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A Nomad Goes East

By Roger J. Starkey

 A Nomad Goes East is a travel narrative that takes a light-hearted look at my decision to flee the world of cubicles and office politics in favor of living and traveling in the quirky third-world environment of the Philippines.  The 100,000-word book also chronicles the precarious courting of my friend's sister and my decision to return home (and to the business world) to care for my father.

The following is a four chapter excerpt.

Chapter 9 - Five-Ton Weight Limit

The bus to Sagada left right on time--Philippine bus time, that is.  The Filipinos have borrowed many aspects of the Spanish culture from their colonial days; chief amongst them is a punctuality impediment.  In the Philippines, as in Spain, if a person arrives within one hour of the agreed upon time, they are considered to be on time.  That doesn't stop most of the Filipino buses from leaving anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes early.  The night before a kindly bus station employee had warned me about this phenomenon, so I arrived early and was on the bus when it pulled out of the station at 5:45 AM, right on time for the six o'clock departure.

The rumor is that the bus companies in the Philippine provinces buy old worn out buses from old worn out provinces in China.  The rumor is plausible.  This bus was little more than a rusty octagonal box with square windows.  The red paint on the lower half of the bus was so sun-faded and weather-worn that it was nearly the same shade as the dust covered white paint on the upper half.  Metal half-circles capped the shabbily cushioned seats.  As if the vehicle itself was not sufficiently aesthetically challenged, sacks of vegetables were tied to the top of the bus and scattered across the back row of seats. 

We were on the road for less than ten minutes before the first travel break.  It was the only planned stop.  The bus pulled into a dirt parking lot in front of a corrugated roadside convenient store.  The driver and conductor alighted without a word and trotted between the store and a ramshackle house.  When they hadn't returned after several minutes, I went to see where they had gone.  Behind the store I found a large group of people having breakfast.  The driver and conductor were wrist deep in platefuls of rice.  I left them to eat.

A few minutes later they came running to the bus, yelling for everyone to get on.  In a flash, the driver and majority of the bus had once again air crossed themselves in the Catholic fashion, and we were out on the road passing through a construction site.  Everyone had re-boarded frantically to avoid a construction delay.  I would later understand their hurry.

I didn't mind the first twenty or so times that we stopped for road construction.  Each stop was like a mini-circus.  As soon as the bus came to a halt, vendors would overrun it, jostling for position in the narrow isle.  How they got to those remote spots, miles from the nearest town, was a mystery.  The terrain certainly wasn't inviting.  Typically one side of the road was a sheer cliff face, dropping into a valley, and the other a heavily forested, steep cliff.  It was if the vendors were apparitions sent to satisfy the passenger's ice cream and pork rind cravings.

The conductor had no time to stand around gawking at the pork rind-selling ghosts.  His chore at each stop was to find the biggest rock alongside the road and place it either behind or in front of the back tire so that the bus wouldn't roll downhill.  The ol' primitive rock under the tire trick; it reminded me of my childhood days on a farm in Southern Illinois, or twenty-first century Ireland.

The construction workers' stop sign was also an opportunity for the passengers to use the restroom.  Other than the breakfast break, there were no other scheduled stops on the ten-hour trip, so the passengers had to be resourceful.  On the rare occasion that a piece of flat land was beside the road, men would flock off the bus to relieve their bladders.  Cover was unnecessary; they barely bothered to turn their back.  At one stop, a young Filipina rushed out the door, a roll of toilet paper in hand, and disappeared behind a lone tree.  Seeing her made me realize that I was grateful to have kicked my case of Montezuma's revenge back in Manila.  I hadn't come prepared if I were to suffer another attack.

The type of construction work being performed on the roads was also a mystery.  After leaving Baguio, we encountered less than a mile of paved road before arriving to the unpaved streets of Sagada.  The driving surfaces were either gravel or dirt, both of which produced vast quantities of dust that poured into the bus windows, kept open to compensate for the lack of air-conditioning.  Most of the passengers wore surgical masks or shirts tied around their faces to combat the combination of dust and exhaust fumes from the ancient engine.  If that bus had ever passed an emissions test, it hadn't been during the previous twenty years.

We had bounced along the road for an hour when we came to a line of cars waiting to cross a bridge.  I had a broadside view of the bridge as we approached; my heart leapt into my throat at first sight.  My nephews had bridges for their toy cars that looked sturdier.  A large sign at the base of the bridge announced a five-ton weight limit.  It was impossible that the bus met that requirement.  I was exceedingly nervous.

I started doing some math in my head, guessing how much the passengers weighed, hoping that we were somehow under the weight limit.  I counted twenty-five people on the bus in front of me.  Beside me were a woman and her small child.  "Holy crap!" I thought.  How many children are on the bus that I didn't count?  They don't weigh much, but they add to the kitty, and the kitty, including the bus, was over five tons; of that I was sure.  That tally didn't even include the produce on top and in the back seat.  I broke out in a cold sweat.  The young child across the isle made playful noises as he played peek-a-boo with his mother, both of them oblivious to our impending doom.

The queue eked forward, each vehicle waiting until the one in front of it had successfully crossed the bridge before hazarding a crossing.  Finally there was only a large van to cross before us.  The van pulled forward, and so did we.  The van went onto the bridge, and so did we.  I tried to air cross myself, but, as a non-Catholic, I failed miserably.  The bus driver was insane, suicidal or had an extra helping of trust in his God.  I swear I felt the bridge buckle, but we made it.  I didn't even wet myself.  That introductory brush with death prepared me for the next nine hours of death cheating travel.

The unpaved roads of the Mountain Province don't provide great traction, but the driver didn't mind.  He worked the break and the gas pedal like a racecar driver, applying the brake at the hairpin turns and the gas pedal to overtake every vehicle in front of us.  When the sharp curves came into view, and I was able to see the angle of the mountain descending from the road, I would guess if I could survive the bus tumbling over that particular corner.  I usually guessed I couldn't.

