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Cagayan de Oro, best (ping pong) city in the Philippines

Posted on October 13, 2013 by The DromomaniacOctober 21, 2013

If I had started my Philippines trip in Cagayan de Oro, I wouldn’t have left. I’d have spent my whole month there playing ping pong. Even without ping pong—do I have to call it table tennis?—I still might have felt that way. Cagayan de Oro, a medium-sized place on the northern shore of Mindanao island, is my favorite city in the Philippines.

There you go. The Dromomaniac is all about saving YOU money! 340 pesos is about US$7.75.

     Locals would ask me if I had done their famous whitewater rafting, went on Asia’s longest zipline or visited the national park, and I would sheepishly admit that I had been hanging out under an overpass at a ping pong club all day. This is the difference between me and a real traveler and why I travel too much. I’m not traveling the right way—yes, there is a right way—but it’s a discussion for another time. Nonetheless, if travel is to experience things you can’t see or do at home, then playing ping pong fits in perfectly, because when do I ever have the chance to play high-level ping pong?
     In most other countries, it would be a little awkward: who is this guy taking pictures and video of kids playing ping pong? At a minimum I’d be regarded with suspicion, but the inherent Pinoy friendliness to outsiders opens doors. I told everyone the truth, that I was blown away by their skill level at such a young age and I hoped to play a little with them. I found myself hitting with a tiny kid of unlimited energy whose chest came to the level of the table. I asked the coach, “Is that your daughter?”
     “That’s my son,” he said.
     Oh.
     He was eight years old. I could tell it was the son of a coach from the relentless way he played. No sissy rallying. When you see an opening, you go for the smash, and time after time the ball whizzed by me. It was fun; I couldn’t help but laugh every time I retrieved the ball.

This is Omar, one of the ping pong coaches at the club and two of his sons. I had to smile when Omar needed ten full seconds to say about the eight-year-old, “His mother is from…uh…she’s from…Canada!”

     The older of Omar’s sons in the photo, a twelve year old, was standing with a friend who was wearing a necklace with a cross hanging from it. I knew Omar’s kid was Muslim and I was going to have a kumbayah moment with them about kids of different religions co-existing peacefully. I pointed to the boy’s necklace and said, “You are Christian?”
     “Catholic!” he corrected me.
     “Whatever.” To Omar’s son, I started, “And you are Muslim…”
     He interrupted me: “I’m Abu Sayyaf!” (a Muslim terrorist group) and they both broke out into laughter.
     I’m still going to call the encounter an inspiring triumph of religious tolerance.

     I took tons of video, but could never get good action. I apologize. This clip, if you can’t see it below, isn’t the best representation of their skills, but it was fun to watch the beginning against his big brother and the way the other kids react.

     This video is just five seconds of one nine-year-old prodigy. I love the way she flips the paddle after a winning shot:

     It was cool to watch them practice hitting forehand to forehand at Forrest Gump-ian speed. The kids are so polished and poised that I temporarily forget they are so young, but then a 10-year-old girl will point to the kid sitting next to me and say, “That boy, he’s ugly, right?” Or, Omar’s eight-year-old will suddenly sulk and go under the table to cry.
     I sat with the mother of one of the kids and a teenage girl. In our conversation the girl made a joke that she wanted to come back to America with me. The mother turned to her and teased, “Oh, do you like him?” She giggled. The mother asked her, “How old are you?” The girl said 19. The mother then turned to me and asked, “How old are you?” I said I was in my forties. The mother then shrugged her shoulders and smiled as if to say, “So what’s the problem?!”

I made animal balloons for some of the gang. As kids do, they immediately began disassembling them.

A bank teller beauty pageant, only in the Philippines.

     I went to a CouchSurfing get-together and met an impressive girl who told me something to chew on. She said that even though she is a fellow backpacker, it is impossible for her to go up to foreign travelers here to say hello. As a Filipina, the moment is too loaded with implied intent.
     She told me a funny story: a German guy offered her 500,000 pesos (about $11,500) to be his guide and lover for two weeks in the Philippines. She countered with, “How much just to be your guide?” I told her to give him my email address. Hey, these are recessionary times! $11,500 buys a LOT of grilled bananas on the street. As we say in America, You can’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
     I don’t know how the German met her, but I was joking that her CouchSurfing profile’s only photo might give some men the wrong impression.

