Hiroshima

I am now home in Barrington at the Barrington area library writing my final couple of entries of my trip.

Woke up early as we were catching a train from Kyoto to Hiroshima. We jumped on the famous Shinkansen train, which is also known as the bullet train. This train looks like a bullet and travels at a top speed of 300kmph. A normal train from Kyoto to Hiroshima would take over eight hours, but on the Shinkansen it only takes an hour and a half.

We got on the train and all sorts of crazy stuff started to happen. First off when we started we were jolted pack in our seats in a whiplash like motion. I was thankful I did not bring any coffee on board. The countryside was going by so fast that we could not even see it not that we would have been able to enjoy it anyway pinned against our seats like we were.

I struggled to get up and go to the bathroom, but this was a big mistake. The force of the train traveling so fast caused a great mess. I embarrassingly walked back to my seat trying to hide the stains, but we were moving so fast the stain dried instantly. At one point it got dark, and I thought that we had entered a tunnel, but we had traveled so fast that we outraced the sun and it was now dark.

We finally stopped at a station and were able to relax a bit. Suddenly, Superman entered the car and took a seat right in front of us. We asked superman what he was doing on the Shinkansen. He looked at us kind of sheepishly and said “hey, I am faster than a speeding bullet, but not faster than a speeding bullet train.”

Of course the last three paragraphs were complete fiction, but they were all jokes that Rich, Liz, and I told on the train. We tried to think of as many stupid bullet train jokes as we could in the hour and a half it took to get there, but the train was so fast we could not think of many.

We arrived and checked into our hotel and then went out and walked around Hiroshima. It is really a beautiful city. It is right near the coast and a really pretty river flows through it on its way to the ocean.

The first place we headed to was the peace park. Outside the peace park is the only remnant of the atomic blast. It is called the A bomb dome. This was one of the few structures left standing in the middle of the city if you could call it standing. It was basically just a skeleton of a building with rubble everywhere. Before the bomb it was obviously not called the A bomb dome, but it was some sort of building that served as a prefecture industrial promotion hall. I am not sure what this is, but it held some sort of trade shows. Everyone in the building was instantly killed. As we were to find out later, the people killed instantly were the lucky ones.

After viewing the bombed out building, we then entered the peace park. This park was absolutely beautiful and filled with fountains, statues, and the ever present cherry blossom trees. We saw one statue that was filled with paper cranes, which is a famous children’s memorial dedicated to a young girl who died from leukemia due to exposure to the bomb. Sadako Sasaki vowed to make 1000 paper cranes because she was told by a friend that there is an old story that said if a person folded 1000 paper cranes they would be restored to health. Sadako only folded 644 before passing away. A children’s memorial was established here and school children from around the world send paper cranes to honor the children who died in the blast and also to honor Sadako Sasaki’s will to live.

We then entered the museum, and we each got an audio self tour guide. This guide was like a walkman and there were 56 places in the museum where you would punch in the appropriate number and a voice would tell you more about the corresponding artifact.

The museum was really laid out well and did a great job of describing the event and really hit you with the sadness and the horror of the bombing. The first part covered a short overview of the history of Hiroshima. Then it covered a short overview of the war. Then it explained in detail how Hiroshima came to be chosen as the target. The military planners wanted to bomb a city that had not experienced much conventional bombing in order to adequately observe the bomb’s effect. This ruled out the capital Tokyo because by this time Tokyo had been leveled a number of times.

They had actual documents from military planners discussing the choices of cities. At first there were 16 cities chosen and this was narrowed down to three. Yokohama, Niigata, and Hiroshima were the last three cities in the running. The final nail in the coffin for Hiroshima was clear weather over its horizon on August 6th. The exhibit also explains why the bomb was used on Japan and not Germany. Military planners were fearful that Germany was already working on a bomb. They thought that if they bombed Germany that German scientists could test the aftermath and quickly develop it’s own bomb. They did not think Japan capable of doing this.

The next room was dedicated to the blast itself. As you entered this part of the museum there was a watch in a plastic case with the time of 8:15 frozen on it. This was when the bomb struck 580 meters above ground at the Shima hospital. There was a 360 degree huge panoramic picture of the city after the bomb struck showing complete devastation. There was also a huge model of Hiroshima both before the bomb and after the bomb.

