2023PhilippinesTaiwan

  Blog 06-26-23 Monday Nothing has happened. There is nothing to tell, no stories that might engage an audience. (What audience? I have been averaging three views of each of my posts.) Since returning from Port Barton I’ve: Read a couple books; Eaten a few peanut butter sandwiches; Cleaned the beach a couple times despite overwhelming fatigue when I do so;  Traveled to the county fair to drink some lemonade and eat a few french fries; Gazed at the daily rainstorm that seems to wrap me in its protective shroud; Followed the NBA draft obsessively for a few hours; Followed the unreal developments in Russia that seem to have no logic except to distract those in distant lands;  Scratched the brown cat who snuggles up to my legs each night until the dawn light tempts her back to wherever she hangs out when she isn’t here; Stared at my fat belly always hoping that it will magically disappear the next time I look;  Persuaded Roy to take me on a tour of the village main stree...

 I got a chance to realize my Philippine fantasies for two days in this place 148 km. northeast of Puerto Princesa. I located a van that was making the 3.5 hour drive on Monday the 19th. Roy found one of his many relatives who drive tricycles for a living to take me to the bus station. It’s a good thing I asked my caretaker/neighbor since Google had positioned the bus terminal quite a ways from the actual place. If I’d insisted on ‘doing it myself’ I’d surely have missed the bus and repeated my frustrations of the Underground River tour. Roy wanted me to give his cousin 150 pesos (three bucks) for the relatively arduous journey to the bus; I gave him 300 on my theory that it is always my responsibility to slightly overpay as my touristic penance.   The bus stop was a shed affixed to a covered waiting area that held some wooden benches. A couple cats and a similar number of small dogs bounded in and out of the waiting area. The three women tending to customers were simult...

06-18-23 Sunday What can be said about a life with so little substance? I wake up; I take a tour on the hammock that occupies half of my porch, maybe an hour each morning?; then I read for a couple hours on the rattan couch in my living room; followed by a couple hours looking at YouTube videos on my laptop; then more reading and hammockery. Somehow the hours pass and the day is gone. All the while I persecute myself with accusations of sloth (the charges are clearly valid). How do I justify doing nothing for two weeks? Generally on my travels I don’t tarry anywhere very long, always seeking out museums, bicycle tours, parks, restaurants, riversides. But Princesa has none of these. There is a small port that I visited one of the first days. I’ve spent some hours investigating the city with its myriad shops and markets, but there isn’t much to see. I took a ride to the nearest tourist attraction, the ‘Underground River’, but that was a vapid exercise further ruined by an argument I h...

  Architecture 06-16-23 Friday My street I did some cursory reading on the internet about Filipino architecture but such sources focus on the exemplary, the churches, mansions, and public buildings that curtsey to tradition. I am more interested in what I see around me, the quotidian structures that define the struggles that people have to keep the rain off while husbanding  a few pesos.  If you landed from LAX and blindfolded  yourself on a trip to  my lodging you’d get a big outward false impression. {I haven’t been in the homes of my neighbors so it’s possible the interiors are similar to my digs, but I’d bet against it.} Everything in this place is made of stylish, modern materials, a mixture of bamboo and some sort of elegant wood. The porch and the bathroom floor are constructed of flat stones married together with some sort of clear adhesive. Wood studs keep this place together except for a few stone pillars that support the porch. The result is a space t...

  Blog 06-07-23 Wednesday  The skies darkened and then all the accumulated moisture of the heavens cast down on us last night(Tuesday). I briefly tried to imagine what I’d do if my residence floated away in the downpour. It rained Monday night, and behind me I see gray clouds massing. I’m headed in a tricycle for downtown Puerto Princesa in ten minutes so I might get the bath I needed with no effort. Riding one of those tricycles is like sitting on the wing of a small aircraft at 10,000 feet. The vibration is constant and insistent. Smooth roads are a rarity hereabouts even in the central city (Puerto Princesa). If you find a smooth surface chances are you will see “Forgive the Inconvenience” — which should be the national motto — as a prelude to half the road being ripped apart for repairs. And if your tricycle driver sees torn pavement ahead he (there are no female tricyclist) will gird himself for the upcoming game of chicken with the guy(s) coming the other way. Truthfully...