My neighborhood coconut man. 20 pesos (45 US cents). Note the large speakers in the background, essential for serious karaoke.

Practical Information
Cagayan de Oro’s new airport in Laguindingan is way, way west of town. It’s also the smallest new airport I’ve ever seen with only two gates. From town you can take a rarely-running shuttle for 200 pesos (43 pesos = $1) or just take any regular bus from the Bulua bus terminal for 37 pesos, get off at the junction and hitchhike the last 4km, as I did with no problem.
I stayed in Cagayan Park View Hotel (tel 088-857-1197.) A fan room with outside bathroom and cable TV was 350 pesos ($8) a night. It’s on Plaza Divisoria near Capistrano across the street from the ping pong club. (It’s very good money for value in the Philippines if you go where the tourists aren’t.) Having an outside bathroom doesn’t sound ideal to a lot of people, but a bathroom in the tropics usually means bad plumbing, mosquitoes, and cockroaches. Unless I’m sick, I’m content to do without.

Lina’s Eatery and Sanitary Massage Clinic looked to be just an internet cafe, but if I had walked in I am sure I would have been offered all kinds of services, none of them sanitary.

     Don’t expect to glean much information from the tourist offices in the Philippines. They are black holes. In most cities in the world the tourist offices are where the tourists are. In the Philippines they make you go find them. In Cagayan de Oro, like Camiguin, it is buried in a city services building complex, no signs, no one knows where it is even though they confidently point you somewhere. (I am really getting tired of that.) When I did find it, all the lights were off, everyone was asleep, and the air conditioner was on full blast. Someone slowly got up, ambled over to find me a lazily-designed map, and shuffled off to go back to sleep.
     At Davao airport the tourist information desk at arrivals was unstaffed “because it’s Saturday” I was told.
     At Manila airport terminal 3, its new showcase terminal, when I arrived I asked the girl at the tourist information counter if she knew any guest houses near the airport. She said no. I asked if she knew any guest houses at all in Manila. She said no. She heard there was a new hostel somewhere, but didn’t have any information. How many thousands of people come through the airport and ask the same questions? What a waste. I knew if I asked her how to go somewhere her one and only answer would be, “You can take a taxi.”

Women don’t wear pants!

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Camiguin and its bubonic plague-free lanzones festival

Posted on October 10, 2013 by The DromomaniacOctober 27, 2013

Really? Rabies free? This is Camiguin’s selling point? This is what they want to announce on a billboard? Was “An almost smallpox-free island!” under consideration? How about “Ebola: it’s not that bad!” If they really want tourists, they should try “Welcome to Camiguin: a pants-free island.” Nearby I saw another classic sign: “This is a child-friendly school.” I was sure that if I kept my eyes open long enough, I would find “This is a rabies-friendly school.”

The event of the year, the lanzones festival, starts this weekend, Oct 20. Lanzones are a delicious fruit that resembles longan, but after opening a few, your hands feel like they have rubber cement on them. (This girl in the tourist office—I told her not to smile—suggested I use gasoline to clean them. Kind of impractical.) The town is getting spruced up. Decorations are being made. Marching bands have been practicing all hours of the day and night for the parade. The number of visitors is expected to go from me and a few lost stragglers to drunken hordes in Woodstock-sized, hide-your-daughters proportions. My timing is bad again.

I had irrationally high hopes for Camiguin, but I knew it would deliver because of my experience on a similar island due west of it, Siquijor, one of my favorite places. It’s just the right size: big enough that you never feel like you have seen it all and not so small that you feel like a castaway. These are places to simply be with little to sightsee. I just wanted to swim, play basketball, do an excursion to a nearby sandbar, and frolic on the beach. I only managed basketball (the water was too choppy from the high winds and no other backpackers were around to charter a boat), but I still managed five days easily. I hung out with good people, hitchhiked here and there, ate lanzones, and used unleaded to clean up.

Not my regular sandals.

