The jeepney or jitney. Colorful private cabs in the Philippines
On January 23, I flew alone to the Philippines. It was the first time that I was traveling truly alone. Without anyone by my side or waiting for me at the end of my journey. It was welcoming and daunting. An old girlfriend had written me in 1969 from Thailand about how difficult it was for an American or Canadian in the Philippines because there were so many people trying to cheat or otherwise take advantage of you. I was forewarned and a little apprehensive being there alone. But I had signed up for four days, my last time in a foreign country, and I was also looking forward to it with my usual unconcern about possible threats to my well-being or little money that I had.
I remember a fellow passenger, a young Pakistani named Akbhar, on the flight to Bangkok from Karachi who appeared quite wealthy. He seemed to want to talk to me and shared with me his taste for exotic liquor and cigarettes offered duty-free. After a brief time chatting, he told me to visit him in Baguio City. I didn't have much time, and told him that I had settled for Manila, not expecting to get to Baguio. So he gave me a Manila address for him and I hoped to look him up. It's always good to know someone who knows the ropes where you are going.
Fortunately, when I arrived at the airport in Manila, there was a guide to hotels and I picked a four star one from the list that was very reasonable, I recall about $9 a night and located in the center of the city. An airport shuttle got me there. Reminded me of a Holiday Inn. My room was on the ninth floor, but I awoke to the sound of roosters crowing each morning. The hotel was populated with weird but friendly people like the short people who operated the elevators. Too friendly, I was suspicious of everyone.
I was afraid to leave any money in the room when I left, so took it with me every time I left. That night I took the elevator to the basement bar. The hotel appeared to be nearly empty and so was the bar. I ordered something local and they gave me a rum drink that was made with Filipino rum, very dark and heavy--sweet. It may have been there where I was told by a young man that I could spend the night with his sister for $20. I might have taken him up on his offer except that I didn't know what to do with my money and certainly did not want to get rolled. I declined.
The first day, I set up tours and tried to find Akbhar by taking a cab to the posh suburb home in Makati where he told me was staying when in Manila. But I couldn't locate him. My cab driver filled me in on Ferdinand Marcos and the affect his martial law had on his business. He said that he liked Marcos. Before Marcos, "I kept a gun on the seat beside me and used it to signal my turns." He demonstrated with his free right hand and I got the point.
While walking around, I spotted a Filipino travel agency. I stopped there because I hadn't reserved my flight out for three days later. The young ladies in the shop seem to be quite surprised when I told them when I wanted to leave. They tried their best to have me stay longer, "Maybe a month?" But I knew I had to get back home after all this time away from work enjoying myself.
Later, walking the streets, a young man approached me and walked with me for several blocks. He told me, "I don't want any money, only to tell you, an American, I was just released from prison. I am a student. One day, Marcos's henchman came and threw me in prison for no reason at all." He urged me to tell other Americans of the cruelty of the Marcos regime. I listened, but felt helpless to help him.
Two well-dressed middle-aged women also approached me in the street asking for a donation to some cause. I refused based on the rule I set for myself for the trip: not to contribute to the problem of beggars by encouraging them. I did find it rather odd that these women, certainly not beggars, would ask for money in the street. Did I look and dress that obviously American? An easy touch? A sucker for a sob story?
Dusk found me at the romantic Fort Santiago. Lovers were everywhere, strolling. I thought about how my trip would have been with a female companion. My thoughts were shattered when the cannons were fired at 6 pm. It was a regular evening ritual, but my immediate response was to run for cover. Sadly rusting away in an old gun port was General MacArthur's open parade car. It seemed doomed to fade with the memory of the War's impact on this bustling modern city of young, beautiful people romancing in the park with no memory of the war on their minds.
The second day, I took a tour to Pagsanjan Falls. I joined a group that took a van to a hotel on the Pagsanjan River. It was a large passenger Toyota van. I was the last one in the van, following our guide. While I found that the city was filled with beautiful young people, this girl was exceptionally beautiful. Our seat was short to accommodate only three and allow passengers to reach the other seats from the side door. A guy sat on the other side, she was in the middle talking to everyone, and I sat next to her, occasionally catching a glimpse of the perfectly placed mole on her face that made her all the more beautiful. Unfortunately, she disappeared when we got to the hotel, probably returning to Manila to pick up more tourists.
While we had brunch in a beautiful dining room overlooking the river, the tour guides set up pairings for the dugout canoes. Since I was single, I was asked to wait for a Japanese tour guide that would arrive later. All the others left and I was alone in the large dining. Eventually, the young lady arrived and I waited again while she ate.
The tour guides had saved the best canoeists, the Rodrigeus brothers, as our paddlers, and we quickly began to catch up with the slower canoes. The scenery on the river was enhanced by palm plantations that ran from the river to the surrounding mountains with the regular pattern of a mowed lawn or orchard. A manicured jungle, if you will. Strange but still beautiful.
Rounding a bend, we came upon a grass hut that looked authentic but was probably put there for tourists to see how life on the river had once been. Then, around another bend, we came upon what looked like an ancient temple. The brothers, who spoke English, Spanish, and Japanese, explained that the temple was built for a Marlon Brando movie and that it was going to be blown up. Later, I learned that it was the set for Francis Ford Coppula's "Apocalypse Now!" At the time, I thought it looked too good, like it had been there more than a hundred years, to blow up.
