"Through the ring of fire...through the ring of ice...over the dog-doo stick!!!"

It was Christmas Day night and, believe it or not, I really wanted to get back to Manila. The prevous night I had spent in Besao, a small community north of Sagada. We stayed in Madonna's friend's brother's house for free, but being an ungrateful bastard with no Christmas spirit, I'm going to complain anyway. The place was small and comfortable, but in true bachelor style, it was completely filthy. The women started to cook a Christmas Eve supper of rice with anchovies in tomato sauce, fried dried fish things, and scrambled eggs. To be polite, and because I was starving, I ate everything I was given. Actually, the only real problem I had with any of the food was the discovery of a cockroach. Before water was added to cook the rice the women lifted the lid to find a huge cockroach tap-dancing all over the rice. "God" made dirt so dirt won't hurt... Well "God" made fecal coliforms too, and they fuck you up. Whatever.

We spent the day at the Melicong rice terraces outside of Bontoc. We had to bribe the jeepney driver to leave the village at 2:30 pm instead of the normal 4:00 pm in order to make it back to Bontoc for the 4:00 pm bus to Bagiuo that didn't exist. Faced with the prospect of waiting 13 hours for the next bus, and subsequently over-nighting in Bontoc, I decided to get a 2 hour jeepney to Banauae to get an 8 hour bus to Bagiuo. I said goodbye to my companions and boarded the jeepney, the only other passenger being an elderly lady. The road to Banauae was pant-shittingly scary. The dirt road snaked and weaved its way through the aptly named Mountain Province, on one side a nearly vertical wall of rock and vegetation, on the other a nearly vertical cliff. The drop had to be over 1000 feet. It was pouring rain and very misty/cloudy. Rivers were forming on the road and we were constantly passing huge mounds of rubble and vegetation that had come loose from the mountain and fallen into the road. This often reduced the road to a single lane. I remember we had to pass one gigantic mound of rock and soil with a huge tree sticking out of it. Looking out the back door of the jeepney I could see how close to the edge we had come. The tire tracks cut deep grooves in the muddy road less than a foot from the edge. Looking at it made me physically ill and only enforced the image of us plunging off the side of the mountain. The fact that the driver seemed completely unconcerned did little to ease my mind.

The lady and I had a conversation and we got to know each other a little. Her name was Gladys and she lived in Banauae but was also travelling to Bagiuo to attend a relatives funeral, so we would be rising the bus together. I would later find out on that bus ride that Gladys had been in an accident on that mountain road. The jeepney's steering column had stopped responding and instead of taking a left they had taken a down. Gladys ended up with a fractured jaw, a broken collar bone, a partially caved in skull, and broken arms and legs. She spent 3 months in the hospital. Other weren't so "lucky" and were killed. In addition to the injuries, I'm assuming Gladys also received a "Hard as Fuck" certificate from the Philippine government and a signed apology from Death. I'm just glad she told me this on the bus and not in the jeepney because I would have fainted and rolled out the back.

We finally get to Banauae around 5:30 pm. The next bus was to leave at 6:00 pm, so we had just enough time for a quick bite to eat. Gladys took me to a friend's restaurant (Vegas Eatery I think) and we ate some noodles. After paying, picking up some headache meds, and a water, we trotted back to the bus only to find it gone. For the first fucking time since I arrived in the Philippines something happened on time, leaving us in the dark and a torrential downpour. At this point I was physically exhausted from waking up at 6:00 am and trekking around rice terraces all day, and mentally exhausted from trying not to picture myself crawling out of a mangled jeepney on broken arms and legs, so I had resigned and started walking across the road to sleep in the ditch. Luckily for me, Gladys ain't goin' down like dat, and was all over the situation. She texted the bus terminal, hailed a tricycle, and ordered the driver to speed after the bus. She hopped in the passenger seat, I hopped on the back of the bike, and we fucking gunned it. We were weaving in and out of traffic in the pitch black on a rain slick road in the mountains at an unreasonable speed. It was like a scene from a bootleg knockoff version of "The French Connection". To my surprise and delight we actually caught up to the bus at which point the tricycle driver pulled some sweet suicycle Lance Murdock 180 skid to cut off the bus. I was impressed with the kid and gave him a nice tip.

