Patring

Now, about Patring. Patring was a teenaged girl that lived with my parents the whole time that they were in the Philippines, the two years in Davao and the year and a half on Bohol. When I was younger, that didn't seem too strange- that was just how it was. But as I grew up it started to seem more strange- we don't even have a housekeeper now! When I joined the Peace Corps myself, I started to seem even more strange. They had a housekeeper? And Peace Corps paid for that? Of course it is not strange in the Filipino context, I don't think they intended to have a housekeeper, but they did and it became part of their Filipino normal. My mom wrote about how Patring came into their lives (and about the dogs and cats that kept them company too):

http://mindanoinday.blogspot.com/2008/03/of-girls-and-dogs-and-cats.html

So the first thing we did in the morning after arriving in Davao was go and visit Patring. We found her at home, in the house across the road from her clinic. She is not practicing right now since she has been having problems with her eyes lately. Because (I think) of the visit a few years ago, this was not the tearful homecoming that they probably had then, but it was emotional nonetheless. Patring is exceptionally sweet and I can see why my parents loved her so much. She came with us for a few hours and met us again when we went to the beach.

For me, more than any other person, Patring was the one that I had an image in my head about. In some ways, she is the Philippines for me.

And she is beautiful.

A whole new family

(My Filipino cousins)

(Nang Tita, my Filipino grandma)

(my mom with her sisters)

While growing up, I always understood a couple things about their time in the Davao: they had their own house, but they lived in the family "compound" of a family and they had a teenage girl that lived with them as their "helper". These things became a lot more real to me when we arrived in Davao. First, the family, I will get to Patring in a later post . . .

We were picked up from the airport by Tombok, one of the little sisters of the Agton family. When my parents lived there, they were adopted by Mnang Tita and Mnoy Juanito (mnang and mnoy being honorifics for respected community members) who were a teacher and banker respectively who had 7 children between the ages of 9 and 18. Of these children, one has since passed away (along with his father) and one (the oldest daughter) lives in New Jersey. The others all live with or near their mother who recently celebrated her 80th birthday surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But I figured all this out later. Over the nextfew days I would be introduced to a dizzying array of family members (not to mention all of the families of Juanito's brothers and sisters whom we didn't really meet, but occasionally talked about).

Immediately I knew this was a special family when I met Mama Tita. She is everything I would want to be when I'm 80- strong, opinionated and sharp. She is still very much in charge of the family and she has to stay sharp to keep control over the masses.

Jojo, Bobong, Nimrod, Tombok and Nene (in case you are wondering, nicknames are very common- I'm no sure of everyone's real name, but Nene is actually Jane, for example) all welcomed my parents as if they were very a respected Aunt and Uncle. The kids, were a little slower to warm up to me, but soon I had made good friends with my new "cousins" especially KJ and Shingay (also nicknames of course). Over he next few days we were taken all around the city by various family members- up to the Eden nature park with Bok and Nene, to the Philippine Eagle sanctuary and People's Park by Nimrod and to the beach with half the family. Jojo and Bong were mostly busy with their own things- Jojo raises cocks for fighting (a long held Filipino tradition) and Bong was running in the local election (against his aunt and at least one cousin) for the neighborhood council. I get the feeling that no matter who you voted for, they might be related somehow, or at least someone's god parent or something- it's that kind of place and that kind of family.

Typhoon!

Ok, not really, I missed the typhoon by a bit and just caught the tail end of it passing over Manila, which meant heavy rains on the day I arrived. I had hoped to only have to stay in Manila one night, but as my parents had to stop overnight in California and Korea in order to get here (standby travel sometimes means sleeping on a bench in the Seoul airport. . . ) I had a full day and two nights.The weather cleared in the morning (no typhoon for you!) and so I went out to explore Manila. As big cites go, it is hectic and crowed. I've found that while I certain cites are visitor cities and certain cities are livable cities and a few are both, some cities are neither (Tirana)and I think this is Manila too. That said I had an ok day walking around. When I was in thepark, I happened upon a rehearsal for some sort of performance that was going on later.

I went to get a late lunch and then came back to watch the show. It turned out to be a festival for indigenous people and there were over thirty groups from all over the country. Some of them had fantastic costumes and beautiful instruments and weapons (I wonder, do spears have to go in your checked luggage if they are part of your indigenous costume?). There was a parade in the park and then each group introduced themselves with a very short dance. This was followed by longer performances by a few of the groups.

After the first group, it started raining and the audience went up on the stage (the only part of the amphitheater covered) and watched the next groups.

If I understand things correctly (which I'm not always sure that I do) this was an opening ceremony and the different groups were going to perform at different venues (schools etc) over the next few days. After he slightly interrupted performance I took my first jeepney ride back to the hostel to wait for my parents. They finally arrived in the morning and we got the frak out of Manila and headed down to Davao.