The most emotional part of the exhibit was a whole room dedicated to belongings of people that were victims of the bombing and then told their story. For instance there would be a tattered set of children’s clothing and the exhibit would read that they belonged to a young girl exposed to the bomb. The girl was exposed to the bomb 4km from home, but managed to get back home where her parents did not even recognize her because her face was so bloated and scarred. They could only recognize her from her voice. She passed away on August 7th. What was amazing was that many of these victims after getting burned found their way home. Some traveling miles in order to get there. There were like 20 of these right in a row, and I do not think there was a dry eye in this room after reading all these testimonies.

In many cities the Japanese were destroying houses in order to create fire lanes in case of US bombs. By destroying houses this could stop the spread of fires that erupted after US bombs were dropped. Many of the people doing this task were school children. Over 8,000 children were at work on these fire lanes in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Less than 2,000 of them survived.

What I liked about the museum is it did not take a stand against the US and say we were awful for doing this. Instead it took a stand against atomic weapons and war in general and opposed any proliferation of atomic weapons. It basically laid out what happened in Hiroshima and said this is awful, this is what happens in war, war should be stopped, which is obviously the right lesson to be learned.

The exhibit then had rooms dedicated to the survivors of the blast, which was just as bad. Other exhibits included the history of atomic weapons and a lesson on atomic and nuclear energy.

It took us four hours to get through this museum. We were completely drained and decided we needed to hit a bar. We finally found one called the Love Pop bar or something strange like that and ordered a few beers. We were the only people in there. The bartender was really friendly. At one point he came over with a little diagram that he drew, which represented questions he wanted to ask us. The first diagram had a picture of a businessman and a tourist and he meant to ask why we were in Japan. The second diagram was a globe he had drawn with all the countries drawn in and a question mark next to it. He wanted to know where we were from. The third diagram was three pictures of the heads of me, Liz, and Rich with the word friend next to our faces with a question mark next to it. He wanted to know how we knew each other. As we left he gave us a mint and walked us to the elevator and smiled and waived as the elevator closed.

We then went for dinner. We went to a place that served this crepe like meal called Okonomiyaki. We sat down and the burner of the stove was right in front of us and the lady cooked it right before our eyes. The dinner consisted of a crepe that was first topped with noodles. She then topped it with bbq sauce, egg and all sorts of other good things. The meal looked like a giant stuffed pancake. We agreed that this meal would be a great late night snack when you are drinking in the same manner as burritos are.

After that we returned back to the hotel early after a long emotional day.

Hanami

I flew into Narita airport outside of Tokyo and tried to figure out how to get to Kyoto. This was kind of difficult because every time I have landed in a country or entered a new country by bus I would always stay a day or two in whatever town I entered in order to acclimate myself to the new country. This was not the case in Tokyo. I only have one week in Japan and wanted to spend as much time as possible in Kyoto. I inquired how much it was for a train and was told 1980 yen, which is close to 200$ for a five hour trip. Holy shit, this would cost about 20$ at the most in any other country I had been to, so this was a rude welcome to Japan.

I ended up getting a train to Tokyo station and I figured I could get a bus from there. I arrived in Tokyo station and then walked around the station for an hour trying to find information on the buses. The tourist information system was closed, so I tried to inquire from policeman and other personel, but it was difficult because I did not see many people who seemed to work there and the ones I did ask did not speak such good English, so I had some trouble finding the bus station.

I finally found the over night bus station. I secured a ticket to Kyoto for 50$. This would have cost me around 5$ in Thailand. I called Liz and told her I would be arriving at 5am. I then ordered a double quarter pounder meal as I was starving. I ordered it in English confident that the clerk would understand. She got a confused look on her face and pointed to a little menu and motioned for me to point to the combo meal that I wanted. My first reaction to the people I have talked to in Japan was that many did not understand English as much as I thought they would. I guess in my ethnocentric way of thinking I figured that Japanese people would understand English better than the other countries I have been to because they are more developed and therefore more worldly and therefore understand better English. This does not seem the case although it is difficult to judge this in only a week.

I was really tired as I had been up since 6am. I had a little bit of water in my water bottle and drank a little bit of it. Then I smoked a cigarette while waiting for the train to depart. I ashed in my water bottle and deposited my butt into the little amount of water remaining. Then I went to look for a trash can. Just before throwing away the bottle I decided I was thirsty and took a swig forgetting that I had just ashed into it just one minute earlier and got a rude surprise.

