ulaan Bataar (‘Red Hero’) and the rest of Mongolia for perhaps 3 weeks.  Stay tuned.  Over and out. 

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