Youngs Around the World

On our last day in the Philippines, we embarked on a day tour of Bohol. We had chartered a car and driver for the day and were on the road by 7:30. As we rode through the interior of Panglao Island on our way to the land bridge, I regretted not renting a moped and spending a day exploring the lush, tropical forest community. There were so many opportunities to ask the driver to stop for photos of the homes – so beautiful in their sad state of dilapidation – but I let them slip away. I hope that the picture in my mind will always be as vivid as it is today.

The tour began with some diverse yet decidedly forgettable stops: an historic bronze statue of a blood pact between a Spanish conquistador and a Boholano chieftain; a centuries-old coral stone church (probably a gift from the Spanish Catholic crusaders, funded with resources plundered from the islands); and an enormous captive python weighing in at 225 kilos. It was a beautiful day on Bohol and we were happy to be on land. Despite our driver’s breakneck speed, the ride was lovely with fantastic buffered views of Filipino life. We drove through expansive rice fields with straw-hatted farmers wielding man-powered ploughs, immersed shin-deep in the sopping muck. The fields were framed by palm trees and banana plants against a backdrop of low, tree-covered mountains.

We arrived at the Tarsier Visitor Center with no expectations. We had seen the island’s mascot – the tarsier – immortalized in postcards, key chains, stuffed animals and t-shirts in the many gift shops along the beach. As we entered the rectangular fenced area of the conservatory and spied a pair of the tiny monkeys clinging to a narrow tree branch, it was love at first sight. The tarsier is the world’s smallest primate. It can literally fit in the palm of your hand. Tarsiers are indigenous to the Philippines and are currently endangered. The two tiny monkeys clung to their tree branch while we cooed and photographed them (without flash because their proportionately large eyes are nocturnal and would be damaged by the bright lights). We were each given a wooden skewer with a black bug on the tip to feed them. It was adorable to watch them grab hold of the skewer with their tiny, soft hands and lick every last trace of insect guts from tip of the stick. On our way out, I dropped some coins into the donation box. I hope that someone is working hard to save the tarsiers. If the little angels ever made it to the States, every kid would have to have one.

After the tarsiers, we drove on to the highlight of our tour: the Chocolate Hills. If the tarsier is Bohol’s mascot, then the Chocolate Hills are like the Taj Mahal of the island. They are the premier tourist attraction. There are 1,268 hills in the middle of the island, covered with vegetation that takes on a rich brown tone in the hot summer months. The hill formations are thought to have resulted from rising coral reefs, centuries ago when much of the island was underwater. The main viewing point is located at the top of the highest hill, offering panoramas of the brown hills rising up from a thicket of dense tropical forest and stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions. The viewpoint is naturally thronged with tourists but, as you stare mesmerized across miles of chocolate vistas, you subconsciously tune out all but their awe-inspiring magnificence.

The grand finale of our tour was lunch on one of the many floating restaurants that cruise the lazy Lomboc River. Heavy rains over the last few days had stirred up the silt from the river bottom, changing the river’s usual emerald green hue to a murky greenish-brown. Rain had poured down just a few minutes earlier, stopping in time for our lunch cruise, and we were happily surprised to find the floating restaurant packed as we climbed aboard. We took seats at our assigned table, which we shared with a Filipino family. Tables were set around the perimeter of the boat with a long buffet set up in the center. When everyone was seated, the hostess announced that we could begin the buffet line, which incited a mad, disorganized rush from all directions to the center table. With our plates full of fresh fruit and piled high with traditional cuisine, we began our leisurely cruise down the river. A solo guitar and vocalist provided live entertainment, consisting of a decidedly cheesy mix of American soft rock covers. Aaron quite accurately compared the two-man band to Adam Sandler’s character in The Wedding Singer. As the floating restaurant glided merrily along, we attempted to tune out the music but ended up singing quietly along to songs like The Love Boat.