The road was dishearteningly devoid of guardrails.  I know that guardrails are mere window dressing, incapable of stopping a speeding vehicle from leaving the road, but their presence provides comfort; in the same illogical way that a parent's presence in the dark comforts a child against a boogey man attack.  My grandmother wasn't able to whip the boogey man, I knew that, but I still wanted her in the room when I was scared, just like I wanted a guardrail on that road.  The child across the isle abandoned peek-a-boo and became increasingly quiet as the turns became sharper and the rate of travel remained constant.  He may have sensed the danger also.  At least he had his mother to comfort him.

The bus came to several screeching stops at villages along the way.  Occasionally a passenger or two would climb aboard, but most often the conductor would accept a few sacks of vegetables or a canister of kerosene to be transported down the road.  At one stop, as the second tallest person on the bus, I was pressed into service to help the vertically challenged locals hoist sacks of cabbage onto the roof.

The guidebook, the infernal book, had promised that a flat tire is all but unavoidable on every bus voyage of any length.  That information was obviously better researched than the Mt. Pinatubo section.  Two hours shy of Sagada, a large pop came from a rear tire on the driver's side.  There were no repair shops for several miles, so the driver continued until we reached a teetering wooden building with a tire repair advertisement out front.  I got out to stretch my legs. 

As I watched the repair work begin, the tallest person on the bus, who also happened to be the only other white passenger, walked towards me.  His gait was clumsy.  He wore a red baseball cap over his sandy brown hair, was about six feet-three inches tall and, although lanky, had a decidedly non-athletic build.  His name was Ben.

"We have a flat tire," Ben said.

"Yeah, I see.  Hey, look at that bus next to ours; they have chickens on top.  I wish our bus had chickens."

"Be careful, you don't want to get the Filipinos mad," Ben said.

"I don't think I was being offensive, I was just being covetous.  I would really like to have chickens on our bus."

"Yes, but be careful.  Some Filipinos told me that you should never get into a fight with a Filipino, they won't think twice about killing you."

"Hmm," I said.

Hmm is a versatile response.  It can serve as affirmation that you are listening, as a substitute for an offensive word or phrase that you'd love to utter but know it's wrong to do so and as a word when no real word seems appropriate.  In this case, it was a substitute for, "that's nice, Fruitcake."

"Where are you from?" I asked to get us onto another topic.

"France, and you?"

"The States."

"With the war in Iraq about to start, I don't think that we are supposed to be friendly."

"Right, but I'm not so concerned about the politicians.  I don't like to talk politics anyway."

Most every person I had met outside the States, as soon as they found out I was American, wanted to talk politics to me--not so much discuss issues with me but preach to me.  They rarely wanted to discuss the policies that they agreed with, if they agreed with any, but usually about why American policy was stupid.  All American politicians were mental midgets compared to the man on the bar stool in Ireland, England, Spain, France, the Philippines and etc.  I had endured numerous diatribes during the three years that I had lived outside the States.  At first I would argue the position that I believed in, if it differed from the other bar patron's, but when the second Iraq war came around and the discussions became nauseatingly frequent, I learned to feign a complete disinterest in politics.

Suddenly, the bus behind which Ben and I had been standing began backing up without warning.  Ben was directly in the bus' path, so I grabbed his shirt and pulled him out of the way.

"Damn Ben, did you piss off the bus driver?"

"Jesus, he almost hit me!"

"Maybe he thought you were the one pointing at the chickens."

"No, Filipinos are just horrible drivers.  They don't care if anyone is in the way, they just drive."

"Our bus driver isn't doing much to change that reputation," I said.

"No.  He's crazy!"

We had been on the road for about an hour after the flat tire and near death incident, when I noticed the child across the isle sitting quietly with the back of his head resting against his mother.  The road was rough and Racer X, the bus driver, had taken each corner as quickly as possible while maintaining all four wheels in contact with the ground.  The ride was so taxing that I had to change positions several times to avoid bruises on my arms.  I assumed the ride had gotten the better of the child.  It had been tougher than I thought.  As I watched the docile darling, he spewed vomit all over his shirt and pants.

The closer we got to Sagada, and the higher altitude we attained, the roadside religious signs became increasingly bountiful.  I thought the signs might make the bus driver, who had a plastic Virgin Mary statue attached to the dashboard, become more conscious of his driving and the danger it posed to his passengers.  Despite my ignorance of the Catholic religion, I was rather sure that the Vatican would not smile upon his driving us off a cliff.  I hoped the signs would cause him to have similar thoughts.

I was pondering his possible religious transgressions when we made a construction stop alongside an enormous billboard that proudly displayed the Ten Commandments.  I scanned the list, searching for something to condemn the actions of the bus driver, but I could find nothing.  Moses' trip to the mountaintop didn't yield any regulations against involuntary manslaughter.  In the eyes of his Church, the bus driver had nothing to worry about.  No wonder he was driving so carelessly.  I wondered if they could add amendments to the commandments; it seemed terribly shortsighted to come up with an inalterable list of only ten.  I decided to email the Pope at my first opportunity to see what he could do about getting involuntary manslaughter appended to the original ten.

Much to the relief of my wobbly legs, I would have a chance to send that email.  We arrived in Sagada with nary an additional scratch on bus or passengers.

  Chapter 10 - Yes, But the Filipinos Care Even Less.

Sagada was the bus of terror's last stop.  Ben disembarked before me and waited at the bottom of the steps.  He had spent the majority of his ten hours on the bus making nice with everyone.  One of his new friends told him that St. Joseph's was the best hotel in town, so that's where we went.  As we walked to the hotel, which was full, and then to another, Ben let me know that paying for living arrangements in Sagada was only temporary for him. 

