AMAZING Things Happen When We Allow
S P A C E
A Short Backstory
With my visa fast approaching it’s expiry date, I had to leave New Zealand after 2 amazing years of unforgettable experiences, working and travelling. My girlfriend Hana dropped me at my airport hostel for my early morning flight to Singapore for the start of a new chapter: Asia.
At Singapore airport I met up with my Italian friend Alessandra and we spent 4 days siteseeing around the city and staying in a cheap hostel in Little India.
We kept ourselves busy, first off with an evening push scooter tour 😀 a 14kilometre round circuit(!) with views of the “Merlion”, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and the famous light show on the water’s edge.
On a push scooter tour cruising past some underground hip hop dancers
Pedaling along the Marina Bay Sands Harbour Front
Visits to the Botanical Gardens and walking around Little India, taking in the Indian culture, the Hindu temples, shrines and elephants dotted around, and the local Indian’s going to pray.
By the end of it we seemed to have had more of an Indian experience than a Singaporean, which looking back now, seems a bit silly that we didn’t get more involved in the local Singaporean life.
Not easy to do in 4 days but still, if you were to ask me what the way of life is like in Singapore, I could tell you how clean it is and the curries are great in Little India, and that Marina Bay looks very pretty and luxurious… that’s about it.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun, but not such an in-depth sort of experience.
Apart from the weather, which actually WAS a local in depth experience!! Check this rain out:
A Thunderous Downpour
In the morning before our flight, Alessandra was keen to go down to the Sky Trees to walk along the platforms connecting the tree tops. We thought we just had enough time to do it before having to come back to collect our stuff and go to the airport…
We did not have enough time.
Though we managed to find the place to gain entry to the Sky Tree’s and we walked along the raised platforms, we had time to enjoy for a few seconds, take a cheeky selfie…
Then we had to run.
Like headless chickens, we ran back through the streets to our hostel, grabbed the rest of our stuff and panting and sweating, I loaded the extra weight of guitar, big backpack and laptop bag, before we were on the final push to the station, a floundering sort of shuffle by then, a further 10 minutes through the busy streets of Little India.
When we’d made it to the station, I checked my pockets for the rail pass.
It wasn’t there.
We were already meant to be checking our bags in at the airport service desk but now I could see no other option than to run back to the hostel to hopefully retrieve the card I’d left there, in order to take the train. There was nowhere close by, it seemed, I could buy a new card.
So I left my stuff with Alessandra and pegged it back the way we’d just come.
Now returned to our hostel, I checked where I thought I’d left it and it wasn’t there either!!
Slight panic.
Back I ran to meet Alessandra and to have another look through my things to find the card.
Rifling through all my clothes and bags and pockets, the last place I looked was my laptop bag and what do you know, I’d stupidly put it in there!
But anyway, I’d found it, and we entered through the barriers to the train below.
Nervously checking the time along the way, we were approaching the airport close to just one hour before our flight.
The train opened it’s doors and we dashed to our airlines check in desk just as they put out the last call for checking baggage to Manila.
I check in with the Singaporean woman behind the counter. I can see this woman was definitely in a rush, just as much as we were, and she quickly grabs my passport and taps away on the computer with my details.
But then she she says something which shocked me. She said I hadn’t booked any checked baggage…
There I am standing in front of her with my guitar, big packpack on my back, daypack on my front, and laptop bag in my hand… shit.
I told her I was sure that I’d booked checked baggage, and began to open my emails on my phone. There was no accessible Wifi.
Do you have Wifi? I asked.
Without hesitation she took my phone and connected to some Wifi and thrusts it back at me. I find the emails and see that she was right, I hadn’t booked any for this flight, reason being, I’d booked 2 other flights and added baggage and remembered the wrong flight.
She instantly noticed that I’d realised her system was in fact correct. She also abruptly explained that is was too late to purchase the baggage now.
For some reason though, she wanted to help me, so in the end she said “Just go through, just try” meaning for me to take all of it, my four awkwardly big things, on the plane as hand luggage, when you’re only supposed to have a maximum of one small bag and another smaller bag…
I didn’t need to be told twice so I picked up my stuff and went through to security. I also gave my guitar to Alessandra to make it less obvious that I was way over the limit for baggage allowance.
No hiccups going through the security scanner, I retrieve the three bags and start walking through to find the Gate. However, before I was home and dry, there was a passport and boarding pass check point up ahead…
Squashing the top of my big backpack down on my back to make it look a little smaller, I marched up to the man feigning confidence. He paused a second as his eyes passed over my bags.
“Isn’t this too much luggage Sir?” Strangely enough he asked me rather than told me. So I replied as naturally as I could:
“No.”
And just like that he made to let me through!! I followed up a little on the one word answer with:
“The lady said it was OK” but I was already starting to walk past anyway.