The river bank on both sides was thick jungle with simple homes built on the water’s edge. There were many locals outside, sitting on their riverside patios and waving to the boats going by. At several spots along the banks, large groups of local people, spanning three generations, sat on floating pavilions made of bamboo and thatch. As we neared them, the band stopped mid-song and one of the men tethered our boat to the pavilion. The group immediately commenced the first of several high-energy music and traditional dance performances. The young girls danced first; then the young boys and the mothers and grandmothers. Those who weren’t dancing strummed guitars, sang and clapped along. Everyone participated with faces exhibiting true joy. There were donation boxes attached to the posts on the pavilions and we were happy to contribute to such an inspiring and energetic display of local culture. Each group performed for about twenty minutes and then untied our boat and waved goodbye as we cruised away. It was a very moving experience that really epitomized the heart and soul of the Filipino people. We were continually inspired to see people with so little material wealth express such joy and love of life.

As we rode to the Cebu airport, our final stop in the Philippines, we felt the usual twinge of sadness that seems to come with leaving a place that we have truly enjoyed. The coral reefs were pristine. The locals were friendly. The beer was cheap and the mangos perfectly sweet. With white sand beaches and plenty of upscale resorts, it is easy to stay isolated from anything resembling real Filipino life but the Philippines is a long way to come for just another pretty beach. The real treasures of the islands are the people – living, loving and always smiling.

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We arrived back in Manila by bus and with great ambitions. We had booked a flight from manila to Tagbilaran on the southern island of Bohol where we planned to do more diving and hopefully get some beach time but, before that, we were going to attempt a shotgun trip – a nine-hour bus ride each way – to Banaue in north Luzon to see the famous rice terraces of the Cordillera. The logistics were exhausting to think about but the photos of the rice terraces were breathtaking and we’d certainly endured worse travel in the not-so-distant past. By now, our backs are strong and our patience is long.

In Manila, the beginning of the Labor Day holiday weekend, which we knew about in advance and which should have shocked us out of beach bum complacency and into the forward thinkers we usually claim to be, meant that many businesses were closed. We did manage to find one tourist office open but the two young interns, who were running things while the owner took advantage of the holiday, informed us that the single bus leaving for Banaue that evening was full. While part of me was quietly relieved that we would be unable to spend eighteen of the next forty-eight hours on a bus, the other part saw my sweet husband’s spirits almost instantly deflate. We regrouped back at Malate Pensionne, where Aaron made inquiries about hiring a private care and driver for the long journey. After much deliberation, we agreed to let go of our rice paddy dreams and instead change our flight to leave earlier for Tagbilaran. The white beaches and crystal clear waters of the Mindanao Sea would surely take our blues away.

An easy two-hour flight landed us in Tagbilaran around 5:30pm. We took a taxi from the airport to nearby Panglao Island, attached to Bohol by a narrow, man-made land bridge. The thirty-minute drive through the interior of Panglao Island just before sunset was a photographer’s paradise. Houses and huts were scattered along the roadside and wrapped in lush tropical forest. The homes varied greatly in size and appearance. Remnants of what had once likely been grand Spanish villas remained inhabited in scarcely maintained, skeletal forms. Old wooden houses, many erected on stilts, were beautiful in a “Little House on the Prairie” way, despite their need of reinforcement and repair. In many instances, the houses looked condemnable and yet families happily lived their lives inside and around the weathered walls. Nipa huts were the most basic homes with permeable woven walls and thatched roofs. Almost all of the homes looked dilapidated, although an occasional modern Spanish-style home, freshly painted in bright pastels, stood out like a star against the rich green tropical landscape of coconut palms, mango trees, pineapple and banana plants and bright, flowering shrubs. The Philippines is the world’s biggest producer of both coconuts and pineapples, the third largest producer of bananas.

The holiday weekend celebrations were under way in many of the yards as families congregated outdoors: children ran around and squealed with delight as their parents prepared freshly-slaughtered pigs for the spit. It seemed as though everyone was outside and I felt an urge to join in their festivities (keeping a safe distance from the pigs, of course) but it was getting late and we still needed to find a place to stay.

The driver delivered us to Alona Beach, where most of the clustered resorts along the shoreline have their own dive shops. The first place that we tried, Bohol Divers Beach Resort, could only accommodate us for one night in an overpriced air-conditioned room, due to the influx of local holiday travelers, so we decided to check around. As we entered the drive of the next resort, a couple of weary and frustrated backpackers kindly informed us that they had been to fifteen places along the beach and all were fully booked except for the most exorbitant rooms. We thanked them for the tip and walked back to Bohol Divers and took the overpriced room for the night. We would have a couple of San Miguels, get a good night’s sleep, and figure out the rest in the morning.