     Basketball is king in the Philippines. I haven’t seen one soccer ball being kicked around my entire time in the country. I think every top NBA player has made a promotional appearance in Manila this off-season: Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard, et al. The coach of the Miami Heat is Filipino. There is an NBA preseason game in Manila this week.
     Near the tourist office I was hanging out watching a neighborhood basketball game. I could tell it was semi-serious (i.e. they gambled) because they were all wearing shoes. I was invited to play, even though I was shoeless. I knew they would invite me to play because this is the Philippines and they are friendly people; that’s the manifestation of their friendliness. (What would be the reverse? A bunch of people in America singing karaoke at a party, seeing a Filipino walk by, and inviting him in for a few songs? Would that happen? Unlikely.) Anyway, I returned the next day to play. My team lost. We each had to pay 20 pesos to the other team. I felt awful, reminding my teammates that it was the equivalent of a kilo of lanzones or half a kilo of rice—serious stuff—but they just laughed and started smoking.
     It occurred to me later that maybe they wanted me to play because I had to guard the biggest Filipino I have ever seen, an aggressive bull of a dude. Once he got a full head of steam and drove through my chest on the way to the basket. My ribs still hurt over a week later. Sneezing is the worst.

Some of the guys. Not pictured is the human refrigerator.

A homemade basketball basket. You could make a beautiful coffee-table picture book of all the evocative basketball hoops in the country.

A sign you will never see in America, where “transient” is a swear word.

I went to Mambajao’s post office on the edge of town. The lone guy working there was sitting outside with his friends when I approached. I asked how much it costs to send a postcard to USA. (In the Philippines you rarely get the same answer from any two post offices.) He went inside, laid his smartphone on the counter, and shuffled through some papers. On his smartphone was a porn movie. He kept searching for the right paper and had to move his phone. I thought he would realize that I could see it and hide the phone, but he simply moved it a little to the side as he kept looking. He quoted 20 pesos, which fits in neatly with what I have heard at other post offices: 13, 14, 17, 33, 37, and 40 pesos.

no less than six signs for the Sunriser in case you weren't sure where you were. This is a shoeless basketball game.

No less than seven signs for the Sunriser Pension in case you weren’t sure where you were. This is a shoeless basketball game.

Maybe there are seven signs so you don’t get confused and wander into this place next door.

On the ferry back to the mainland, a girl about 12 years old came up to me for a quick chat. (That doesn’t really happen in other countries, in case you are wondering.) A ship passed with the name “Kalinaw” on the side. I said to the girl that it would be funnier if it was called “Kinilaw”, a kind of Filipino ceviche. She cracked up. I’m comedy gold to pre-teens. For everyone else, I’m a freak.

Practical Information
     I got a tip from a guy on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree, asean2011, which is once again a relevant resource, to stay at GV Hotels in the main town on the island, Mambajao. It is part of a chain. I paid 350 pesos for a single including cobwebs, cable TV, and a bathroom with shoddy plumbing.
     I moved to the Sunriser Pension in Mambajao, just next to the market to the east. 200 pesos for a bare room. At 9:30pm they lock the gates. It isn’t as barbaric as it sounds since Mambajao closes for the night early.
     The ferry from the nearest point on the mainland, Balingoan, to Binoni, Camiguin is 170 pesos ($4). Taking a boat for an hour to an island sounds pleasant, but the reality is that there are always people puking their guts out. Often it is the same people who start the trip laying on their side. Don’t sit next to those people.
red blooming flower
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Narrowly Avoiding Death (from Obesity) in Davao, Mindanao

Posted on October 8, 2013 by The DromomaniacOctober 9, 2013

This beautiful girl works in my hotel in Davao. Look at that hair. Filipinas have amazing, shampoo-commercial hair. I have a theory: at the end of the day they go around and collect all the unsold adobo from the restaurants and rub the liquid in the hair. The oil gives a lustrous shine, the vinegar acts as an astringent that provides thickness and makes individual strands strong, the garlic and ginger…they uh…I haven’t thought it all the way through. It’s a theory-in-progress.

