Hey everyone! It's been about two months since my family and I left for our two-week trip to the Philippines, and things have settled down quite a bit. I really wanted to write this blog post as soon as we arrived back in Canada so the memories are still fresh, but I'm only now finding the time and energy to do so. Perhaps I'm just out of practice travelling, but hoo boy, I was exhausted coming back! I don't know how those of you who travel multiple times a year survive the stress!

This post is the first of a two-part account of my trip to the Philippines. In this post, I'll outline where I went and what we did, and in the second post, I will do a deeper dive on some of my thoughts about the culture there and how I perceive it as someone who's spent the majority of her life in the diaspora.

Pre-trip

To be completely honest, I was kind of dreading this trip for a number of reasons. First, my family has not yet gone out of lockdown-mode completely. Even though the restrictions have all been lifted where we live, my father still worries about our risk of catching covid. Both my parents are now 60 or over, and they are in the bracket of those most at risk. It isn't just a matter of catching it; they're also more likely to suffer complications as a result, and given that my father doesn't have the sturdiest of health to begin with, I can understand his wariness. My mother, who falls under the "essential worker" category, continued to work at her store even through the lockdowns, and my father believed that we shouldn't be adding any more risk than that if we can help it.

Hence, since I started working from home when the pandemic began, I've mostly stayed home. In fact, other than grocery and church, there really isn't any other public place we go to regularly. Even in those spaces, we are fully equipped with masks, rubber gloves, and hand sanitizers. Anything we buy, any package that comes to us, are thoroughly cleansed with soap and water or alcohol wipes. Any takeout food we order get immediately transferred to our own plates and bowls, and none of the restaurants' utensils get touched.

Going from being mostly house-bound, to riding a plane for almost 24 hours, and living in a more clustered neighbourhood, and riding tricycles and jeeps and vans? Of course I was worried how we were going to deal with all of those!

Secondly, there were also emotional aspects of the trip that I wasn't entirely ready to face yet. I mentioned last year that a couple of my relatives passed away. My cousin, in particular, was always someone I had looked forward to meeting again every time we visited the Philippines. I just didn't know how her passing has changed the dynamics of my family back there. I didn't know if there were issues about her that would come up and perhaps cause painful memories to surface again.

Travelogue

That said, all of that worrying seems to have been mostly for naught. Although we did experience a few hiccups, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Philippines! I am so glad I took the opportunity to return home, experience the culture and the climate and its nature again, and of course, to spend some much needed time with my extended family.

Here's an overview of our agenda and some of my thoughts about each place. The main purpose of the trip was really to reunite with relatives, so outings or pasyalan remained relatively few and far between.

Clark Airport

One of the unique things we did in this trip was to use Clark International Airport in Pampanga instead of NAIA. The flight prices were a little bit cheaper at Clark (about $200 per person), and since my father's home province is Pampanga, we thought it would also motivate us to spend more time in Pampanga and maybe explore Clark and Angeles a little bit.

Unfortunately the setup wasn't as ideal as we first imagined. Our home is in Laguna, and we realized too late that there aren't very many ways to commute privately from province to province. Since my parents still wanted to avoid as much risk in catching covid as possible, they didn't want to ride in public buses and shuttles. And it turns out that Grab and other taxis operate only regionally. We ended up paying one of my aunts who lived about an hour away from the airport to pick us up and drop us off in Laguna.

Clark Airport has a lot of potential though. It is large, clean, and very organized. Perhaps it has the advantage of being not as busy as NAIA, and that's why it's so well-maintained. But I think if it starts to operate at capacity, it might help alleviate the over-crowding at NAIA, and maybe more inter-provincial transportation will become available.

Home in Laguna

My childhood house is in Laguna, and to be perfectly honest, it's no longer in good shape. It hasn't been for a while now. Back when we visited home for the first time in 2011 since immigrating, there had been drastic changes to it already. The sinks in the bathrooms don't work, the roof leaks, the toilets can only be manually flushed, and the washing machine broke a long time ago. There wasn't much we could do, as it had only been my grandmother maintaining the house since we left. And ever since the pandemic began, my grandmother started to live with other relatives in Pampanga who would be able to take better care of her, as should be. So for three years, the house hasn't been maintained at all.

My parents and I anticipated that our stay won't exactly be a hotel experience, so we tried to prepare as best we can. We brought air mattresses from Canada, and budgeted for drinking water and cooked meals. We found several old batsa, in which we were able to launder our clothes by hand.

We also underestimated the heat! Even though all of our relatives already warned us about how hot it was there, we assumed it wouldn't really hold us back. But our house possessed a meagre collection of only two electric fans, both of which held the power of a whisper at full strength. The first night we arrived there, my father was quite distressed. He kept asking, "How are we going to make it through two weeks here? Perhaps we should find a hotel."