After fruitlessly combing the beach for modest-priced air-conditioned (a non-negotiable in the hot, sticky tropical air) accommodation, we took a room at Villa Almedilla, a small, family-run hotel located just behind Bohol Divers Resort. The building itself was either newly constructed or undergoing major renovation. Whatever the case, the exterior was a total eye sore of depressing gray cinder blocks and protruding rebar. There were only three serviceable guestrooms and ours was surprisingly spacious and comfortable with hot water, sparkling clean white tile floors, and a powerful air-con unit. We took the room for five nights and, after the first day, the warm smiles that we received each morning and afternoon as we came and went from the beach overpowered the drabness of the building’s façade.

We had come to Alona Beach to dive and dive we did – ten times over the course of five days, dividing our time among Panglao, Balicasag and Cabilao Islands. The islands are known for their spectacular reef walls – tall underwater cliffs covered with colorful hard and soft corals. The water was clear and the marine life vibrant. There were daily, two-dive boat trips around the islands, which afforded us plenty of much-coveted boat time and an early afternoon return leaving hours to linger over a post-dive beer and hot shower before pondering the day’s most pressing decision: where among the beautiful candlelit seaside restaurants to have dinner.

While we didn’t spot any new and exciting big fish, despite the seven species of shark known to inhabit the waters around Cabilao, we did have a couple of fun fish encounters, the first of which involved me and one pissed off triggerfish. Triggerfish vary in size from one to 2 ½ feet and have thick, muscular bodies. We have seen them on many dives; they are beautiful to watch because of their patterned markings and graceful fluttering fins. They are generally non-aggressive and evasive so I hadn’t ever noticed the sharp teeth that protrude from their jaws…until the day that I unknowingly glided into a mother triggerfish’s territory during reproduction season. A triggerfish deposits her eggs in a small hole, dug in the ground. Her perceived threat zone is the cone-shaped area starting at her nest and expanding upward. Triggerfish are known to viciously pursue intruders, including scuba divers (as we had been warned on the Great Barrier Reef) and snorkelers, who swim into their threat zone.

So our little dive group was exploring one of the fascinating reef walls of Balicasag. In one direction, the coral-covered wall extended almost as far up and down as I could see. In the other direction was the opaque blue abyss of the open ocean. I was enthralled with the coral but equally entertained by the weightless sensation of neutral buoyancy. In blue water, it felt like flying. Happily absorbed in my own peaceful, quiet world, I glided out a couple of meters from the wall, just floating and having a look around. I spied the triggerfish swimming toward me from below and watched it casually, assuming that it would divert its course in deference to my sharkish girth. That’s when I saw the teeth…and the fish wasn’t diverting. It was coming full-throttle toward my face. With about three feet to spare, I quickly waved my hand back and forth in front of my face and the fish finally altered its course and cruised past me. Odd, I thought, unconcerned, but certainly an anomaly. The fish was out of sight and I continued my careless float.

A few minutes later, my bubble of serenity was burst by the clanking noise of Aaron banging his metal pointer (our latest acquisition) on his metal air cylinder. He was trying rather frantically, with wild eyes and hand gestures, to communicate something but I had no idea what. After another minute of trying to translate his sign language, I gave up and kicked closer to the reef wall. I randomly glanced behind me and caught the tail fin of the triggerfish swimming away. It wasn’t until after the dive that I came to understand that, in the minutes between my initial deflection of the fish and my final kicks toward the wall, the triggerfish had made repeated attacks on me, darting frantically back and forth between her nest and me, the unwitting intruder. I was oblivious – I didn’t feel a thing. Had she found a spot of exposed flesh during one of her advances, her strong jaw, sharp teeth, and raw determination could undoubtedly have drawn blood, making for an unhappy little diver but she would have had trouble causing any lasting damage beyond a little nip and a great fish tale. My first thought was to scour the beach restaurants for one that had triggerfish on the dinner menu but then thought better of it. From one Mother Hen to another, I could hardly fault her for protecting her babies. We now have a designated hand signal for “You’re getting attacked by a triggerfish!”