"In a day or two I'll become friends with one of the locals," he said, "and they'll invite me to stay with them."

"They'll invite you to stay in their home"?  Who'd this guy think he was, Bruce Chatwin?

"Sure, the guy that recommended St. Joseph's seemed like a nice guy.  I'll try to meet him in town.  I bet he'll ask me to stay with his family."

"Has this happened to you often in the Philippines?"

"I've only been here two weeks.  The only other place that I've gone is Boracay, but I was invited to stay at someone's house there."

"Really," I said, "you just met them on the beach and they invited you to say?"

"Well, first I met a fruit vendor named Jason.  I was walking down the beach near Boat Station 1, looking for a cheap place to stay, when I saw a guy selling fruit.  I talked to him for about thirty minutes and then, after we became friendly, he told me where I could find a hotel for only three hundred pesos a night.  Have you ever been to Boracay?"

"No, but I'm going next weekend."

"When you go, look for Jason at Boat Station 1, he will tell you where to find the cheap hotel."

"Thanks, but my friends already have our hotel arranged," I said.

"So I bought Jason some beers later that night.  We met some people he knew, and they asked me to stay with them."

"That was really nice."

"Yeah, and I slept on a bamboo bed.  The whole house was made of bamboo, the couch, tables, chairs, beds, everything." 

The story was interrupted by our arrival at the Ganduyan Hotel.  The owner, Maria--a stout lady who didn't look more than thirty years old--asked if we needed one room or two.  Ben empathically expressed his disinterest in sharing a room with me, so she showed us two single rooms, each with a bed and window, and nothing more.  The bathroom/shower combination was down the hall and, if we wanted a hot bath, we were to fill the bucket in the bathroom with water and take it downstairs for Maria to heat.  The charge for hot water was only ten pesos.  The bare bones rooms were renting for P100--about $1.50.  We accepted the rooms, and I immediately started having buyer's remorse.

"I wonder if they have rooms with a hot shower." I said.

"Why?"

"Because I like a hot shower; I love a hot shower.  I'm willing to share a bathroom, that's not an issue, but I need a hot shower."

"Why?" Ben asked.  "All of the Filipinos take cold showers.  They are all poor; they can't afford hot water.  If a cold shower is good enough for them, it's good enough for me.  I don't want to come to their country and flaunt my wealth."

"I don't want to pretend that I'm rich, but I know that some Filipinos take hot showers, and I'd like to be like those Filipinos."

"Well, whatever you want, I'm happy with this room."

For P500, I got a room with hot shower, private bath and a desk.  It was a supply your own toilet paper room, but it was worth every peso for me to have a hot shower, and a private place to take care of my personal business to boot.  Ben used my hot shower the first night, but then decided it was too garish.

Ben and I convened for a short hike to see the famous hanging coffins of Sagada before sunset.  We followed a forty-five minute hike outlined in the guidebook.  It took us nearly two hours.  With excellent path-finding hints such as, "turn left at the big headstone in the cemetery" and "turn right near the funny shaped pine tree" (in a pine forest!), we were lucky to see the coffins--dangling by rope from cliffs in the valley--and get back to the hotel before total darkness fell over the village.

"Did you see the lady that I was talking to on the bus?" Ben asked over dinner at Masferre's restaurant.

"You were kind of talking to everyone on the bus."

"The one that I was sitting next to most of the way; she got off in one of the little mountain villages."

"Yes, I remember."

"She's twenty-five and has never been kissed."

"What?  She's never been kissed or she's a virgin?"

"She's never been kissed.  All Filipinas are like that.  They are very religious and don't believe in kissing until they have a serious boyfriend.  Some won't even kiss a man until they are married."

"Wow!  That's conservative," I said, "but not all Filipinas are like that."

"That's true, a lot of them are prostitutes also."

Ben, it appeared, was prone to extreme generalizations.

"I'm sure that there are some more moderate Filipinas.  The girls that I met in Manila, my friend's sister and her friends, weren't hookers and they weren't that conservative."

"That's true," Ben said, "I met some girls in Manila that are more in the middle.  In Manila you will find some that have Western values, but in the provinces, the girls are either hookers or virgins."

"Hmm."

We ordered our meals and had some stale conversation, but I wasn't yet ready to drop the subject of the dichotomous provincial Filipinas.  I wanted to antagonize Ben a bit to see if I could get him to acknowledge that each and every Filipina outside of Manila didn't rest on the polar extremes of the sexual attitudes continuum.

"So Ben, our waitress, do you think she's a prostitute or a virgin?  She doesn't dress very conservatively, but she certainly doesn't look like she's advertising that her body is for sale."

"Which waitress?"

"Our waitress, the one who took our order and brought the food.  Not the one that brought the beers."

"Waitress?  That's a guy."

"What?  She has a deep voice but c'mon, she dresses like a girl, has hair like a girl, walks like a girl."

"Trust me," Ben said, "it's a guy.  Men in the Philippines dress like women all time."

"But she doesn't have the effeminate nature of a man dressed as a woman.  She just seems womanly."

"No, it's a man.  You have to understand that the Filipinos don't care, like we do, if a person is gay or not."

"I certainly don't care if a person is gay."

"Yes, but the Filipinos care even less.  If it's a man or a woman, it doesn't matter to them."

"OK, it has to matter.  I mean, if a Filipino is straight and he takes home our waitress, whom he later finds out is a guy, he's not just going to have sex with him.  Straight men like women and gay men like men, that's usually how it works."

"The Filipinos just don't have the same issue with gay people that we Westerners do."

"Hmm." 