Not to worry though. After a nice cold bath, all three of us were much comforted. I don't even remember suffering any jet lag. As soon as I lay down on my air mattress, I was out!

I'm quite proud that we managed to stay at that house almost the entire trip, just as planned (we did rent a hotel at Clark for the last two nights of the trip so we won't miss our flight). The things that seemed like they were going to be major inconveniences at the beginning turned out to be bearable. I quite enjoyed being able to launder my clothes by hand! And there were rainy days when we didn't even turn on the fans anymore because we were actually quite cool.

I noticed a lot of developments in my neighbourhood. So many people ride motorcycles now. Several of my neighbours' houses have expanded. The majority of households have some type of microbusiness at their porch or driveway. And while there are more traffic lights installed, the traffic has gotten worse around a commercial complex that has become exponentially bigger since I was last there in 2019.

We didn't have internet either in the house, so I spent a lot of time just sitting and observing the area. I wasn't bored at all. I often thought about how the vibe just felt completely different there. Noisier, crowded, but so full of life.

Metro Manila

Another place we frequented was my mother's hometown at the outskirts of NCR. Many of my mother's relatives live in a compound with multiple apartments, so it's very convenient that we see so many of them at just one location.

Our reception there was very warm and welcoming. I was relieved to see that folks seem to be handling their grief well, especially my aunt who was very close to her daughter who passed away. She seemed to be taking good care of herself. Everyone else in her family also seem to be getting along all right, which is such a huge relief to me.

My mother celebrated her 60th birthday at a Max's restaurant near there. Her birthday was actually a few weeks before the trip, but she and a few other relatives whose birthdays were all in May pooled together resources to throw a nice lunch for everyone. That celebration was one of the highlights of the trip for me. The food at Max's was delicious, and made even better by such good company.

Metro Manila didn't seem like it changed much to me, but perhaps that's just the way things are in big cities. It's harder to detect changes or improvements. The only thing I noticed for certain is that my mother's family's compound seems to be getting more and more narrow every time.

Tagaytay

For the first time ever, I was finally able to visit Tagaytay and Taal volcano! This was one of the places I specifically requested to visit back when we were just thinking of even planning a trip. Even though I grew up in Laguna as a child, I didn't have many opportunities to go on nature trips back then, even to the ones nearby.

The interesting part here was our commute to Tagaytay. Like I said earlier, my parents were still wary about catching covid, so my father looked for ways we can get there in a more private setting. We tried to book a Grab car, but the app kept telling us that there were no drivers who could make the trip there. In the end, my father rented an 18-seater van, with just the three of us. We paid for the remaining fifteen spots. I felt a little conflicted about it. On one hand, I'm surprised that there just aren't taxis you can call to take you to a popular tourist spots, like we have here in Canada. On the other hand, I felt like we came off as special snowflakes. But we did pay for the other spots, and based on the Canadian dollar conversion, it seemed like a fair rate, so perhaps I don't have anything to feel bad about. And if it reduces the health risk for my parents, then it's ultimately the better option.

The van dropped us off at Sky Ranch, which we spent about two hours roaming. It was cool and windy at the high balcony, although to be honest, I had assumed it would be cooler based on the way people talked about Tagaytay. Unfortunately the day was a little foggy, so we couldn't really see the Taal island at our vantage point since it was occluded by the mists. We stayed so long at the balcony hoping the wind would drive the fog away, but eventually we got tired of waiting, and decided to get lunch.

We chose a bulalo restaurant situated on a hill with an open dining area. We were very excited to taste their bulalo, because we heard that Tagaytay is the bulalo capital of the Philippines. For those who don't know, bulalo is a type of beef-bone soup with tender pieces of beef, sliced cobs of corn, and other types of vegetables like petchay, cabbage, and string beans. It's served with rice, and is a perfect treat on cooler days. Which is probably why so many restaurants serve it in Tagaytay. My parents and I thoroughly enjoyed the bulalo! The broth was hot and refreshing, the meat just perfectly tender. My parents also bought a side dish of pork chop, which was crispy and salty and so filling.

After lunch, we headed down to Taal lake and paid for a boat tour of the volcano. This was one of the absolute highlights of my trip! It turns out that the volcano was the entire island and there are 47 craters where lava had shot out from. I had always thought there was only one exit point, because when you search for Taal volcano, they always show the same picture. But this picture actually only shows one of the craters.

It took about 2.5 hours to go around the entire volcano-island. We weren't allowed to land on the island itself, because there was still a safety warning against it. Taal volcano last erupted only in 2020. The waves of the lake got larger as we rounded the back of the island. It almost felt like we were at sea. It also started to rain a little bit. At one point I even saw a flash of lightning streak down from the sky right onto the horizon. The wind was strong and cool, and I felt like I was in the presence of something big and ancient. During those few hours, all my anxieties about this trip receded and I was fully in the moment, savouring a nature experience I don't often get to have.