     I flew from “The Last Frontier”, the island of Palawan, to the real last frontier, the island of Mindanao in the far south. Some people freak out that this is Terrorism Central and the Kidnapping Capital of Philippines due to some isolated incidents that keep popping up in the news. I could be overstating matters, but it’s like being scared to go to San Francisco because of rioting in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, many northern Filipinos seem to regard the whole island as a hotbed of hotheads and are afraid to visit.
     In Davao, southern Mindanao, I was very lucky to know a local celebrity that I need to publicly thank, Jojie Alcantara. She’s a columnist for two large newspapers, a photographer, journalist, former TV show host, astronaut, zookeeper—I lost track of it all. Her hands seem to be on everything and she knows everyone. I opened up a newspaper, and there she was. This is a TV commercial of her that kills me.
     As it related to me, she used her vast connections to make sure I feasted to excess, like I was a duck to be harvested for foie gras. I had lost about 10lbs (4.5kg) since I ballooned in Europe two months ago, making good progress, headed in the right direction, and then I was Davao’d. Back to square one. Photos will come when I write about Filipino food, which needs to be discussed. (Two words: pandan leaves.)

Double Jojie at Crepelato, site of another ungodly massive lunch.

     Davao doesn’t make a nice first impression. This is the greenest and cleanest city in the Philippines? (It is also said to be the largest by area in the world, but finding consensus on the internet is fruitless.) Davao grew on me, though, largely for its faded downtown and the people, who all seem to have extensive family histories in town and emanate civic pride.
     The scourge of every Filipino city, Davao included, is the foul air that centers on the overabundance of jeepneys, the modified old American jeeps used for public transport that emit heavy fumes. While looking cool, I don’t see why hundreds of polluting, noisy jeepneys are better than having a bus system. I’m saving this argument for Manila next week. It’s sure to be spellbinding reading (cough!)
     I made a mistake in not going up the east coast of Mindanao, particularly a couple of beautiful places I am not allowed to utter by diktat from Jojie lest all my dozens and dozens of readers invade and destroy.

Jojie shouldn’t be the only one getting commercials. Picture this: (camera cutting to me as I take a break from chopping wood) “Hi, I’m Kent Foster, The Dromomaniac. You know, friends, sometimes I get dehydrated on the road, and I find that nothing quenches my thirst that a big glass of refreshing cold pee…”

Had a “regular” haircut at this Davao barber shop (43 pesos = $1.) I like that the fine for smoking is 10,000 pesos, or about 333 “oasis” haircuts.

     When I was in Indonesia last year I anointed it the second friendliest country in the world after the Philippines. I said (quoting yourself is surely the first sign of megalomania), “I’ve always thought Indonesians were the second friendliest people on the planet after Filipinos. The difference is that, initially, an Indonesian might give you a hard stare before their smile blossoms, whereas in the Philippines they love you at first sight, eternally and unconditionally.”
     OK, it’s a little rich, but I still more or less feel that way. It helps if you aren’t in a touristy place where sometimes—yet rarely—you feel like a zoo animal being poked. In the Philippines it’s incredible how everyone is so good-natured and quick with a smile or a hello. It isn’t a ploy to ask for money nor are they in awe of white people or any other obsequiousness, it is just a reflexive, sincere greeting and curiosity. It’s great. It doesn’t hurt that a Filipino smile is blindingly bright, even from all the terrorists and kidnappers in Mindanao.
     This is why it’s disorienting to see the evening news or the tabloid newspapers and see all the gruesome crime and severed heads. Is this really happening in my Philippines? How come I never come across these blood-thirsty Filipinos?

Durian’s qualities as a stimulant don’t work on everyone.

Likewise, before I started this trip I had the Holy Mother of All Problems with my website hosting company, 1and1.com. It was the angriest I have been in a long time, but as furious as I was, I had to reflect for a moment that I was dealing with a call center in the Philippines. As incredibly frustrated as I was, when I found myself raising my voice, I’d catch myself, thinking, “I can’t believe I am yelling at a Filipino! What is wrong with me?” As my issues with 1and1.com compounded, however, I managed to overcome my reticence pretty quickly, and I yelled at Filipinos for several days. I still feel a little bad about it.
While the Philippines is wearing the championship belt of friendliness, it doesn’t mean there aren’t difficulties, just as the fact that even though almost everyone speaks English doesn’t imply a lack of communication problems. Getting directions from a Filipino, for example, is agony. Also, I receive a staggering amount of misinformation. I don’t know what’s behind this, if it is part of the Asian concept of losing face if you admit to not knowing something, so you make up an answer—which makes me berserk. I never get used to it.

