Our latest version of paradise

(I began this entry weeks ago, after we returned from the Philippines.)

It’s Sunday night, the customary procrastinating and blogwriting hour, and I am back in Korea, reminiscing already about our past week on various Fantasy Islands, otherwise known as the Philippines. I want to write about this country before its specifics vanish into the haze of our frenetic first-year-in-Asia travelsplosion. Chris has already departed for his graduate school orientation in Australia, so there’s no one here to remind me that life as normal begins early tomorrow morning, and that I should go to bed at a reasonable hour despite sleeping until 11 and consuming multiple cups of good, strong, real brewed coffee (a passion for Nescafé being one of very, very few detractors from the otherwise heavenly Philippines). So it may be that this entry will run a little long, in spite of various resolutions in the past to curtail my wordiness. I’ll try to keep in mind that words, like photographs, are sadly inadequate in conjuring up a reasonable semblance of the beautiful places where we spent our Lunar New Year holiday.

We knew very little about the Philippines when we bought tickets for this trip. Admittedly, it was for lack of a better idea and out of faith in Susan and Tommy Toms’ travel sense that we followed through on their suggestion that we all meet up there. Also, I’d been meaning to get my diving certification for a while, and the Philippines seemed as good a place as any to do it. Well, going into a good trip with few expectations is a great way to be absolutely blown away. I knew, vaguely, that the monstrous colonization fever of imperial Spain had extended to this Asian archipelago, but I hadn’t thought about it enough to realize that stepping off the plane in the humid, burning plastic-scented night would trigger such an intense wave of nostalgia for Central America on my part. The Philippines, who threw off the Spanish yoke in 1898 (only to be subjected to another half-century of US meddling and exploitation), registered enough marks of Spanish colonial culture to make many things feel powerfully familiar.

For one thing, the Philippines are the only Catholic nation I know of in Asia (the web tells me that East Timor is another), with something like 80% of the population remaining faithful to the Pope, and another 10% identifying themselves as Christians. This, juxtaposed with the wild and colorful forms that public transportation takes in developing nations, results in thousands of tricycle taxis and jeepneys (leftover US military jeeps-turned-public buses) plastered in stickers proclaiming two things: 1) the supremacy of the Lord, and 2) the (secondary, I suppose) supremacy of the Tasmanian devil and other Warner Bros and Warner Bros-esque characters. I had believed that this special and intoxicating combination was only to be found on chicken buses in Central America, but I was pleased to find that I was mistaken. What is it that makes Taz and Jesus such natural companions in the tropics? On top of colorful transportation, the old churches, concrete and inelegant but somehow just as dignified as the finest cathedral in Sevilla, forced me to do regular double-takes and struggle to remember which continent we were visiting.

The familiarity helped ease us into the trip, but what cemented our initial good feelings about the Philippines was the people. You know, I don’t think many people come back from vacation and say, “Wow, the people in that country really suck.” Usually, people are people – there are a few rotten apples in any travel experience, but overall, if you smile at them, they smile back, and if you ask for help nicely, they generally comply. But seriously, these people go beyond that. Traveling in a relatively poor country, it’s natural to arm yourself with some suspicion, a little defensiveness, the willingness to haggle – I’m not saying that these aren’t necessary in the Philippines, but the Filipinos seem to go about the business of dealing with tourists with joy and warmth rather than cunning and derision. I didn’t once get the “ugh, you goddamn tourists” look while we were there. No one harassed us, and just about every driver we haggled down to a ridiculously low price provided such good and friendly service that we ended up tipping extravagantly. And although negotiating the local language is a thrill of travel I value immensely, the fact that 93% of Filipinos are English-literate is very conducive to a relaxing holiday. Really, think about that – 93%?? That’s higher than some English-speaking countries . . .

So on top of the Latino-reminiscent sights and the superbly kind and open people, what makes the Philippines one of the best places I’ve ever been is some jaw-droppingly lovely scenery. Not being generally the tropical beach type, I may not be much of an authority on the topic, but without visiting the “Top 10 Beaches” destinations one learns about from watching the Travel Network, we still managed to stroll on some seriously gorgeous stretches of sand. For five of our six nights, we fell asleep with a view of the sea and the sunset, with the water practically lapping up against our toes. Bugs were not an issue, adding to the pleasure of direct contact with sea and sea breezes. And an evening right on the beach in a remote mini-resort can cost as little as $15 (less, if you’re really trying). Am I selling this place hard enough? We were particularly enchanted by a place called Kookoo’s Nest, where the British owners had constructed their own Robinson Crusoe-style treehouse huts in an out-of-the-way corner of Negros Island.

One of the other major draws to the Philippines is the clarity of the water. I worry now that I chose a poor spot to learn to dive, because it’s unlikely that the other diving we’ll do in the near future can compare to what I saw on my first trips into the deep. There was an incredible array of colorful fish – so many Nemos that we bored of anemone fish on the first day – and also sea snakes, sea turtles, and coral that made the reef in Honduras seem second-rate. The dive masters, both foreign and local, were kind and encouraging despite my initial awkwardness with all the new equipment and underwater hand signals. I love diving and can’t wait to do it again.

Well, if the last few paragraphs seem rushed, it’s because I put the blog on hold and it’s now early March. The Philippines have faded into the past, and now we’re anxious to get our visas for Vietnam next month, and figure out all the plane tickets we need to buy for Tibet, our trip home in July, and the Japan portion of Wes and April’s visit in September. Are you wondering how we are still able to afford food or think about saving money? Yeah, I guess we should be wondering about that too . . .

I will try not to let months go by before the next blog entry. I’m sure everyone would love to hear about my own personal aftermath of our Philippines trip, which ended with a delicious meal of kinilaw (Filipino ceviche). Delicious it was, but was it worth the week of bacteria-borne agony that followed? Philippines: definitely recommended; raw fish in developing countries: not so highly. And maybe Chris will get on here one of these days to talk about his trip to Australia for the graduate program he’s begun.

At any rate, things are looking good in Suji – the winter temperatures have started to let up, and we had a beautiful Saturday hike and a few sunny days for running and biking after school last week that could almost be described as springlike. Work goes well, and fantasies for future vacations are under way. We finished our first Korean texts and have spent a good chunk of time this weekend completing our unit test (open book, fortunately! I won’t tell my Spanish students about that . . .). And we somehow managed to watch all of the movies nominated for the best picture & best actor Oscars (the best one won, in my mind anyway, but I have never watched so many miserably unhappy movies in such a short period of time – it’s a good thing this week’s episode of Lost was happy enough to make up for some of the bloodshed). And now it’s time to devote a little thought to lessons for the week ahead.