the adventures of screw up boy - day 2

saturday started peacefully. i should have known it was a bad omen, like the proverbial calm before the storm. the morning was spent chilling out, doing the usual morning rituals, packing up our luggage, and then gambling our change away with a card game they called "in between". seemed like everyone else in the group were experienced gamblers, and i stood out innocently like a sore thumb.

manong boy, our driver, arrived to pick us up at around noon. after taking some souvenir pictures at the hotel, we hit the road. cruising on the highway, we had a nice view of mt. makiling, and i remembered boss joseph saying something about how nice it would be if we also did some trekking there, ignorant of the coming hell. that should have been omen number 2.

i asked the guys what would be our next activity on the list. they said we'd do some trekking on taal. hmmm... trekking. suddenly my spider sense went on high alert. aside from a fear of flying, i also have a fear of heights AND deep water. plus, i don't know how to swim. uh-oh, i thought, doesn't that involve climbing AND riding a boat across taal lake?

i took a good look at everybody. ok... guys' hair all gelled up and spiky, girls wearing those stylish blouses and sandals, the air thick with their cologne. we looked like we were going to THE MALL. ok... maybe... it's just a short leisurely walk then, i thought, maybe on a paved path to the peak of taal where we can admire a magnificent view of the crater and reflect upon the grandeur of nature. i was starting to delude myself. self delusion is one of my psychological defense mechanisms.

after a pitstop for lunch along the highway, we continued the journey. the road was getting noticeably inclined now, as my ears started popping to adjust to the air pressure. then the big road sign: tagaytay.

so this is tagaytay, i thought. i was expecting it to look like baguio. but from what i saw, it looked more like bukidnon. there were so many pineapples and pineapple plantations... well i think they were pineapples. and then there it was, that familiar image found in postcards and wow philippines ads, taal volcano.

we hired the services of a boatman standing at the side of the road waiting for passengers. after some bargaining, manong boy got us a lower price for the boatman's services, and we followed him down to the lake for the boat.

what we saw when we arrived at the shore of taal lake did not calm my nerves. the water was rough, thanks to the strong wind. my spider sense was saying: "turn around and lock yourself up in the van. NOW." but my pride was saying: "boy, are you a wimp, or ARE YOU A WIMP?" so with those thoughts, i considered my predicament. everybody was going. the girls didn't seem to be scared. i'm doomed.

so with some trepidation, i got into the boat, and we experienced a ride that beat all the attractions at enchanted kingdom. maybe i should've tried their water rides after all, so i can get some practice before going on this one. with huge waves and strong winds blasting our little boat, i held on to anything secure for dear life, worried of the headline that might come out on the papers the next day if i didn't: "SUICIDAL TOURIST FROM CEBU DROWNS IN TAAL LAKE". the shame...

after about 40 minutes of having our intestines pureed, we finally got back on terra firma. the taal island welcoming comittee was composed of a whole barangay of hustlers, demanding from us gullible tourists various fees here and there. there was the entrance fee (per head) and a ridiculous parking fee for the boat. they also tried scaring us into renting their horses, telling us how far and difficult the path would be to the top. that would have cost us an also ridiculous P500 per horse. we did not take them up on that offer. and of course, there was the fee for our guide, which at P500 made the whole thing look like extortion. are they kidding? P500 just for a walk up and down the mountain? anything to squeeze the money from our pockets. i hope you hustlers are reading this blog and feel ashamed of yourselves.

aside from the hustlers, we were also welcomed by a strong smell of shit. horse shit to be exact, with all the horses on the island. the place was littered everywhere with it, that they can also call taal horse shit island. and with these two things will i always fondly remember taal with.

after paying all the fees and getting a guide, we trudge up to the crater of the volcano. on the way we were met by tourists on horseback on the way down. they all had this constipated look plastered on their faces, which made me doubt if the trek was worth all the trouble.



turns out we didn't really need the guide. as long as we followed the trail of horse shit, we were fine. the final stretch going up was tough though, as the incline was pretty steep and the path's loose sandy soil did not give very good traction to our shoes. after about 45 minutes of trekking torture, we finally reach the crater.