So we spent the next 8 hours on the bus to Bagiuo, chatting about this and that, reading, sleeping, and being uncomfortable and bored. When we got to Bagiuo at 3:00 am I said goodbye to Gladys and got on yet another bus to Manila. I was one of the last passenger to board. There were 2 free seats in the back so I sat in the window seat and waited for the bus to leave. I'm beginning to think that I may be alone in the back when a dude sits next to me with a little boy on his lap.

"Great..."

About 20 minutes into the trip the kid starts making weird burping noises, and before I can process these familiar sounds, the kid fucking vomits all over me. It felt like gravy and smelled like poison. My leg, crotch, book bag, duffle bag, and foot are covered. Saturated. Earlier that day I had mis-stepped on a rice terrace and gone knee-deep in mud/moss/shit. As a result, I was wearing my shitty shower sandals, so I had the added pleasure of feeling the putrid liquid between my toes and under my heel.

The father says he's "So sorry sir" and gives me a half-assed pat-down with his shitty barf rag. He then goes back to tending to his kid and I go back to marinating. The kid looked like he was on Death's door, so that took most of the angry wind out of my sails. But, when the father made no attempt to do anything further I decided I couldn't sit in human effluent for 8 hours. I noticed him talking to a woman further up the bus so I tap him and said, "I'm switching places with your wife". I got up, dripping chunky shit-brown liquid and smelling like rotten McNuggets, slipping around in the aisle on the bus weaved through the mountains. It was fucking horrible.

I finally arrived back in Manila at 11:00 am where I was promptly ripped off by a cab driver. A fitting end to a ridiculous journey. Now, as I write this, my stomach is rolling and I'm chomping down the Pepto Bismol tabs.

I hate kids.

Get Away from my Junk

I'm back in Manila for a few days after traveling north to Bagiuo, Sagada, Bontoc, Besao, and Banaue. A lot of shit has happened, and I'm a little pressed for time because this internet cafe is expensive and noisy (there are about fifteen Koreans playing Counterstrike and StarCraft at full blast while another kid is having the time of his life listening to Cartman sing "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch") so this won't be a comprehensive report. The last few days have been some of the most exciting, terrifying, disgusting, and memorable moments of my life. Let us break it down:

I left Puerto Princesa on the 20th and arrived in Malate (part of Metro Manila) that same day. Andrew was here for the day so he showed me around a little:

"Here's the internet cafe, there's the Starbucks, here's homeless family, there's a group of transvestite prostitutes..." And so on.

Actually I'm tempted not to write this, but here goes. We walked up the road, past the homeless family and were approached by the lady-boy hookers. We ignored the cat-calls and whistles but I had to respond when one of them grabbed me in a bear hug from behind. I wriggled away by twisting his wrist and narrowly avoided getting grabbed by the junk. Helllloo Manila!!

Andrew left the next day and I explored the city a bit on my own. North of Malate is the city of Intramurous, a walled city within a city dating back to Spanish colonial time. I took a lot of pictures and I'll post them on Facebook when I get back to Puerto. On the way to Intramurous I was approached by five or six outstanding gentlemen who tried to sell me everything from genuine Molex watches to Raybad sunglasses. My favorite was the seedy, sallow little man who slunk out of an alley with a brochure. The brochure had pictures of guns all up and down the inside. I figured he was providing me with options as to how I was to be mugged, but I was wrong. This guns were merely a small sample of the variety of weapons I could shoot at his firing range. I said I wasn't interested, which was a bold-faced lie, and started to walk away. It was at this point that he pulled out another brochure with pictures of women all up and down. Oh Manila....you scamp.

The next day I met Madonna (a friend from World Vision in Puerto) at the bus terminal and we continued our journey to Bagiuo. Bagiuo is a beautiful city that sort of looks like Corner Brook. It's a city of about 300,000 built on very hilly terrain, so the roads are constantly snaking up and down in every-which direction. I took a bunch of photos that I'll post on Facebook when I get the chance. While here I visited a few neat places starting with the Strawberry Fields of La Trinadad. I bought two bottles of homemade strawberry wine and a jar of strawberry jam. The wine ended up leaking all over my bag, ruining my guidebook, staining my clothes, and saturating my camera which then became a delicious home for teeny tiny ants. I left the jam in the fridge of the place I was staying. So, besides all the pictures I snapped, all I took away from La Trinadad was a kickass hammock and the memory of eating one day old chick. Sam, Madonna's friend and our guide, bought it for me and to be polite I tried some. It's exactly what it sounds like: a one day old baby chick with a stick rammed up its ass and out of its neck, roasted to "perfection". You're supposed to eat the whole thing - head, guts, bones and all. For the record, it tasted absolutely nothing like chicken. Madonna insists it's delicious, but she's a liar. Delicious is very very subjective concept. I suppose it is delicious when compared to something relatively more foul (ie. a chunk of shit), but on it's own it's disgusting. It's a shame too. It could've grown up to be a hearty soup or a nugget. Poor little guy didn't even get a chance to be delicious. Breaks my heart.

