The voyage is underway

Day 7: Today was a momentous day on my Philippine Trip. About 8:00 AM we cast off for the halfway point of our trip to Puerto Princessa, the port of Coron. Really it was momentous for a couple of reasons. For one it was the first time that I drove a boat on the high seas. And let me tell you that it was amazing. The water was a turquoise blue that you can only dream of. Also, as we were motoring along I saw the coolest thing ever FLYING FISH. It was awesome, as we were driving we would see these small fish jump out of the water, spread their wings and fly in the air for a like 5 seconds. I was amazed. But it was too random to catch on camera. The trip itself was simply amazing driving up and down over long rolling waves while driving by amazing rock formations and palm tree covered islands. The views from the boat were inspiring and made it really hard to put away my camera. What was most interesting was the fact that one 0f the guards in the boat has family who are all Jehovah's Witnesses. His name is Phillip and while we were talking he asked me if I had kids. I said no and that the reason was because I was very busy with my work and with teaching bible classes. After he heard that he asked me what religion I was and when I told him that I was a Jehovah's Witness he told me how he was raised a witness and actually went from door to door. He was really excited and we talked about his family and how he is going to take me to the Kingdom Hall on his motorcycle when we get to Puerto Princessa. That really made my day. Another, exciting part of the day was entering the port of Coron. I felt like I was entering King Kong Island. It was incredible! Then we went to the resort we were staying at. The room is ok, it's really a hut by the beach but the location is incredible. And to end the day I went to use the Wifi in the dinning room when it suddenly turned into Karaoke night. So, of course being the only Gringo there they wanted me to sing a few songs. So, I obliged with "Celebration" from Cool and the gang and "Forever my Lady" from Jodeci. I think I confused them with my singing or my inner soul. All and all it was quite a day, just the fact that I'm singing Jodeci in the Philippines blows my mind. By the way just so you know Filipinos are excellent singers.

Philippine Marc

Pre Voyage prep

Day 6: In reality day six was not a momentous day here in the Philippines but that's not to say that it was without it's highlights. The day started with what I thought was our last morning at the Ponte Fino hotel. I was sad to leave such a great hotel but at the same time I was excited to get underway on my two day voyage on the water. But as it turns out we were delayed long enough this morning that we were "forced" to stay another night in the hotel but the only problem was that all the $95 dollar rooms were already booked up. So, because of the circumstances my boss had to upgrade us all to "suite" rooms. As in "SWEET" rooms!!! If you want to get a look at my room you can see it on a special page I'm doing on my blog for the hotels I stayed at. Anyway, the day kind of went by pretty smooth. We went grocery shopping for the voyage. The menu on board is pretty simple : Water, with a PB & J sandwich, chips, and fruit. It's nothing to write home about but I can't complain because I'm been eating great all trip long. Even though I've sweated so much I think I'm still coming home having gained weight. Later we got back to the boats and tested them out on the bay of Batangas for about a half an hour. Everything went pretty good with just a couple glitches but nothing major. Probably the highlight of my day was some of the conversations I've had with Santy my driver. I know I've spelled his name wrong the whole time but what do you expect. My conversations with him have ranged from talking about his little granddaughter, that he's visiting here in Batangas, to his love for Brian Adams songs. We really cover the whole spectrum of topics. And while I'm here he keeps on calling me his son because he has a son who is 32 also and after he told me that, I told him he could be my dad. He's really taken that literally, he'll say things like "I'm soo glad I have a son who's so nice". It's really interesting to get to know the people here. I talked to one guy who has two kids and in his words "one wife". And I told him "that's good, that's the way to go with one wife". We got a laugh out of it. Or I talked to another guy today who works on the docks, owns a butchery, and runs chock fighting out his back yard. It's definitely a different world over here. Anyway, tonight I'm just going to soak it all in and then leave early tomorrow on the boat. It's funny because my "Lonely Planet" book said that there was no need to stay in Batangas over night but we decided to stay four. It's on to Coron tomorrow.

Philippine Marc

P.S. Here is a musical rendition of the song "Heaven" by Santy my driver. Enjoy, raise your plastic spoons, and sing along.