Just a liiiittle too defensive, I would say, especially because I was offered a massage every time I walked by.

It’s unbelievable and sad how many pawn shops there are in every corner of the Philippines. Maybe this is another thing I don’t understand fully, but don’t pawnshops have the worst terms to get a loan?
I ended up having to use a pawn shop to pay for a plane ticket in cash because for the umpteenth time my credit card, Capital One, refused the transaction. It is most irksome, to put it politely. Capital One wants you to tell them where you are traveling so the card will be accepted, and then they routinely block transactions in that country because they deem it “suspicious activity”. What the hell?! I have yelled at them so many times now I give up. Besides, that also might be a call center in the Philippines, and one of these days someone is going to recognize my voice and I will be the severed head in the news.

An x-ray for my bad tooth, 150 pesos ($3.50). I am still in limbo, tooth-wise.

Practical Information
     The hotel find for me was the new Hotel Uno right downtown. 250 pesos for a single room with shared “comfort room”, as they call it. Get a room with a window and then you won’t need an alarm clock because every morning at exactly 6:30am you will hear, “YYYYY-M-C-A!” I was told it is some sort of dance class at nearby People’s Park. At 6:30am.
     There are lots of cheap places called microtels and dormitels, sometimes with offers of massage which would be funny if you were on the top bunk in a crowded dorm.
     In Tagum City I stayed in the sad Waling Waling Pension for 350 pesos and in Butuan at Julian’s Inn for 280 pesos. In all three towns you can drink the tap water. Yes!

Durian sculpture in front of Ponce Suites hotel from the family of the artist, Kublai Millan. It’s unique—you have never seen so much art in a hotel, trust me—and a very reasonable place to stay if you don’t want to sweat out the hot rooms at the Hotel Uno. Check out the rooftop cafe for the view and trippy decor.

Palawan, Philippines, the Last Frontier (of Mister Donut)

Posted on October 1, 2013 by The DromomaniacOctober 2, 2013

Business first. Hey, my Filipina friends who can use a little extra pocket money to travel: there’s a gold mine on your head! You need to sell your hair. Someone got US$160 for “100% raw virgin Filipino hair” on eBay. (Is it “Filipino” or “Filipina” hair? Raw? If it’s Filipino hair it can only be deep-fried. And how do they know they are virgins? So many questions…) It’s yet another free business idea from The Dromomaniac! I give and give and give.
Pleasure second. Palawan is a long, narrow island in the southwest of the Philippine archipelago, stretching towards Malaysia. It’s being marketed as “The Last Frontier” which is a hard claim to pull off when you have $25 flights from Manila and a paved road almost the entire length of the island, not to mention 24-hour McDonald’s and Jollibees. (By the way, it’s nostalgic for an American to come to the Philippines and see American brands that are either dead or dying back home but are popular here such as RC Cola, Shakey’s Pizza, 7-11, Dairy Queen and Mister Donut. I might have thrown up in the bathroom of a Shakey’s Pizza at a birthday party while in junior high school. Memories!)

The Philippines is full of names of businesses that sound like they were conjured up by hyperactive kids on their third day awake which would be dismissed in America as not serious enough, but Filipinos run with them. (Last night I ate at “Chick a Bing Daks Fried Chicken”—and it’s a chain, as is this.) It goes a long way in explaining Filipino’s playfulness and love for wordplay.

A place for every Juan!

Port Barton

Port Barton = Paradise*
     Being in a paradise* like Port Barton is to feel like you are bearing witness to a time and place that is going to soon change dramatically. It is only 22km (15 miles) from the main road, but after a rain parts of it are a muddy bog that only a 4WD can do. Only one bus a day comes. They are building a road, though, and once that is completed, everything will change, and very quickly. It should be only one or two more dry seasons and then it’s game over.
     As it stands now, the bad road acts as a buffer from the outside world, if I may be a bit melodramatic. It has a beautiful, wide tranquil bay with maybe ten “resorts” of various quality. The water, though opaque from the offshore winds, is a perfect temperature and absolutely ideal for swimming.
     There’s electricity only in the evenings and not many opportunities to use the internet, but it’s OK, I mean, I don’t HAVE to check out womenbehindbars.com every day. There’s also not many food options outside of the resorts, but thankfully some excellent, simple food is at Gacayan Restaurant, where I ate every meal. Everything is 50 pesos ($1.15): the chicken coconut curry, the pork and mung bean stew, the not-so-fatty chicken adobo, and even the crab for breakfast.