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Hong Kong

Hong Kong is the best of both worlds- Chinese tradition, British efficiency. I made the mistake of not really planning ahead for Hong Kong, but unlike most of the places I've travelled this isn't a very good idea- accommodation as a rule, isn't cheap and if it is cheap it's either not so good or can't be booked last minute. . . I was saved from a cockroach hostel (or $30 a night) by Ian, a Brit living on Hong Kong island teaching Spanish at a private school. He had just started his fall break and was leaving to take his vacation in the Philippines on the same day that I was- perfect. Since he was on holiday, he had time to hang out and show me the city. Together we explored the perfectly planned colonies streets and climbed to the top of Victoria peak to see the whole place. Hong Kong is modern and efficient, but still feels just enough Asian to be charming. I'm not defending colonialism, but it sure was nice to have a taxi driver actually use the meter.On my second day there, Ian and I ventured out to one of the smaller islands, had a seafood lunch and hiked around the tiny island to a deserted (but unfortunately very dirty) beach. We hiked back to the other side to swim instead in the immaculately kept public beach near the village.

On my third day I ventured out on my own to go to see "the big Buddha" on Lantau island. The best part was actually the cable car ride up the mountain. Far below the car (you could pay extra for a glass bottomed car- I didn't) you could see a trail snaking it's way up and around the hills. From the cable car you could see the new airport- built to replace the old one that used to jut out into the bay and that required planes to maneuver through the skyscrapers in order to land- my mom described feeling like the plane's wings might get caught on the laundry lines hung off of the buildings as it landed. . . At the end of the cable car journey there was a tourist village (sole purpose- sell souvenirs) a monastery and as promised a really big Buddha up on a hill. It was a very dramatic placement and impressive. Of course in addition to the British efficiency, Hong Kong has also mastered the tourist sell. While the big Buddha was impressive, it also felt a little like Buddhist DisneyLand (and you can visit Mickey and his friends at Hong Kong DisneyLand just one metro stop away from Buddha) there was a multimedia "walk with Buddha" experience and some sort of monkey theater show, neither of which I did. In fact I is kind of incredible to me how so many countries have managed to make money off their religion. Anyway. . .

Random conversation with Ian (now you see why we got along so well): where did he name for turkeys come from? Turkeys are native to North America. We call them after a country in the Middle East, in Russian they are called индюк (indook) thinking they came from India, in several languages it is hindi for similar reasons, in Spanish they are called peru (at least they got the right hemisphere.) In light of this, I think I like the Albanians name the best- they came from somewhere over the seas and they didn't speculate on where, hence gjell deti- the rooster of the sea.

The prettiest part of China

After so many people in Beijing and Xi'an (not to mention all the pollution) the countryside near Guilin was a welcome respite. I had heard from multiple sources that this was one of the prettiest parts of the country. It did not disappoint. From the "dragons backbone" rice terraces to the strange and beautiful hills along the Li river, it was a gorgeous place. I only wish I had more than three days.

On the first day I went with a Dutch girl that I met in the train station (and who saved me from having to sit in a hard seat for 27 hours by letting me sleep in her bed for a few hours on he train!) to the rice terraces. We decided to take the four to six hour (according to the guide

book) hike over the mountain from one side of the area to the other. I imagine that you could make the hike in four hours if: you didn't stop at all to eat or take pictures, you were in really good shape and you didn't get lost. We did not meet any of these conditions. It took us more like six hours. Six hours and fifteen minutes. We started at about 11:00 and arrived at about

5:15. Unfortunately for us the last bus left at 5:00. Darn those extra fifteen minutes! We got a taxi to the next town where we barely (by literally getting out and running to the bus) we did catch the last bus back to Guilin. Even with this rush at the end, it was a great day. The rice terraces were fantastic and nearly empty- just what I needed after the crush of people in Beijing and Xi'an. I had a great time with Soenita, one of the few single female travelers I've met on this trip (in Asia anyway- I met lots more in Europe). We had a great conversation about traveling solo (among many other topics over six hours). Neither of us probably would have taken this hike on our own and it was nice to have someone to talk to.

On the second day I took a bamboo raft down the Li river to the town of Yangshuo. Here, I rented a bike for my most successful bicycle outing yet- a ride in the countryside. I passed bemused (or confused) villagers and almost no other tourists. Unfortunately my time was too short as I arrived in the afternoon and didn't want to be caught alone in the country after dark- especially since I figured out later that I had been traveling down a completely different road than I had originally intended (I apparently have very little sense of direction. I blame this on growing up in Colorado- it was too easy there: mountains=west). If I could go back and replan my trip a bit, I would have spent more time in this area and at least two nights in Yangshuo itself. As it was I only spent an afternoon there and headed back to Guilin in the evening.