Putting the boats in the water

Day 5: Well day five turned out to be another interesting day in the Philippines full of new experiences and adventures. To start the day I headed down to the restaurant in the hotel to have breakfast and a cup of coffee. Which incidentally they have excellent coffee here...... and now that I think of it a few cats roaming around the outside of the hotel. Nah, I couldn't be, but on the other hand they do have a wine on the tables here named the Gato Negro (Black Cat), I wonder what other things they make with cat waste here. Just kidding. The whole cat coffee thing has kind of become a joke for me and my coworkers here. One guy said "Hey, why don't we get some of that coffee and bring it home?" to which I replied " forget the coffee bring home the cat". It was funny at the time. Anyway, an interesting thing happened to us at breakfast. While we were eating we kept on hearing a zapping sound and could not figure out where it was coming from until we saw one of the waitresses with what looked to be an electric tennis racket. It's seriously the most modern fly swatter that I've ever seen. You can kill bugs and pretend to be Serena Williams all at the same time. I've included a picture of one of the waitresses with the fly swatter just so you see that I'm not making this up. After, breakfast we headed back down to the port to gas up the boats and eventually launch them. The gassing up part was very fun. I had to sit on the front of the boat and watch to see that no power lines were going to hit the top of the boat as we drove down the road to the gas station. But as we were going along everyone on the side of the road was stearing at me and the boat as we passed by. So, I did what I thought the situation dictated. I started waving at the people on the side of the road. And you should have seen the big smiles I was getting from everyone, adults, kids, older people as I passed by waving at them. I felt like I had landed on the moon or something. Then at the gas station everyone in town seemed to pull up and ask about the boats and I told them as much as I knew about them. Everyone was super nice and I think generally surprised that a foreigner was actually taking some time to talk to them, answer their questions, and even ask a little about themselves. Even the chief of police taught me a special handshake to use. I know that this all sounds corny and some people may have been thinking "is this guy crazy" and actually laughing at me but everyone had a good time and had a laugh. Then it was time to put the boats in the water. Now in the United States the process of doing this is a lot safer. And just for the sake of my mom and my wife I'm going to emphasis the facts that I'm alive and I don't have to put any more boats in the water. That being said, the way they put our boats in the water was by lifting the boat up about 80 feet in the air with a crane and then slowly lowering it into the water. Sounds fine right. Not when your inside the boat. As it turns out I was expected to get in the boat as it was being lifted and lowered because there was no dock to really lower the boat into. And initially I thought they were going to raise us about 20 feet in the air and then slowly lower us. Something got missed in translation and as I'm hanging 80 feet in the air in a boat, that is designed for water and not to fly, something came to my mind : "Wow, this is like a roller coaster ride only there is nobody who knows if this is safe or not, dope!!!" Anyway, it all worked out thankfully and nobody died. Finally, after all four boats were in the water we started loading the boat trailers on top of each other for shipping. But all of a sudden a thunder storm rolled over the top of some near by mountains and poured on us. I jumped onto one of the nearby boats, closed the windows and door, which didn't leak in case some of you where wondering, and sat it out. Actually, I got some video of it which I'll put up. Finally, instead of just staying inside the boat I stepped outside and let the rain give me a shower. It was nice after such a hot and sunny day. And after the rain passed we worked a little longer and then went home tired and smelly. It truly does wear you out working in such heat and humidity. I'm still able to work but I'm exhausted by the time I'm done. I was so tired yesterday that I said "I want to go to my room and drink my shower in my beer". That's tired. Also, here in the Philippines they have a beer named San Miguel that is actually quite good and is a good option if your worried about drinking contaminated water or having soda with bad ice cubes in it. My motto here has been "one beer a day keeps the amoebas away" and it's worked so far for me. Well, I'll blog you tomorrow which could be the first day of my Philippine voyage on the boats.

Philippine Marc

Long day in Batangas.

