We met up with the group at 6:30 and dragged our jet lagged bodies onto the private mini van - I'm still trying to remember everyone's names! The night before at 'The welcome meeting', each one of us had been given a small straw bag in which could be found a packet of dried mango and a bottle of rum? Both TC and I had decided that as neither of us were big rum drinkers, we may as well leave the bottles behind, rather than cart them around with us. So it was quite interesting this morning, when we were all about to crawl on the bus, that one of the security guards came running towards us holding out TC's walking shoes that he'd found in the room, but somehow he didn't seem to have found the two bottles of rum?
First stop and I clambered off the bus with the majority of my fellow travellers, I was unaware of what we were stopping to see as I was still half asleep and by the time I realised, it was too late! You see I consider myself a 'Pesci-chickenetarian' (I don't eat any meat apart from chicken and fish) and as my eyes started to focus on the sight before me, I was horrified to see rows and rows of suckling pigs roasting away - apparently Filipinos are mad about pork and will eat it with anything they possibly can! I didn't know where to turn, cause there were pigs being spit roasted wherever I looked and then I realised that the three vegetarians on the trip were still all sat on the bus with their backs to the Windows!
I quickly turned and ran from the shack like building we were stood in and hurried onto the bus, telling myself it wasn't real?! But a few minutes later when the rest of our group climbed back on board, the stench that followed them proved otherwise.
A quick spray of perfume in the crook of my arm and my nose stuck firmly in there for the next few minutes and thoughts of Julie Andrews singing 'The Hills are alive with the Sound of Music' (I don't know why, it was the first song that came into my head!) and I started to feel better.
(Sorry that's the best I could do, you get the picture of the signage, you can image the rest!)
And so back to the mini bus ride, where our tour leader Bryan gave us a little back story: Manila is named Manila due to the type of vegetation you can find there - Nila! And 'Ma' means 'there' so 'Manila' literally translated means 'There Nila'! Manila itself is divided into a couple of areas, the main one being 'Metro Manila' which is where we were staying, with 1.2 million people living there - and as I mentioned before, most of them seeming to be driving on the road! Manila itself is on the largest island of this arcepelago and the largest diaspora of Filipinos is actually not in the UK, nor in the USA but in Saudi Arabia!
There are more than eighty languages spoken here, the main two being Filipino and English - strange considering the Spanish ruled here for 300 years?! However, what does still stand since the Spanish arrived is the Catholic religion and over here neither divorce or birth control is allowed - at all! Therefore the population is rapidly growing, with many families living in poverty.
I'm sure there was more info Bryan gave us, but I was so exhausted I fell asleep and woke up in time for our first 'Comfort Room' stop - TC and I had wondered why whilst waiting for our room to be prepared on our arrival when TC asked for the toilet? ... The rest room? ... The bathroom? ... The loo?The woman behind the reception desk didn't know what she was talking about. Over here it is called 'the comfort room' and at some of the stops its 5 pesos for an 'Ihi' or 10 pesos for a 'dumi'! (I'll leave it up to you to work out what that means) suffice it to say I obviously had to ask Bryan if they went by weight or fluid ounce too - apparently not!
Further down the road we stopped off to visit a church that had been affected by the sudden Mount Pinatubo eruption in the 1990's. As you can imagine there were many sad yet uplifting stories to be told by the survivors of the natural disaster and the church was one of them.
Above you can see my photo of how the church stands now, it looks perfectly normal doesn't it?
Yet if you look at the painting of the church before the eruption, you can see that now there is actually a whole floor missing!
Lunch and dinner was a similar situation to that we experienced in Indonesia last year; if one wants anything vegetarian, one must ask for the vegetarian dish without the meat!!
We finally arrived at our hotel in Banae, TC checked the room and complained about the lack of water flowing from the shower. For once I had to agree with her complaint and we were swiftly moved from a large room with three double beds and ensuite bathroom, into a large room with four single beds and a bathroom off the balcony with all the comforts of a scoop flush toilet and shower pretty much over that!
TC wanted to complain that the sheets smelt of feet, but then I did warn her she'll probably be begging to get back to it over the next few days when we will be staying in guest houses where the rooms will be worse and the two bathrooms we will all be sharing with the rest of the group, will consist of Asian style scoop toilets as well as cold scoop showers! So she needed to appreciate the luxury we had!
The complaining stopped and we settled down for the night, both a bit nervous about what was to be in store for us over the next three days of trekking through the rice fields found high up on the hills sides.
I was thinking that maybe I should prepare Damien the Aussie school teacher on our tour that he could possibly be carrying me most of the way, after all he competes in triathlons and Iron Man Australia so how hard would it be to carry a pathetic, overheated red head up a hillside? I mean I don't think that I'm being unreasonable?
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