Home sweet home.

     I paid 360 pesos (US$8) for my own bungalow with bathroom and shower about 20 meters from the beach in Deep Gold Resort. The roosters sound far away. I can only hear the surf. It’s peaceful. It’s great, a true paradise*. I never saw more than a few travelers around on any given day because it is the lowest of low seasons since it is the rainiest time of year. As luck would have it, it rained every day my first two weeks in the Philippines except for my four days there.
     So what did I do all day? I imagined myself as Hemingway. I had already been letting the beard grow and wearing a weather-beaten cap askew. I then insisted that the resort staff call me “Papa”. When I wasn’t on my veranda swearing at people walking by, challenging everyone to fight, I was sitting in the tropical shade, receiving gentle sea breezes, getting inspired to write the timeless prose you are gratefully reading now. Let’s see now…is it womenbehindbars.com or womanbehindbars.com?
     Tiny Port Barton has at least three ladyboys in residence. Ladyboys are more commonly thought of as being Thai, but the Philippines has plenty. Can we say that the more ladyboys you see, the more tolerance locals have for them? I would think so. Is it a fair question to ask if there is a similarly-sized small town in America that can accept three “out” ladyboys?
     *Disclaimer: “Paradise” is a relative and subjective term, but in this case it means that you don’t mind the smoke fires (what is with everyone that they get a tiny pile of trash and they have to have a long, smoldering fire with thick smoke?), jellyfish (this is the scourge of nearly all beaches in Southeast Asia but few websites mention it to their eternal shame), murky water from the storms, and possible bedbugs (see below). Over time the you forget about the bad things anyway. It was paradise* for me.

Foot in the foreground, smoke in the background

Downtown Port Barton. Rush hour.

I got these red spots on my last night, but I’m still not sure what it was. Either my finger was touching the mosquito net or they are bed bugs or some other exotic malady. I have since shaved the hair on my finger. Thank you.

From Port Barton I went north to El Nido, famous for beautiful islands off its shore and world class diving, but boats weren’t going out at all in the bad weather. It was a waste of time to go. Even if there was good weather, the town of El Nido doesn’t inspire poetry, I’ll just say. Stay in Port Barton.

Seconds later this storm unloaded on my head in El Nido.

Back in Puerto Princesa I was hitchhiking to the airport when this family stopped for me—and then got hit from behind by a tricycle (a motorcycle with a sidecar used for public transport) who was trying to get my attention to go with him. The man quickly got out of the car to see what had happened, and I thought, “Oh no, here we go. He’s going to start a fight with the tricycle driver or maybe me (since it could be argued that I caused the accident.)” But this is the Philippines. There was no damage and the air force officer happily drove me to the airport with his family, telling me about the relief work he did in Haiti after the earthquake.
This was only the second ride I got hitchhiking in Palawan. There are very few private cars and I turned down rides of “400 meters” as one man estimated, and “500 meters” from a woman.