I got on the bus and we took off. I got some sleep on the bus, but not much. The lady next to me slept the entire time. As soon as we started she bent over and only woke up a few times. I wish I could master this art as I cannot sleep on buses. I guess it may be from too much driving in the USA. My body is accustomed to staying awake while being in a moving vehicle. We arrived in Kyoto station at 4:30. I started talking to an Englishman who gave me half of his sandwich while I was waiting for Liz. Liz came and got me around 6am and we took off to her apartment in a steady drizzling rain. This rain actually started the blossoming of the famed cherry blossoms. It was a relief to see a familiar face after traveling for almost three months solo.

We arrived at her apartment and her boyfriend Rich welcomed me to Japan. They are both teaching English here in Japan and Liz is an ex-roommate of mine and I have met Rich several times in Chicago. They have been great sending emails to me during my trip, so it was great to see them. It was very strange because Rich and Liz are my first people that I have had an opportunity to tell stories from my travels. I would start telling them a story about a certain time, and then they would say “oh yeah, I remember that email.”

Rich had to work the first day, so he left and then after relaxing a bit, Liz and I took a little bike trip. We pedaled along this river and it was absolutely beautiful. I arrived in a good time as the cherry tree blossoms here in Kyoto have just started blooming. These trees lined the whole river and it was spectacular. Kyoto is kind of in a valley surrounded by tree covered mountains. It was really strange cruising along this river and seeing this spectacular scenery. You would forget that you were right in the middle of one of the biggest cities in Japan. Rich and Liz told me that Japan is really good at keeping beautiful natural places right in the heart of some of their biggest modern areas. The bird life along this river was fantastic too. There were many herons, egrets, cranes, and flocks of hawks flying over our heads. I have never seen a flock of hawks, but we saw one group of about 15-20 of them flying in circles above us.

The next day Liz and Rich both had off, so they took me to the botanical gardens of Kyoto. This place was just as beautiful as the river. There was a bunch of red tulips out in front of this huge arboretum and I have never seen such a bright red come from a flower before. We then entered the arboretum and this huge greenhouse had all these different rooms and each room contained a different climate. There was a tropic room with many jungle plants, trees, and flowers and even an arid desert room which had many cacti and plants from the desert southwest.

Japanese are of course famous for taking photographs. This is one stereotype that is well deserved. The park was full of men with tripods slung over their shoulders with several digital cameras hung around their neck and a backpack full of even more camera equipment like extra lenses and other photo accessories. At one point Rich was looking around for a person to take our picture together, but seeing no candidate decided to take a picture of Liz and I under a cherry blossom tree. An older fella saw this and approached Rich and offered to take the picture of all of us together. He looked through Rich’s camera and frowned. He motioned for us to turn to the other side of the trail because the light from the sun was not good where we wanted the picture taken. He was taking it upon himself to direct our photo. You do not argue about the light setting in a photograph with a Japanese man who has four cameras around his neck, so Rich, Liz, and I obediently turned to satisfy the Japanese man. He took the picture and it came out perfectly. We thanked him and he winked at us as if to say you got the right man to take your picture.

That night we rented movies. We rented the two best movies ever involving Japan. The first was Lost in Translation and the second was Karate Kid. Rich brought back a bottle of tsuntori whiskey, which was the whiskey that Bill Murray represented in the Lost in Translation film. What better way to celebrate Japan than by Bill Murray, Miyagee kicking ass, and Japanese whiskey.

The next day Liz had to work, so Rich and I visited some shrines and temples in the area. Kyoto has 1200 shrines and is considered the cultural capitol of Japan. The temples we visited were beautiful. One temple we went to was up near the top of a hill and it was surrounded by the omnipresent cherry trees in full blossom. We also saw the biggest cherry tree in Japan in this one park. My timing for coming here was incredible as Liz said the trees just started blooming. Rich and I saw a few geisha ladies walking around. They looked incredibly beautiful in their kimonos and their faces painted bright white. I was able to take a picture with two of them. Unfortunately, I somehow got the mature ones and not the beautiful ones we saw earlier. One of the geishas I took a picture with looked a little suspiciously like Herman Munster and the other looked like Grandpa.