The other fish encounters were fun and much less dramatic. Two small remoras – small suckerfish that often attach themselves to sharks, rays, turtles and larger fish – stalked Aaron for fifteen or twenty minutes of a dive, at one point even attaching themselves to his cylinder. They were nonthreatening and Aaron was completely unaware as they wiggled around his back and between his legs. On another underwater expedition, two large batfish swam between Aaron and me for almost the entire dive. It is always exciting when a sea creature interacts with us; as divers, we are like alien invaders under the sea. Most fish will scurry away, propelled by their survival instincts but some are wondrously curious and friendly. You look into their soulless fish eyes and feel as though you’ve made a connection. It almost makes you want to give up seafood…almost.

While I love life as a little mermaid, my merman and I agree that we need to let our gills dry out for a while. Our two weeks in the Philippines have been well-spent but, admittedly, we’ve seen more sea than land. We called our taxi driver, Junior, who had left us his card when he dropped us off six days earlier, and made arrangements for a private day tour of Bohol. Suddenly remembering the lush tropical forest that lay beyond the beach, we packed away our scuba masks and geared up for the next great adventure.

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After Aaron’s brush with death, we had a quick but intense powwow in our room during which he acknowledged his bad judgment and promised never to scare me like that again; hugs were exchanged and, a few hours later, we were back underwater, cruising around a spectacular coral-covered dive site. Aaron had gotten his original set of equipment back and all was right in the world again.

We dove leisurely over the next few days and spend our free time eating cheese spaetzle at our resort, patronizing the neighboring seaside restaurant patios, reading, and scouring local fish books to identify the subjects of our underwater photos. We bought fresh fruit from a local woman who came by our resort with a round, flat basket on top of her head and, each day, I let her extort me on the fruit prices because she was so sweet. People walked by the resort all day long, peddling beaded jewelry, cell phones, string bracelets, clothing, pool cues and a few other odd items but we only bought from our fruit lady. Sometimes beggars came by too, which is always disheartening in a resort atmosphere. It’s difficult to enjoy your three-dollar latte with dark, desperate eyes piercing your soul. The beggars appeared to be rural folk, filthy and shoeless, not just down on their luck but truly destitute. One woman walked by with a baby suckling her exposed breast; the empty look in her eyes implied a life of such continual struggle and hardship that she had simply resigned herself to it long ago. There certainly seemed to be some small income opportunities for those few Sabang natives lucky enough to get a sliver of the tourist dollars that trickled in. And, of course, we saw plenty of foreign men taking advantage of the young Filipinas for hire.

The rest of our diving in Sabang was easy and enjoyable. Other “muck dives” yielded much-coveted seahorses – both pygmy seahorses, which are about the length of a fingernail and difficult to spot since they blend seamlessly into the coral and also thorny seahorses, which are three-to-four inches long, delicate and fascinating. I have always been intrigued by seahorses: they are one of the world’s few creatures whose males carry their offspring. I have always wanted to see one but they are as difficult to find as they are beautiful. Imagine my elation at seeing more than five on a single dive!

We also saw an impressive variety of nudibranchs. These multi-colored sea slugs are small but easy to spot because of their bright contrast to the muted coral. Nudibranchs are especially interesting because their lungs protrude from their bodies, functioning externally. They photograph beautifully because of their bright colors and slow movement. The tiny size of the nudibranchs makes it difficult to appreciate their intricate details with the naked eye. By now, I don’t even strain to see them anymore; I just wait for Aaron to work his camera magic and view them after the dive. They are by far the prettiest slugs I’ve ever seen, which really doesn’t say much.

As we loaded our bags and ourselves onto the pumpboat for Batangas, the young boys climbed aboard again looking for coins to be tossed. Their youthful exuberance was refreshing and I handed a few pesos to one of the boys but he kept it for himself rather than tossing it into the sea. Smart kid. As the boat motored slowly away from the shore, I felt a twinge of sadness. Sabang is a sleepy little divers’ town with no beach to speak of, which doesn’t stop the natives from wading in on a hot day. There is little to do besides dive, drink beer and wait for the spectacular tropical sunsets. Life is slow and simple. The locals are friendly. The diving in Sabang is excellent for its diverse underwater world of captivating shipwrecks, gorgeous hard and soft corals and treasure chest of fascinating, unusual sea creatures. Seahorses…check!