Practical Information
     The good news is that the Philippines now gives you 30 days free visa for most nationalities instead of the old 21. Even 30 days is rushed for an archipelago. (There’s a lot of hand-wringing about why Philippines doesn’t get the tourism other countries do, but this is the most obvious problem. Copy Malaysia and give 90 days. Why not? Do you want the tourism money or don’t you?)
     The bad news is that you really need to show a (fake) onward ticket. The last two times they have really been on me about it and judging from the travel forums, many people are getting asked. I showed my fake ticket to the check-in agent and she checked it mostly to see the date on it, which I made sure was less than a month away so I wouldn’t have to show a visa. Philippine immigration doesn’t care; it’s the airline check-in people who do. Here’s some background on it.
     I really did pay US$25.24 to fly over an hour from Manila to Puerto Princesa on PAL Express which is Philippine Airlines’ domestic carrier. I bought it from the American version of expedia.com, not the Filipino one. Plus, I got to the airport many hours before and they let me take an earlier flight, which is how it should be, but rarely is.
     In Puerto Princesa I walked from the airport—it’s far; I don’t recommend it—to Duchess Pension, 250 pesos ($5.75) for a single room, but for the love of Allah don’t get a room facing the south side. The neighbor’s roosters sound like they are inches away from your head with their ear-splitting cockle-doodle-doos at 5am. Brutal. Don’t stay there if that’s all they have.
     A better find is Al Carlo’s Pension (formerly Kar-Wal Pension, tel 091-9834-2393 or 082-723-0284), but the only problem is it is a 10-minute walk from what would be considered “in town”. 250 pesos ($5.75) for a clean, modern room with a nice mattress, cable TV, wifi, fan, and even hot water.
     The Puerto Princesa food find is run out of someone’s home nearby, Namaskar Vegetarian Haus, 59 Burgos Street, up from the post office. The sauteed kangkong with garlic is golden at 25 pesos (60 US cents).

Kangkong and fried tofu with cucumber at Namaskar Vegetarian Haus, 65 pesos ($1.50).

I love this stuff. Why stop there with the list of qualifications? “…shoe size 6-7, able to throw a pizza box 25 meters, can sing a medley of the previous week’s top 10 hits…”

     I made the mistake of going to the Puerto Princesa tourist office. I came impulsively to the Philippines; I bought my ticket only two days before I flew out. I don’t know what I am doing other than the vague notion of seeing a dentist and checking out some of the Philippines’ 7107 islands. I’ve only got about 7100 to go.
     I walk in to the office and a girl jumps up from her seat to greet me. She looked very qualified to work there: 5’4″, I’d say, very pretty, big smile, she appeared to be a second-year student taking about 14-16 units from teachers who were likely 5’8″, medium-length hair, married, no older than 35—and she had no answers to any of my simple questions. None. She helplessly looked to her mirror-image colleagues sitting next to her, who all went quiet. Is this what happens when appearances are more important than substance when they hire? She suggested I go to another office for better information, but she also had no idea how to give directions, and when I asked instead for her to mark it on a map, she confidently put an “x” to mark the spot. I realized it was an indiscriminate “x” when I went to look for the place and it was nowhere near, an unhappy discovery.
     I didn’t visit Palawan’s most famous attraction, the Underground River, as tickets were sold out. It’s one of the “New Seven Wonders of Nature” due to some heavy Filipino ballot stuffing, but be careful what you wish for. Petra became one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and now the entrance fee is $70.
     Next up: the possibly misunderstood island of Mindanao.

If I wrote for the Filipino version of The Onion…

Posted on September 26, 2013 by The DromomaniacSeptember 29, 2013

…this would be my story:

“Man hacked to death by angry mob after singing off-key at karaoke party”
     Metro Manila police are investigating a gruesome homicide when an unidentified local man sang the Whitney Houston standard, “I Will Always Love You” at a birthday party, but things got out of hand when he was unable to hit the high notes, and a restive crowd took matters in their own hands.
     The host of the party, JoJo “Bong Bong” Guzman, said, “It wasn’t just his singing. He had insulted Air Supply, saying they were overrated; you just can’t talk that trash without repercussions. Not in the Philippines. No way.”
     A neighbor, Jinky “Lovely” Acosta, who heard the commotion was also unapologetic about the outcome, saying, “I could hear it clearly from my house. He started OK, he had the right pacing, the right syncopation, but then his voice broke on the chorus. He was disrespecting the song. I was sharpening my knife and ready to go over to take care of matters, but everyone else beat me to it.”
     Another witness, Tito “Big Boy” Reyes, said, “It didn’t have to happen. If he had gone with something more in his range, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” or even “I Just Called to Say I Love You”, then he might still be alive today. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.”

     (Here is a link for those of you not familiar with The Onion.)
     This is my third time in the Philippines. It was on my last visit in the Visayas in the middle of the archipelago where the almighty force of music in the Philippines hit me, as is evident in this billboard in Cebu with the “Singer/Medical Doctor” title on the bottom left—the more important one first, of course.