The dude accepted it!!
It wasn’t until we had made it on to the plane and sat down, all our stuff safe with us, that a huge wave of relief washed down through my body.
I said to Alessandra:
“We got really lucky there, I can’t believe we made it!…
I thought I would have to either buy another flight to Manila or leave some stuff in Singapore…
I am never rushing around like that again!!
Fuck that was hectic.
Main Short Story
It was the start of December and after those busy 4 days spent in Singapore, my friend Alessandra and I had arrived in Manila and met up with our mutual friend Cherif (as in Sheriff, which is such a bad-ass name) who we’d met previously at a hostel in New Zealand.
Cherif had grown into his name and adopted it well as he was a 6 foot 4 Italian stallion, with a bald head, trimmed beard and glasses. Alessandra and I had organised to meet him in Manila because he was already living there, drawing up ambitious plans to open his own Italian Restaurant in the city. He had his own apartment which he kindly invited us to stay in for a while.
The main idea was for the three of us to spend Christmas and New Years together and also spend some time travelling to different places around The Philippines.
Cherif though was mostly there to focus on his new business venture and as Alessandra and I had a month’s visa, both due to leave The Philippines start of January, Cherif was happy to meet up with us after we had travelled for a couple of weeks while he stayed in Manila.
Then he would meet up with us along the way to be together just before Christmas and through to the New Year.
So!… After we’d spent our first evening in Manila out for dinner:
the next day we had a little tour around with Cherif as our tour guide. Later on we returned to his refreshingly cool air-conditioned apartment for a lengthy evening of consideration and research into where to go and what to do, and then booking the flights to a few different islands.
Flights booked and travel plans made (roughly) the three of us stayed one more day together in Manila (and this we felt was enough time to spend there) before we took a bus out of the city, a couple of hours drive north west towards the coast, heading for a small town called San Juan.
Feeling great to be out of the busy, polluted city we enjoyed the fresh coastal air and stayed a few nights in accommodation right by the beach front.
It was here that we parted ways: Cherif travelling back down to Manila and Alessandra and I travelling from San Juan to Baguio city which is up quite high in the mountains, in land from San Juan.
The idea behind going to Baguio was to travel further onwards to Sagada and possibly Banaue which are 2 places renowned for their natural beauty, particularly stunning rice terraces.
So after a long spiralling journey up the mountain road, Alessandra and I arrived in Baguio City and soon found a place to eat..
After the food we went for a walk around and were pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere compared to the other places we had been; Manila and around San Juan. Though it was quite busy with traffic, the people we saw were more relaxed and playful.
Walking through the park by a lake, children and adults were riding these tricycles and mini go karts in a joyful carefree manner.
This was a welcome relief and we could start to relax after our very busy past week or so of travelling and planning.
Meandering around the lake, I follow the directions from Google Maps as we are in search of our place of accommodation for the night, to check in and drop off our bags.
We were a little nervous, feeling out the vibe of these backstreets which looked to us a totally local place to live rather than backpacker style. (Quite a few times travelling around the Philippines we found this was the case, we were the only backpackers, which was really cool! We felt immersed in the natural day to day life of local Filipinos. A few days after not seeing a single fellow traveler it was a surprise to suddenly see white European guys 😉
A few more minutes walk down the road in the picture, we came across our hotel. We checked in with the laid back Filipino working there, he gave us the key, and we walked up the staircase to the second floor and into our room.
The room was nice enough, being as cheap or cheaper than a hostel, it was great to have a bit of private space, a break from the constant alien newness of every waking moment. Being on the move all the time in new surroundings and constantly figuring out the next thing to do is brilliantly stimulating, but also very tiring.
For example, finding some food to eat was more a challenge than you might think, as Alessandra is vegetarian and for Filipinos, vegetarian really isn’t a thing. Their staple diet is meat and rice. So sometimes it would take quite a while walking around on the hunt for something to eat.
In the afternoon, evening time we walked back out to the park and to the main street to see where we could find some dinner and just to explore the city a bit more. It was coming up to Christmas and there were festive decorations and so many lights strung up everywhere making for a wonderful, magical atmosphere. Even with all the traffic.
We had a meal and decided to wonder around a little more, taking in the shopping malls and the people bustling along, their arms full of bags, a rush for buying up Christmas presents.
We soon headed back to the hotel for an early night, with the prospect of arranging travel to Sagada the next day.
The morning view from just outside our hotel room
Apart from some noisy chickens cock-a-doodle-dooing throughout the early morning, we managed to get some decent sleep and were ready for a day in Baguio.
Over some unusual but tasty Filipino style breakfast…
…we were thinking about buses to Sagada and wondering how it will fit in for our plans to be back in Manila for our flight to Cebu, which was in just 4 days time.