Chapter 11 - The Swiss Family Boredom

Before meeting Ben for breakfast the next morning, I asked Maria where in town I could find an ATM.  I was desperate for cash because the Ganduyan Hotel, like every business in Sagada, didn't accept credit cards; I only had enough cash for two night's stay.  There was no ATM, she said, but there was a Western Union.  The bank may have been able to give me a cash advance, but she wasn't sure. 

I told Ben about my predicament over breakfast.  He had the same problem.

"I have some Euro," he said, "maybe they'll change those into pesos."

"I hope so, but I looked at the guidebook after talking to Maria, and it said the bank only changes U.S. dollars."

"So the only way we can get money is through Western Union?"

"It might be.  I'm going to the bank to see about getting a cash advance on my credit card."

"Are there any towns nearby that have ATMs?"

"The book said that a bank in Bontoc would exchange money but it said nothing about an ATM."

"Did you ask Maria?"

"No, I read that after talking with her.  I think I'll try the bank first and then ask later."

The bank was a dead end.  The only currency they changed was U.S. dollars, and they couldn't provide cash advances.  The teller thought Bontoc may have an ATM, but he wasn't sure.  Maria also thought Bontoc may have recently acquired an ATM, but she wouldn't swear to it.  I wondered if anyone in town had ever seen an ATM.

There were two banks in Bontoc, but no one we spoke with in Sagada knew how to get a phone number to contact them.  I didn't press the issue; I wasn't too keen on making the bumpy forty-minute journey in the back of a jeepney solely to save the few pesos fee that Western Union would charge.  I was going to wait a couple more hours before calling Mike, to be sure he was awake, and have him send me money.  Ben was more reluctant.  He could contact his best friend, a male hairdresser in Manila, but he had been caught short the week before and didn't want to ask for another favor so soon.

Ben thought on it for thirty minutes while I sunbathed and waited for his decision.  Finally he asked for my cell phone so that he could send a text message to his friend in Manila, asking him to call my phone.  As we waited for his friend to call, we went to the Western Union branch, got the information necessary to make a transfer happen and then went for a walk through town, careful not to go so far that my phone lost coverage.

After lunch, I decided Mike had had enough sleep.

"Hello"

"Hey Mike, it's Roger."

"Hi, where are you?"

"I'm in Sagada, did I wake you?"

"No, I didn't go out last night, so I've been awake for hours."

"Hey, did you know that there are no ATM's in Sagada?"

"I'm not sure if there are.  There might be."

"No, that wasn't an interrogative, it was a declarative statement; there are no ATM's in Sagada."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

"You see, that's only relevant to our conversation because I don't have any money, or a way to get any."

There was a brief pause while he laughed heartily.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Mike said after composing himself.

"Can you wire me seven thousand pesos through Western Union?"

"What's Western Union?"

"Are you joking?"

"No."

"They have big black and yellow signs all over Manila."

"Oh, I've never seen them."

"Wow!  I was only in Manila for a week and I saw them everywhere.  Anyway, can you find one and send me the money?  I'll pay you back before Boracay."

"Sure, just tell me what I need to do."

"Thanks Mike.  I'll send you a text with all the information."

"Do you need the money right now, or can I go tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's fine.  I have money for food and beer; I just can't leave here until I have enough money to pay for the hotel."

There was more laughter.

We spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for Ben's friend to call.  When the subject of money would come up, Ben would speak in a whisper, so I reciprocated.  Finally I asked why we kept whispering.

"Because I don't want to get my money stolen," he said.

"I don't think anyone here will steal our money."

"You never know with the Filipinos, they are all poor."

"Well, the people of Sagada all seem pretty proud of their honesty and kindness to tourists."

"Yeah, but Filipinos will kill for nothing.  I'd rather be careful."

"Hmm."

We were finishing a mostly silent dinner a few hours later, when one of the two Swiss men who were seated directly behind me, asked where we were from.  Ben answered for both of us.

"What do you think of the war?" the older man asked me.

"Well, I assume you're talking about the war in Iraq that hasn't yet started rather than the other twenty wars that are currently being fought in other parts of the world."

"Yes, why didn't the first Bush take care of Hussein back in 1991?"

"Well, I think it would have been a horrible foreign relations move.  But look, I'd prefer not to talk about politics.  Congratulations on the America's cup win.  That's pretty impressive for a landlocked country."

"Thank you.  You know, Switzerland is the first landlocked country to win the America's Cup."

"Yes, that's very impressive."

"Do you know that we have a great history of ship making?"

"Well, no," I said, sensing that I was about to learn a great deal more about the history of the Swiss shipping industry than I ever desired.

Five minutes later, the history lesson was still going.  Ben had excused himself to have a cigarette three minutes into the conversation.  I wished I smoked.

"C'mon Dad, we've talked enough about us.  We're boring him," the astute offspring said as he interrupted his father's story.

"So, how long have you been in the Philippines?" the father asked without missing a beat.

"Just over a week.  How about the two of you?"

"We just arrived a few days ago," the father started.  "We were down at a resort the first two days.  It's not far from here, in a town called Owa, or something like that.  Well, it's a resort that is owned by a British man now, but it used to be run by a Swiss guy who is a friend of my son.  Well, he's actually my son's boss' brother in-law.  We stayed at the resort a couple of years ago, when the Swiss guy ran it, and it was the best experience of our lives.  He only had native people working there and, on government orders, the houses can only be built to look like the native huts.  He had a great restaurant, swimming pool and billiards table, which was important because there is nothing else near the resort.  The only other entertainment you have is hiking.  There are no other restaurants or bars nearby. 

"Well, the Swiss guy arranged for a car to come pick us up from the airport in Manila and take us to the resort.  When we arrived, you could see that the British guy wasn't taking care of it like the Swiss guy had.  The huts looked shabby, the grass wasn't maintained properly and the service was not nice at all.  When we were there two years ago, the Swiss guy came to personally greet all of the guests when they arrived.  He would give them a personal tour of the resort, tell the history of the area and the resort and show you to your hut.  This British guy was nowhere to be found when we arrived.  We were just given a key by an employee and pointed in the direction of our hut.