After returning from the temples, we went back to the apartment and Liz was home. When the cherry blossoms are in bloom there is a festival here called Hanami. The festival basically consists of drinking underneath the cherry blossom trees. Rich and I were a little tired from our day, but Liz rallied us and we went back out to enjoy the Hanami festival. We met a bunch of Liz’s coworkers near the giant cherry tree. It was a mob scene. There were people everywhere. Rich had been told that the Hanami festival is one time you get to see the Japanese let their hair down. This seemed to be the case as their were drunk people everywhere. In fact, a few were being dragged out of the park by their friends.

Being kind of tired at first I was not in the most sociable mood, but the spirit of the festival along with a bottle of saki and a passed around bottle of vodka revived me. Soon I was happy and having a great time. Then a bunch of Japanese came over and tried to talk to us and offered us some beer and a bucket of some food. They did not speak very good English, but they were very friendly. One guy was completely drunk and we could not make any sense from what he was saying. There were a couple of very cute Japanese girls and one kept hiding her head and saying “very sorry” over and over because of her drunk friend. We then passed them the bottle of vodka and soon I was taking pictures of them and them with me. They are very into the peace symbol and I have a couple of pictures of being surrounded by this Japanese group with all of us throwing out the peace symbol. After each picture I took of them they would say “thank you very much.” I thought this was funny that they were thanking me for taking their picture. They were the cutest group of people I think I have ever met. When we were leaving I went and said goodbye and they all wanted to slap me five. They all yelled and said goodbye to me. Rich said man Ted, we have read about how easily you meet people for two and a half months and now we saw you in action.

I Shall Return

One thing that I definitely wanted to do in my time in the Philippines was to take a tour of Corregidor Island, which is a tadpole shaped island that guards the opening of Manila Bay. This tour was in doubt due to the way I was feeling recently and also due to the time constraints in the Philippines. I was fortunately able to squeeze it in and to feel good enough to make this tour. I think the non stop traveling plus the Asian heat had started to take a cumulative effect on me.

I walked down to the bay and secured a reservation on the boat for the next day. I was still feeling a little light headed, but who knows when I would return, so I made a reservation. The next day I boarded the boat, which was a very luxurious air conditioned liner filled with people going to the island. I immediately felt better in the air conditioned atmosphere of the boat, which gave me an incredible insight to why I was feeling so bad of late. Not only had I tired myself out with my travels lately, but I had also been traveling in very hot climates lately and staying in non-air conditioned rooms. The combination of the heat, lack of sleep, traveling, and alcohol had caused me to run out of gas, or more appropriately run into too much gas.

Corregidor Island is a very significant spot in the Pacific Theater. When Japan ran amok in the Pacific in the days following Pearl Harbor they were able to take many areas with the damaged US fleet unable to respond. They overran Thailand, French Indochina, and the Philippines within days. The US force on the mainland of the island of Luzon were trapped on the Bataan peninsula and had to endure the consequent death march to camps inside the Philippines. The only place that was able to hold out to the Japanese onslaught was Corregidor Island. A small contingent of US and Philippine forces were able to bravely hang on. The island actually became a Pacific Alamo.

The Japanese timetable for the surrender of Corregidor was one month, but the small force on the island held out for five months and disrupted the Japanese from further action and many think this heroic defense stopped the Japanese further Japanese aggression. The US and Filipino force surrendered on May 6, 1942 and bought the damaged US fleet time to rebuild. General MacArthur was on the island, but was ordered to flee the island leaving his troops by a direct order from FDR as the American Chiefs of Staff recognized MacArthur’s brilliance and did not want to see him lost to the Japanese. MacArthur argued that he did not want to leave, but with a direct order he had to. As he left, he vowed to return and supposedly said this as he was getting on a boat at a harbor on the island. There is a statue near this point commemorating this line of MacArthur holding out his arm with those famous words set in stone in front of the statue.

The island itself was absolutely beautiful. Great views of the surrounding landscape including some impressive mountains rising from the coast on the Bataan peninsula. After getting off the boat we were herded onto little buses that cruised us around the island stopping at key battery positions of American guns.