My canoe mate was educated in Oregon, but didn't want to talk to me and didn't seem to be enjoying the tour. Seemed to have gotten out on the wrong side of the bed or otherwise upset about something. After a while, I quit trying to make conversation and enjoyed the scenery. The river entered a canyon so narrow that its foliage-laden sides closed in overhead. We were paddling upstream against a rushing current. When the going got shallow the brothers either poled us forward against the rushing water, reached out with a bare foot to a handy rock or jumped out on either side and lifted us up over water or rocks. Our momentum was hardly slowed as they carried us up over the rapids and forced us upstream rapidly. Strong guys, those Rodriguez brothers.
We reached the end of the canyon where the falls plummeted forty feet into a lagoon and caught up with the others. We had been instructed to wear swim clothes if we wanted to go under the falls, but most of us were unprepared. I stripped to my jeans and put my clothes and billfold aside in the canoe. A group of elderly Japanese, both men and women, stripped to long white underwear, and giggling, joined me, waiting to get on the bamboo raft, when pulled by hand along ropes, would take us up under the falls.
The Japanese group got on the raft all at once. They screamed and laughed as it sank in frigid water to waist deep, and then came back up. I hung on in relief that we were still floating. With cameras in hand, the Japanese tourists were clearly having a good time on their dangerous adventure. The young woman I was with sat on the bank and sulked. We floated out across the lagoon until we went directly under the falls. I was unprepared for the force of the water and nearly lost my glasses. The view from behind the falls was something the timid souls who didn't take the raft didn't get to see. After that adventure the trip back down river was swift and anticlimactic.
That evening, I walked the streets again looking for food. There were Chinese, Italian, French—you name it— restaurants in this cosmopolitan city, but I was looking for something different, Filipino. There was even a Chinese restaurant that was three stories tall and very gaudily advertising it was "best."
After about an hour of searching, I passed a restaurant filled with young people and music, open to the street. There was a group of about twenty young women standing in the middle of the floor. I entered and was escorted to a seat. A young lady from the group was assigned as my waitress. She steered me to a typically Filipino meal with the works at a reasonable price.
I ordered a martini, thinking it was something that would be refreshing in the tropics. She didn't know what it was. Even called over a bartender who brought a bottle of Martini & Rossi. Finally, I convinced him how to make a martini from gin and vermouth and he did. While I watched, the young patrons would take turns grabbing a microphone and singing or lip-synching to the music. It was the first time I had ever seen karaoke. My waitress stayed at my side until I finished; a level of service I'd never experienced before or since. Later, I wondered if there was service going on upstairs that I was unaware of. Were they prostitutes?
I wandered the streets some more before returning to the hotel. I came upon this quiet bar and opened the door to go in. There was a couple at the bar that turned to stare at me and a guy lying on the floor to my right. It was strictly Filipino and I immediately felt unwelcome. I backed out of that place and continued on my way back to the hotel.
The next day, I rented a car and driver and went to the rim of a volcano named Taal at Tagaytay, the most active in the area. The view of the crater's lake included a "small but deadly volcano" on an island that had killed three tourists a few years before. After a huge luncheon buffet and native quickstep pole dancing at a pavilion overlooking the crater rim, we returned. On the road, we passed piles of pineapple from pineapple plantations. Although I was full of good food, at my driver's insistence, we stopped for a dessert of a whole pineapple eaten from the stock like a juicy ice cream cone. I think it cost me five cents.
One of the things I didn't do was ride on the jitneys--freelance cabs. Apparently, after the Americans left the Philippines after World War II, there were Jeeps everywhere that were available cheap to the Filipinos. There was a sort of competition modifying them and decorating them to make them into attractive open cabs. They certainly were colorful, painted bright colors with shiny stainless steel plates like the Pakistani and Thai had used brass plates very creatively done on their trucks.
On the way to the airport there was an attraction that gave a view of the cultures and attractions of the 2000 inhabited islands that make up the country. When I got my ticket, I was given a tall and attractive--what else?--young lady to show me around. She was a big help because there were a lot of different cultures and lifestyles. All depicted quite well in the miniature version of the country, much better than the Thai version was. At the end of her tour my guide left me in the gift shop and I bought some souvenirs of fine wood carving.
Before I left Morgantown, I picked up travelers checks at my bank. I struggled to sign about twenty checks with two hands without my hand splint because I knew that I would probably have to sign the checks without my splint on the trip. As I was leaving the Philippines, I needed cash. So I went to a cashier to cash a check. I signed the check in front of him. When I handed it to him, he looked at the check and said, "The signatures don't match. I can't cash it."
I was upset and afraid to sign additional checks that he wouldn't cash, so I asked him, "What can I do?"
He replied, "Maybe the cashiers on the domestic side will cash the check. I can't."
The international side of the airport was cordoned off from the domestic side, so I had to go through a maze of checkpoints to get there. I was still was concerned that they wouldn't accept the signed check either. Luckily, there was no problem and the cashier cashed it without seeing me sign it or asking for any further verification. I still don't know why it happened like that, but I was glad to take the money and leave the country. Yet thinking it would be nice to come back someday for a longer stay.
Copyright 2021 © Ronald W. Hull
3/19/21