"We finally saw the owner at dinner that night when he was yelling at all of his staff.  You should have seen how badly he acted towards the natives.  He treated them like savages who were too stupid to follow the simplest instructions.  When we went to dinner that night, the place setting at our table wasn't exactly how he thought it should be, so he called for one of the workers.  'Oh Boy' he said, in a very condescending British accent.  'Come fix this place setting and get these guys some water.  Now fix the place setting like I taught you.  Do you remember what I taught you?' he said that to the poor guy.  We told him that the place setting was fine the way it was, but he said the Filipinos are all savages and that they can't be trusted to do anything right."

My eyes had glazed over by the time the father told the dinner story.  I hadn't offered any verbal cues to insinuate that I was even partially interested in his story, yet he didn't pause.  He'd occasionally tell me that I could ask his son to back up the parts of the story that he felt were particularly unbelievable.  I would then smile in an obligatory way towards his son, who would nod his head in vigorous affirmation.  They ordered another bottle of wine at some point during the monologue and mentioned that it was their second.

"Well, after we were there only two days, we couldn't take any more, so we checked out and starting walking here.  We must have walked about four hours before we saw a man on top of his house doing some work.  We yelled up and asked how to get to Sagada.  He was very nice and gave us great directions.  He also told us the name of some people that we could look for along the way in case we thought we were lost.  He was so nice that we wanted to buy him a beer to say thank you, so we yelled up and asked him when he would be free to have a beer with us, our treat.  Well, right then his wife sticks her head out the window and said that he was free right then.  Isn't that funny?  'Now' she said.  That's funny."

"Yeah, that's funny," I said, with a forced lukewarm chortle.

"Here's a funny story," the father said, barely waiting for my previous reply before launching into another soliloquy.  I longed for Charlie's ability to extricate himself from conversations.  "My son rented this vacation house in Italy a couple of years ago.  He was supposed to be there a week, but on the third night someone told him that there had been a mix-up and that the owner was coming.  My son had to leave.  Well, before he could pack his things, the owner arrived.  Wouldn't you know it, the owner was his boss!  Can you believe that!?  Well, his boss saw him and said that he didn't have to leave, he could take the open bedroom and they could all stay there.  Can you believe that!?  What a small world.  Here's another small world story for you."

Pausing only to drink and pour wine, he told an exceedingly long story about a flight he once took to San Francisco.  Some poor wretch on the flight, I think he was a shower curtain hanger salesman or some such, was bored to tears by the Swiss father's ramblings and told a flight attendant friend of his about the experience.  That flight attendant happened to be working on the Swiss guy's return flight and, when he began accosting her with a story, she recognized him from the description her friend had given and asked if he was the same man.  He, of course, didn't describe the incident as him verbally abusing two random strangers with his inane chatter, two strangers that happened to be friends, but I was sure that was more closely aligned with how events had actually transpired.

His son, not one to have his verbosity bettered by his father, then went on to tell two equally colorless stories of great length.  Both were tales of meeting a familiar person in an unfamiliar place.  The Swiss Family Boredom took great pleasure in the topic and regaled each other greatly with their stories, ending each with, "It's just such a small world".  Thirty minutes into the recantation of their memoirs, I begged off.

"Well guys, it was very nice to meet you," I said, "but it's nine o'clock and the curfew here is nine."

"Really?  There's a nine o'clock curfew?" the son said.

"That's what is says in my guidebook, and all of the restaurants and bars close at nine."

"Well, I don't think they're going to arrest you."

"No, I'm sure they won't, but all the same, I think I'll go back to my room."

"I sure hope that we didn't bore you with our stories," the father said.

"No, not at all, I like small world stories."

I collected Ben from outside the restaurant, where he had remained, talking to one of the waitresses, and chastised him for not coming to bail me out.  He didn't do it, he said, because he thought I was enjoying the conversation.  I was about to explain that the glazed look in my eyes was a sure sign of disinterest, when I realized that I must have had that look on a regular basis when speaking with him, so I let it drop.

Ben went off in search of hash, and I continued on to the hotel.  I banged on the metal door that had been pulled across the entrance at 9:00 PM, and a bleary eyed watchman let me in.

After opening a bottle of wine, I went out to the balcony to read and enjoy the stillness that fell over Sagada after nightfall.  The enjoyment didn't last long; my Swiss friends found a place across the square from my hotel that had people willing to listen to them.  Their booming voices easily carried through the quiet village and up to my balcony.  I attempted to block out their voices, but it became impossible after I heard the beginning of a familiar story, a small world story.  I went back inside, closed the windows and read in joyous silence.

  Chapter 12 - Waiting for Western Union

My cell phone battery was dead when I woke the next morning.  I searched my room in vain for an outlet before going downstairs to ask Maria for help.  For a nominal fee, I left my phone and re-charger with her, behind the counter--alongside the individual rolls of toilet paper for sale--so she could re-charge it for me.  It was an impressive way to earn a little extra money.

Because the phone represented Ben's and my lifeline--our friends were going to notify us via said phone when they had successfully sent our money--we couldn't leave the small restaurant that was part of the hotel lobby until the phone was charged.  When Ben came downstairs, we sat down for breakfast and a few hours of waiting.  I had an omelet; Ben had longaneza and rice.

"I'm really glad that this place has omelets.  I'm tired of having rice with every meal."

"You know," Ben said, "the Filipinos have rice with every meal."

"Yeah, it's amazing to me that they can do that.  I mean, bread with every meal, I can handle that, but rice?  And plain rice at that, it gets old fast."

