Today is a defiance blog day. Departure at seven o’clock in Banaue. 350 kilometres through the rain down the mountains to Manila. After a while, the road even has a central reservation again. We make the journey in eight hours. Another 1.5 hours through Manila at rush hour. Roundabout in five “lanes”. The right-hand lane continues to circle, while the left-hand lane shoots outwards.
I miss a junction, we end up on the Skyway and are 10 kilometres away from the rental car station in no time at all. Open up, off to the hostel. In, spread out my water gear, out. There’s a small shopping centre around the corner. Small, that is, just under 500 shops. It goes by the name of Robinsons Plaza. Fitting. Search for the exit for half an hour.
Buy a prepaid mobile phone credit. Grab some food. Plunder the last ATM for the next three weeks. ATMs are annoying. We try 15 banks until we finally find one that doesn’t charge four euros for a maximum withdrawal amount of 50 euros in some cases. A “withdraw worldwide for free” credit card is of no use. Tip: Metrobank or Bank of Philippines – but not every branch.
The children beg. Their parents sleep in the dirt on the corners of the alleyways. “No firearms allowed” signs hang at the bar entrances. Behind them are heavily armed guards. The hookers are looking for customers, the trannies even grab my arm when Uli is holding the other one. Next door, glitz and glamour. Worlds collide. You only appreciate good places when you’ve been to bad ones. I’m ready for the island, and a completely different one at that.
Off to the ferry to Coron the next morning. I confuse 11:45 am with 11:45 pm, so we spend another whole day in the shopping centres of Manila. This time the Mall of Asia, with 700 shops the second largest in Asia. In the local Obi counterpart, a solo entertainer sings Christmas carols in front of the checkout queues. The prices for all the brand-name stuff are higher than ours, few things are cheap. But for every potential buyer, there are three obligatory salespeople with reindeer ears – the potential inversion of Mediamarkt.
You can ice skate in the centre of the mall. A picture for the gods, probably as stupid as we are on the walls of the rice terraces. The artificial snow trickles quietly, then Uli is almost run over by a reindeer on an e-scooter. We go to the cinema. Twilight is the worst kind of vampire crap – and far too loud to sleep – in six cinemas with 1500 seats every 20 minutes.
We treat ourselves to a small Japanese menu bomb, table grill with Kobe beef. Sit out our last few hours in the hostel and then troll back to the ferry harbour.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.