Welcome to Batangas

Day 3: Greetings from Batangas!!! On this third day of my trip I'm scheduled to leave Manila and head down to the Port of the city of Batangas. And for those not familiar with the Philippines, which is a group that I'm part of as well, Batangas is located about 2 hrs south of Manila. And when I'm talking 2 hrs, I'm actually referring to 2 hrs "Santi time". That is 2 hrs driving time for our chauffeur for this trip who is named Santi. Originally I thought it was a 3 hour trip but I guess when your going 125 Kph (Kilometers per Hour) you make up a little time. Actually, it's not as fast as it seems, it's actually about 77 MPH but it certainly felt allot faster. The trip down was very nice. Full of lush country side with large mountains, fields of palm trees, and occasional cattle scattered across the scenery. But when I finally got to Batangas the environment quickly changed. It's only when you enter into the cities that you get a grasp of the poverty level with which man people wrestle with every day. We crawled slowly down traffic filled roads in the middle of what seemed to be shanty towns. You can't help but feel a degree of sadness and deep compassion for the people here as you come to grasp with how fortunate we are to live in a land with soo much and standards of living that are extremely high in comparison with a third world country. All your complaints back home really pale in comparison with what the people here have to contend with on a daily basis. On a lighter note one of the cool features of this town is that not only do they have Jeepneys here but they also use the motorcycle with side car to get around. The cool thing is much like the Jeepneys these bikes look like little aluminum cans riding around. Another thing I notice is that the Filippinos don't "Thank God" but apparently "Thanks God" as I've seen that expression written on several cars around town. Also, today I actually got a little work done today as I moved the boats we are delivering to a little more protected area as we are expecting bad weather tomorrow. I also got a chance to talk to Santi a little bit about life in the Philippines as he told be a few interesting tid bits. For instance did you know that divorce is virtually non existent in the Philippines. Due to the influence of the Catholic Church over the years divorce is strictly forbidden although infidelity runs rampant. But in Santi's words "when your with that person you are with them for life." Also, he told me that Batangas is famous for it's coffee, especially one in particular where they extract coffee beans from the poop of a cat in the forest, clean it off, and make really good coffee out of it. For all those that think I should try this coffee you can weigh in on the poll I'm posting on the side of my blog. Also, they make a dish out of alligator and low and behold it tastes like chicken. Like you didn't see that coming. It turns out that Santi actually has a son my age and when I told him he could be my father he got a kick out of that. All and all it was an interesting day full of humbling experiences and informative, possibly useful information. Bye for now.

Philippine Marc