Friday, December 31, 2010 New Years Eve in Manila

Thanks to the huge mountain range on Luzon Island known as the Cordillera, I spent 12 hours on buses.  I woke up at 4:30 before it was even light out, and caught the 5:00am bus straight out of the boring small hill station of Sagada.  I was stoked to be finally getting out of the isolation and cold rain of the mountains, so that I could now go to the isolation and hot rain of the Luzon coast.  The ride to Baguio was incredible.  The sun was just rising over the clouds, illuminating a world of hill towns, verdant rice terraces, and towering rugged mountains that somehow people have inhabited for thousands of years.  I picked the righthand side to sit on because it was not facing the sunrise, but because the grass is always greener on the other side, the views were better on the lefthand side.  The 5-hour ride of hairpin turns and ups and downs was enough to make even the toughest traveler even a little motion sick.  The town of Baguio is the center of the Cordillera region, and it was a huge, hilly crowded cesspool of activity.  Plus, everyone has today off for the New Years holiday, so the streets were packed.  The Jeepney station was among the dirtiest stations in the world, with mud and trash for pavement, a clusterfuck of Jeepneys and dilapidated old school buses, and a bazillion people with all their Costco-sized boxes and bags full of luggage.  I ran away from that as fast as I could (and went to the OTHER bus station; Victory lines, whose buses cost about 5x as much and are pure luxury... ie on my bus ride to Manila it was AC, had almost fully reclining seats, and they played Harry Potter 1 and 2).  The ride was cool, passing through the highlands and later the agricultural heartland of the Philippines, which included a huge sugarcane farm and processing plant, large tracts of rice paddies, and little towns.  I was so amped to just get back to Manila that I didn't even have a chance to eat, so I was absolutely starving when I got back into the megalopolis.  I was actually relieved to be in a huge city after being in the wilderness for the past couple days.  Yeah it's hot, dangerous, expensive, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  All these randoms bumrushed me and were looking to take a commission for finding me a cab outside the bus station, so I said FU, and just looked for one myself, which ended up taking forever.  I almost got swindled into taking a bus straight to Southern Luzon tonight, but then I told the guy "Sorry, I kind of just wanna party tonight instead".  I took a cab to Makati (new area where all the international corporations have their headquarters and where the rich of Manila work and play).  The restaurant at which I was attempting to eat because it's Filipino buffet, of course was closed, so I huffed and puffed around the annoyingly American Supermall-tastic area until I finally found what I needed; a food court!  I ordered a meal of lechon (pig on a spit with an apple in its mouth), another meal of BBQ fish/chicken/squid, and another of sigsig.  It was to die for, except for the sigsig, which is basically fried pig tripe and fat.  People in other countries LOVE animal fat; in the US, on the other hand, we cut it off the meat and discard it.  The internet cafe was open for 10 minutes, so I quickly logged on and booked a last-minute ticket on budget carrier Cebu Pacific for tomorrow at 4am (yes, as in 8 hours from now).  After that I took the most ridiculous cab ride ever to Malate area downtown, where all the cheap young hotels are.  The [I'm 95% positive he was shitfaced] cab driver (who was wearing a yellow bandana) kept rolling down his window and yelling at the other cab drivers "Rock and Roll", making the sign with his fingers.  Then he'd blatantly run red lights, and holding down the horns as long as 15 seconds at a time, we almost hit a biker, and he even got out of the cab to talk to strangers.  So weird!  I checked into Friendly's Hostel, which was backpacker central of the Philippines (which is exactly what I need on a night like Dec 31).  The hostel had posted in about 300 places how Drugs are Not Tolerated blah blah blah, which is interesting because there was a New Years Eve Party on the rooftop, where they were giving away free party hats, a lechon pig and other Filipino foods, the worst Cabernet Sauvignon I've ever had and vodka I didn't dare try, and marijuana cheese and crackers.  Like 3 of the people I was talking to were high, too.  I chatted with this girl from Tennessee teaching English in Korea, this bald man from Norway who was living here for half the year, and then (as usual while traveling) of course the requisite Israeli contingent.  There were a smattering of Filipino stoners and party girls, Koreans who spent the entire time on their computers, no joke, tattooed Australians lighting off fireworks in the streets, and boring Canadians (but a little cooler because they were French Canadian :).  At midnight, we watched the Fireworks show over Manila harbor, from the rooftop, your typical New Years Eve experience.  It was kind of cool being the first of my friends to wring in the New Year, though, because of the time zone.  I felt like we were in 1944 Dresden/1995 Watts/2007 Baghdad, with all the fire crackers exploding all over the streets.  Then I decided enough was enough with the hodgepodge of backpackers, and I went out to the nearby clubs; I started at this tiny and slow place called O Bar, which was pretty fun.  I made friends with this group of guys and somewhat convincing drag queen.  They had to leave because it turns out they work for Chase bank in the call center, and are the very people on the phone when I call to tell them about upcoming travel, etc.  Hilarious.  Then I hung out with these Australian guys who were pretty funny (I mean, duh, they're Australian).  We went across the street to this really awesome club called Bed, with a dance floor downstairs, bar area on the second floor, and a garden bar on the rooftop.  I danced for a while to dumb American Top 40.  It's actually pretty funny because in the Philippines they all listen to American music, not European music, and so they all know all the pop songs, and so a lot of their music is covers to such songs (hence why the new lead singer of Journey is a Filipino guy) because as any fool knows, Filipinos LOVE karaoke.  All these Filipinos at the club were coming up and talking to me, it was pretty fun.  I had to leave at 4am, which I thought was pretty late, but that was when it was busiest.  I took a cab to the airport, checked in quickly, and slept the whole 50-minute flight to Legazpi in Southwestern Luzon Island.