Sherlocking In The Philippines
By Don Hobbs

I have been to Europe a dozen and a half times in my lifetime but none of those trips prepared me for the trip to The Philippines.  I arrived at the airport 2 hours ahead of my scheduled departure time of 8:30 on Thursday morning. My flight from Dallas to Los Angeles was uneventful. I was a little shocked that at LAX where I was required to exit the secure area and re-enter it at the International terminal but this was no big deal. I had a two-hour layover before we boarded the Cathy Pacific 747-400 for Hong Kong. This is where the 15-hour sardine ride began.

Luck was with me because I had an aisle seat and there was not anyone seated next to me. The passenger sitting by the window never left his seat. The headrest in front of me had a video monitor that kept a tally of destination time, arrival time, miles-per-hour, and outside temperature. Sadly, this was the most entertaining aspect of the flight. Our route followed the west coast north, all the way around the Bering Sea and down the east coast of Russia, past Japan, Korea and finally China. We arrived in Hong at 6:30 pm local time. This was a full 22 hours after I left arrived at DFW airport in Texas. I met with 2 of my coworkers for sushi and a beer.

We had another two ½-hour layover in Hong Kong before boarding yet one more flight to Manila. We arrived at midnight where we were met a car from out hotel. When I finally made it my room, it was 1:30 am Saturday. This equates to 11:30 am Friday morning back home or roughly, 29 hours after being dropped off. I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, knowing I was not in Kansas anymore. When we pulled up to our hotel, The Makati Shangri-La, we were stopped and the car searched for bombs. When we got to the front door, sniffing dogs approached us and finally they frisked us before swiping a metal detector. This was the same routine with every entry to the hotel.

I woke up at 6:30 am after going to sleep a mere 4 hour before. I ventured downstairs for breakfast, which was an assortment of food. The buffet offered steamed dumplings, sushi, fresh fruit, and omelets made to order, breads, and enough others things to feed an army. The Chinese guests, Japanese guests, European guests, Filipino guests, Korean guests, American guests, and the wherever else kind of guests had their own favorite niche to fill their plates and satisfy their breakfast needs.

Ebbs and flows of energy levels punctuated the rest of Saturday. I went across the street to a shopping mall where 52 Philippine Pesos equals one U.S. dollar. I bought a swimsuit, came back to the hotel, lounged by the pool, and caught up on some reading. I bought The Silly Side of Sherlock Holmes by Philip Ardach for 655 P$ or about $10.59 but I my poolside read was Flashman on the March by George McDonald Fraser. I have been on the slow-track reading with this book having started it during the Thanksgiving weekend.

Sunday was the most interesting day yet. One of my coworkers and I ran into a couple of the hotel’s off-duty security officers who invited us to a cockfight.  This is a legal activity here in the Philippines and the section of Manila we went visited was seen by very few white people at least one is that have survived to tell about it. We rode on the “National” taxi of the Philippine called a Jeepney. There is no simple way to describe these vehicles. They are sort of a low-rider, open aired, stretched Jeep station wagon. Most of them seem are kept together with baling wire and duct tape. They are usually jammed packed and very cheap to hire. They are especially durable and fit the traffic jams of Manila where traffic lanes and stoplights are merely a suggestion.

We arrive at the cockfight arena and are immediately accosted by wide-eyed street arabs looking for a handout. We pay the entry fee and then expected to pay for our two guides and one of their wives who seemed to join us somewhere along the way. There are hundreds of local packed into the building, which had steep tiered side, all shouting, and gesticulating. The fans are placing bets and depending on which hand you used decided on which cock you were betting. We sat on our hands afraid if we did not we would place an unwarranted wager. Little children were selling bottled water and fresh fruit and single cigarettes. Most attending we smoking even though there were “No Smoking” signs posted everywhere.

A cockfight is just what the name implies. Every ten minutes from 8:00am to 8:00pm, the cocks are brought out with metal spur attached to one foot. A handler holds them and they bring the birds together in order to rile them up. When they are released, it is a fight to the death of one of the two combatants. I asked what became of the dead cock and was told they were given to the poor who eat them Ironically just outside there was a grill selling chicken on a stick. Also around the corner was a KFC. Hmmm.