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Departing early from Manila, we took a bus south to Batangas and then a bangka or pumpboat (a small wooden boat with bamboo outriggers powered by a recycled automotive engine) to Sabang, a tiny town near Puerto Galera on the island of Mindoro. The island was thickly covered with palm trees and the face of Sabang was a cluster of waterside resorts and restaurants curving around the crescent moon-shaped shore. As the bangka approached the shallows, a group of young boys climbed onto the sides of the boat and asked passengers to throw coins into the water so that they could dive for them. We threw a few and watched the boys excitedly scurry after them.

We checked into the Sabang Inn Dive Resort, a Spanish-inspired villa with spacious sea view rooms, and purchased a diving and accommodation package for four nights. Less than two hours later, we were underwater at a dive site just one hundred meters from the oceanfront resort. The site was impressive for its diversity. Aaron found an octopus hiding in a pipe on the sandy ocean floor and we watched as it changed color from a camouflaging shade of gray to dark red. The Philippines is known for its macro diving, or “muck diving” – scavenger hunts through the otherwise unimpressive sandy sea floor looking for tiny, unusual sea creatures. I prefer pretty coral reefs to sandy bottoms but I had to admit that the octopus was amazing. We explored a beautiful wooden wreck covered in multi-colored algae and teeming with schools of small shimmering fish. It was a great first dive and we were excited about the prospects of the next three days.

The next morning, we lingered over breakfast and then pulled on our dive gear for a 10:30 dive. Aaron was immediately distraught because he had been given a different set of equipment than he’d used on the previous day’s dive and it had definitely seen better days. Usually when you do all of your diving with the same shop, you use the same rental equipment for each dive so that it becomes familiar. To some degree, diving gear is all the same, but getting comfortable with a new set up still takes time. I told him not to panic, that this shop just doesn’t operate that way. “It isn’t ideal”, I said, “but it is what it is.” He was still clearly unhappy about the situation but resolved to dive anyway.

Most of the Sabang dive sites are within a five to seven minute boat ride from the shop by motorboat. We climbed into the small dive boat and sped to our drop point. As our group began to slip into our pre-assembled (by the shop staff) gear, Aaron’s first stage had a malfunction. Our dive master Nilo worked on it for about ten minutes, utilizing a dive knife in place of the tool kit that should have been on board, and finally declared the equipment to be sound. Aaron had been giving me the “I told you so” look throughout the repair process. He slipped into his gear, still shaken from the malfunction. I asked him if he felt comfortable enough with his equipment to go down and he said yes.

On the count of three, we all flipped backwards off the sides of the boat, traded “okay” signals at the surface and began our descent to our maximum depth of 25 meters. As we neared the bottom, Aaron signaled me to check his first stage. At first glance, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and since you cannot normally communicate beyond hand signals underwater, he could not verbalize his issue. He signaled for me not to worry about it and I assumed that he was fine. Two seconds later, I looked over at Aaron as he was attempting to remove his BCD while hovering a few meters above the ocean bottom in a slight current. Removing your BCD underwater is possible as a last resort to fix a problem but it is certainly not recommended, especially while hovering in 20 meters of water. While the act of hovering, which is controlled by a combination of breathing and the air in your BCD, can seem effortless to an experienced diver, it can prove challenging when you become distracted and/or stressed.

