Mabuhay - welcome, hello, good day in Filipino.

Manila is an amazing jungle of choked roads, high rises and shanty shacks. This is the second time I’m doing author presentations at an international school here. A school driver was waiting for me at the airport and took me straight to the same hotel, Vivére, where I stayed the previous year. On the 31st floor is a restaurant and a roof top pool.

All week I conduct writing workshops at the middle school - welcomed to the campus by a huge banner hanging from the school balcony with my picture and book covers on it. I feel like a rock star.

The school is fabulous, as almost all international schools are, with a wide mix of nationalities: the students are almost all Asian: Filipino, Korean, Japanese. There is also a handful of European and Australian kids. Almost all of them have lived in many countries and all are at least bilingual. These are often the kids of embassy personnel, parents who work for large international firms, movie stars, even royalty. One third grader had to go check something with his bodyguard….

The opportunities these kids get are amazing. You can hear them talk about next weekend’s soccer game in Singapore. They get on airplanes like North American kids get on a bus. Once I was in a school in Asia and they had a field trip coming up: mock parliament. My kids did that, too, in high school. But these kids had mock parliament in the International Court in The Hague…

I find Filipino people among the friendliest in the world. Everyone speaks English here. Did you know that it is the official language? I was told that even in local schools instruction is in English. People speak Filipino (Tagalog) at home but people from Manila cannot understand people from the north.

One night the teachers took me up Taguytay, the nearby volcano. It’s not very far and I always love seeing the countryside. We drive dirt roads among rice paddies, up and up the volcano’s side. It’s populated along the slopes. We stop at the workshop of a carpenter making beautiful teak furniture. There are stalls offering handmade baskets, mango’s, pineapples and much more. I buy a hand carved set of black wooden spoons. I love the story with which it comes: the man marries the woman, they have a house, a pot and cattle and now they expect a baby. The set symbolizes ‘life’. On the volcano’s edge we have dinner at a lovely Italian place - gazing down into the crater.

On Friday we drive through Manila. It has huge numbers of shanty towns housing many people. The difference between have’s and have-not’s here is huge. Many have a rusty corrugated metal roof over their heads, but there are also wealthy mansions and colonial buildings. During my last visit here I stayed at the Manila Hotel where Bill Clinton stayed a week later and the Beatles stayed when they visited Manila.

It was a 4 hour drive (even though the map says 2.5) to Subic, past endless rice fields where people were harvesting. At first it was very flat but north of Manila I saw a steep volcano to the east, then hills to the west. We turned west, driving close to tall mountain ranges of pointy volcanoes. One had erupted in 1990. A wide white river still showed where lava had flowed. The earth was still very white but the vegetation was all back.

Subic area is an old US Navy base. Now the Philippines army is stationed here, and it is a holiday area for people from Manila. The old buildings are used as a freeport for big companies (Fedex etc), and as schools, etc. I saw one huge US naval vessel in the harbour.

I stayed in a resort called Camayan Beach with a nice beach, palm trees and lovely swimming in the sea. It was hilarious to be there for the weekend: local families arrived in huge numbers. They all trucked down to small cabanas on the beach: grandma's, babies, kids of all sizes, at least a dozen in each family but often many more. They lugged parasols, towels, clothing, toys and bags, boxes, containers, strainers, coolers full of food.

I loved every second of my swim with dolphins.

I immediately went next door where the Ocean Adventure place offered a swim with the dolphins! I had long dreamed of swimming with dolphins. I know that it is no longer the responsible thing to do, and that it can be frowned upon. But this was a very small places with only 2 or 3 dolphins who had been injured and were to be released again. What a wonderful experience to jump in the water and hug a bottlenose dolphin and to be pulled through the sea on the back of a killerwhale. I loved it. It was just too short..

Fifty peso is a dollar. Gas is 27 peso's per liter... Diesel is 24 peso's per liter. On Friday night I had a full body massage for 350 peso's (7.-) for an hour. The same thing is 65.- US in Corvallis and 120.- on Salt Spring…

Subic seems like a nice town, wide spread and low. No high rises here. Very green and a lovely beach hemming the sea, lined with palmtrees.

The freeport has duty free stores and a mix of American and Filippino places, even a Starbucks. The blossoms and warm air made it so tropical. I love this area.

On my Sunday off I swam, read and sipped tropical fruit shakes. I loved every minute of that day. But that afternoon, the school librarian and I went to the rainforest where the Ita tribe lives. The Bantam peninusula is the last remaining part of the original Philippines, covered in rain forest. A tiny woman from the tribe showed us how they lived in the jungle. She rubbed leaves into ointment, chewed leaves to make mosquito repellent, showed us which bark makes a laxative and how to reduce high blood pressure by making tea of bamboo shoots. She made cups from bamboo trunks and a man showed us how to cook rice in bamboo, how to start a fire with bamboo, how to make bowls and spoons - everything they did and have is based on bamboo - biodegrable and environmentally friendly. The sounds of crickets was deafenings.

I worked at the school doing readings, slideshows and writing workshops. This school is very different from Manila: older, rundown buildings and not many resources. But lovely staff and students and a much nicer natural environment. It reminds me very much of Balikpapan in Indonesia. And then it’s time to say goodbye to palmtrees and cheap massages - time to go to Canada. But The Philippines and it’s kind, smiling people will stay in my heart forever.

https://guidetothephilippines.ph/articles/what-to-experience/tagaytay-tourist-spots

https://www.camayanbeachresort.ph/