We also visted Mines View, a grand lookout over Bagiuo's mountainous terrain, and Camp John Hay, a popular picnic location in the same vein as Bowring Park, just hillier. I guess I should also mention that Bagiuo is pretty damn cold. At night it drops to about 5 degrees. On the way to Bagiuo we had to drive through a mountain range in Benguet province. It was so far up in the mountains, and at such a high altitude that it actually began to snow. Nuts.

One of my favorite parts of this mini-vacation was trekking through a huge cave network in Sagada, a town north of Bagiuo. We hired a guide in Sagada and walked 20 minutes to the mouth of the cave. I was told to wear sandals and shorts because there were parts of the cave where you had to submerge yourself in order to pass. I don't have a decent pair of sandals, but since I didn't want to ruin my jaw-dropping Sonnix I decided to wear my shitty shower sandals that are barely even good for standing in, let alone traversing slippy limestone escarpments. I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss the complete lack of safety provided by this tour. The guide had us climbing over wet, slippery rocks above sheer drops. At one point we had to shimmy, barefoot, down between two rock walls with a waterfall running over us. We also had to use a rope to climb a near vertical cliff. I never really expected anything different. After all, it's not unusual to see a family of five buzzing through the city on a motorcycle. Dad in front, baby balanced on his lap; mom in back, groceries in one hand, infant in the other; big brother or sister hanging off the back; all gloriously helmet free. The cave was pretty awesome though. We were crawling all over the place like fucking spider monkeys, slipping in the water and wading though chest deep underground lakes.

I wrote another entry in my notebook about my experience back to Manila. It covers more of the terrifying and disgusting elements of my journey, so I'll post that soon. I'm in Legaspi now and have already booked a day trip to climb Mt. Mayon and hike around the lava fields. Should be fun. I've only been in Legaspi a few hours and I already can't wait to get out. Msybe I'm just in a bad mood, but most people here seem to have brain damage. It took 15 minutes, 15 fucking minutes, to explain to the saleslady that yes, I do want a medium sized raincoat, but no, I do not want it in neon pink. This escaped her. I went to the supermarket to buy a bottle of water and an apple and no less than 20 people rammed into me from every possible direction, always looking in the opposite direction or at their feet. Come on people...two year olds do that.

That's all for now.

Absoutely Devastated

I was on the way home from Itoy's coffee house last night and I managed to leave my Hartford Whalers hat in the tricycle. It was by far my favorite hat and the best gift I've ever been given. I'm devastated. There's a small chance I might see the tricycle driver again. We were chatting briefly, and i left him a decent tip, so he may seek me out if he sees me on the street, but I'm not counting on it.

Goodbye vintage Whaler's hat.

Big Christmas She-nans

I guess it’s time for another one of these blog thingamajiggers. A fucking EPIC thingamajigger!

The Meth-Cat contest has gotten some pretty good entries so far. Keep ‘em coming.

The original Christmas break plan was to jazz around the Philippine islands with Jimmy. This has changed. Jimmy now has familial obligations and Andrew has plans with his girlfriend. Instead of crying in my soup I decided to grow a pair and travel by myself. To ensure I don’t puss out I just finalized buying a ticket to Manila for the 20^th and a ticket “home” (Puerto Princesa City) from Cebu City for January 7^th. The combined cost of both tickets is around $90. Holy shit.

The plan as of right now is to fly to Manila on the 20^th and stay in Malate. Andrew usually stays at a place called Malate Pension, and he says it’s alright, so I think I’m going to check it out. Manila is a huge city comprised of ten districts. Malate is one of these districts and has a reputation for being the tourist capital of Manila. I figured since I’m a first time traveller Malate would be my best bet. It increases my chance of meeting up with other travellers. Since Manila scares the living shit out of me, this is a good thing. Maybe I’m giving Manila to much flack. I only briefly travelled through part of the city on my way to Puerto, but what I saw made quite the first impression. It doesn’t help that everyone I talk to about Manila has tips and tricks of how not to get robbed, beat down, or unknowingly solicit prostitution. You can probably understand my apprehension. You also may be wondering “Well why the fuck are you going then?” My response: Manila is a huge urban center, the likes of which I have never experienced. The closest thing to a “Manila” in Canada would be Toronto, which is really no comparison at all. Last time I checked Toronto had around 4 million people. Manila has 15 million. I always wanted to go to Toronto to see a big city. Skyscrapers, a vibrant downtown, all that shit. Now I have the chance to see nearly four Toronto’s all smashed into one. That means Manila must be four times as awesome! Airtight mathematics.