let's see... how do i describe taal volcano. it was nice, i guess. something you don't see everyday. you can still see smoke rising from the sides of the crater, a sign that the volcano is still active.







i did not enjoy the view very much though, as the thought that kept going through my mind was: "oh f*ck, how do i get out of here alive?!". it did not help me remembering the fact that the british mountaineer george leigh mallory died on his expedition to mt. everest GOING DOWN.

we looked at the time. it was 3:30. the last thing we wanted to do was to wobble our way down the path in total darkness, so after a final session of picture taking, we decided to go down. ok, i thought, now i'm screwed.

and then, i see it, my only means of escape. a big horse was lazily flicking flies away with his tail. a ray of light hit the blessed creature, as if heaven was saying, "here is your path to salvation." hallelujah! i'm saved! i was about to jump for joy at the sight when suddenly, it urinated. the horse shot its pee to the ground like a fire hose, that given a few more hours, it may have been possible for the horse to engulf the whole island in its own pee. i didn't know which was worse, to have myself impaled down the side of the mountain or to drown in the horse's pee.

i asked the guide how much for the horse. he said P200. P200!? why you bloody cutthroats! stuck between paying for a ridiculously priced horse ride and getting back to the boat in one piece, i grudgingly chose the latter. so i hauled my butt on the saddle and went ahead of the group.

what can i say about riding a horse... well... it was a literal pain in the ass. no wonder those horse riding tourists we encountered on the way up all had that constipated look, their butts were in pain. constipation and horse back riding... same thing really. you'd actually need metal balls and cast iron butts to be able to ride these horses. these locals must be mutants.

struggling with my balance, i tried doing a little interview with the guy guiding my horse. but he wasn't so interested in a little chitchat, so i contented myself to chatting with the horse and the occasional bird gliding above me. hello horse, how's life treating you? you be careful now, we wouldn't want to fall down the side of the cliff would we? if you take me down safely, i could give your master a tip so he could buy you some more hay. wouldn't that be nice? hello bird, how are you today? and how are you and mrs. bird, still going strong? and the kids? so on and so forth...

my butt in pain, i finally return to the little village at the foot of the volcano, where i was regaled by an old woman with her story on how she escaped the 1968 explosion of taal. as to why they still choose to live here with the possibility of another explosion, i have no idea. maybe the locals just like living on the edge. or they must have some sort of death wish. how... existential.

the rest of the group finally arrive, and we get back to our boat. good thing the return trip was no longer as hellish, the winds having calmed a bit.

our shoes also acquired a nice new shade of brown. in case crayola decides adding it to its collection of colors, boss joseph suggests calling it "volcanic brown". i suggest "horse shit brown".

so we got back to our van on the mainland, went up to tagaytay for dinner, got stuck on saturday night traffic on the highway, and then, to our hotel in makati.

the moral of the story? NEVER EVER ignore your spider sense again.

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some of the pictures courtesy of roy

the adventures of screw up boy - day 1

i dreamt that an earthquake was shaking my bed. but i wake up and discover that it was just my mother shaking me out of dreamland. "i thought you were supposed to wake up earlier?" i look at the time. 4 am. my flight's departure time was 6:40 am, but i hadn't finished packing the previous night, so i had to set my cellphone alarm to 2 am. hmmm... 4 am. then it dawns on me... 4 am?! oh sh*t! oh sh*t! oh sh*t! i slept through the alarm! sirens soon start shrieking in my head, and the horrible thought of being left behind jolts me awake. so i get out of bed, finish packing, take a bath, eat breakfast, and dress up, all in warp speed. when i get to the airport, i find that i'm the first one of our group to arrive. ok... that's what i get for being too panicky...

i have this slight fear of flying, so the night before i made some small preparations in the extreme event (God forbid) that our plane would crash. after check in, our group proceeded to the boarding area, and the first thing i planned to do upon getting there was to take a look at the plane we were boarding too see how big it was, since i have this (possibly erroneous) opinion of smaller planes being more prone to crashes. after a few minutes waiting, the plane arrives and comes into view. what i saw did not reassure me. it was a small plane. i started confessing my sins before God, just in case.



