A Year in Shenzhen: The Philippines Part 2: Just the Two of Us

I would say that most vacations are composed of varying percentages of relaxing and sight-seeing. After Walter's parents left the majority of our sight-seeing was over and a lot of butt-sitting commenced. We spent the night in 7 different resorts/hotels/hostels on 3 islands over the course of 2 weeks. Some places were tiny rooms in the middle of a big town, some were right on the ocean, and the rest were somewhere in between. We spent our days swimming, reading, and watching American television (a real treat considering there are only two English-language channels in Shenzhen and they only actually air American and/or Hong Kong programming for about 6 hours per day). Aside from the motorcycle issue (discussed in a previous post) and a possible UFO sighting all was relatively normal and peaceful. Until the last day, of course.

The very last day in Manila (the last city we flew out of) we decided to take one last sight-seeing tour around a couple of parks and the old city. We hopped on a metro train line of some sort and found our way to the heart of the historical section. We wandered into the old city through the gigantic zig-zagged fortress walls and wandered around an antique/craft shop for about an hour. After that we got out of that city because we were tired of being harassed by men on horse-drawn carriages who wanted to give us tours...at a steep price I'm sure. We headed to this park that was named after the Philippines' national hero, Jose Rizal. The park now encompasses both where he was executed and a monument under which he was eventually buried. While walking through this park I really had to pee and the most convenient way to do this was to pay 5 pisos ($.10) to get into the "Chinese park" where there were bathrooms. This seemed oddly ironic since it really did look like a Chinese park, but the novelty was completely lost on us. I should point out that the reason we knew that this was the most convenient way to find a bathroom was because some Philippino guy overheard me tell Walter that I really really had to go and directed us there. We sat in the park for 20 minutes or so before moving on. Imagine our surprise when we exited the gates and that guy was waiting for us! He introduced himself as Paul and proceeded to adopt us so he could take us on a tour all around the park. He was great; his stories were funny, he really knew the history of the park and the politics surrounding Dr. Rizal, and he loved to talk about all the American and Australian friends he had met this way. We followed Paul around for nearly an hour before we had to go. He never exactly mentioned paying him but we were pretty sure that's what we were supposed to do, so we over-payed him (and under-guessed his age by 20 years...he may have appreciated that more than the cash) and headed off to the airport.

Now, because we knew we were heading home we had let our money dwindle down to next to nothing so we wouldn't have to exchange much (mostly because their money is practically worthless, it's nearly 50 pisos to US$1). We got to the airport with plenty of time and stood in the ticket line FOREVER. But, eventually got through and headed to customs. There was a counter between us and customs that required us to pay an airport usage fee which, of course, we didn't have enough cash for. Walter left me with the stuff while he went to exchange money, came back to get his passport (which is required to exchange money), exchange all the Hong Kong and Chinese money he had, and find an ATM after that still wasn't quite enough. Finally he got back and we payed and headed on to customs. I went first and the lady looked through my passport and all was well until she noticed that we had overstayed our visa by 2 days. Shit. Well, rather than being helpful and telling me the next step or handcuffing me or whatever, she just looked at me and asked in this 'how could you?' voice, "Why did you overstay your visa?" "Uh, it was a mistake?"

This was the first I had heard about this, but apparently we were given conflicting reports on how long a tourist visa was good in the Philippines and chose to believe the wrong one when purchasing airline tickets. 5 bajillion forms, a couple ATM trips, and a few thousand pisos later we were through customs and through security and really, really ready to get out of that country.

Our flight was delayed (of course) but we got back to Hong Kong and then Shenzhen in one piece. It was a weird feeling to "come home" to China. You see, in the Philippines a lot of people can speak English but they don't use it with each other. The result is similar to any foreign country, you just get used to a constant buzz of words you don't understand. However, it was oddly comforting to be back in China with the familiar buzz of mostly Mandarin with a small sprinkling of Cantonese and there's at least a shot in hell that I can understand some of it.

I really did like the Philippines, but I would recommend to anyone who wants to visit there: always have cash and bring all the patience you've got!