Four Torontos.

Also, Manila is one of the easiest places to travel to. It’s a great hub city to branch out from. Since my next destination, Legaspi, is reasonably close to Manila, I figure I might as well stay for a few days to soak in the sights, sounds, tastes, and crimes. Being a lifelong student of the School of Cynicism, working towards a joint major in scepticology and scepticonomy, I issue the following challenge to Manila: Manila, I know you’re reading this. I heard from a friend of a friend that you were kind of an asshole...no offence. I want to start off on the right foot though. I guess I shouldn’t have said I heard you were an asshole then, huh? Ok, listen, I’m sorry about the asshole remark. No, listen. I mean it. I was out of line. Let’s start again. *Ahem* Manila I heard from a friend of a friend that you could be a bit of a handful. A bit standoffish. A little curt and frank. I don’t want to believe them, I really don’t, but my educational background prevents me from accepting anything different. Maybe you can show me different Manila, show me you’re not the big bad monster everyone has you made out to be. Prove them wrong Manila. Prove them wrong.

After Manila has its way with me I’m travelling to Legaspi to se Mt. Mayon. Mt. Mayon is an active volcano and has been described as the world’s most perfect volcano. Apparently its shape is liken to the classic storybook image of generic volcano. I’m going to hire a guide and do a day-hike up its side. Currently it’s at a caution level of 2. I’m led to believe this is fairly safe. In 1993 a bunch of volcanologists were blown to pieces and probably melted alive when Mt. Mayon exploded beneath them. When all was said and done 77 people were killed and Level 5 was taken that much more seriously. I’m totally pumped. Volcanoes are the shit.

Mt. Mayon. I'm climbing this!

After Legaspi I’m going to catch the ferry south to Cebu and from there another ferry east to Bohol. Bohol is home to the Chocolate Hills and the tarsier monkeys. The Chocolate Hills are a group of a few thousand large hills formed by what scientists believe to be the coastal uplift of coral. They are lightly vegetated with grasses. During the summer the grasses are scorched by the heat of the sun and turn brown. When this happens they look like, wait for it, chocolate. Ingenious!

The tarsier monkeys are the world’s smallest primates and hold the distinction of being so ugly they’re cute. If you were inclined to grasp one of the charming little monsters you would be able to fit it in the palm of your hand. There is a reserve in Bohol dedicated to the preservation of the tarsiers and I’m going to check it out.

I wish I could type a word to express "Awwww" and "Ewwww" at the same time.

After Bohol I might head west and check out Boracay. Boracay is one of those places you might see on “Wild On...” at 3:00 a.m. with drunken American girls flashing their titties all over the place and drunken American jock retards vomiting over said titties. Certainly sounds good on paper, but the time taken to get there, and the chance that once there I might not even be able to find a place to stay, doesn’t appeal to me. Boracay’s definitely one of those places that you experience with a few buddies and no cameras. Who knows, I may sleaze my way over there, but I don’t have my heart set on it.

Boracay (probably).

I have my return ticket booked from Cebu, so I get to check out Cebu city for a few days as well. I hear it’s basically Manila junior. Should be an interesting place.

This Christmas is going to be exciting and strange at the same time. I’ve never spent a Christmas away from my friends and family before. Now I’m going to experience that with the added craziness of being in the Philippines. I’m especially going to miss Christmas Eve at my Uncle George’s house. We don’t have many traditions in our family, hardly any actually, but every year since I’ve been a little boy we’ve spent Christmas Eve at George’s. When we were younger, Jordan and I would hole up in the basement and play whatever videogame system was popular at the time. Favourite memories include Bart vs the World for NES, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for N64, and Street Fighter III: third Strike for the poor old Dreamcast. Ahhhhh, good memories. Lately we’ve added getting sauced to the equation with positive results. I’m definitely going to miss this.

Fuck Rudolph, Urien punching Hugo in the feet screams Christmas.

