EYES WIDE OPEN

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Day one in the land of 10 billion islands, or something like that, we were off to the longest underground river in the world. The book called the road "butt smacking" but as with everything here the Filipinos just go for it with what they've got.

We should have learned from the night of our arrival that nothing is what it seems here. The guy who grabbed our bag and loaded us on his tricycle at the airport seemed like the consummate rip off sales person trying to milk the white people for all they had. A tricycle, by the way, is a motorbike with an elaborate side car attached which carries between two and twelve people at a time if most of them are under the age of six. So as we were making our way into town our driver tried to sell us everything from private tours to the top accommodations in town. Of course he knows all these guys personally.

We were going for budget accommodation of course but the first place we found from the book left us scared. It's raining and dark by this time. We've been weaving in and out of clouds of these tricycles, which are standard transportation in the Philippines, the hostel is dark, has a closed and broken bamboo gate while the building looks more like salvage from a slum than an accommodation for tourists. So where did we turn for help but to our con artist tricycle driver. At this point he surprised us by performing as a class act chauffeur who took us is circles to find a clean, tidy place to sleep. All for one low price. By the time we went into the place he had convinced us of the legitimacy of his tour out to the underground river. He left us with his cell number and a heartfelt plea to book through him and not the hostel owner because he would get an extra kilo of rice for his hungry family.

THE SECRET RIVER

Thus we found ourselves making our way down the surprisingly possible road to the hidden river. As we went we watched life in the Philippines happening around us. Buses were loaded to bursting with pigs riding on top. (That however was nothing compared to the roosters that flew as carry on luggage on a modern jet plane ). We drove past the long horned oxen right there just like National Geographic, plowing the rice paddies, while next to them the single modern machine was paving the road in a hundred small concrete sections. The contrast of seeing agriculture done the same way it has been for thousands of years while riding in an air conditioned van was almost too strange to comprehend. It still took us two hours to travel about 50 km.

The underground river park was everything we were promised and more: Beautiful vistas, palm tree covered beaches, round mountains riddled with caves, monkeys and monitor lizards along the path and four exceptionally effeminate Filipino boys with us in the van. The lizards and monkeys almost made me poop myself. It's not every day that you're happily strolling down a forest path and see something from the corner of your eye only to realize it's a five foot long lizard. "Oh my stars!" I wanted to get down and play with the little cuties in the worst way but something about losing my hand held me back. The river was an incredible 2 km trip into the heart of a mountain and by the time we made it back to the van I was so tired that I fell sound asleep on the butt smacking road back home.

WHAT IS REAL?

After our return from tropical paradise we decided it was time to explore real life in the Philippines so we set out on foot to see how 200,000 something Filipinos live everyday in our city of Purto Princessa. From the roof of our hostel we had a striking view of the harbor and the ramshackle homes built one on top of another while stretching way out out over the water on stilts and piers. That's where we headed first. As we wove down roads and back streets we saw families living with less than we could imagine owning yet not miserable, sad or destitute in the way one might expect. They were just living with what they had but surprisingly... they appeared to be happy! They were pointing at us and laughing, every little kid shouting hello while playing games in the street. People were running their shops and talking with their neighbors. We came across a basketball game on a tiny outdoor court jammed between buildings with only one hoop. But there was the ref, two teams, one in uniform, and the whole community cheering them on just like a school ball game back home. As we stopped to take in the entertainment it dawned on me that this, right in front of me, was real life. They were living life trying to reach the same kinds of goals that we reach for. Just without all the window dressing and wealth that makes our Western lifestyles such an unusual existence. Standing there right in front of me was what most of the world sees as normal life. This is what most of the people in the world do. This is how they live. Without their comfortable bungalow in the suburbs. And for the most part they find a way to be happy.