Today was my first day off since I’ve been here and the Philippines is catching the tail end of a typhoon and we started getting really heavy rain yesterday and the trip to Corregidor Island was cancelled because of the high seas so I signed up for a trip to the southern town of Tagaytay and the Taal Volcano
It was still raining this morning when we left and the first stop was at a Jeepney factory south of the city. I’m really fascinated with these machines and even through the factory was c
losed on Saturday we got to walk around and look at how they build them. There are literally tens of thousands of them on Manila highways and they’re really cheap to ride—about 18 cents. They are limited to very short routes so they don’t compete with taxis and the destination is painted on the front of the vehicle. You just find the one going your way, flag the driver down, climb in the back, pass your 7 Pesos up to the driver, and hold on while he flies through Manila traffic. When you want to get off you just yell up to him and he stops—often in the middle of the street—and you jump off. You may have to take three or four of them to get to your destination but it costs almost nothing. They are open-air, however, and you have to deal with Manila’s heat, humidity and exhaustion pollution as well as sit shoulder to shoulder with twenty or thirty sweaty people you don’t know. Tomorrow afternoon I plan to attempt a short route on one of them. The factory was really interesting to me and I shot lots of pictures and intend to post a separate blog on just these amazing vehicles.
From the factory we continued further south to the town of Las Pina
s and the very old church of San Jose which is famous for its bamboo organ. In 1821—because the church was so poor—the priest had an organ built of bamboo rather than metal and it is still around today. Earthquakes and time took their toll, however, and the organ quit working for several decades before a German tourist came across it in 1911 and repaired it. In the 1980s it was disassembled and sent to Germany and completely rebuilt then returned to the Philippines where it is now considered a national treasure. Today you can visit the old church and parishioners play the organ for donations. The kid we had today wasn’t all that good of a musician but he gave it a shot and I videotaped a clip which I’m trying
to add to this post.
From there we continued to Tagaytay and Taal Volcano and the rain got much worse as we climbed the mountain. We ate at a restaurant overlooking the crater but the fog was so bad we never really saw the volcano or the lake down below which is a real shame because it’s supposed to be absolutely beautiful. The lunch was good, however, and I was in a group of four from Ohio and they were nice people. After lunch I had a double scoop of ice cream—the flavors were “yam” and “cheese,” a first for me but you know, it really wasn’t bad.
A real first for me, however, was when I had a cup of “Wild Cat Coffee” at a vendor on the way back down the mountain. There is a hard-shelled coffee bean here in the Philippines that has a sweet white blossom that cats just love to e
at. Inside their stomachs, the intestinal acids soften the shell of the coffee bean before the cat expels the beans out their backside then the workers pick up the beans, clean them (or at least I really, really hope they clean them), and grind them up into what is considered a really gourmet coffee here. Naturally I had to try it and frankly I thought it tasted like S@#%. Not really, the Filipinos load their coffee with milk and sugar and I don't, so I thought it tasted kind of bitter but it wasn't bad at all.
We got back to Manila and the rain let up so I decided to walk back to Intramoros, the old walled city, and visit Fort Santiago again. It was about a six-mile round-trip walk and felt good--I haven't been exercising like at home--but when I finally got back to the hotel I was literally saturated in sweat.
After showering and changing clothes I went up to the 21st floor of the hotel and ate supper at the lounge overlooking Manila Bay. The rain had stopped and I ate while watching the yachts in the bay and wondered how I ever got so lucky as to be able to do all this.
Tomorrow the Corregidor trip should make so I plan to do that and will post again later.....
It was still raining this morning when we left and the first stop was at a Jeepney factory south of the city. I’m really fascinated with these machines and even through the factory was c
losed on Saturday we got to walk around and look at how they build them. There are literally tens of thousands of them on Manila highways and they’re really cheap to ride—about 18 cents. They are limited to very short routes so they don’t compete with taxis and the destination is painted on the front of the vehicle. You just find the one going your way, flag the driver down, climb in the back, pass your 7 Pesos up to the driver, and hold on while he flies through Manila traffic. When you want to get off you just yell up to him and he stops—often in the middle of the street—and you jump off. You may have to take three or four of them to get to your destination but it costs almost nothing. They are open-air, however, and you have to deal with Manila’s heat, humidity and exhaustion pollution as well as sit shoulder to shoulder with twenty or thirty sweaty people you don’t know. Tomorrow afternoon I plan to attempt a short route on one of them. The factory was really interesting to me and I shot lots of pictures and intend to post a separate blog on just these amazing vehicles.From the factory we continued further south to the town of Las Pina
s and the very old church of San Jose which is famous for its bamboo organ. In 1821—because the church was so poor—the priest had an organ built of bamboo rather than metal and it is still around today. Earthquakes and time took their toll, however, and the organ quit working for several decades before a German tourist came across it in 1911 and repaired it. In the 1980s it was disassembled and sent to Germany and completely rebuilt then returned to the Philippines where it is now considered a national treasure. Today you can visit the old church and parishioners play the organ for donations. The kid we had today wasn’t all that good of a musician but he gave it a shot and I videotaped a clip which I’m trying
to add to this post.From there we continued to Tagaytay and Taal Volcano and the rain got much worse as we climbed the mountain. We ate at a restaurant overlooking the crater but the fog was so bad we never really saw the volcano or the lake down below which is a real shame because it’s supposed to be absolutely beautiful. The lunch was good, however, and I was in a group of four from Ohio and they were nice people. After lunch I had a double scoop of ice cream—the flavors were “yam” and “cheese,” a first for me but you know, it really wasn’t bad.
A real first for me, however, was when I had a cup of “Wild Cat Coffee” at a vendor on the way back down the mountain. There is a hard-shelled coffee bean here in the Philippines that has a sweet white blossom that cats just love to e
at. Inside their stomachs, the intestinal acids soften the shell of the coffee bean before the cat expels the beans out their backside then the workers pick up the beans, clean them (or at least I really, really hope they clean them), and grind them up into what is considered a really gourmet coffee here. Naturally I had to try it and frankly I thought it tasted like S@#%. Not really, the Filipinos load their coffee with milk and sugar and I don't, so I thought it tasted kind of bitter but it wasn't bad at all.We got back to Manila and the rain let up so I decided to walk back to Intramoros, the old walled city, and visit Fort Santiago again. It was about a six-mile round-trip walk and felt good--I haven't been exercising like at home--but when I finally got back to the hotel I was literally saturated in sweat.
After showering and changing clothes I went up to the 21st floor of the hotel and ate supper at the lounge overlooking Manila Bay. The rain had stopped and I ate while watching the yachts in the bay and wondered how I ever got so lucky as to be able to do all this.
Tomorrow the Corregidor trip should make so I plan to do that and will post again later.....
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