  Blog 06-11-23 Sunday, Princesa City Animals Sand flies (fleas?):  these little beings were the fiercest living things I have encountered so far in the Philippines. They assaulted me last Wednesday when I trod sockless and in shorts along a path toward an vegetarian restaurant that turned out to be out of business. They had me. And I had dozens of red welts along my feet, toes, and calves, such that I my nether regions looked like two cranberry tarts.  Birds: our yard is full of song birds including the circumambient chickadees that one finds on every continent. The signal avian of the Philippines is, of course, the chicken. Our neighborhood is full of them. The local roosters begin trumpeting at four a.m. Fortunately I have the ability to sleep through such noises, a skill I developed on the aircraft carrier, John F. Kennedy where jet planes launched off the deck a few yards above my bunk. Chicken is the food of choice everywhere here. The leading fast food dive is Joll...

  Is This An ‘Authentic’ Experience?  06-06-23 Our street My host sent a tricycle to transport me from the Puerto Princesa Airport to my digs about a mile away. The roads were narrow, dirt paths interrupted every few minutes by road repairs (with no workers evident) that made navigating a game of chicken for my driver. Like Manila the act of getting from one place to the next requires a war-like attitude.  My digs are almost luxurious compared with most of my neighbors. The place is open and airy with good wifi and a fan to make sleeping pleasant. The best feature is a hammock on my front porch that I improved with a bungee cord for mobility. Gently swaying with the wind cooling me off is my favorite activity for the day. The kitchen is spartan with just a small electric cooker and a fridge. It’s the first Airbnb I’ve ever been to without a microwave. Water is the big issue. We have a large plastic container of bottled water outside my door so there is no problem with me ...

Philippine Blog 06-02-23 Manila (Ola Hostel)  My second, and last, day in Manila I spent on a bicycle tour of The Intramuros. When I signed up for the trip I didn’t realize this would be its locality. I enjoyed the event. My party included a young couple whose ethnicity I never learned, and a flight attendant from Emirates Airline. She was suitably pretty, thin, and blonde. She told me she lived in Doha owing to the fact that the airline was headquartered there. Our guide taught us the Reader’s Digest version of Philippine/Manila history.   After the tour I sauntered over to the Philippine Museum of Fine Arts. I spent two pleasant hours cruising through the exhibits.  I noticed:  A. There were busts of most of the Philippine presidents but not one mention of Marcos (junior or senior).  B. The paintings were mostly confined to the 1970’s for some odd reason.  C. One floor was devoted to Magellan and his voyage. It was very professionally done but compl...

  Philippine Blog 06-01-23 Manila  (Ola Hostel) In a corner of The Intramuros was this noble replica of Ho Chi Minh.  I dipped down my head to get myself inside the shallow quarters of the jeepney. The people at the hostel told me I should board the one marked chow, which turned out to be Quiao. { https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBotip2MWtg } A bonanza of putrid blue smoke blasted into my lungs, conveniently lofted to nostril height by a nearby driver. Linear seats lined both sides. In front was an old man driving, and, I think, his grandson collecting fares. I announced my destination as “City Hall” (as I’d been instructed to say by the hostelites). The driver looked at me quizzically and, after some colloquy with his grandson, he faintly nodded. I wasn’t sure if he understood, but this was my first day in Manila and I had no definite destination. A filipino woman in my dorm room told me I must seek out The Intramuros , so that was my sort-of goal today. The other seats...

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 and ff.  King Philip II of Spain, glorified ironically by his victims.  Hour One: I found a place to store my car for $274 (for two months). The owner met me on a street corner in West Oakland and guided me to a fenced-in lot. I bedecked my Subaru with a funky old car cover that I’ve had for years. Even when it was new it was fragile. This time when I tried to apply it the clear plastic came apart in my hands.  A stiff wind foiled my attempts to neatly wrap it around my bumpers. Whatever protection it provides is gravy as far as I’m concerned.  I was hours ahead of my scheduled SFO departure so I resolved to take BART to the airport ($10.35) rather than Uber($60?). But to get to the subway station meant carrying my two backpacks through a series of homeless encampments and then down litter-strewn Telegraph Avenue. What would it mean if my sixty-day voyage began with a mugging? I had more luck than I deserved; the walk was uneventful. It was 8 p....