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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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Last Stop: Davao
I was really hoping to make one more stop off in Camigun before reaching Davao to leave the Philippines. My efforts to find out what day exactly the flight went from Davao to Manado in Indonesia met with responses over the phone like, 'maybe Wednesday'. You can probably predict my response to that one. There was only one solution and that was to get to Davao and sort it out. I didn't want to miss the flight and have to wait another week to get to Indonesia.
When I finally found the travel agent that looks after the airline in Davao, there was a big poster in the window advertising the Monday and Thursday flights. Inside I was told that the flight was actually on Friday, or wait, will be on this Friday for the last time. Very little demand on the route means that after my trip the route was down to a once a week trip. Just in time.
The mention of Mindinao Island (the most southerly and second biggest in the country) usually brings one response from most Fhilippinos. Dangerous Muslims. Mindinao is home to the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group fighting for freedom for the local Muslims. Davao has been spared from these troubles that are mainly confined to the wild Zamboanga peninsula. Davao has it's fair sprinkle of Muslims, but all live in harmony.
Without any real sights, one of my days there was spent wandering in areas that can only be called slums. Kids ran in all directions at the sight of my camera, following along like a pack of dogs to make sure they didn't miss out on any of the excitement. And it certainly wasn't only the kids that wanted their photos taken. The parents posed just as freely, if maybe a little less wild! Lots of marriage proposals along the way also. I didn't ask too closely how serious they were. I'm sure they all know of someone that's been picked up by an elder westerner looking for a wife. When they see a white face in the area there is one conclusion, a missionary. I could have gotten some mileage out of that one, but didn't have the heart! It's amazing that you can wander into an area so poor where education is a distant concept and still be able to communicate with the locals in English.
The one sight that is in the area is the Philippine eagle conservation center. The second largest species of eagle and the national bird of the Philippines, there are estimated to be only 150 breeding pairs left in the wild in the Philippines. There are probably about 20 pairs in the center. This is obviously the prison where the bad ones go though. Some are housed in cages about double the width of their wingspan. 10m is about as good as it gets for a bird with a wingspan of about 1.5m, obviously the better behaved ones. I hated to think what would happen if one of them actually got released back into the wild. There was even one tied to a post for some beautiful photos (my photo is nice, isn't it?).
Ode to the Philippines
For a place that is made up of over 7000 islands, it amazed me how similar the people actually were throughout the country. Always the same facial expressions. A throw of the eyebrows to signal agreement with anything. The same frown to show disagreement. Trying to ask directions to anywhere, you would think you were talking to aliens. They would always give you an answer though because that's the right thing to do, even if they hadn't a clue where you wanted to go. The frustrating thing was that they always looked so sure. The most common answer to 'how far is it' was, 'it's too far to walk'. 'Ok, but say if you were to walk there, how long would it take'. 'Too far sir, you take taxi'. Not only are they too lazy to find out, but they wouldn't walk 100m down the street if there's a taxi or local jeepney to take them.
Having had my gripe, they are in general fabulous people. A smile is never far away and the fact that most have some English means that they have a chance to talk with a white face that they may never have done before. A couple of people told me, 'before I tried to talk to Japanese, but very bad in English'. They really do love to sit beside the foreigner on a bus and chat.
After a bumpy start, the country turned out to be fairly easy to navigate. The final frontier of Palawan in the west threw up a few interesting travel puzzles, but part of it was just the hopeless organisation and initiative of the locals.
previous travel blog entry
VKL says:
It should actually be fun to be in the Philipine for 'Semana Santa' Easter Week.