Just as he got his first arm out of the vest, his weight belt came loose and fell to the ocean floor. This was a problem. Without his weight belt, the buoyancy of his wetsuit would propel him toward the surface – a very dangerous scenario at sixty-plus feet. I grabbed his arm to keep him down and he swam down, completely out of his BCD now, to retrieve his weights. With his regulator in his mouth and me holding his BCD, he attempted to reassemble his weight belt while maintaining buoyancy above the coral. As he closed the clasp of his weight belt and reached for his BCD, the clasp came loose again and the weights fell back to the floor. By this time, Nilo had seen our struggle and come over to help. At the same time, another diver in our group eased me back to give Nilo room to work but my wild eyes were glued to my struggling husband. Aaron went for his belt a second time and managed to secure it around his waist. Then, somehow, in the tangled situation, the mouthpiece of his regulator (air source) became dislodged from the regulator itself, causing him to inhale a startling gulp of seawater. When I saw Aaron desperately signal for Nilo’s spare air source, I grabbed my secondary reg and started to kick over but, thankfully, Nilo reacted before I reached them and gave his alternate air source to Aaron. He then helped Aaron back into his BCD and popped his mouthpiece back onto his regulator. Aaron quickly regained his composure but my mind and heart were racing uncontrollably. When I saw my husband under sixty feet of water with no regulator in his mouth, I thought, this is it…this is how quickly my world could implode. One accident or error in judgment, even on the part of my seemingly infallible Rescue Diver, and life as I know it, with all of the associated dreams, simply disappears.

For whatever reason, maybe out of stubbornness or a need to prove his resilience, Aaron chose to continue the dive despite my plea to abort. Naturally, the first thoughts that entered my mind were of the immediate, indisputable discontinuation of my diving career. However, when you are suspended weightlessly in the serenity of the ocean with no sound except that of your own mental rambling, your thoughts become extremely rational and clear. I decided then that, if we are to continue diving, I must also become a Rescue Diver as soon as possible so that I will be properly skilled to rescue my buddy the next time he does something that arrogant and stupid.

During the last forty minutes of the dive, I stuck to Aaron like glue, despite his repeated assurances that he was okay. I would spend three seconds looking at coral and the next three watching Aaron, making sure that he was breathing and staying within two kicks of my clutches. He was still visibly frustrated with his equipment setup, but everything seemed to be fully functional. I could not relax and enjoy the dive site because all that I could think about was getting Aaron back safely to the surface. I know that I drive him a little crazy when I go into Mother Hen mode and, in a beautiful underwater paradise, stare worriedly at him while ignoring the spectacular coral and fascinating variety of fish. I love scuba diving – it has become a true passion and a significant funnel of our fun money – but the reality is that when it comes to guarding the safety of my family, that magical underwater paradise disappears outside the figurative walls of my tunnel vision. For me, there are simply no other fish in the sea.

Aaron’s Footnote: What began in my mind as a seemingly simple, even routine underwater maneuver went terribly wrong in a matter of seconds. Reflecting on and reliving the experience, I realize that I really was in grave danger. The simple problem was that my BCD was connected too low on my tank causing me to keep hitting the back of my head on the first stage at the top of the tank. My equipment was problematic and uncomfortable, but functional. I should have endured the dive and fixed the problem later. Overconfident in my abilities and frustrated with my second rate equipment setup, I attempted to remove my BCD and adjust the tank strap myself. This of course set in motion a series of events which could have ended badly. I’m certainly thankful for our first class dive master Nilo and his help in putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. But my wife is an excellent diver and I truly believe that had it just been the two of us on that dive, Tina would have acted quickly to help her foolish husband. Sometimes it takes a close call to remind us that regardless of competence or experience, we’re still fallibly human.

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We are back in the Third World and startlingly so. As we rode into Manila in the dark of night, tacky neon signs illuminated long rows of night clubs, restaurants and hotels. At a stoplight, a young, filthy girl, holding an infant, knocked on my window, begging for money. After two-and-a-half months of living in the Western world (New Zealand, Australia, Japan), I was not mentally prepared for India-caliber poverty and the wretchedness of her appearance gave me a start. I quickly switched to Third World mode.

It was Friday night and the streets of the Malate district were roaring with rampant intoxication and melodies from various outdoor venues. Our hostel, Malate Pensionne, was right in the middle of the action, buffered from the street noise by, of all things, a Starbucks! (Angels singing: “Alleluia!”) After a long day of travel, our tired bodies wanted only to shower and crash but the bright lights and entrancing street music beckoned us outside and, since we had to buy water anyway, we ventured out and succumbed to the alluring Cuban music pouring out of Café Havana. We ordered a couple of San Miguel beers and the melodies of the live band melt away the fatigue.

