As is seeming to be a running theme on this trip already, we stayed in bed until about midday. We decided to head into the city for breakfast and it turned out that the best mode of transport was a Jeepney. These things are like tiny buses with everybody squashed in the back and you pay about 10 Pesos per journey. I’d recommend them but not at peak times as they get a bit full and there’s a chance you’ll end up with a fat sweaty man sitting on your lap. We spoke to Felix on the bus who was a nice old man that Dan and Mary had spoken to the night before. He gave us a few tips and gave us his phone number so we could call him if we needed any help with anything. I’d recommend Felix.
Once we got into the city we struggled to find any vegetarian food. We probably weren’t going to have much luck in McDonald’s style fast food places but we had some interesting conversations trying to describe what the word vegetarian means “No meat”, “No, that’s a beefburger”, “No, that’s not vegetarian just because it has lettuce in it.” We eventually found a place that did a simple rice and veg meal. For dessert Mary had a “choco poo” which was a kind of hot sweet chocolate dumpling akin to a circular Pop Tart.
We stopped into a church we passed along the way. Well I got down on my knees... but unfortunately we’d missed the morning service so we didn’t hang around for long.
Magellan’s Cross was a bit further up the road so we had a look, but the most interesting thing about it was a woman in a yellow shirt having a dance and sing next to the cross whilst waving some candles. I assume she was praying but she might have just been singing “Get your candles here! Nice, waxy candles!”
Next we headed back up into the mountains to the Chinese Taoist Temple which is the first Asian temple I’ve visited and it was really cool. It was most tranquil and very picturesque with a great view over the city, I look forward to visiting more temples on this trip.
We went back to the hostel and were planning on going up to a lookout point for sunset but couldn’t get a Grab because they wanted to charge us a fixed price due to the journey being very uphill. We even looked into getting a ride on the back of some motorbikes but they were also charging too much. Felix turned up and said they were charging us more because of our skin colour. He then said he might get in trouble for trying to help us get a better price. Mary thought it might be to do with the Filipino mafia, I have no idea if that could be true but we just played it safe and walked off and just headed back into the city for dinner instead.
Before eating we had a quick look in a guitar shop and a book shop and then tried to find the Irish bar for food (don’t judge, it had a few decent veggie options on the menu) Google Maps failed us so we couldn’t find it and ended up at a pizza place. LUCKILY it was Seniors Night and they had some sort of seniors karaoke with a live pianist. The pizza was decent but the music was spectacular. The old people all had good voices and the pianist (Fred) provided some awesome backing. My personal highlight was the old man who wanted to walk and talk and squawk with the animals. After a couple of beers Mary decided to volunteer Dan to do a song so he got up with Fred and sand Mack The Knife. The locals loved it and waved to us when we left.
Around the corner we found the Irish bar (Marshalls). There was a musician playing some absolute bangers so we bought 6 beers (buy 5 get 1 free, obviously) and settled in for the night. REO Speedwagon, Crowded House, Ronan f’ing Keating, this was my first taste of what Asian people listen to and I have to say it made me feel like I’m really going to fit in well here with my superb taste in music. The 6.9% beer flowed, as did the superb set list. Do you remember that girl I mentioned before? Yes, that one. Well she only went and turned up at the bar didn’t she. More on her later. The time came for the musician to ask for requests and Dan said he’d do a song, so he got up and played one of his originals. A little while later somebody requested Hero by Enrique Iglesias but the guy said he wasn’t sure how to sing it, Mark and Dan to the rescue! Dan played it and I sang it (even though I had to read the words and couldn’t remember how it ended) and after we’d finished we got asked to play a few more so we went with Teenage Dirtbag and No Diggity. The white people at the front were singing along and spoke to us a bit afterwards. Mary spoke to some of them and picked the seemingly worthy enough ones (not the chav guy with amazing hair) to join us, it was that girl and the guy she was with. She was Lena, 18 from Poland and he was Cam, 19 from Middlesbrough. We had a few beers and a chat with them until things took a strange turn. Mary and Cam had ventured too close to talking about politics and Cam got up and walked off. We tried talking to him again but he wasn’t having any of it so after adding just me on Facebook they both left.
The night had reached an unnatural conclusion so we got a taxi back to the hostel. Funnily enough it was the same driver who’d tried to overcharge us earlier so it was a bit of an awkward journey with Mary drunkenly slagging him off in the back seat and me trying to shut her up. We got back to the hostel and Mary projectile vomited her pizza all over the floor. A delightful end to a delightful first day in the Philippines with D & M.
No comments:
Post a Comment