I certainly do not condone this extremely cruel “sport” but in the hour, I was there, six lucky families had Sunday dinner provided for them. As our guides lead us back to a more civilized area, they each demanded 1,000P$. One was to buy formula for his baby but the other was more honest. He wanted his payment to buy whiskey. Having the opportunity to see the ugly underbelly of Manila was worth the price of admission. Not being one to pass an opportunity I ask our guide if he could find a Tagalog translation of Sherlock Holmes. The reason I wanted such a book was a source of small amusement to him. After a failed attempt at a local bookseller, he proceeded to explain to me that if I wanted a Tagalog translation, just buy a Tagalog-English dictionary. He never understood the concept of collecting books in foreign languages. I did not spend too much energy trying to explain my reasons.

Monday rolled around and work began in earnest. The hospital was a like an anthill that had just been stirred with a stick. There were so many people you could not stir them with a stick. Our training schedule was tight and everyone was loose. The staff is extremely friendly and is genuinely glad we traveled so far to teach them. I met a radiologist who after our training session wanted to know about me.  Eventually our conversation arrived at the topic of Sherlock Holmes. I explained how I was searching for the elusive Tagalog translation. She was a big fan of The Master but assured me there has never been such a translation done but she would always keep a watch incase one was ever done.

I experienced my first banana-q. This is a plantain on a stick, coated heavily in brown sugar and deep-fried until golden brown. We bought ours from a street vendor near the hospital for 7 pesos and were very tasty.  Our Filipino client insisted on taking us out the next night and so after work we piled into one of their beat-up Toyotas and were off. Our driver had to have been the world’s worst but in his defense the traffic in Manila is insane at best. Our driver never shifted out of third gear and was constantly accelerating and letting up so that we were all thrust into so sort of sexual undulation. The driver was very unaware of his lack motoring skills.

The give an idea of the traffic in Manila as I mentioned before, traffic lanes are merely a suggestion. A street that is delineated with three lanes going in each direction at any given moment might have four or five cars abreast going in both directions. This is not counting the endless supply of motorcycles that fill in all of the gaps in the road. Our hotel driver would routinely make a U-turn in front of rapidly approaching traffic without incident. The other drivers would either create their own lane to maneuver around us or simply slow down enough not to run into us. I never saw anyone get mad or flip-off another driver. The horn is used more as an acknowledgement than as a instrument of aggression or warning. They toot their horn to let another driver know that they see them or that they are about to do something other than just drive in a straight line. The drive from the hotel to the hospital was about 10 kilometers and could take as little as 30 minutes or as much as 75 minutes depending on the traffic.

Our night on the town begin near the harbor at an outdoor café. We ate chicken, rice, and some sort of fried pork ribs that was very tasty. We washed these down with plenty of San Miguel, the local beer. To get to this café, we crossed what had to be the world’s largest pedestrian crosswalk. This was nearly a full block wide. The funny thing about was the pedestrian sign on the traffic light. This little green-lighted sign of the stick-figure person actually looked like it was running because the legs were going about a hundred miles an hour. When we left the café, I stepped into the crosswalk and saw this “little-guy” on the sign, running for his life because there were only 3 seconds left for crossing. I missed the step and fell flat on my face because I was laughing so hard. I landed right in front of the oncoming traffic. I got up in time but the cars were already starting to maneuver around me. I tore a hole in my pants and skinned my knee but it was worth it just seeing the little guy running on the sign.

We proceeded to do some serious bar-hopping, in an area of Manila where the street were very narrow and over flowing with street vendors, homeless people and begging children, transvestites and hookers. The were a bar called Bedrock where in the men’s room the attendant will give you a massage for 100 pesos. This was really an excellent massage. The three American agreed that it was our first time to have physical contact with another male inside a men’s room but it is a well-accepted custom in the Philippines thus no big deal.  Our Filipino hosts kept taking us from place to place until we finally begged them to take us back to the hotel. We arrived back finally at three in the morning as about as hammered, as one needs to be.

I decided it was relevant because at the same time if I had not gone to the Philippines, I would have been at McSorley’s in New York finishing the Christopher Morely Memorial Walk at about the exact same time. Ain’t it funny how these things work?

The next day, Friday, was a bit of a wash. We all rather went through the motions. We wrapped everything up, said our good-byes and returned to the hotel on last time. My flight back to Hong Kong was not until the late afternoon so I spent my Saturday in a leisurely fashion, enjoyed on last excellent breakfast, packed-up, checked out and caught my plane. I experience in the Philippines was great. The people were so friendly and sincere that I am sad that I will not be able to return until most likely 2008 when their new hospital is completed. Until then I will just have to be satisfied with reliving the memories and there are oh so many of them.

Happy Collecting!!