my travel mates, from left to right, roy a.k.a. "the siomai man", boss joseph a.k.a. "the high roller", jess, guia, eisel, kay, stephen, and kristine, who happens to suffer from an unusual case of ornithophobia (fear of birds), unless the bird is deep fried and crispy. that's me at the back of the camera.

to my relief, take off was relatively smooth. i kept looking out the window, marveling at the view of cebu city hundreds of feet up in the sky and taking pictures of the sky, which may have bothered kay a bit, who was my seatmate on the window seat since i was in the middle seat between her and boss joseph. but hey, i thought, i only get to ride an airplane very very rarely, so i was going to enjoy the experience as much as i can while i was there. sorry ms. kay...

looking at the skies, i wondered at how ironic it was for man, a creature not having the wings of birds, the speed of horses, and the strength of elephants, to have conquered the skies. but it also occurs to me that no matter how high up the sky our metal wings may take us (and our egos), in the end gravity always wins. i am sobered up by the thought.

we were already over manila when the pilot goes on speakers apologizing that our landing would be delayed. before that we noticed that the plane had to do a couple of turns in the sky. it must have been a busy day at the airport.

the sound of the plane's landing gear making contact with the runway soon reach my ears, and a wave of relief comes over me, like a death row inmate given a last minute commutation of his sentence. finally, back on terra firma! and still alive!

as the plane taxies its way to the terminal, we pass by one of the great monuments to the corruption and ineptitude of philippine government, the naia terminal 3. the terminal was so huge, that by my estimate it could have doubled naia's current capacity. it's a shame that the bidding process for the terminal was downright dirty and crooked. nothing much i can do but shake my head.

after a couple of minutes waiting, we finally get off the plane and walk to the terminal. the naia terminal handling cebu pacific's domestic flights was the most technologically advanced airport terminal in the world... 50 years ago. it looked pretty crummy and old, especially if you compare it to the newer, bigger terminal for philippine airline's domestic flights. i was half expecting to meet a dinosaur when we entered the terminal. only shows how much influence lucio tan, or more precisely, lucio tan's money, has over government.

we spend the next few hours going around metro manila, to confirm the reservations we made for our hotel and also to deliver some of my travel mates' obligatory pasalubong, which being from cebu, is traditionally composed of dried danggit, dried pusit, and dried mangoes. cebuanos seem to have knack for drying things. i wonder why.

eventually we reach the steel, glass, and concrete forests of makati. as our van fought its way through this part of the urban jungle, i stared like any probinsyano would at the modern buildings, the skyscrapers, and the general rush and bustle of the business district, all of which led me to wonder if we had not gotten on the wrong flight. "are we still in the philippines?", i thought. all those visible signs of great wealth in this tiny piece of the philippines only seem to prove the statement that "10% of the population owns 90% of the wealth". how true.

and everywhere you turn your head, you always seem to find chicks in makati. hmmm... makati is where the money is, and there are many chicks in makati. there must be a certain correlation between chicks and money. either money attracts the chicks, or chicks attract the money, or both attract each other. but why makati? why not cebu? lucky makati... chicks and money... that's a NICE combination.

we soon switch vans and head out to the first place in our itinerary, enchanted kingdom. as our van cruised along the south express way, i marvel at the impressive network of roads, bridges, overpasses, railways, and highways leading in and out of manila. no wonder the provinces feel left out and grumble about "imperial manila". all the development is right there.

after more than an hour on the road, we finally reach enchanted kingdom. the first thing i notice was the line of buses in the parking lot, which to me did not seem like a good thing. after the customary pictures at the gate, we buy our tickets (at a very painful P400 each) and enter, expecting to have good time.