The island was equally important in 1945 when the Americans retook Manila. MacArthur believed that the Japanese on the island were expecting a seaborne landing, so he tricked them by dropping airborne troops on the island, which was no easy feat because the island is very small. This maneuver worked brilliantly and the Americans retook the island with very light casualties. MacArthur stood up to his pledge and returned.

This tour was one of the best historical tours I have ever taken. They showed films on the War both coming to the island and returning to Manila. Each bus had a tour conductor that was very knowledgeable about the battle and the war in general. The tour guide spoke about each stop we went arrived at and then allowed us to walk around the different spots and take pictures and check out the memorials. Both the films and the tour conductor did a good job of explaining the battles of Corregidor and also did a good job of placing the history of Corregidor in the context of what was happening in the Pacific theater.

After returning to Manila I headed back to my pension. My last four days in the Philippines I headed back to Angeles City to spend with my friend Richard and his wife Liza. I ended up not doing a whole lot here. I was exhausted from my travels and spent much of the time just resting in my hotel.

The day before leaving from the Philippines I headed back to Manila to be close to the airport for my departure the next day. On the way to the airport the next morning my taxi driver told me to look at the car next to us. We were stuck in traffic and there was a cab full of pretty Filipino women looking at me and laughing. I smiled and waived. I have never gotten so much attention from pretty women than here in the Philippines. They love American men here. Just about everywhere I went I was greeted by smiles and calls of “handsome” or gwapo (handsome in Philipines.) Probably 75 percent of these women were probably prostitutes, but I believe it is better to be called handsome by a prostitute than an asshole. The girls in the cab next to me took out their phones and were wanting my phone number. I had sold my cell phone to Richard the day before. Of course I could do nothing here since I was leaving the country, but I stuck my arm out the window of the cab and yelled to the girls “I shall return.”

Cebu City

A couple of days ago I flew into the second biggest city in the Philippines, which is Cebu City located on one of the bigger islands in the Visayas. The Philippines is divided into three parts. The first is the island of Luzon, which is the biggest island in the Philippines and contains it’s capitol of Manila. The middle part of the Philippines is called the Visayas, which are a bunch of smaller islands in the center. The south is Mindanao, which is a larger island to the south.

Cebu is known for its woodwork guitars. I asked my taxi driver this and he took me to a guitar seller in the middle of town. It was 9am, and had been up since 3am, so I decided I did not feel like buying anything, so I told him may be later. While I was checking out the guitars this quite large crowd gathered around to watch the transaction, which was really weird.

Got back into the cab and he took me to a pension listed in the Lonely Planet. This place turned out to be a crap hole. I ended up staying there because I was too tired to look elsewhere. They had different room types to choose from, but I ended up taking the cheapest room because even the most expensive room in the joint was still a piece of crap. There are no varying degrees of crap in a crap hole, so I opted for the crappiest and cheapest room.

I awoke later and walked around the city a bit. I visited a Spanish fort, which was the oldest Spanish fort in the Philippines. Cebu was the sight of the death of Ferdinand Magellan by local indigenous people who I guess took a disliking to being discovered. Sitting in the fort, I began to feel sick.

I started walking back to my pension and ran into the guitar seller again. I told him I was not feeling well, and I would think about buying later. He dropped the price 10$, so I ended up buying it for about 35$. The guitar is more of a souvenir than an actual good guitar. It is handmade from local wood and very pretty looking. It is not the best quality guitar. It does not sound so great playing chords, but it must be a classical guitar because it sounds very nice when finger picking.

I went back to my crap hole and played guitar for awhile and felt worse and worse. It felt like I had daggers in my stomach and I was very tired. I thought it might be something I ate because I had some Filipino food for lunch. I have talked to many other travelers who have gotten sick from Filipino food. I slept most of the afternoon, but it was hard to sleep in my place because my neighbors were incredibly loud. The wall adjacent to them did not even go up to the ceiling, so I could hear every word they spoke like they were in the room with me although I could not understand what they were saying. I think they were like the Laurel and Hardy of the Philippines because one of them would say something and then they would both crack up laughing and then the other would say something and again they would crack up laughing. The thing I could not understand was why the were in a pension and they did not go anywhere. I was staying there because I was not feeling well. This pension was the last place I wanted to be. They were healthy yet were by choice hanging out there all day apparently having a blast doing it.

