(Tr)Ashy Volcano

Out of desperation to get out of our hotel from the night before, I called Sonya’s B&B for a room viewing the very next day.  However, the transportation was still a problem to get around Tagaytay, the hotel arranged a 3 hour “tour” for P1,800.  As soon as we got in the sedan, the driver suggested that we head to Taal Volcano for a very beautiful scenery.  The best in Tagaytay, he said.  I agreed happily.  Afterall, that was the purpose of the trip!  The road from the hotel to the volcano was windy and it wasn’t until we started descending that I realized that we were so far up in the highlands.  About 30 minutes later, we stopped at a “resort”.  “Why are we here?” I asked.  “This is where you take the boat to the Volcano! Mam, you have to go on the boat, then the horse, then you will see the volcano.”  The driver replied.  “Seriously?” I thought to myself.  I have to transport my senior citizen parents on a boat and then a horse to see the volcano? 

After a short bargaining with the owner of the boats, we agreed to pay another P1,800 for a motor-powered long-tail boat to the bottom of the volcano.  The long-tail boat chopped through the lake while the lake water occasionally splashed onto us, we arrived the destination about 20 minutes later.

base of Taal

You can imagine my astonishment when we reached the bottom of the volcano that there was nothing but horse feces, horses for rent, and bus loads (or boat loads) of Korean tourists.  Each tourist saddled over a tiny Filipino horse guided by a skinny Filipino guide.  Off they went to see the volcano up close and personal.  By this time, I already feel like a silly tourist after the car and boat ride.   “Mam, each horse is fitted with a personal guide, go see the volcano where it shot up steam, you have to go on the horse to see!”  “How long is the horse ride?” I asked.  “Thirty minutes going up Mam”.  Thirty minutes up and thirty minutes down the volcano will murder my folks, I thought.  “Too long, we will look from here” I replied.  The salesman looked at me as if I was from another planet.  He must be thinking, “what is there to see here?” We bought a few coconuts and sipped the juice while we sat and watched the tourists line up one after the other and took off with their horses and handlers. 

coconut seller

The smell of animal waste permeated the air and the horse-riding vendors were a little too enthusiastic, so we decided to head back onto the boat after about thirty minutes.  I asked Winston, our motor-powered long-tail boat driver, to take us further away from the base of the volcano so we can have a complete view of the sleeping beauty.  Winston maneuvered the boat through the Tilapia farm that’s set up by the local fishermen and headed to one of the dead volcanoes that’s connected to the sleeping one. Birds were flying all over the bamboo structures that are floating on water, waiting to catch their lunch in the Tilapia farm.  The lake water splashed and splattered and my parents were delivered safely onshore after another thirty minutes has gone by.  Taal is definitely not the place to visit for older folks! 

Tilapia farm 

Our hotel car driver said to me “Mam, we have forty minutes left, where do you want to go?”  By the time we got into the vehicle, I was already “sea”-sick from the long-tailed boat ride.  “Take us to Sonyas’s garden for lunch,” I groaned.  I secretly hoped that Sonya’s would be a more suitable and relaxing place for this short weekend trip…  

Tagaytay Trike

Ever since I moved to Manila, I wanted to visit Tagaytay.  I heard so much about the Taal volcano close by, the restaurants that are worth 2 hour-ride from Manila to have a meal, and the nature and landscape that are vastly different than that of Manila’s.  When I got the chance to use dad’s birthday as an excuse, I booked our rooms with One Tagaytay Place Hotel and rented a van and driver to head out Manila on a Friday afternoon.

It was my fault that I didn’t check the Tagaytay weather before leaving Manila .  It was hot and humid in Manila but the Tagaytay highland was chilly and very windy.  I brought shorts, tank tops, and sandals and I knew that I had made a mistake as soon as the driver opened the door of the van.  To top it off, we found out from the hotel at eight at night that Tagaytay doesn’t have taxis to take us to the restaurants.   Hotel recommended that we take the only local transportation in the evening, a trike, to a restaurant that is 15 minutes away.  A trike is a motorcycle that is converted into a passenger ‘vehicle’ with one side of the bike attached to a cart.  Theoretically, the trike “comfortably” transports three passengers.  Mom and dad got into the trike’s passenger “seats” and I sat behind the ‘triker’.  The trike took off into the night with its loud engine and earth-shaking vibrations.  I was cold sitting behind the driver at first, but later on, I was warmed up by either the heat produced by the trike’s engine, vibration of the trike, or the adrenaline rushing through me as the trike climbed up the Tagaytay ‘highway’. 

trike

As soon as we got off the trike, mom lost it!  “Never ride this again, do you hear me?  It’s so dangerous; you’ll be tipped over if a car passes this thing with a bad angle.”  I protested, “How are we going to get here if not the trike? Besides, you learn how the locals get transported!”  “We could eat at the hotel!” mom said.  I guess she does have a point but the trike not only warmed me up, the excitement of an adventure also made me forget that parents are senior citizens these days and dad is approaching 80!  Afterall, maybe trike wasn’t such a smart idea to transport precious cargo!

trike "passenger" compartment

One of the employees at Fire Lake Grill helped us and arranged a P300 ride through another employee’s van to return to our hotel.  This morning when we were heading out for a tour of Taal volcano, we paid up for the hotel ride (P1,800).  Even though the trike ride was mom’s first, I have a feeling that we won’t be doing that again, EVER!

Taxi!!

I know I have written a few posts about taxis but here's why...

Andrew told me that he was jet lagged, trapped in a taxi that has a broken door.  After struggling to open the door for ten minutes and the driver trying to open the passenger door from the outside, Andrew pushed down the window (the glass fell into the door) and he climbed out through the window of the taxi.  The taxi driver yelled as Andrew climbed out the window.  Andrew was in his work clothes and it was 8 in the morning! 

Taxi!

I caught his stare from his open bus window into my fully air-conditioned taxi, I quickly looked away with guilt.  The Manila pollution that he was breathing in on that hot summer day still haunts me to this day.   I try not to look at the buses and not to be too curious of the passengers in the Jeepneys so that I don’t offend them by peeking into their lives from my luxuriously air-conditioned taxi.

The response to the little kids who knock on the taxi windows selling flowers and begging for money is tapping on the window and look away.  Some of the kids on the streets are so small that I can only see their little arms reaching up the windows but not their faces.  Some kids will say that they are hungry and stare at my designer bag and suggests that I should “just” buy some flowers.  I pretend that it doesn’t bother me when I see little children begging and I pretend that it doesn’t make me want to adopt Filipino kids so that they don’t have to be on the street when I hear them pleading.  Again, the response is tapping back on the window and look away…  Many of these kids are controlled by the gangsters, I was told, and that’s what I would rather believe…

Politely insist on the taxi drivers starting the meter and returning the right amount of change can be tricky.  These seemingly inconsequential events have tested my patience and my supposedly proper manners.  A taxi ride that costs P100 can easily be P300 or P600 depending on the driver, the mood that they are in, distance from the destination (the drivers can tell you to get out) and of course, the weather.  After being overcharged several times and just plainly and simply ripped off as a foreigner, staying polite and patient can be challenging!  I was told that it is culturally unacceptable for a female to tell a man off or to exhibit forcefulness under any circumstances.  Without exhibiting my American gender prerogative, navigating the wild-wild west of the Manila taxi landscape definitely presented unexpected challenges!

Feeling guilty and sympathetic on the taxi ride, zero pesos.  Contain my anger and frustration from being taken advantage of, 600 pesos.  Having experienced all of these emotions and contemplating adopting a child because of a taxi ride, priceless!