RTW Nomad - Part II

Khao San is the backpacker area in Bangkok. I was here last year for some days. This time I am here only for one day to do some shopping and get excellent cheap thai massages for $5 for one hour. I love this place, it's so alive with so many shops and good food all around. I am not travelling through Thailand, I did that last year. I am here in transit because tomorrow I fly to Kathmandu. I am so excited about going to Nepal, I am really happy because I will be doing a trek for 18 days around the Annapurna. I have arranged an independent guide for $15 a day and a porter for $10 a day. I will be walking everyday from 6-8 hours, some days even 10 hours and I will be reaching an altitude of 5,600 meters. I will be staying at tea houses where I will eat as well for about $5 to $15 a day (for both food and accomodation). The Annapurna trek is a cultural trek that takes you around the mountain and you pass rivers, forests, snow areas, high passes, villages, monasteries, etc. I am also really excited to ''disappear'' for about three weeks (Bill and my mom are not too happy about this but I am lucky that they are so supportive and understand me). I love the mountains so much, so much that I am willing to endure cold weather wichi is what I hate the most.

Well, since I will be going ''incognito'' for three weeks I won't be updating this blog probably until the last week of March so check back at that time for updates on my trek and Nepal.

From Donsol, I took a plane back to Manila. I arrived late in the afternoon on Thursday. That night I met a Filipino guy that I met through a forum a couple of months ago, so I emailed him asking if he wanted to meet for dinner. He agreed, and we met for dinner and a couple of drinks. He was a really nice guy that likes to travel a lot as well.

The next day, I went to the office of Children International in Manila. I have sponsored a child in Manila for about five years, and I have been keeping in touch with him via letters and photos and the main reason why I included Philippines as part of my route was to meet him. When I got to the office, he was there with his mother. It was really exciting to see him in person although he was very shy and he doesn't speak very much English but the office provided me with a social worker that was a translator. They also provided me with a van and driver that would take us (Rodel, his mother, the social worker and I) wherever I wanted to go. The first stop was Rodel's house, a small house in the slums of Quezon City, a house made of aliminium panels with only two rooms and a couple of matresses on the floor where a family of eight live. Rodel is the youngest out of six siblings, they were all excited to meet me and three of his sisters that are teenagers and spoke some English were very curious about me. It felt a little strange to be there, a little uncomfortable because I didn't know how to connect with them. I saw that two of the children were playing chess, and I asked if they knew how to play cards, they said that they did but didn't have a deck of cards. I pull my deck of cards (that I always carry with me when I travel) and I told them to teach me a game. We played their game for about thirty minutes and then I thaught them how to play Rumi (my favorite card game). They picked up the rules of the game really fast and surprisingly enough the sisters beat me at all the games. I don't mean to be conceited but I win this game about 95% of the time, but these girls were really good at cards.

After spending about an hour playing games, it was lunch time so I asked Rodel what he wanted to eat. He wanted fried chicken. Normally you just take the child and the mother, but I couldn't leave all the other children behind. So we filled the van and went to a shopping center. I got lunch for all of them and we went shopping. The shopping center was actually pretty expensive, I would say the prices were even higher than US for clothing. I got new outfits for Rodel, shorts, t-shirts, socks, shoes, slippers and boxers. I felt bad for the other children and after noticing that what they needed the most were shoes, I bought a pair of shoes for each of them.

The visit was about five hours long, it was really nice to spend some time with Rodel and his family although a bit ackward at some points. After taking the family back home, the social worker showed me the community center, clinic and the other service offices that they provide for sponsored children. I think that this is a great organization and sponsoring a child is a great way to make a difference in a child's life. Here is a link of a website that I created a couple of months ago to try to recruit sponsors for other children, so if you want to learn more about my experiences as a sponsor and how easy (for only $22 monthly) is to become part of this: http://www.liftoneproject.org/site/TR/Events/LiftOneProject?px=1528761&pg=personal&fr_id=1040

The nightlife improved in Boracay during the weekend and with the help of my Dutch and German friends and some English guys I was entertained all night long for four days in a row. Rob (my Dutch friend) is a DJ at home and he was able to play some really good music at the three night clubs in Boracay so with good music, shots and fun people I danced every night until the next morning. On Sunday night that I was really tired, I found energy and stayed out until 6:30 AM, when I went to the hotel to pack my bag and go to the airport.