"Well, they are all very poor.  They can't afford bread like we Westerners."

"Right."

"You know they all eat the rice with their hands also."

"Well," I said, "I usually see them eating it with those big spoons, we call them tablespoons in the States.  They use their fork to push the rice onto the spoon and then eat from the spoon.  That seems to be how they eat most everything."

"Sure, that's how they eat in restaurants, but at home they all eat with their hands."

"Hmm."

"You said that you lived in Spain, right?"

"I did," I said.

"Have you noticed how many of the Tagalog words are the same as Spanish?"

"Yes."

"Like 'seguro,' 'coche,' 'pero,' and all of the numbers."

"Yes, but 'seguro' in Tagalog means 'maybe' instead of something that is certain, like in Spanish."

"That could be.  I noticed that you keep looking at your watch.  You should be more relaxed about time.  Look at me, I don't even wear a watch."

"I didn't think I was worried about time."

"You are," he said, "you need to relax more."

Ben was a nice guy, he meant no harm, but I was beginning to think that I would strangle him if we were alone together for several uninterrupted hours.  He had only been in the Philippines for two weeks, yet he spoke of the people as if he knew their culture better than his own.  His penchant for including the entire population into his observations was also trying my patience.  The Philippines is a land of social contrasts.  The extreme poor live as squatters in corrugated shacks perched over filthy rivers that collect their refuse and give the diseases that take their lives.  The extreme rich live in the majestic splendor of royalty.  That he lumped the masses, as the very poor are known in the Philippines, with the rich, who oppress them ruthlessly, showed that he didn't understand the most basic facts about the country; and yet he spoke with the air of an expert.  Plus he called me uptight, which, in fairness, I was becoming.

The mental reprieve that I so desperately needed was provided just before noon.  A couple, a white man and his Filipina girlfriend, came into the hotel, walked behind the counter and into the kitchen.  The man was a about six feet tall, but his thick build and shaved head--a concession to pre-mature baldness--made him appear shorter.  He was wearing a black t-shirt and camouflage pants.  The dark-skinned Filipina wore shoulder-length hair and sported a denim jacket.  When they emerged a few minutes later, the man had replaced the plastic bag he was carrying with a bottle of cheap red wine.  They sat at the table next to us.

"Hi, where are you guys from?" the man said in a loud voice.

"I'm from France and he's from the States.  Where are you guys from?"  Ben said.

"I'm from Germany and my girlfriend is from here; she's from Mindanao.  I'm Alex and she's Consuelo."

Consuelo was Isabel's real name.  I thought about her for a minute, and quickly returned my attention to the conversation.  I didn't want to have romantic thoughts about Isabel, but all of my thoughts about her were romantic.  It was better not to think.

While I was mentally absent, Alex had tried to open the bottle of wine, but the cork broke.

"Ah hell, I broke the cork!" he shouted into the bottle.

"I did the same thing last night," I said.  "The cork is so cheap it's like Styrofoam."

"What do I do now?"

"It's best to just shove what's left of the cork into the bottle, it's not coming out.  We can put a knife in there to keep the cork out of the way while we pour."

He borrowed a knife from Maria, shoved the cork out of the bottleneck, pointed the bottle towards Ben and me, and asked if we'd like some wine.  After we accepted, he yelled for Maria to bring out two more glasses.  He was obviously drunk.  Maria didn't respond immediately, so he went behind the counter to fetch the glasses himself.

"You guys have been drinking for a while and it's barely noon," I said to Consuelo.

"He starts drinking when he wakes up, around six, and doesn't stop until he goes to bed.  It's the same every day."

Alex returned and poured four glasses of wine.  It was French table wine with the distinct vinegar taste wine gets from sitting too long in warm weather.  We all agreed that the flavor was very disagreeable and continued drinking.

Alex asked the standard traveler to traveler questions of how long we had been in the country and which places we had visited.  We shared our short histories and turned the question to Alex.

"Well, I've been coming here every year for the past ten years, so I've been most everywhere.  I come every year to visit her."  He nodded toward Consuelo.  "This year I decided to stay for more than just a month.  I've been here for six months now.  I rented a house down in Palawan; I paid already for a year's rent."

"How long have you been in Sagada?" Ben asked.

"About a week, right Consuelo?"

Consuelo nodded in agreement.

"Have you done much hiking?" I asked.

"No."

"Have you been to the cave?  I hear that's pretty nice," I said.

"No, we haven't been there either, but we might go tomorrow."

Sagada offers hiking and a cave as tourist attractions.  If a person isn't hiking or touring the cave, they are most likely drinking or smoking hash, like the locals.  Sagada has a reputation, amongst the traveling crowd, as a place where it is easy to score hash.  Because of Alex and Consuelo's week of inactivity, I assumed that they had come, and stayed, for the marijuana.

I heard my phone ring, walked up to the counter, and beckoned for someone in the kitchen to help me.  Maria scampered out and handed me the phone.  It was Ben's friend from Manila; he had already been to Western Union.  He gave Ben the information he would need to collect the money, which would be available in two or three hours.

While Ben was talking to his friend, Maria brought a gorgeous lunch of mussels and bread to Alex and Consuelo.

"Are you friends with Maria?" I asked.  "I know that wasn't on the menu."

"We bought the mussels at the street market in front of the hotel here," Alex said.  "If you bring food to the ladies in the kitchen, they'll cook it for you.  You just have to pay them a little bit for preparing it."

"I'll have to do that."

"Yesterday we had them prepare frogs for us."

"Frog legs or the whole frog?" I asked.

"The whole frog.  You should have seen them prepare it.  They really know what they're doing.  They told us what parts to eat also.  The Igorots waste very little of the animal."

"I've never heard of eating any part of the frog besides the legs."