turns out i was right about the buses, the place was crawling with school children. we couldn't ride the bumper cars as much as we would have wanted to with all those kids in line. but of course, enchanted kingdom isn't limited to bumper cars. there's the usual carousel, which is one of the customary places for a photo op at enchanted kingdom, and the ferris wheel, which they called "the wheel of fate". how... philosophical. maybe it was supposed to remind us of our ultimate "fate" while our gondola reached the peak of the ferris wheel. memento mori? maybe...

then there's the "roller skater", a.k.a. the caterpillar when sm city cebu still had an amusement park. it's basically a smaller and milder version of the roller coaster. it was fun, if you enjoy being flung around in the air, and yet not enough to be scary. but if you do feel scared, here's a tip: Shout. it actually helps drive away the jitters.

if you want to know how it feels like to be a pendulum inside a grandfather's clock, there's "anchors away". it's basically a pendulum shaped like ship. to achieve maximum effect the rider should be seated at the either end of the ride. you will get this sensation as if you're floating in the air while the ride swings you upwards, and as a side effect (for guys) you will also feel your balls retreat toward your intestines as your scrotum disappears. here's another tip: so as to not embarass yourself in front of the ladies, especially when they're seated right across you in this ride, try shouting as if you're actually ENJOYING the ride. luckily for boss joseph, there were no ladies at our first go on this one, or he would have embarassed himself.

if you want to get an idea of an astronaut's training regimen, i suggest the "space shuttle", which is THE ride in enchanted kingdom. it's a roller coaster where you'll go round 360 degrees twice going forward, then you go through the same circuit again backward. the going forward part was fine, but going backward resulted in THE worst amusement park experience of my life. i literally had my breath sucked out of me, that i could barely walk when i got out. another friendly piece of advice: if you don't want to risk having yourself taken to the first aid station and humiliated in front of your friends while trying to get your senses back in order, i suggest you skip this one. TRUST ME. i've been there.

for a movie experience that goes beyond sight and sound, there's the "4d discovery theater". the movie (which was basically a ghost story) is shown in 3d, and as it progresses you can actually feel the blood spatter as a head gets chopped off, a gust of wind on your face as a murder of crows fly toward you, and the impact of a falling body as it hits the ground. the seats even have a massage chair function, which i think makes the extra P40 admission worth it.

another attraction was the rialto. it's basically a movie theater with moving seats to simulate the motion shown by the movie. i suggest you try this out first before going to the "4d discovery theater" so you won't get out of it as disappointed as we were. if not for the moving chair, i would have slept through the whole thing. but as it turns out, the REAL attraction in the rialto was not the movie, it was the rialto girls. oh yeah...





as a sidenote, the music video for the barbie's cradle song money for food was taken in this section of enchanted kingdom. what made that music video stand out was that it was taken in one long continuous shot from beginning to end. you can almost see the members of the band run toward the back of the camera to change costumes as the camera shifts from one scene to the next. plus, i also liked the song. and the band. and barbie. too bad they already disbanded.

i did not try any of the water rides, as getting myself soaking wet was not part of my definition of having a good time.

we got out of enchanted kingdom pretty happy with the experience. the P400 entrance may have been painful, but it sure was worth it, thanks to the rialto girls.

ticket to enchanted kingdom... P400
admission to 4d discovery theater... P40
a hamburger and a large tumbler of pepsi... P90
a picture with the rialto girls... priceless

boss joseph said something interesting as we got out. he said he was happy with the experience because, according to him, he entered the park not expecting much. hmmm... boss joseph may have found the secret path to happiness that men through the ages have been searching for: lowered expectations.

on the way to our hotel in laguna, our van got stuck in some heavy friday night traffic at the south super highway. waiting for it to clear up, i looked back at the experience and wondered why we find having ourselves flung around in the air so much fun. when you try to think about it, it doesn't really make sense, no? after giving it some more thought, i posited that it must have something to do with the way our brain gets shaken as we get thrown about here and there. all that motion may result in the loosening of some screws holding the brain together. sounds logical...

our hotel in laguna was a little hot spring resort located at the foot of mt. makiling. we get there after about 2 hours on the road, tired, hungry, and stinking. so after checking in we had dinner, i took a shower, and went back to dreamland.

next stop, taal.