Manila and Melancholy

Last weekend, I met Yuliana and Sveta, a lovely Russian couple who were staying in Manila for a few days, before heading to the beaches like any sane foreigner should. I met Yuliana through couchsurfing.org, told her I'd be more than happy to drive them around the city although I would not be able to host them at home . On their first night here, my friend, Dianna and I, took Yuliana and her girl friend, Sveta, to Mesa for dinner, followed by music and drinks in Saguijo. I figured watching a live band would be a good way to break the ice, seeing as we've never met before and as there was a bit of language barrier.

Yuliana and Sveta were very interesting. Yuliana had only started to learn English, but our conversations were nevertheless lively. Both of them are poets and are fond of traveling. They do not drink often, but they do indulge once in awhile. They were very adventurous, and were willing to sample Filipino delicacies (except maybe balut). Yuliana even tried (and loved) dinuguan.  I love their disposition. I think, if I were Russian, or if I lived in Russia, they would be the type of people I'd be friends with. It's a tragedy that we had a bit of a language barrier and that we only had a few days together because I honestly wanted to get to know them more. Had we spoken the same language, I imagine the four of us would have had long conversations about life, or philosophy, or art, or poetry or music, instead of just truncated sentences and exaggerated hand gestures. 

The following day was pretty random. Dianna had a photoshoot in Tali Beach in Nasugbu so we tagged along. I wasn't sure if Yuliana and Sveta would appreciate the long drive and the lollygagging by the beach (which is pretty much all that we did). We literally just sat by the beach to watch the sunset and see the stars rise, listening to music. I probably drove a total of ten hours that day, but I'd take a ten-hour drive to the beach over a two-hour drive to Makati any day.

On the third day, which was my last day with them, we drove around Manila to places even I had never been to. Upon their request, we went to Manila North Cemetery where people lived in mausoleums, and slept beside crypts. After that, we went to Intramuros. Dianna and I were like tourists in our own country.

I grew up idealizing the provincial life. Having grown up in this city, all I could see in between sunsets were the awful things about Manila that confront me daily so I always dreamt of living in the province. I despised the noise, the pollution, the traffic and the squalor of Manila. I hated how disconnected it is with its history, and how I cannot quite tell what it's culture really is. But recently, I've had the privilege of looking at Manila from the eyes of a tourist and saw how beautiful my city is and isn't. I feel like my city got stuck and is slowly wasting away between its past and its imagined future. You can almost see its struggle to become a modern city just by looking at the river banks of Pasig River.

I feel a pain for my city and the people living in it. I remember how Rizal wrote about the Pasig River and the magnificent view of Manila's elite astride the steamer Tabo as the river meets Laguna Lake in El Filibusterismo:

“The steamer was just then entering the lake and the view was really magnificent. Everyone was impressed. The beautiful lake, ringed by green banks and blue mountains, stretched out before them like an immense mirror in a frame of emeralds and  sapphires where Heaven might look at itself.  To the right a series of bays made graceful curves in the low shore, with farther on, half-blurred, the hook of Sugay; ahead, as a background, was Mount Makiling, majestic, imposing, crowned with light clouds; to the left, the island of Talim and the Susong Dalaga,  ‘the Maiden’s Breasts,’ with the soft undulations which had given its name.”

How unfortunate it is to never be able to see what Rizal saw before.

Hopeless Unromantic

(Resurrecting this from my tumblr, written on 26/10/11)

So I’ve been asked if I believed in soul mates.
Aside from being deeply cheesy, the hopelessly romantic idea that one’s life is unalterably attached to another because they share a single, ethereal core is, to me, one of the most pervasively irritating plots ever written (next to teenage vampire romance, that is).
What I hope for, if I were to hope for anything nearly as dramatic as soul mates, are kindred spirits. In spite of my early onset cynicism, my overall happiness relies so much on my belief in the idea that there are people just like me out there—people who like the same music, read the same books, watch the same movies, eat the same food; people who find the idea of spending a night staring at empty space rewarding, or who get excited over watching the sunset each and every time; people who make the same logical connections as I do, whose synapses would lead them to the same sense of humor as I do.
I like that we aren’t tethered to each other in the same way that romantics conceive soul mates. It isn’t so much that we are connected but that, I guess, we have the ability to connect.
And no, there is no romantic expectation. I find it sufficiently comforting to think that somewhere, there is someone who looks at the world in the way that I do.
Sometimes I tend to think that life wouldn’t be half as meaningful if not for the hope that someone else understands it the way that I do.

Sea of Strangers

Just before 2013 ended, I booked a flight to Palawan. It was December 28, and for the first time in a long time, I had absolutely nothing planned for the weekend and was not hurrying through the morning. I took the time to read the papers while drinking coffee and having breakfast with my dad and found an Air Asia seat sale ad. Without even thinking about it, I got my tablet and booked a flight which cost me a total of P1,300, including baggage allowance for the flight back. It was only a week later when I realized that the flight I booked was on valentine's weekend, which was ironic.

I didn't have much planned. I decided I would spend my weekend in El Nido instead of Puerto Princesa. I also decided to stay in a lodge just a few minutes away from the town proper, because it had a lovely view of the sunrise.

I arrived in Puerto Princesa at 7:00 p.m., was sweet talked into checking into a cheap hotel a few minutes away, where, I was told, I could get picked-up by the van that would take me to El Nido the following morning.

