”Honey, stop the car!”
Jollibee is a horrendous Filipino fast food chain but I love this list of locations, particularly the deep drop-off after New York. Daly City is a suburb of San Francisco that had long been a first destination for fresh-off-the-boat Filipinos and is therefore a place a surprising number of Filipinos here know, whereas I don’t think people who live 30km away in the East Bay can find it on the map.
That’s pretty good form, I must say. This is in Malvar, one exit away from Lipa City, about 100km south of Manila where I spent the Easter holiday. The hitchhiking went OK. It’s not commonly done here, but Filipinos are all-time gracious hosts and are usually happy to help the weirdo who is smiling awkwardly on the side of the road with his thumb out for some reason. An Aussie family drove me back to Manila. Speaking of which, I was surprised to see that the land down here reminded me of Australia: rust-colored soil, haphazard vegetation, and what looked like gum trees from a afar, none of which are evident in this photo. Thank me later.
These two women picked me up hitchhiking and insisted on driving me straight to the hostel.
These two women plus a thirteen-year-old girl picked me up hitchhiking in front of my dentist’s office in the dark in Paranaque, a southern suburb of Manila.
Think about this: it’s 44 pesos to the dollar, so you can have your own apartment for 3500 pesos ($80) a month! (“CR” means “comfort room”, or bathroom.) My parole officer—I mean, anyone’s parole officer—will never ever find you!
Another thing unique to the Philippines I like are the basketball jerseys always being made or repaired by small mom and pop shops.
Dubai Heat. That’s a good name.
This is a great idea America desperately needs: cheap temporary accommodation. This is called G Dorm. The men’s dorm was empty over the holidays so I had my own room for 150 pesos (US$3.30) a night. These places are meant for transient workers, in this case the call center next door. Since it isn’t a hostel per se, they don’t supply sheets or even a pillow. Finally my sarong shows its usefulness! Another boarder let me use her pillow while she was away. There is camaraderie, safety, it’s cheap, central, and it facilitates the movement of workers to where jobs are, which is a problem in America.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
All hostels in Manila are awful. Trust me on this. Don’t waste your time looking at reviews on TripAdvisor or whatever. It’s all rubbish. Every hostel will have the same tired, worn look to match its faulty plumbing, filthy rooms and flimsy beds. Even if they advertise themselves as “new”, find out how new because newness dies quickly and irrevocably in relentless Manila.
I like a place I often stay, Pension Natividad, in the heart of the hell of Malate (don’t ever go left when you walk out of the hostel, even in daytime) because it’s hardcore Catholic, meaning it’s clean and austere. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t show up on any hostel search engines, too, because they don’t take reservations. Unless I am mistaken, the oasis is only first come, first serve.
I moved closer to my dentist in the southern suburb of Paranaque at Green Mango Hostel where a dorm bed is only 250 pesos but where I woke up with weird, bright red spots on my legs. I’m pretty sure this is a hot sheet hotel, too, judging by the number of people who avail themselves of the “12 hour rental” with no luggage. I moved to a 12 hour rental room after I had an “incident” with a Japanese boxer staying in the dorm. I had to wear headphones. And use two pairs of gloves to touch the remote control.
There are two miserable people staying an indeterminate time at the hostel. Make no mistake: there’s nothing sadder than a foreigner staying long term in a cheap Manila hostel. Nothing. I see them, I know them, and I strenuously try and avoid becoming one of them.
If you were into this blog post there are more from my visit last year:
If I wrote for the Filipino version of The Onion…
Palawan, Philippines, the Last Frontier (of Mister Donut)
Narrowly Avoiding Death (from Obesity) in Davao, Mindanao
Camiguin and its bubonic plague-free lanzones festival
Cagayan de Oro, best (ping pong) city in the Philippines
Malate Makati = Manila?
A mild defense of Filipino food
And this is a Philippines section from my old website, a very retro-looking thing that still makes me smile when I see all those ebullient faces. I show a place where you can get a free circumcision, too, if you are curious.
Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google .
The post How to Spend Ten Miserable Days in the Philippines appeared first on TheDromomaniac.com.