SM & Other Malls

Throughout our two weeks there, we periodically tried to stave off the heat by going to malls. SM is probably the most common mall in the Philippines, and there's a branch of it only a tricyle ride from our house.

It seems to be common practice to drop by malls to just relax in an airconditioned environment, because by far the most common type of store in SM is restaurants. And I'm not talking about the simple food courts you find here in the malls in Canada (although there are food courts as well), but dozens of restaurants with indoor seating right inside the mall. They are clustered right after another, often filling at least two wings of the building. And they are packed! Malls here in Canada are usually filled with teenagers and young adults. In the Philippines, they are filled with entire clans. Families and extended families with grandparents, little babies, younger children, aunts, uncles, parents, siblings, everyone. They all tend to go out together. So then you start to understand why a typical food court isn't enough.

The Friday of our first week there, we shopped at SM for souvenirs to bring back to Canada. It's actually funny because that was the first time I've shopped at a mall since 2020. It took travelling to the other side of the world for me to experience mall-shopping again.

Pagsanjan Falls

Another nature trip we went on was a boat ride to Pagsanjan Falls. This is another popular destination in Laguna that I haven't gone to before.

The setup for the boat ride was very interesting. The boaters seem to be part of one big tourist outfit, but they don't manage the tours themselves. Instead, the river that leads to the falls is lined with restaurants that double as resorts, and you go to one of these restaurants to pay for the boat ride. They provide you with a life vest, a helmet, and plastic bags for your things. We were also warned by the restaurant owner not to give tips to the boaters, which I found curious.

They hailed the boat for us, and we went on a two hour journey to the falls. Some sections of the river are dotted by boulders and rocky patches called rapids, and the boaters navigate these by kicking at the rocks and manually hauling the boat along. It's pretty tiring, so they have to rest at some points of the journey. It was also hot, and I kind of felt bad that they do this for a living just to entertain tourists.

We passed by really beautiful sceneries. The river is in between two cliffs. The water was clear and filled with goldfish. Bright blue dragonflies flitted in the air. Trees and plants covered the high hills that penned us in. Just like in the boat ride in Tagaytay, I felt my anxieties ebbing away.

There was a falls partway through the journey, and the boaters took us to splash a bit beneath it. They told us that when the water of the river is high during rainy season, that was usually the farthest they take the tourists, because getting to the second falls becomes dangerous.

However since we were still in the dry season, we were able to go to the second falls. We landed on a rocky patch, and a bamboo raft was waiting there to take us into the falls and the cave behind it. Believe it or not, taking the bamboo raft was one of the things I looked forward to, because in my current writing project, bamboo rafts are ubiquitous in the story's world. So it was nice that I got to experience it, no matter how short the trip was.

The falls wasn't that high or strong, definitely not anywhere near Niagara levels. We did get thoroughly soaked when we went underneath it. The cave behind it was not very large, and we stayed there maybe for only a few minutes, before going back.

I didn't take many pictures during the return trip, because I just wanted to enjoy the view and the experience. When we got back to the restaurant, we ordered a meal just in time for lunch. We had Chinese-style fried rice, beef with ampalaya, and pancit canton. Every single dish was delicious. The dining area was also in a roofed patio, and partway through our meal, heavy rain started to pour. I know the term hygge is more often attributed to European and North American experiences, but I felt like eating on a patio in a tropical rain beside a river was such a hygge experience.

Clark, Pampanga

The last two days of our trip, my parents and I stayed at a hotel in Clark, so we won't have a hard time catching our flight all the way from Laguna. Clark has a really interesting history. It used to be a US military base in the Philippines, that's why it has an English name, and the streets there also have English names. Nowadays, it is considered its own "economic zone." I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it appears to be a hub for foreign businesses. While we drove around the area, there were lots of Korean restaurants and shops, some Chinese casinos, and business from other parts of the world. I also noticed that the area in general is a lot cleaner and neater, the traffic much more well-managed, than Manila or Laguna. There were large parks, and the architecture of the buildings are fancier and sturdier. It really screams, "Hey, the Philippines can be modern. Please invest in us!"

I am glad to see this type of development in the Philippines. My only wish is for this type of development to happen to other parts of the country too, because our people deserve it, not only because we want impress or invite foreign investment.

Initially, we were planning to go up to Baguio on our very last day. From Clark, the trip would have only been two hours or so, compared to almost double that if we were starting from Laguna. However, the tour we were booking fell through because of a mistake with my remittance back in Canada. It's okay, though. I think it was nice to spend our last day resting and making sure we had enough energy for the almost 24-hours trip back home.

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All right, that hopefully gives a good overview of how we spent our time in the Philippines. We may not have done many activities, but the purpose of the trip really was to reconnect with relatives, so most of the time we spent in Laguna was dedicated to that. Stay tuned for the follow-up post with more in-depth thoughts on aspects of the country and culture that intrigued me.