I finally made it out to get something to eat. Because I suspected Filipino food for the cause of my present ailment I decided to eat only American fast food. I know this is not much better, but at least I knew what I was getting here. I got a value meal at Jollibee, which is a Filipino equivalent to McDonald’s. There was this cute girl I was making eye contact to. I tried to motion her over, but she refused, but wrote her cell number on a napkin and gave it to me. Her name was Rosalie, and she worked as a cashier at a hair salon. She works from 9:30am until 10:30pm every day with no break. Unbelievable. She says she is looking for another job, but it is hard because of her height. She is really small and I guess in the Philippines for some reason many employers do not like to hire short people and there is no law governing this type of discrimination. We have tried to go out a couple times, but with her work schedule and me not feeling well it has not come about.

I went back to my room and laid down for awhile, but got bored and decided to walk around. I walked past four girls and they all started looking at me. They came over and started talking to me. I had no idea where anything was, so I asked where are the cool places to go in town. They said we will show you. Somehow I got shanghaied (or since I was in Cebu I was Cebuhaied) into going with four girls to a bar and buying them all drinks. This was not exactly what I had in mind. I gave a 500 pesos for the beers which costed 140 pesos. I got no change and I asked the waitress where the change was. She said they were out of change and it will be coming. In the meantime, some of the girls finished their beers and ordered a second and one girl ordered potato chips.

I asked one of the girls if she worked or if she was in school. She smiled and said no and then asked why I had asked that question. By this response to the question, I realized I was sitting with four prostitutes. I decided to cut my losses and leave. I got 50 pesos back from my change and got the hell out.

Next day, I still was not feeling good and mainly hung around the room. The next day I was heading to Malapasqua island, which is a tiny island off the tip of Cebu, which supposedly has a nice beach.

I awoke the next morning at 3am and took a bus from Cebu to the northern point of the island. This took four hours and then I took a cool little ferry to Malapasqua. The ferry took about an hour and the highlight of this trip was seeing flying fish come out of the water and sail for a about twenty feet before diving back in.

This island was beautiful. Clear blue water with white sand beaches and rocky islands sticking up off the coast. I did not have that many pesos with me, so I wanted to stay at a place that took credit card. The only place that took credit card was the most expensive place on the beach. It is true irony when one is running out of money that because of this they need to stay at the most expensive place on the island.

The hotel was beautiful, and I had a balcony overlooking the sunset. I played guitar on the balcony for awhile and then hit the beach. I had lunch and then went swimming. I was beginning to feel better. I then went back to the room. I took a nap and woke up feeling worse than before. I was taking anti-diarrhea medicine, which dehydrates and this plus the sun made me feel dehydrated and dizzy. I went down to the front desk and had some juice. I went back up to the room and then slept a little longer.

Later I woke up and went for dinner. The problem with this place was there was absolutely nothing to do after the sun goes down. Everyone on the beach it seemed were couples. I went into a couple of bars to see what was going on and they were empty. I had dinner at one and then went back to my hotel and fell asleep around 9pm.

The next morning I decided to leave early. Being on this beach was making me lonely, plus I was still not feeling good. Beaches are definitely not a good place to go alone unless there is a lot to do besides just the beach. The only two places I have felt alone on this trip have been at the only two beaches I have visited. This one and Nha Trang in Vietnam. It was a beautiful island, but I was ready to go.

I left the next morning and got back to Cebu. I fly out to Manila tomorrow. I am feeling much better, but my stomach is still unsettled. I have ruled out Filipino food as the culprit and now realize it is just general exhaustion. Going to and from Banaue I took two night buses in three days where I did not sleep, then woke up at 3am to fly to Cebu, so I think I am just over tired, and my body just shut down on me.

I have liked what I have seen of the Philippines so far, but since this is the last place virtually I have been I have been kind of worn down by the whole trip and not had the same energy I had in other countries. The problem with the Philippines though is the transport is very difficult. Getting from one spot to the other in other countries usually just consists of one bus ride or a train ride. Here it consists of a taxi ride to the bus station, then a 8 hour hot or incredibly cold bus ride to a town then switch to another bus, or wait for a ferry. It takes as long to get to a place sometimes then the amount of time you can spend there.