Day 4: Well it was quite a day in Batangas on this my fourth day in the Philippines. It really started very early in the morning around 2:00 am when I woke up to find that my air conditioner was out and that half of my room's power was out as well. It seems that the inclimate weather that I mentioned in my previous blog was actually a borderline Typhoon that hit Manila that night and here in Batangas we got some of the residual winds and rain that knocked out power to a lot the the city. Which was no surprise because you can see bundles of low hanging power lines all bundled up together in a mess. So, it wasn't a surprise that we were running on the hotel's generator and we were without Internet to start the morning. Really, the whole hotel was a piece of work. To start, it had this musty smell when you entered into the room that made me gag, to the point that I had to buy some apple scented air freshener spray just to make the room habitable. Also, for breakfast, their continental breakfast consisted of two pieces of untoasted bread, some watermelon, what looked to be two slices of those individually packaged cheeses, and a goop of something, and they gave somebody in my group a cracked glass full of orange juice. And, oh, did I mention that the toilets were not working in the morning. Fortunately, my boss' room actually had some sort of flooding going on and he could not get rid of the musty smell in his room. I say fortunately, because all the factors combined made him decide to stay at another hotel. Particularly, the hotel that was 5 minutes down the road from us, where we had eaten lunch the day before. The name is the Ponte Fino and I will provide a more detailed description later in the blog. After securing some rooms in the new hotel we headed back to the port of Batangas to work on the boats. We uncovered them and got to work. Unfortunately, it was still raining a little so I had to construct a crude tent over me to cover up the work I was doing on the roof of the boat. So, imagine working on the roof of the boat, in extreme humidity, while being covered by a thick plastic sheet. I was dripping sweat. In minutes I had sweated through my shirt and was dripping all over the radar dome that I was installing on the roof. I was drinking plenty of water and taking occasional breaks outside of my plastic green house. In time the rain subsided and I got to work without the plastic tent. And it actually turned out to be a pretty decent day in which we got done all the work we needed to on the boats. There are some pictures of the surrounding landscape at the bottom of the page. But although the surroundings were quite beautiful, not everything at the Port was as nice, in particular the bathroom. Actually here in the Philippines they call bathrooms comfort rooms. (Insert you own personal joke here________) But although it may have been called a comfort room the bathroom at the Port was anything but. It looked as though nobody had cleaned it for five years and the toilet seat seemed to be deteriorating or was slowly being eaten away by something. I really couldn't tell. And of course, no toilet paper. Miraculously after seeing the condition of the comfort room my urge to go to the bathroom somehow disappeared. Funny how that works. Anyway, as the day drew to a close we returned to our new hotel and entered into what became paradise. As you enter into the Ponte Fino hotel you're greeted by an ultra friendly staff that treats you with the utmost respect and courtesy even though you look like a hot mess. In the lobby the sounds of a recorded harp player gently sooths your fried nerves as you listen to harp renditions of you favorite songs like "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeplin. But it's soo relaxing that you just melt. After going to my good smelling, clean, and spacious room and taking a shower, I returned to the lobby and just sat there and bordered on the edge of consciousness as the harp playing took me to a state of absolute restfulness. Then we went out to eat at the hotel restaurant where they served me an incredible adobo flavored short rib dinner that exploded with Filipino seasoning. And just a incredible as the food, was the attention given by the serving staff. Like 3 waitresses combined to serve us our food and even poured my bottled water when it was getting low in my glass. Yes, that's bottled water not out of a pitcher. The waitress actually came behind me (I was wondering what she was doing) took my water bottle, and filled the rest of my cup, and then took away the empty bottle. I felt like a king and that was just what I needed after such a long day. Anyway, if you ever find yourself in Batangas stay at the Ponte Fino because it is an oasis among the craziness of this Port town. See you tomorrow.

Philippine Marc

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

4:00 in the morning responses

Hey everybody, it's 4:00 in the morning and I'm wide awake so I'll take just a couple of minutes to answer some of the questions that you've had for me so far about the trip. I'll try to keep doing this during the trip so that you can have an idea about what it is really like over here and you can decide if you ever want to come visit. And what else would I do at 4:00 am anyway?

1st question: Deidi asks "Have you taken a ride on the Jeepneys?"

Answer: Good question Deidi, I can totally understand why an adventurous wife as yourself would consider taking a ride in one of Manila's cultural inequities (actually I don't even know if I'm using that word right so don't judge me on it). With that being said you will NEVER see me taking a ride in one. Why? You have to understand that here in the Philippine people steer at you 24/7. Everywhere I go people are watching/looking at me like I'm a sort of science experiment. So the idea of being crammed into a small hybrid bus/coke can with about 50 people all steering at you constantly (stop, imagine it for a second), it just doesn't seem that enjoyable. Don't get me wrong attention is always nice, and I'm a gringo in a Spanish congregation so I'm used to being different, but sometimes people steer and then laugh at you and you think that your fly is down or something but really your just weird to them. Also, there is allot of pickpocketing on the Jeepneys as well. There's that also. Good question.

2nd question: Danielle V. asks "Sounds a bit like the amazing race.....Have you seen Phil over there?"

Answer: Good question Danielle. I've only seen bits and pieces of the amazing race so I don't know who Phil is. But from what I have seen, the people on the show are running around, constantly lost, and doing crazy challenges, all while being film or watched by thousands of people.........And that is an extremely accurate description of how I feel so far on my trip here in the Philippines. But as far as Phil, he could have been the guy in the Karaoke Bar singing because that guy was extremely accurate in his rendition of Cindy Loopers "Time after Time". It's possible. Good question.

3rd question: Lenny V. asks "Are there any Yankee fans over there?"

