This is my first trip to southeast Asia - Philippines and Thailand, January and February, 2010. It was at first supposed to be to Cambodia and Thailand but I skipped Cambodia this time. Instead I flew into Bangkok first, spent little more than a day, then went to the Philippines to visit 3 cities in 8 days, and then back to Thailand to spend the rest of my time there. I decided to visit the Philippines because I had met some people who had either lived there in the past or were living there now, liked it and recommended that I should try to see it. I wanted to see if it's a place I could feel comfortable and happy.
I'm not spending much time this trip log with my first destination, Bangkok. I'd really rather forget about my experience there actually, nothing went right. My very first day in Bangkok I went to get a Thai massage at
Wat Pho, a very famous Thai monastery that includes a huge reclining Buddha statue, and a famous
Thai massage school. On this my very first experience with Thai massage, I hurt one of my ribs. It wasn't the massage guy's fault, I have kind of a messed up rib cage, and I just turned over the wrong way, and bam my rib dislocated. It hurt like hell, and continued to hurt for the remainder of this vacation. Wow what a bummer it was, but I tried to make the best of it. That, and sleep being messed up from the flight, and numerous sleep disruptions from
roosters in various places I stayed at (oh, don't get me started on them, how I
hate them now!) I was not in a touristy mood, but here's a few pics. I'm looking at the date stamps, and I've got them messed up somehow, some of these first ones are from after I returned to Bangkok from the Philippines....here we go anyway.
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| I was really struck by this upon arrival at the airport: orchids growing everywhere. |
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| Arriving in Bangkok from the airport in a cab, under a massive Skytrain station. |
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I stayed at the Prince Palace, a humongous hotel popular
with many different nationalities of travelers. |
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| It was all kind of luxurious. I think I'd stay some place else next time. |
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| Wat Pho |
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| Here's where my ill-fated massage took place, the School of Massage's building, open to the public. |
I didn't get out a lot, but I managed to get lost in China town.
I thought it was just one day in Bangkok. It must have been two days. I can't remember, I'm writing this post way after the fact. Anyway, soon I left for Cebu, via Manila.
I'd read a lot about the Philippines and how English is spoken there. I must say that was a big plus in my thinking of where I might feel comfortable. Two nights in Cebu City was my first stop.
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Their were so many of these trikes, all basically the same design,
little cartoon copies of automobiles, all different colors. |
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| Here's the guy who drove me around my first day. |
Just some street scenes I shot while riding around in his trike.
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| Street scene. I took a lot of pics of just regular people hanging out. |
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| This is a market in Talisay, a town just south of Cebu City. |
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Many people posed like this, with the hand beneath the chin
in this manner. For the longest time I wondered why.
I finally found out it's the trademark of a well-known celebrity. |
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Honestly, a quarter of them used this pose. Here's a little girl
who doesn't quite have it right, but she knows it's the thing to do |
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| Across the street from the little market. Everybody out and about buying dinner. |
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| I'm sure this crazy guy was hooking up illegally. |
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| I spent a lot of time just walking around, or taking cabs or trikes |
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A couple times I hopped on one of the jeepneys. I think it cost about 10 pesos (about 20 cents).
They used to be made from surplus WWII jeeps, but now they are just built to look like them
a little from the front. Rough ride, but cheap. |
It being only the first few days of my first experience in Asia, I was rather disoriented, and my rib was in constant pain. I slept a lot and felt kind of dazed most of the time because of the heat and the time difference, and just how different everything was. Two days was really not enough to experience Cebu City, on the island of Cebu. I'll have to go back again some day and spend two weeks instead of two days, and see more the island as well. Recently a friend did some searches on
tours of the islands of Palawan, the furthest western island system of the Philippines. That is a great looking place to visit too.