"We Filipinos eat everything," Consuelo said while Ben, who had retaken his seat, knowingly nodded.  "We even eat fish heads."

"I filmed the ladies preparing the frogs," Alex said.  "You should see the video.  I'll show you later.  Maria!  Another bottle of wine!"

The wine arrived and I was somehow able to remove the shabby cork without incident.  I topped off all of our glasses.

"So," Alex said between bites, "what are you guys doing today?"

"We are waiting for our friends to send us money," Ben said.  "We didn't know that there were no ATMs in town, so we both had to have money sent through Western Union."

"I think there might be one in Bontoc," Consuelo said.

"We asked about that, but no one here was sure if they did," I said.  "We didn't feel like making the hour and a half round trip to find out."

"I'm pretty sure there are some," Consuelo said, and then held a brief conversation with Maria in Tagalog.  "She's not sure either."

"Yeah, we asked her, a teller at the bank, the guy at Western Union and some other random people.  The ATM must be a bit of a mystery in these parts," I said.

"They don't need them here, these people live a very simple life and they like it that way," Ben said.

"Well sure, but I don't think an ATM will drastically alter their lifestyle.  They have the Internet and mobile phones; it's not as if they are opposed to technology."  I felt like being argumentative.

"Yes, but an ATM represents capitalism.  They don't want that here."  Ben felt more argumentative.

"Hmm"

"What time is it?" Ben asked.

"It's about 2:30," I said.

"Hey, I'll go get the video camera now.  I'll show you the ladies in the kitchen cooking the frogs," Alex said in this standard half-shout.

Alex kissed Consuelo as he walked past and continued upstairs for the video camera.  So, Consuelo, unsurprisingly, had been kissed.  She was also traveling the country and sharing hotel rooms with her annual boyfriend.  If in Ben's mind every girl outside Manila was either a virgin or a prostitute, I was rather sure into which camp he had assigned Consuelo.  He was probably right.

"So, Consuelo, have you ever been to Germany to visit Alex?" Ben asked after a minute of silence.

"No, he was going to fly me there five years ago, but something happened and he couldn't.  We did meet two years ago, though, in Switzerland."

"That's really nice," I said.  I could feel that she was embarrassed, so I tried to offer a little encouragement.

"Yeah, I was able to get a Visa to visit Switzerland, so he flew me there and he came from Germany to meet me.  It's a beautiful country."

"Ben," I said, "have you ever been to Switzerland?"

"No.  So Consuelo, have you met Alex anywhere else or do you just see him once a year, when he comes to the Philippines?"  Ben didn't seem to understand my desire to change the subject.

"No," she answered in a quit voice, "we only meet when he comes here."

Alex came bounding down the steps and sat very close to me.  He opened the LCD screen on the camera and hit play.  Three ladies that I had seen around the hotel appeared, the table in front of them littered with frogs.  Every frog, save one, was dead.  The live one hopped off the screen, but was soon brought back by the agile hand of a now faceless lady.  She made a slicing motion down the amphibian's abdomen, and all the frogs were dead.  Alex's voice came booming from off the screen, instructing the ladies to strike poses with the animals and to hold various severed body parts up for better viewing. 

The sound of a cell phone could be heard ringing.  It took me a second to realize that it wasn't part of the video.  I hurried to the counter and called for Maria.  No one was in sight, so I ran behind the counter and picked up Mike's call.

"Hey Mike, how are you?"

"OK dude, I'm going to find a Western Union now."

"A friend of one of the guys here sent money from a Western Union office in Makati.  It's on Paseo de Roxas, near Makati Avenue."

"Is it open on Saturdays?"

"It was open earlier today."

"OK, I'll try to find that one first.  I'm going to leave here in an hour, at about 2:30, is that OK?"

"Yeah, sure.  Thanks again for doing this, I really appreciate it."

"No problem dude, I just hope it works."

"It will; the other guy already has all the information he needs.  He's just waiting now to collect his money."

Ben was just finishing his private screening of the frog video when I returned to the group.

"That's really neat," he said to Alex.

"Yeah, but I have a much better video in my room.  Maybe I'll get it for you later, it's one of a goat barbeque that we had.  It's a great video, isn't it honey."

Consuelo nodded in affirmation and smiled at her boyfriend as he started telling the story of the goat barbeque.

"I bought the goat from a neighbor in Palawan.  I was going to keep it as a pet, but we were drinking one afternoon and decided that it would be better as a meal than a pet.  I had Consuelo go up to a group of soldiers that were near my house and talk them into killing the goat for me.  I ran into the house and got my video camera before they cut the throat (I have a great close-up of that, you should see it).  I paid them five hundred pesos to skin it and skewer it.  I told them we would all share the food when it was done.  So the five of them started the fire and had that thing cooking for hours, careful to make sure that it would be done perfectly, while Consuelo and I watched.  Well, I ended up getting really drunk and telling them all to leave right when the food was ready.  I was really stupid.  I was waving a knife around and telling them to get the hell away; I'm lucky they didn't kill me right there.  We ate goat for days.  I gave some to the owner of my house.  I never saw the soldiers again; I'm probably lucky.  I kept the goat's skull.  I took it with me to Manila and paid some kid at the hotel five hundred pesos to clean it for me.  You should have seen the look on his face when I unwrapped it from the newspaper I had it in.  It was full of maggots and bugs.  He almost threw up, but he cleaned it.  He did a good job too.  He didn't wash away the smell, but that's impossible.  I have the head upstairs now, drying in the sun.  She hates it but I love it."

"It's disgusting," Consuelo said with a shriveled face.

"No it's not, it's my pet; it's my mascot; it's beautiful."

"Nein!" she playfully snarled at him in his own language.

"I shouldn't waste so much money on things like that though."

"No you shouldn't," Consuelo agreed.