We both wanted to go, Alessandra even more so than me because she’d heard about a very old woman called Apo Whang Od, I think she was around 100 years old (not sure if she’s still alive today), who still did tattoos in a tribal traditional way. She was in fact the last of the Mambabatoks (tattoo masters) who used thorns, soot and a bamboo hammer as the implements used from her tribe, the Butbut tribe, to create the tattoo.
Alessandra being a keen tattoo enthusiast, was eager to check her out.
On top of that, our google search showed us another reason to go to Sagada, the famous hanging coffins:
However…
We found out that the bus took much longer than we expected, at least a 5 hour drive! This meant we would have less time there. Also it would be more tiring for us with a longer distance travelling windy mountain roads, likely feeling travel sick, and we would be pushed for time to manage to travel all the way back to Manila.
The next few days then would consist mostly of travelling, organising the travel arrangements and a small amount of time enjoying the rice terraces.
So after some discussion and while walking leisurely around ending up in a very nice café…
…we envisaged how it would be if we went to Sagada. We both knew we could do it… it was possible. We had the ridiculously beautiful images of Sagada in our heads and the whole point of coming to Baguio in the first place was to continue on to Sagada.
And yet… I became aware of how tired I had become the past week, my levels of adrenalin residing since being in Baguio, and so gradually, as I settled down and allowed Space within me, I told Alessandra: I think we should stay here. She agreed. The decision was made to stay in Baguio and we let go of our travel arrangements to Sagada.
When this decision was accepted I could feel instantly a relief in myself and I knew it was the right decision. I could feel a good energy now. We could take our time and enjoy what Baguio had to offer.
A few moments after this, we had finished at the café and got up to leave, when a man who was standing talking to one of the waiters there noticed us and started talking to us, just as we were heading out the door. He was interested in our travels and what we were doing in Baguio. After talking a while standing by the exit, he invited us to sit down at a table in the café.
His name was Joppee and he was, a local man, living and working in Baguio. He explained that he was the Human Resources manager at this café as well as a few other cafes and restaurants in this area through the same owner of the businesses. He had a very kind and friendly personality so Alessandra and I continued to talk with him.
He said that he really liked it there in Baguio, he had lived there most of his life, and so he would like us to really have a good time there, learn and experience the city and the culture… He even said he wanted us to have great experiences there so we could have positive stories to share with others J
Then he takes out his pen and notepad and starts writing notes for us and planning exactly what we could do over the next few days and also for the whole rest of our trip!
He was such a master organiser that we had only briefly told him an outline of what islands we were flying to and when but in no time he had worked out a perfect plan for us.
Giving us tips what to do and see in Bohol he recommended the Bohol Bee Farm…
…which turned out to be a fantastic experience.
(We had a tour of the bee farm, sampled their many honeyed products, ate at the restaurant a tasty organic meal, and to top it off, had the best massage I’ve ever had: a traditional Filipino massage with the most beautiful ocean view 🙂
Joppee even called up his old friend then and there at the table, (even when he hadn’t spoken with him in a few years), as he remembered his friend worked as a taximan/tour guide in Bohol. He arranged that his friend would pick us up from the harbour and take us to our accommodation and be our tour guide! (When we did arrive in Bohol his friend WAS waiting there for us holding up a board with our names on it and he DID give us a tour of the best things to do there J)
Once Joppee had finished creating our travel arrangements he began telling us some fun facts and history about Baguio and The Philippines. For example, it was the people of The Philippines who showed the Thai and Vietnamese how to grow rice!
He then treated us both to dinner!! From the menu he invited us to eat whatever we wanted, and the picture below was my dessert 😀
By the time we’d all finished our meals and enjoyed such interesting conversation, he lastly arranged for us to meet up again tomorrow, at another of the places he worked for.
We left the cafe said goodnight and thanked him for dinner. Alessandra and I look at each other with big grins and wide eyes and laughingly exclaim:
“What the hell just happened?! I can’t believe that!!… As soon as we decided to stay in Baguio we bump into him…wow..”
We were so happy and blown away by this lovely, generous man. And I felt in my heart why it had happened. We had allowed ourselves Space. From this point of view, the decision came, which was to stay and take it easy for the next few days.
If we had followed our original plan, we wouldn’t have had that whole experience with Joppee as we would have promptly left the cafe, hurrying to book the bus.
Instead of ploughing on regardless with our busy schedule, we remained aware of ourselves and in doing this, let go all the ideas we had of Sagada, relaxed, became open to life, and in turn, life opened to us.
Not only did we spend the next few days meeting Joppee and also his wife for dinner and drinks two more times, gaining a more personal and in-depth experience of Baguio and The Philippines:
but we also had another incredible experience which I want to share with you, in Part 2 of our Philippine adventures…