See, this is what happens when I wait over a week to wipe my thoughts on my blog; massive overflow. In other news I have a fat guy following me around on a motorcycle. I’m not even kidding. I think fatty means me harm but fortunately for me and unfortunately for him I’m intelligent and he’s a fat idiot. I’ll tell you about it next time.

You’re not getting my iPod you big fat asshole!

Meth-Cat Contest!!

Meth-Cat is a lot like a cancer.

Over the course of the past few months Meth-Cat has been steadily growing on me. Also like cancer, unless treated with the proper regiment of drugs I'm positive he will kill me. So why am I so fond of this emaciated degenerate thief? This furry purring menace? Hard to say really. Maybe I'm scared to death of him and he's making me type these sentences with a razor sharp claw pressed to my neck. Or maybe it's something simpler. Maybe, just maybe, he's metastasized to my heart.

This is where you come in. I love to caption Meth-Cat's iconic image and, believe or not, he loves it too. Since I'm all out of wallets to steal and iPods to hock his meth bag is dangerously close to empty. Maybe just the right caption will sway the needle of his cold heart from "kill" to "torture" and you'll all get to see me again with plenty of anecdotes about my oddly shaped scars and burns. So how about it? Here's the photo:


So what's the caption?!!?!

The winner, as judged by Meth-Cat, gets a totally awesome and unique gift! OMGZ!!!!!

*Few will enter, fewer will win.

A Grade Three Reaction

Waking up early is crap. The Nokia alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. and I experience what I like to call my Grade Three Reaction©. That could be interpreted in any number of ways, so allow me to explain. The Grade Three Reaction© originated in...um...grade three. Elementary grade three was a milestone year and particularly memorable for three awful reasons. From least awful to most awful:

3. The folks broke down and bought me a Nintendo GameBoy (God bless them). It was a monochromatic beast, eating batteries and shitting entertainment. I don’t even want to guess how many hours I sunk into Tetris and Super Mario Land, so I’m going to go with a metric lot. Another kid in my class (Gerard Scott, the little bastard) “accidently” took my GameBoy home after school one day, and I ended up with his. I didn’t notice until I got home. When I turned the unit around to pop in some Balloon Fight I noticed the back of the case was all scratched and dented and actually leaking battery acid. The front screen was also scratched and chipped. The conniving little shit swapped my pristine item for his busted-ass hunk of trash. I could never get him to bring in my original, and when he finally did it was in even worse shape than his old system. He ruined my favourite toy. It broke my heart.

It was approximately this bad.

2. I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. There was only one jolly fat guy who brought the presents and he slept next to Mom. It broke my heart.

And, without further adieu, the actual genesis of the Grade Three Reaction©:

1. My teacher, Sister Mona. It sounds anticlimactic but she was the most wretched, unloving, unsympathetic nun who ever taught. She repeatedly berated children and made them cry. She once told a child to stop running in the playground, and being a kid from a different class, with a human teacher, he thought he had a good grasp on what was and was not acceptable behaviour and what he could and could not get away with. He was wrong and ended up finding out the face-first-in-the-gravel-via-malicious-nun way. She was genuinely awful. She made me think of a new retarded excuse not to go to school every day. Every single day. If I didn’t have a critical stomach condition I was suffering from a vicious head cold. Mom didn’t believe my bullshit. At the time as far as I was concerned, she was an unfit mother. Nuns broke my spirit.

To summarize, the Grade Three Reaction© is a sinking feeling I get in my stomach. It’s comparable to waking up every morning and dreading going to grade three, a condition I’m sure none of you had. Basically it’s a sinking feeling of unease and distress. It’s awful.

Where was I........? Oh right. Today I was to talk to Jimmy’s creative writing class. The topic was Newfoundland: An Overview. The 7:00 a.m. alarm buzzed and I immediately felt that sinking feeling. Public speaking has always been a fear of mine, a debilitating fear. Speaking to a group of young students shouldn’t evoke this reaction, but for some reason it did. It turned out to be completely unnecessary though because the talk went great. I got up, did my thing, and answered questions such as:

“Do you find Filipino women attractive?”

And

“Are you looking to get married?”

...

I like to think I’ve made a difference today.

Overall it was a good talk. The students seemed to enjoy the bits they understood and I was much more comfortable that I thought possible. The Grade Three Reaction© was, as never before, actually baseless! Hmmm, maybe this means I was all wrong about Santa after all!

Gerard Scott’s still a douchebag though.