Manila

As you can see from the profile on the left I am currently in Manila, the Philippines. On 25 September 0.30 a.m. I left Indonesia. I must say, I was not too sad to leave Indonesia behind. Eventhough the natural features of the country are quite stunning at places, in the end I got completely fed up with the people, that is to say the people in and around the tourist industry, which unfortunately are the ones you have to deal with a lot of the time. Or perhaps better put: they would like to deal with you! And to this end they approach you a) everywhere and b) all the time. An example: When staying in Yogjakarta I took a trip to the Borobudur, the largest Buddist temple in Indonesia, to watch the sunset from the top of this monument. After the sun had gone down I climed down the steps, still relishing the peaceful experience, to return to the coach that would take me back to Yogja. This is what I saw:

Each and everyone of these 25 people is holding some (mostly useless) merchandise and is shouting at you to buy it from them. Each and every one of them will follow you for at least ten metres trying to persuade you to buy their things. As a white person, everywhere you go, people are trying to attract your attention in order to sell you stuff. It does not matter if you are on the other side of a busy street, or if they have tried to sell you the same thing 10 times before. Anyone who starts a chat with you - some one sits down next to you when you are eating a snack at a street stall, some one starts to talk to you when you are looking at something in the street - is trying to get you to spend money. Either by selling you something directly or by luring you to some friend's business. And perhaps it would not be so bad if they were offering a useful service at a reasonable price. But this they don't. Invariably they will quote you ridiculous prices, be it for transport, batik, food, anything. Don't get me wrong, I do not mind bartering for goods as is the norm in Indonesia. I just mind being approached all day long as a potential rip-off victim. Imagine you are walking on a street in the centre of your home town and some-one approaches you to buy, let's say, a set of 6 picture postcards. You say 'no thanks' and keep on walking. But they follow you and keep talking to you and worn down you stop and say: "All right then, what are you asking for them?". And they say:"30 euros!". I mean, get real! And this does not happen to you once, but potentially 500 times a day - this is no exaggeration. Big sigh...! It thouroughly spoiled my mood a lot of the time. I guess traveling alone means that the outside world has a bigger influence on how you experience a country than when you are with friends. When you are with others it is easier to shut out or shake off annoying and negative experiences than when you are by yourself, because you are more exposed physically and mentally. One of the few places that offered a break from all this nonsense was Jakarta, of all places. I spend one day there before I flew out and it was wonderful to be able to submerge myself in the relative anonimity of a big noisy dirty messy city. Left alone at last!

On 26 September I met my former VSO colleague Redento and his wife Jennifer in Manila. Redento was based in a different province in Vanuatu and did work similar to mine, with similar obstacles. For instance, the Secretary General of his province used all the money meant for the rural economic development initiative in 2006 to build a wall around the provincial offices, instead of on community projects... When I met him Redento was about to fly back to Vanuatu again, as the province had requested that he extended his contract for 6 months. Luckily I arrived just in time for a mini-reunion. He and Jennifer took me out for a wonderful Philippino meal at one of the most enormous shopping malls I have ever seen called the 'Mall of Asia'. Apart from a cazillion shops, tenthousand restaurants and an I-max theatre, the mall included an Olympic size ice-skating rink, complete with alpine mountain backdrop!

As Redento explained, 75% of Philipinos are still living under the poverty line so that/while the elite has time to practise their cherry-flips...

The rest of the time I have just been sight seeing in Manila, watching people - and cats - on the street...

Taking a very entertaining walking tour with as its theme 'Imelda Marcos'... going to the ballet at the Cultural Center of the Philippines... and playing a little chess in the park...

(The friendly guy I play against is Guillermo. He told me he cane to Manila after his high-school exams to find his fortune, but -unfortunately- he did not find it. He found chess instead. He had a job as a janitor of the park where this 'Chess plaza' located, but when he got addicted to chess he was dismissed from his job. He now challenges passers-by to a game or two, both of which I lost eventhough Guillermo helped me a lot ... free of charge. The man in black was just some guy who jumped into the picture when he saw the camera.)

Today I have bought a new pair of glasses to replace the ones I lost in Sumatra: I hope they will turn out alright. As the exchange rate is in the Westeners favour they were quite cheap. Let's wait and see what the quality will be like... Tomorrow I am off to the north to explore the mountains and some old 'Spanish' towns. As I make my way through the country I hope to visit more old VSO volunteers. One of them composed a whole list of things that I have to do or see or eat. I am particularly looking forward (NOT!) to trying a Philippino favourite called 'balut': a duck foetus boiled in the shell and eaten whole, occasional feathers included... Yummy!