I spent the third day taking it easy in Guilin. Like it's surroundings, the city of Guilin is a gem. With the river winding through town, an easy walking center and randomly beautiful hills, the only downside was that you had to pay to enter the parks (I didn't bother).

In the evening, I caught an overnight bus to Shenzhen, the city on the Chinese side of the Hong Kong "border". The bus was interesting- instead of seats, it had three rows of bunk beds running the length of the bus (maybe 24 beds in all?). The beds were not enclosed and left little room for rolling over- a strange experience, but much better than a hard seat!

Lost and found

An inevitable part of travel is losing things. When you are packing up and changing locations every few days a few things left behind or misplaced are inevitable. Unlike when you lose things at home it can be hard to find them again since usually by the time you figure out that whatever you lost was missing you have moved on to the next place. I had been doing pretty well on this trip, as far as I can remember I didn't lose anything important from Albania to Colorado. In Russia the only thing lost was a Russian phrase book, which although I would have liked to keep it, it wasn't really a big deal since I lost it right before I left Russia. But this week I lost three things that I'm upset a bit about. First, I got to Hong Kong and realized that when I did laundry in Guilin somehow a pair of my pants didn't make it back in my bag. I wouldn't have been too bothered if I had lost a t-shirt or pair of socks, but of all the items of clothing to lose, pants are the most annoying. First, they are the most expensive, these particular pants being REI travel pants with the zip off leg- not cheap. Second, while I have a few t-shirts, I only have two pairs of pants with me since in general they don't need to be washed as much and I can wear them a few days in a row. Third, I like most women I know usually have a hard time finding pants that I like and that fit me well. These were pants that I liked, that fit me well an were perfect for travel since they are lightweight, quick drying and become shorts (handy!). I emailed the hostel in the vain hope that they might have found them and can send them to me somehow (when I go back to China in a few weeks). I'm not holding out much hope.

The second lost item of the week happened in the Hong Kong airport. I lost my water bottle. I know what you are thinking "water bottle? Big deal!" but this one was kind of a big deal actually. It was an impulse REI purchase when I was home and it is a pretty cool bottle- it has an internal water filter, making any water you put in safe for drinking, but it is the same size and weight as your average nalgene. This means that all across Russia and Asia I was able to fill up my magic bottle from the tap (or well or stream, what have you) instead of buying bottled water every day. So I was not only saving money, but saving the planet too. The bottle probably already paid for itself in the bottled water that I didn't have to buy. I lost it somewhere between security and the plane. I know I had it at security because they made me dump out the last bit of water that was in it before I went through. I then clipped it to the outside of my bag. When I got on the plane I noticed that it was gone, but since I was already on the plane there was not much to be done. I asked the flight attendant to ask the gate agent to look around the boarding area, but they didn't see it. The funny thing is that the filter itself was not in the bottle (I had taken it out since hong kong water is good) but without the bottle, I can't use the filter!

The third thing I lost was completely my fault- I forgot to check to make sure that I put my leatherman tool (a gift from my friend Melissa to replace the pocket knife that I lost when we were in Romania last summer) into my checked baggage. In the airport in Manila it showed up on the x-ray but through some sort of magic sweet talk I managed to get through. But then it fell out of my bag sometime later (I think when my dad put my bag into the overhead compartment). It may still show up somewhere- I thought I lost it last year at Outdoor Ambassadors camp but it turned up a week later in another pocket of my backpack.

Usually when I lose things I'm only ever mad at myself, since usually it is my own fault (like forgetting my pants in the laundry room). I do believe that there is lost and found karma- I did spend five years working at a movie theatre benefiting occasionally from the lost and found gods (I once got a palm pilot that someone hadn't claimed after a few months). I just hope that someone deserving finds my lost stuff and appreciates it as much as I did.

UPDATE: the hostel found my pants! They will send them to me when I go back to China next month! If you ever go to China make sure to visit Wada Hostel in Guilin. It is probably one of the best hostels I've stayed at and it is in a really beautiful part of the country. And they have the best staff EVER!

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Biking in China- day two

Xi'an seemed like the perfect place to try again to bike around. My couchsurfing host, Tyler loaned me his bike for the day. It started out great- while busy, the streets are nowhere near as crazy as Beijing. Unfortunately, very early into my day I made a silly mistake by trying to pass a rickshaw and ended up hitting my handlebars and falling. I scraped my knee a bit and jammed two of my fingers in the fall. After a few minutes of self pity an a few tears, I picked myself up and dusted myself off and continued. Needless to say though, my heart (and hand) weren't quite in it for the rest of the day. I stopped not long after for some shopping and then sat in a park for another rest. I did manage to make it back to Tyler's house in one piece with no more incidents. When they say it's as easy as riding a bike, I don't think they were talking about bike riding in China. . .