"I paid ten thousand pesos for the goat, five hundred to the soldiers and five hundred to the guy in Manila to clean the skull.  That's how I've spent eight thousand Euro since I arrived in October."

That figure hit home for me.  I had about ten thousand Euro that I hoped would carry me through a year in the Philippines, get me back to Spain and sustain me until I could get an English teaching job; if that was what I decided to do.  I made a mental note not to buy any goats, but I still wanted to be sure that, if managed properly, my savings would last longer than the six months it had taken Alex to blow a similar amount.

"So, Alex," I said, "you've spent eight thousand Euro in only six months?  That's pretty hard to do here, isn't it?"

"Yes, but not when you waste money like I do.  You see these trousers?" he said, lifting his leg to better display his pants.  "I bought these the other day for P750.  I didn't need them, of course, but look at them; they're great.  Aren't they?"

We all agreed that they were indeed fine trousers, although I was probably the only one doing so facetiously.

As we admired Alex's purchase, a gentleman came into the hotel looking for a room.  He had the air of a traveler--not a tourist--but he looked at least forty, much older than most travelers I had known.  He wore a paper-thin khaki jacket over a ragged yellow t-shirt.  His faded red, cotton jogging-pants had served him faithfully for many years.  Slung over his shoulder was a small, well-worn cotton bag that matched his jacket.  The bag wasn't big enough to hold more than a couple pairs of underwear, at most, but I had the feeling it was his luggage.  The Ganduyan Hotel had no vacancies, so he asked Maria if she could recommend another place in town.  Before she could answer, my cell phone rang.  She turned to grab it; the gentleman thought it was for her, so he walked towards our group to pose the same question.

It was Mike again.

"Dude, that place you told me about in Makati is closed.  They closed at noon today."

"OK."

"Do you know where any others are?"

"Mike man, you live in Manila, I was only there for a week.  I know there are a lot in Makati, though.  I saw them when I was walking around; but I'm not sure where."

"OK, well, I'm going to try to find one somewhere around here."

"If you can't find one today, don't worry.  Maybe you can ask your co-workers Monday, they might know of one close to your office."

"All right dude, I'll let you know."

The man searching for the room was gone by the time I returned to the group.  As I re-took my seat, Alex started talking to an older gentleman sat at a nearby table.  He was a teacher from Texas, probably not far from retirement age.  He didn't take much interest in Alex and only gave me a polite head nod when we were introduced us compatriots.  He was waiting for his wife and not eager to join in conversation with the afternoon drunks.

Alex was shortly in our conversation again and Ben was soon knee deep in his Boracay story again.  He had met Jason, found the cheap hotel that was a secret to everyone except Jason's friends, told us all to look up Jason when we next went to Boracay, and had just entered the house of bamboo when my phone rang again.  I was happy for an excuse to make leave of the conversation, and walked around the counter to get the phone.  It was Mike.  He had found a Western Union office; I could expect the money in a few hours.

I told Ben that I was on my way to feeling whole again, the way a poor man does when he gets money for the first time after a long drought.  He wanted to experience that sense of wholeness, so he went to collect his money.  I wanted to check my email, so I accompanied him.  The Western Union office was home to the town's lone Internet connection and, if you got hungry while web surfing, it was also a restaurant.

Ben presented his information to the young man behind the Western Union/Internet desk.  The transfer had been successful.  The attendant excused himself and went to the bank to collect the money.  I sat down at a computer.

"Ben, didn't you say that your sister wanted you to email her?"

"Yes, but I don't know how to use email."

"You've never used email?"

"No, I've never really worked with computers much."

"Here, I'll show you," I said.  "We can get a free account for you.  It's really fast and easy."

"No thanks."

"Seriously, I can get you set up in less than five minutes, then you can email your sister."

"No, I don't know how to use it and I don't want to learn right now," he said vehemently.

"Hmm, OK."

He seemed inordinately rattled by the exchange and walked outside. 

The attendant returned with the money a few minutes later.  Ben went back to the hotel while I continued checking email.  When I arrived at the hotel, Ben and Alex were just leaving the table.  Consuelo wasn't around.

"C'mon", Alex said to me, "we're going to go look at my goat head."

"Sure, I'm not the type to pass up a good goat head viewing."

I actually was the type, but Alex was very proud of it, and very drunk.  If I refused, he might have been insulted.  I didn't feel like dealing with the repercussions of an offended drunk.

When Alex had said earlier that the skull was in the sun drying, I thought he meant it was in his room.  Instead, we proceeded to the hotel roof where the white skull was stuck atop a pole, facing due east.  We stood admiring the skull for a few minutes while Alex repeated the story of how he had paid the man in Manila five hundred pesos to clean it and how it had been full of maggots and bugs.  At the conclusion of the story, we backed away from the skull that still smelled of death.

Leaning against a wall, Alex pulled out a joint and began to light it.  Ben looked on with eager anticipation.  It was obvious that this was the real reason for going to the roof.  Alex took a hit and passed it to Ben, who did the same and passed it back to Alex.  Alex, thinking Ben was being impolite, pointed the unlit end of the cigarette towards me and raised his eyebrows.  Before I could refuse, Ben snorted that I didn't smoke.  Alex shrugged his shoulders and took a puff.

A hotel worker came to hang shirts on a clothesline.  She worked away and they smoked away.  She paid no attention to what they were doing, despite the strong odor, and they returned the favor by ignoring her.

Back in the restaurant, Alex shouted for Maria to bring another bottle of wine.  Based on my previous success, I was nominated to open the new bottle.  I failed and the cork was again shoved into the bottle.  I had just finished pouring three fresh glasses of wine when the man with the ragged clothing reappeared.  He had discarded his bag and jacket.  He ordered a beer and sat near us. 

It di