anyway, as we were hosting our important dignitary from the USA we didn't want to waste any time doing anything else but havin fun so naturally we got a little behind with post and pics and various other Deiter news. We're in Sri Lanka now about to start the "second quarter" of our adventure and we couldn't be more excited. Don't worry though. We won't leave you hanging about the goings on in the Philippines or the Deiter-Dunfey adventure in Cambodia. As always pic's and vids to follow when we can get some bandwidth. Please stay warm and check out part II of the Philippines below. See you soon - Love the Deiters.
Philippines part Deuce: The thrilla in Manila and then The
Deiter’s go North.
Soooooo Manila, generally you only come to transit through (all
roads lead to Manila) and when you're there you realize It’s is very much like
being in the bad dream in Billy Madison where a midget in a devil suit circles
you on a unicycle and Shooter McGavin makes out with your grandma. Ok maybe it’s
not that bad...but only just barely. Manila is a sprawling mega city of 12
million and it feels like its infrastructure is overwhelmed by the ever growing
flood of people. Another bummer is that it features more than its share of
south East Asian seediness for example our hostel, which was great. And número
uño on trip advisor, was almost completely surrounded by "KTV" bars
that are a weird mash up between a karaoke bar and a brothel. We showed up the
first night after a long travel day and showing up at night is the worst.
Everything looks 1000% shadier than it does in the daylight. Manila was
particularly bad though and at one point we looked up to find ourselves
surrounded by a bunch of prostitutes, and a homeless woman with an infant lying
in the street. This is an extreme example but there was lots of stuff in this
family. As a result we basically holed up at the hostel, venturing out only for
what was admittedly pretty good street side BBQ and then heading back to mess
around on the internet. Even at the BBQ you get like 5year old street kids who
come up to your table at 11pm as you eat and sing Christmas carols. It's
heartbreaking cause you can't give them money because it incentivizes people to
have their kids in the street….if they have “people” to worry about things like
that. It's tough and only a whiff of what we expect in India. On day two at the
hotel we were treated to brain breaking hammers as they improved the common
area.....where the wifi access is. Things improved markedly on day three when
our multi-lingual Canadian friend Brian showed up and brightened the mood. (We
go all the way back to the Komodo boat) We ventured out together and ended up having
a really good time. We went on a big walk to a national park and then saw some
churches and the start of a wedding in a more Spanish colonial section of the
city. Lunch came in "the oldest Chinatown in the world" We had hand
drawn noodles in a place that we only found with the language skills of our
companions Brian who speaks Cantonese and another traveler Michael who spoke
mandarin. The noodles were great and after some more walking we headed into a
mall with AC and had a burger with fried ramen noodles as the buns, then we had
a DQ Blizzard. We're gluttons now. We rolled ourselves back to the hostel,
packed up, and headed off for a night bus to the rice terraces in the north.
The night bus is going to become a bigger staple in the Deiter travel diet as
we move forward. Some will be awesome, like better than an airline seat and
some will be horrendous, like with live chickens. This one was ok and we eased
into the partially reclining seats and headed to the Northern Part of the main
island of Luzon which is much more rural and mountainous. The ride wasn’t
terrible and featured a spirited debate with Tish over whether the movie we
were watching (the ridiculously titled “White house Down?!?”) starred Denzel
Washington (my position) or “one of the Wayons Brothers” (as Tash thought) We
were both wrong (spoiler alert: its Jamie Fox) and the sound was turned off
anyway, but the plot didn’t have a lot of twists so we could keep up. Either
way after 9 quick hours we arrived in Banaue which is a jumping off point to a
UNESCO World Heritage Site known as “The Rice Terraces” which are these
beautiful and intricate terraced rice farms that are cut into the sides of
mountains. The people here have been farming like this for at least 2 thousand
years and from the right spot the views can be stunning. Because you can
harvest a given rice plot 3 times a year, you will have a patchwork of plots of
varying colors. Some are yellow or mud brown from recent harvest, while the
rest are every shade of green you can imagine with the brightest most greenest
of green being ready to pick. In those plots people will rig up scare crows and
tie plastic bags on wires to blow in the wind and scare off the birds. After a
quick breakfast we dumped our bags at a hostel and hiked down about 40 minutes
into a tiny tiny town called Batad in the “rice terrace Ampitheater” (that’s
the front row baby!) The Hike goes down like a million steps which was rough on
the ole’ Deiters because as my buddies’ dad John Chicchi noted “sean’s been
eating well In the Philippines” (ouch, my boy texted me that on Christmas,
double ouch...but I guess fried everything + cheap beer =..…) Luckily for us we
had a friendly dog that escorted us the whole way down to our guest house that
overlooks a C shaped valley that is covered in terraces. It was beautiful, and
we got to sit on a deck and watch cloud banks roll in and whiteout the whole
valley before rolling out, right to left and revealing everything again.
Amazing. In the afternoon we hiked out onto the terraces themselves before
getting scared back home by cloud cover and the approaching sunset. That night
we met a lovely Slovenian couple who were the only other people in our guest
house and we told travel stories and drank “gin-quela” (the dollar a Liter
Filipino firewater that they serve you when you order any gin or tequila drink).