Answer: Excellent question Lenny. As you know the Yankees have an influence all over the world, extending their "Evil Empire" to the far reaches of the earth. I believe I did see at least one guy with a Yankee's hat on but he was peeing on the side of the road at the time, so I couldn't really take the time to make sure. But to answer your question "yes, there are" and they seem to be a very proud people.

Thanks for your questions and I'll try to get back soon with a post about my ride to Batangas, the next city on my adventure.

Philippine Marc

Exploring Manila

Day 2: After a good nights sleep, which ended with me waking up a 5:00 in the morning because it was 5 in the afternoon back home, I embarked out on a day of adventure in the city of Manila. But before any exhausting exploration takes place I find it helpful to eat a good breakfast. With that in mind I wandered over to the breakfast buffet to eat of a traditional Philippine Breakfast. As I approached the food table I found several unique and interesting breakfast options. Sure there was the regular danishes and croissants to choose from but among the usual hotel breakfast regulars I found some truly unique dishes. Such as cheesy mashed potatoes, coley flower with a tomato sauce on top, and a creamy linguine mixture. As I ate of these savoury dishes I felt as though I was partaking of an age old "south pacific" breakfast tradition unknown by the western world. After finishing the meal and talking to one of the hotel guest I found out that I was actually partaking of and age old "western" tradition of eating of last night's leftovers from supper. Guess I shouldn't take myself too seriously. It was good, I'm not complaining. With the leftovers in by belly I set out for the U.S. console to go over a few plans for my voyage later. After that it was onto Manila. And after going to one of my favorite places in the world yesterday, the Mall, my companions decided to go to one of the "happiest" places on earth, the grave yard. WHAT IS UP WITH THIS TRIP!!! Actually, the best part was the getting there. We left the hotel in a cab and started out twords the American Cemetary, it's a memorial for all U.S. soilders killed in the Pacific, but on the way to the cemetary our cab stops pumping out A/C and I think replaced it with heat. What am I doing in the Philipinnes in a car with the heat on? So, with the temperature outside being like 100 degrees and the temperature inside being like a billion degrees we decided to get off on "who knows where in the world" street and try to get another cab. You know the street, it's by the Kareoke Bar that's open at 11:30 in the morning. Anyway, after standing there for 10 minutes being serinaded by some guy in the bar we finally get another cab whose driver seems a little unsure about where the cemetary was, so unsure that he had to get out of the car to get dirrections. Isn't it their job to know, what's going on!!! Anyway, we get to the cemetary, look at the memorial and it goes the same way that all memorials go. Quiet, alot of dead people, and not too much fun. But really my expectations were not that high to begin with. So, with the mood set we went to the next logical destination after such a somber scene in the Philippines.....TGI Friday's. What? You expected somewhere else? Don't you do these things on vacation? At this point I'm just taking in the memories. I travel twenty plus for....to eat at.....and why? Anyway, afterward I actually convinced our escort to go a little out of his box and take in some of the sights. We started off with a exploration of the Intramuros. The Intramuros is basically a walled city, built by the Spainards during their occupation of the Philippines, that was pretty much destroyed during the closing days of WWII in the battle of Manila. The walls of such city still remain in good condition and you can walk atop them and get some pretty nice views of the old canons on the wall, the adjacent park, and the Intramuros golf course...huh? Just roll with it. There's a church inside the city that my companions wanted to explore that is really quite remarkable looking from the outside. But maybe the most interesting thing about the church is that it's been rebuilt 6 times due to fire, earthquakes, and WWII. One of my companions said "you would think they would get the hint". Really that sums the whole thing up. After the Church we took a walk down Anda St. which according to the Lonely Planet travel guide "is a good street to wander". Has this guy ever walked down Anda St. Not a good street to wander, in fact you kind of want to to get off of Anda St. as quick as possible. The book is a little off and actually sometimes seems to have something against the Philippines. If you would like to see what I'm talking about check out the "My favorite quotes from Lonely Planet" feature on my blog. After getting off Anda St. we proceeded to walk on top of the wall over to Rizal Park. Rizal Park is a park dedicated to the Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal who was executed there by Spanish colonial athorities in 1896. It was a nice park with many monuments to different Philippine heros and there is a very large monument to Jose Rizal that I took a picture with along with the other Japanese tourists that were there. Also to top off the day one of the locals wanted a picture with my group of Americans. When asked where we were from the my other two companions said France and Austraila to try to throw the guy off, I told him I was from Rhode Island because I knew he would never know where that was anyway. So, the day ended with a somewhat calm Taxi ride home. What tomorrow brings I have no idea but it will without a doubt be interesting.

Philippine Marc