The following morning, I had a breakfast of instant coffee, orange marmalade and Puerto Princesa's amazing french bread. As promised, I was picked up by the van that would take me to El Nido, at half past seven.

The terrain heading to El Nido was mostly paved, with a few short stretches of unpaved rough roads. If you are used to travelling by land, on buses or vans, it wouldn't take long before you get bored by the view. The lush greenery, interrupted by stretches of barrios... these are common sights in the Philippines. By noon, we stopped for a break at a roadside pit stop where you can buy lunch for about P100. I wasn't hungry yet and was saving my appetite for lunch by the seaside with my first bottle of red horse to mark my El Nido vacation so I just bought a bag of chips to nibble on the road. After about thirty minutes, we were back on the road. By 2:00 p.m., we were at El Nido's public transport terminal.

I took a tricycle to the beach for P50, which should have been P20 but I was not in the mood to argue. I got dropped off just outside the town proper, and made my way to my lodge a ten minute walk away. I guess, one thing you should know about El Nido, which I didn't know before I got there, is that its main beach, the one where you will be staying, is not for swimming. There is just far too many boats docked and rocks. The water, nevertheless, is turquoise and clear and picturesque so sitting by the shore wasn't so bad.

I spent my first day in El Nido just walking around, lounging by the beach, drinking beer and reading Jose Saramago's Death with Interruptions. El Nido is an expensive touristy place. Food generally costs about P150-P400, and beer at restaurants about P60. I didn't mind as I was not really on a tight budget for this trip, but because there are no atms and hardly any credit card terminals in El Nido, I had to watch my spending a bit. I had dinner by the shore, in what seemed like a Thai restaurant. The food wasn't good, and very expensive, but the place offered the best al fresco dining, and was located beside Publiko where there was live music, so I stayed there anyway. The beauty of El Nido is that people are just happy sitting around, by their lonesome or with friends. There was no mad rush to get somewhere, or to take selfies, or post pictures online. People were just there, being there. It was exactly what I needed, at that time. To find a place to just sit, and stare, and drink beer and not be anything to anyone.

To get to the nice beaches in El Nido, the ones you see in pictures, you have to either book an overnight stay in an extremely expensive private island or go on an island hopping tour. I did the latter the following day. I had breakfast at Alternative Cafe, where they have seats perched on their roof, overlooking Bacuit bay. From there I watched as  boatmen and tour operators started setting up their boats for the day's tours.

I was never good at talking to strangers so I was a bit worried about joining strangers on the tour. I grew up preferring to keep to myself, when I am not surrounded by old friends. Fortunately, just before our tour started, Eva waved hello to me, asked me if we will be on the same tour.  Eva Wolf is from Munich, Germany and is touring the Philippines for six weeks. I gave her tips for her tour, about places I've been to in the Philippines and things to do there. Right now, she is touring Dumaguete, I think, or is probably in transit to some other island I've never been to. We had drinks after our tour, so we got to talk more about German and Philippine politics, education and a lot of other random things. We also swapped books, which is something I decided I should always do. The book I got out of the swap, Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, was very entertaining. I was glad we swapped because I was pretty sure I wouldn't have known of the author otherwise. As of today, I've read four other books by the same author.

When we hopped on our tour boat, we met this other lovely family of Dina Moreira, whose son and daughter were studying in Australia as exchange students. Again, being unaccustomed to (uncomfortable with is more like it) talking to strangers, I was fortunate because Dina Moreira's family, like Eva, was easy to feel comfortable with, and very fluent in English. It was fun being in a boat with them, as they weren't uncomfortable asking questions and sharing stories.

 Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of pictures of the islands because to get to them, you have to swim, and my supposedly waterproof sony Xperia wouldn't work with wet hands. Then again, I didn't mind, because sometimes its okay not to be able to capture moments and just be in them.

So there I was, with a group of strangers, finding myself comfortable being myself. It's hard to describe El Nido in terms of its beauty because we Filipinos are accustomed to stretches of pristine white beaches and turquoise waters. For me, El Nido is a place for getting lost, in a sea of strangers, in the chatter, the sound of waves crashing against the shore and boatsides. I didn't take a lot of pictures because a picture wouldn't have captured that feeling of being utterly comfortable.

In our tour, we went to this big lagoon. I went into the water and just kept swimming until I was right in the middle of the lagoon. I had no idea how deep it was and was not worried even though I had no life vest. When I finally turned around and looked up, I saw the bluest sky I've seen, framed by the fringes of the rocky mountain tops and tree tops. I just stayed afloat, right there, in the middle of the lagoon, wondering if others have see that exact picture before.Up 'til now, I close my eyes and I picture that. That was my El Nido, that very moment, that very scene, which was interrupted by the boatman calling me back to shore because I was apparently already dangerously far.

After the tour, Eva and I hung out at Publiko where this guy who sounded like Damien Rice (and sometimes, Eddie Vedder) was playing. We stayed there as the water went high, and until it receded, talking about random things, and meaningful things. At around 3 a.m., we decided to go our separate ways. At day break, I got up, packed my bag and headed for the terminal to get to Puerto Princesa, in time for my flight.

And then I returned to familiar things--the noise of the city, the mindless chatter of people, the mad rush to get to work, the traffic, smog, and impatient drivers, the clock winding down, ticking to the rhythm of boring routines. Since then, all I can think of and hope for was to get lost again.