Banaue Rice Terraces

I got out of the bus in Banaue at 5am. A smiling tricycle driver named Denard took me to a restaurant. He wanted to drive me to the Rice Fields, which were 12km away. I declined because I knew from my guide book that there was a jeep leaving soon. I had a couple of cups of coffee and decided I did not want to wait for the jeep as it would be another 2 hours. Plus, I was tired of my bags getting in everyone’s way and I knew the jeep might be crowded, so I got a ride on the tricycle as soon as it got light enough to travel. A tricycle is basically a little side car attached to a motorcycle. It is funny how each country had some sort of rudimentary designed taxi. In Thailand it was the tuk-tuk and in Vietnam they had these self-propelled tricycles, especially in Saigon. Here in the Philippines they had jeepneys, which were elongated truck like buses and the one person side cars that they called tricycles.

I arrived at Batad junction at around 7:30 after a beautiful ride through the mountains. There were rice fields all over the place. Batad is a little village of about 1,000 people and is supposed to have the most beautiful rice fields in the area. The tricycle can take you to Batad Junction, but the only way to Batad from there is on foot and it takes two hours.

I said good bye to Denard and then got my back pack on with my awkward mat from Thailand still sticking straight out of it. The first part of the sojourn was straight up. It took about 45 minutes to get to the top of this ridge and by the time I arrived at the top I was covered in sweat and out of breath. The view was beautiful as the sun was rising over the mountains and you could see the rice terraces below. There was a bunch of locals on top selling Gatorade and other drinks and offered to guide me the rest of the way to Batad. There was one guy up there that offered to have me stay at his house for 100 pesos. This was twice as much as the guidebook stated, so I declined. I had a Gatorade, which I drank in one guzzle and started to walk down. The guy who offered for me to stay at his place had a brother that was going down, so I followed him.

Everyone says that they backpack SE Asia, but to describe the activity as backpacking is really a misnomer. No one really backpacks Southeast Asia, they just have all their crap in a backpack. People go from bus to taxi to tuk-tuk to motobike, but rarely do they actually walk any length with their backpack. I am included in this description. For this couple of hours and the hour back I actually am backpacking in Southeast Asia, and I am hot as shit wishing a taxi was around.

I got to the town of Batad and the view was absolutely breathtaking. There were several guesthouses in town, but I approached the first one I saw to the annoyance of the guy I had been following. It had a little café looking over the village of Batad and the amazing rice terraces below. Batad is in a little valley that reminds me of Telluride, Colorado except that the mountains were not as steep or high. The mountains here are pretty high, but they are more like the Appalachians as they are completely tree covered. I asked how much and a cute little Filipino said 100 pesos. I looked at the room and it was sufficient. No electricity in the room, but for 2$, no big deal. The Filipino girl named Jarmaine and an Aussie girl were eating breakfast and she invited me to join them. I had some rice covered with some egg and tomatoes.

I took the room and headed off to bed. I wanted to take an hour nap and start exploring, but I was pretty bushed. My one hour nap turned out to be about four as I was more tired than I thought. I woke up around 2:30pm and finally left at 3pm. Everyone in this village wanted to be my guide, but I just wanted to walk around the village and go to a waterfall that was 45 minutes away. I figured I could find this myself.

The guesthouse was on the ridge overlooking the town and the trail was a steep descent down these steep steps. Once down in the valley you had to cross the rice fields. The Ilfigau rice terraces are these terraces that are built right into the mountain and descend like giant steps down the mountain. Each terrace is covered in bright green rice paddies. It is like a giant amphitheater of green. It is breathtakingly beautiful.

The walk to the waterfall was really interesting. There was really no set trail. I was walking down from the building through the people’s houses down into the rice terraces themselves. Walking through the rice terraces was really cool, but kind of tricky as the stones that divided each field was narrow and there were stone steps that descended up to each level. The steps were not the widest steps, so it could be tricky and one had to be sure to keep your balance. After walking through the terraces the trail then went up a ridge again through more houses. Once on top of the ridge the trail descended down towards a mountain river. The trail now was made out of concrete and was easy to follow and had steps going down to the river. I descended down the steps going back and forth down the ridge as the trail kept switching back directions. I then came around the corner and there was the waterfall. Since I got a late start I could not stay too long. The waterfall was beautiful as the river dropped about 200 feet from a gorge and there was a nice volume of water going down into the pool. There were a bunch of Filipino people getting ready to leave. One girl smiled at me and said she was happy I was there and then she and her group left. I then went swimming for a bit in the pool and it felt incredible. I was extremely hot from the walk and the temperature of the water was cool, but felt perfect after the walk in the hot weather. I definitely felt revived. I knew I had to go back and the incline up to the ridge and back to the guesthouse were not easy and it made me wish there was another pool to swim in after I got back.