We hiked out the next morning (all uphill this time) and headed a little
further north on a bus crammed with locals to a mountain town called Sagada. On
the last part of this journey, I decided to check the stereotypical travel box
of riding on top of a bus/van/etc rather than inside. It was a split second
decision as we were pulling out and the look tash gave me said “I know this is
a dumb idea but I am obligated by our Mexican wedding contract to indulge you
few times a year” (remember my tandem bike idea in NZ, yeah this went about
like that) About two seconds after we got on the roof of our jeepney (a
converted jeep with two long benches in the back in a big covered area) it
started raining…and I started apologizing. Luckily for me Tash is super cool
and luckily for us they had a dirty tarp up there under an old tire that we
used as a blanket/pancho. Even Luckier was when we didn’t smash our heads in a
roughly carved tunnel that we passed through with minimal space to spare (video
to follow…note the change in my voice when I start to get really scared.). The
road to Sagada winds through the mountains with frequent evidence of landslides
on one side and sheer drops of hundreds of feet on the other. It was not long
before we were discussing our plan to leap from the top of the vehicle if and
when it plunged off the cliff. It was a stick shift vehicle and every gear
change featured an agonizing few seconds where the vehicle just sort of rolled
before kicking into gear. The thing is probably from world war II and you just
wonder which time the old girl’s gonna finally just not kick into gear. But we
survived, and found Sagada to be a chilled out piece of mountain paradise. It’s
a funky little mountain top village that was apparently a refuge for artsy
fartsy’s, hippies, intellectuals, and other strange birds during the rougher
days of Philippine dictatorships in the past. That heritage has translated into
a town with a cool vibe, a counterculture feel, with cool places to eat. As
payback or the rooftop ride in, Tash marched me all over creation looking for a
guest house before we settled on a nice place with a balcony that overlooked
the whole town for about 10 bucks a night. The right accommodation is important
in Sagada because there is a loosely enforced 9PM curfew so you need somewhere
to hang out latenight (is 10pm latenight?). That night we went out to dinner
with some nice Brits that we met back in Manila which was great…until they
brought out our food. Ole’ Tishy-tish and I ordered the same thing (Mushroom
Chicken with roasted potatoes) and our anticipation grew as the staff brought
out these giant plates with thanksgiving style portions of steaming
deliciousness only to have our hopes dashed when we received about ½ cup of
what was basically chicken-n-mushroom soup ringed by potato chips. For reals
yall! You had to order ahead of time at this place and the Brits were like “did
you accidentally order an appetizer?” Thankfully after some good natured
ribbing our companions took pity on us and once the buttons busted off their
pants from overeating they passed down their table scraps. After that we were
whisked through the now dormant (post curfew) town to a secret bar speakeasy
style (how cool are the Deiters?) for a few cocktails before turning in. The
next day a force of nature and soon to be new friend named Ian blew into our
lives like the Tasmanian devil. Ian is a Texan, who was originally born in the
Philippines before growing up in America and doing 20 years in the Air Force
(Thank you for your service Master Sergeant). Now that he’s retired…at 42… he’s
bouncing around the world letting his hair down a little bit (both literally
and figuratively). He is a fun and funny ball of energy complete with catch
phrases “Holy Moly! And Whaaat the Friggen Hellll Maaan) and is just generally
a blast to be around. We got talking to him at our hostel over a cup of coffee
and ended up spending the next few days with him, kicking around the town.
After a bite to eat we headed out to see some “hanging coffins” which are exactly
as they are named, coffins that are hung in caves or cliffside so that
ancestors can be in the air and therefore have an easier path to heaven. The
area is famous for them and you marvel at the effort and love it must take to
hang them in some pretty precarious spots. It was definitely a cool custom to
see. The rest of this first day was spent deciding if we should do a cave trek
which is the other thing that Sagada is famous for. In our travels we bumped
into some people who had done the three hour “cave connection” hike where you
go into the belly of the earth on one side of town and come out on the other.
Because Deiter’s don’t LOVE heights or confined spaces which are supposedly
featured on the hike we were going to take it easy and pass or do the
equivalent of the “bunny slope” trek where you just sorta walk around the
entrance, but after hearing different people rave about the experience we were
intrigued. They were all like “there’s not too many high spots” and “it’s only
really tight in like one spot” and “it’s pretty easy.” With these soothing
words of encouragement we spent the rest of the day ginning up the courage to
do the trek and it was only later on when we were in the cave itself that we
discovered what lying liars these people were.
Ultimately, we were glad to be deceived because the trek was challenging
and scary in spots and pushed us out of our comfort zone a bit which is part of
what this trip is all about. We arranged a guide for the next day and spent
that evening trying to keep our nerve/ignore what we were going to do. That
process continued as we trudged down into the dark gaping mouth of the earth
(too dramatic?) and basically only relented when we hiked out into the sunshine
on the other side. The hike featured a bunch of spots where one false move
means you fall off into the abyss to be never heard from again. One spot had
you sliding over a huge rock on your butt (like cops do on the hoods of cars in
the movies) where sliding right was great but sliding forward meant a 40ish
foot drop. Another had a rope with a sheer drop on the right (if you fell you
might not have landed yet) and you had to pull yourself up about 10 feet over
this big bulge. As for claustrophobia, my stomach is turning right now thinking
one place appropriately named the “small hole” where you had to lower yourself
down blindly fitting everything up to your chest through a keyhole before twisting
around to fit your head through a different (read smaller) section. Oh, and I
forgot to mention that most of the cave is limestone which is perfect for super
deadly cave hikes because it is so super slippery. Also, I asked the guide how
long he had taken people on this particular route and he said “since the last
earthquake” (why am I in this cave again?). After 4 exhilarating and quake free
hours we Deiter’s emerged on the other side having conquered/confirmed our
fears and happy to have pushed ourselves a bit. Little did we know that the
next day would bring its own challenge in the form of the most epic travel day
EVER….stay tuned.
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