The next day, we explored the city on foot. The Philippines is a small, impoverished nation masked by pockets of prosperity in the form of high-rises, higher end hotels, and gargantuan shopping malls. The broken streets reek of sewage and auto emissions from the taxis and jeepneys – jeep-style converted open-air buses, ornately decorated with bright lights, colorful decals and religious artifacts. Homeless families sleep on the sidewalks; children snooze the day away on flattened cardboard boxes. We saw a man bathing his two naked sons, who looked to be about eight-years-old, in the muddy rainwater collected in a pothole in the street. Tricycles – man-powered bicycles with small, two-person sidecars attached – roam the streets in search of fares, though more often we see the drivers sleeping in the carts. As we walk along, we are constantly approached by money changers flashing their note cards with the day’s handwritten exchange rates as well as young men selling random goods such as leather belts, fedoras, small electronics and cheap knockoff watches. Families camp out all day along the sidewalks, operating small food carts or selling cigarettes and gum.

Despite their seemingly depressing circumstances, Filipinos possess an enviable love of life. They are friendly, humble, happy people who have made us feel graciously welcome. The population is predominantly Catholic – a result of 16th century Spanish Catholic crusades – and English-speaking, although its ethnic origins are thought to be Malay, Borneon, and Indonesian. The Philippines struggled for centuries to find its political voice and united identity amid a stream of oppressive foreign occupiers including Spain, Japan and the United States. More than a million Filipino lives were lost over the years in the nation’s long struggle for independence and when they finally won their freedom and elected Ferdinand Marcos as president in 1965, the nation’s political and economic woes were far from over. (Lonely Planet Philippines 2006)

A striking contrast in the Philippines today lies in the circumstances of its women. Having already elected two female presidents in the last twenty years and boasting a middle management demographic dominated by women, the nation is well ahead of many Western countries. In contrast, while prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, it is one of the nation’s biggest industries. The Philippines has often been promoted as a sex tourism destination and, even more disturbing, an estimated 20% of the nation’s sex workers are children. (Lonely Planet Philippines 2006) You don’t have to read about sex tourism to realize that it is going on. An unsettling number of unattractive, middle-aged white men can be seen conspicuously walking hand-in-hand with young (often teenage) Filipino girls. The practice is so commonplace that no attempt is made to disguise it. While I am fully aware of my inability to affect these circumstances, I make a point of attempting to make eye contact with as many of the teenage sex patrons as possible. They appear unapologetic but I find solace in knowing that they know that their reprehensible behavior has not gone unnoticed.

On a brighter note, we regrouped in our room after a long day of intense observation and gussied ourselves up for a night out in Malate. I had bought an inexpensive little silk dress in Thailand, thinking that I’d wear it once and mail it home after it had fallen victim to the cramped conditions of my backpack. After donning it in Thailand, I folded it into a large Ziploc bag and carried it like that for over a month in my pack before pulling it out again in Australia. Miraculously, it came out virtually wrinkle-free as if it had been hanging in my closet. I pulled it out several weeks later in Manila with the same fabulous result. I’m shocked at the resilience of this little dress and tickled by the pleasure of having something delicate, pretty and feminine to throw on once in a while as a reprieve from my t-shirts and cargo pants.

With endless venues to choose from, we went back to Café Havana, this time to have dinner and make a night of it. The food was average but the service and ambience were outstanding. A different, but equally entertaining six-piece band belted out a variety of Spanish and popular songs for a disappointingly small Saturday night audience. After dinner, we moved into the adjacent cigar lounge, which impressed us with its selection of Cuban and locally produced cigars. We each chose a Filipino cigar and puffed away (sorry, Momma, but we don’t do it often, I promise) while sipping Grand Marnier and admiring the beautifully decorated cigar room. The walls were painted a soft, tropical shade of red and were covered with framed cigar labels and large black-and-white photos of Che Guevara. After literally smoking ourselves out of the room, we sat for one last San Miguel and then called it a night. We would depart early the next morning for Puerto Galera, where we eagerly anticipated dipping our fins into the Verde Island Passage between the Sibuyan and South China Seas.

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