After about twenty minutes I left myself. The water felt great, but it was too cold to stay too long, especially since the sun was going down. I caught up with the group that was at the pool climbing up the steep hill. The girl that smiled at me was named Antoinette and she was teaching religion in Banaue for a year. I followed this group the rest of the way back to the guesthouse. Antoinette said that later they were having a party with a bonfire and drinking rice wine and she said she would come to my guesthouse and get me. I thanked her and returned to my guesthouse for dinner and to wash up.

Back at the guesthouse I had a beer and a vegetarian pizza. There was a Scottish guy that had checked in and he was outside talking to the Aussie girl that I was talking to before. After dinner Antoinette came back and got both me and the Scot named Craig and took us to a local’s little hut. The huts owner was named Romeo and he looked like a Filipino Albert Einstein. He had long brown crazy hair with a mustache. He was the owner of my guesthouse and also the local rice wine brewer.

The Filipino rice wine was much better than the crap I drank in Vietnam and in Thailand. It was brown colored compared to the clear color in other countries and ten times smoother yet still contained a bite. It was sweeter too than the stuff in Thailand. This gave it a pleasant taste compared to the flavor of the Thai rice whiskey, which tasted like nothing I have ever had before, but its disgusting taste could only be compared to something like formaldehyde. Romeo informed me that they also make wine out of coconuts too. I am struck by the ingenuity of mankind because the whole world over and all through history whenever we want to get fucked up, we always find a way to do it.

An interesting conversation ensued while the Aussie girl named Rachel, Romeo, and this other Aussie girl named Danielle talk about some of the customs involved in growing the rice. Rachel is studying rats and that is why she is there. Apparently in the rice fields rats are a problem. Rachel says that she has found in her research that many of the old tribal customs in the village were very effective in keeping rats out of the fields, but many people now that are growing rice do not follow some of these customs and they are having more of a problem with rats. I guess that the old tribal customs appear out of date and superstitious to many of the present rice growers, but actually there was a rhyme and reason to these practices. Despite Romeo’s appearance, he was very eloquent, and he discussed the growing of the rice wine and also techniques for growing rice, which was very interesting.

We then leave the hut after a couple of drinks and head down to the bonfire. At the bonfire, Antoinette and her friends are there along with two brothers named Orland and Romel. Orland is playing a guitar. He is really good and has a great voice. His brother Romel also has a great voice. I had told Craig earlier that I played guitar myself and he mentions that to Orland and Orland passes me the guitar. I play “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and a short sing a long occurs. I am a little out of practice as I had not played much in the past couple of months, but I am able to get through a few songs.

The rest of the night each of us takes turn playing a couple of songs and then hands over the guitar to the next person. I have always been hampered by two things when playing guitar in front of people in campfire like settings. First, I am usually really drunk, and secondly, I do not have many sing-a-long type songs in my repertoire. I always intend to rectify this each time I bomb out at a campfire by learning songs I know everyone knows, but I soon get bored of learning those and want to play what interests me. I did pull out a few that got good reactions like “Take me Home Country Roads” and “Into your arms,” by the Lemonheads. Other than that and a couple of others, I think I bored the hell out of them when I played, but they were very respectful and gave me a little ovation after each song.

I was really impressed with both the guitar and vocal abilities of the two Filipino brothers. The song selection they played was also very interesting. They were really into Reggae and played several Bob Marley tunes, but they would then pull out a big surprise and play “Handy Man” by James Taylor or “Wish You Were Here,” by Pink Floyd. Those are definitely two songs that I would not expect to hear a Filipino to sing in the middle of nowhere in Northern Luzon. Antoinette kept asking me if I was happy and having a good time. Yes, I definitely was. Drinking rice wine, playing and listening to guitar around a campfire, and talking with great interesting people is about as good as it gets in my humble opinion.