After a flight from Boracay to Manila and a connecting flight to Legaspi and then a two hour van ride, I found myself in Donsol. A very small village in South Luzon. The only reason why people come to Donsol is to swim with the whalesharks that come here and feed here. I stayed in the center of town since I found another cheap room that smelled like mildew and has nothing but a bed. The nicer places are near the beach where you take the boats to see the whalesharks but they are three times as expensive.

After a long night of sleep, I woke up early to get ready to see the whalesharks but it was raining really hard so I decided not to go because I knew that the whaleshark sightings were not going to be very good if it was raining. So, I went to the only restaurant in town (besides the market) and ordered a pasta and I got a plate of pasta with ketchup and slices of a hotdog (not very Italian). I didn't eat much but I was starving so I took a trycicle (a bike with a little cabin next to it) to the visitors center where I had a nice meal and a couple of beers with some other travellers I met. At night, I met a Philipino guy that told me that for a couple of dollars he could take me to see fireflies and he took me to the country side in his motorcycle, normally I don't enjoy motorcycles but it was really nice to drive at night in the country side looking at the fireflies on the trees like they were christmas trees and feeling the fresh air while riding.

Today, was my last day in Donsol so I decided to go and look for whalesharks even if the weather was bad. At the visitors center I met a Slovenian couple, two Swedish girls and an Australian guy with his Philipino girlfriend? guide? something else?.... not sure, you never know here. The seven of us shared a boat and went to look for whale sharks. The boat was a simple outrigger boat and had a crew of five people, four of them were only the spotters. It was raining a little bit and I knew that the day before people only saw one whale shark, I thougth that I would consider myself lucky if I saw two. After one hour looking, the guy said to us "get ready with fins and masks were are going to jump". Quickly, we got ready and after he gave signal we jumped into the cold water. He told us in what direction to swim and we did; I was looking all around me for with the whale shark, and then I looked down and there it was, this massive shark (nine meters long) with beautiful white spots. I tried to swim and follow it but it got away very quickly. After the first sighting we all got excited and even if it was raining and was cold we were looking for a dark shadow in the water. Thirty minutes later we saw a fin, and it was another one but this time when we jumped I only saw the tail. Then a third one but this one was amazing, we saw him from the front and he was only two meters below me, I could even see the little fish cleaning his mout, his whole body, and this time I was able to swim with this one for about two minutes, it was absolutely amazing. We saw a fourth one, and this time I was really close to the fin, about one meter about the spinal fin and I tried to move away but it was like the shark was stocking me swimming in my direction. We were very lucky and had a great crew. We saw a total of six whalesharks and I had two very close encounters with them. Amazing experience. Very happy I did this. Very luck I saw six. The people in other boats only saw two or three.

I have been a Boracay for four days now, it's pretty slow here, not much to do and most of the people you see are couples of old men that come for sex tourism. Since it's Saturday, a few backpackers have arrived to enjoy the night life. One of the Dutch guys that I had met in Sabah is traveling trough Philippines as well, and he just got to Boracay with a new German friend last night, so we went out to the bars and beach clubs. I had heard that Boracay had a good night life but I was dissapointed. The music and drinks were good but even now that it's high season there were not many people and very few people dance. I hope that it gets better tonight.

I arrived from Borneo to Manila on Monday. Manila is a very large city with horrible traffic and scamming taxi drivers. I stayed one night in Malate (which I believe is the gay area) but has a lot of nice restaurants and bars. The next day I went to the airport early in the morning to buy a ticket to any island in the Visayas. I found a ticket to Boracay which is a small resort island. It's a nice place but very developed and extremely expensive compared to other places in South East Asia. A dorm room with cold water is $12 per night and food is about $10 per meal. Being used to staying in nicer places for $10 and eating magnificent meals for $3, I am shocked with the prices here. However, I will be spending five days here because local flights are very expensive and I don't have enought time in the Philippines to island hop via ferry. So I am just going to chill in the white beaches, do some snorkel, and maybe try wind surfing if it's not too expensive. It's actually nice to relax from the very fast pace that I have had so far. From what I hear the nightlife is relly good during the weekend, so I hope to take advantage of that as well.

Unfortunately, this is a place where a lot of couples come but there's no many backpackers but I hope some of them come during the weekend to party. This is also a place where old, disgusting and fat men come from Europe and America to buy love, you see them walking with their large bellies, a disgusting swimsuit that shows more than they should and behind them you see a beautiful young Philippino woman smiling everytime they say something. I hope these women are charging a lot of money because it must be horrible to be with any of these nasty old men.