     I wasn’t a passive observer to all the music around me. After a tennis tournament in Siquijor at a karaoke party I found myself nearly cheek-to-cheek with my opponent singing Danny’s Song (“And even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with ya, honey…”) We killed.
     Quick tangent: look at all those tan Santa Barbara people in the crowd of that video. I went to school in Santa Barbara where I learned a valuable life lesson: don’t trust anyone pale. (Quick tangent rant: have you seen the newly-crowned Miss World, Megan Young? She won for the Philippines even though she is actually American and so white that almost no Filipinas look like her. Can Filipinas not embrace their very beautiful dark skin color? I see ads all the time for whitening skin creams and nonsense like this where women have the necks of Filipinos and the faces of ghosts.)

Filipinos are the natural born entertainers of Asia (though sometimes these ads are fronts for other occupations.) Even the kids are extremely talented and polished. An eight-year-old girl is the host of a variety show, and she’s remarkably focused for her age.

     Music is everywhere. And dance. And sometimes just idle a cappella singing. When I hitchhike I am often stuck in the middle of nowhere but seemingly never out of distance from a karaoke machine or loud TV where someone is singing anthemic, power love songs. It’s always when you least expect it: at a Jollibee’s (a fast food chain) the girl behind the counter took my order and then as we waited for the food she was showing her colleague how to twerk; the check-in agent for Cebu Pacific Air, hearing a song in the airport waiting lounge, burst into a quick dance when a song came on, refreshingly unconcerned about modern notions of professionalism; a church service on TV where suddenly a dozen dancers broke out in formation on the altar and in the aisle, all in sync, performing a routine.
     Then there’s the stranger-than-fiction story of Arnel Pineda (Hey, Oprah, we can understand him, we don’t need subtitles, thanks. Who is wearing more makeup: Arnel on Oprah or Megan Young at Miss World?) who grew up as a street kid in Manila and now finds himself as the lead singer in Journey, discovered via his YouTube videos. Journey could probably tour Philippines for the rest of their lives, so proud are Filipinos of Pineda’s success.
     Perhaps sensing this, Bruno Mars, who is one-fourth Filipino, made a smart move in announcing that he is proud of his Filipino roots. If his singing career in America ever fizzles, he can always come here to have a second life. Put it this way: Bruno Mars will never go hungry.
     I’d just like to take this moment to mention as someone with a travel website, I am proud of my Filipino roots. Thank you.

The homeless composer? Schubert? I’m confused.

Practical Information
None! Next time there will be a ton as it will be all about Palawan Island in southwest Philippines.

Pssst! Want to buy a mountain lodge in the Japanese Alps? Cheap!

Posted on September 13, 2013 by The DromomaniacSeptember 13, 2013

     Hey, what are you doing for the rest of your life? No plans? Nothing? Then why not settle down in a 10-room mountain lodge in the Japanese Alps?

     It’s called Hoshi Boshi Lodge, or HBL. You can of course change the name of the lodge but part of the joke is that you can answer the phone and say, “Moshi Moshi, Hoshi Boshi!” (Japanese will find it funny.)
     Here are more photos of HBL from a website that hasn’t been updated in a long while. My longtime friend, Greg, has owned it for many years, but he rarely uses it as a lodge. Only occasionally does he have guests and even then it’s known only by word of mouth. If you put any effort into it, it can easily be a very viable business. (For those of you who speak English as a second language, “Greg” is an old Native American name derived from inter-marriage between Choctaw tribes and a northwesterly migration of Anasazi Indians that means “Lazy Bastard”.)
     His work ethic aside, regarding my last blog post where I say this is my 12th visit to Japan, it is Greg who enables a lot of these visits because I know that coming here is always a relaxing refuge for me—until he starts making me do stuff.

Location, Location, Location
     It’s in Sugadaira/Minenohara, the lettuce capital of Japan. In summer it’s busy with rugby and soccer camps and it’s common to see marathon runners training. At about 1400 meters (5000 feet) elevation, it’s perfect weather in summer while lowland Japan is brutally hot and sticky-humid. In winter it’s a skiing and snowboarding mecca. It’s 200km north of Tokyo and 25km from Nagano, where the 1998 Winter Olympics were held.
     Speaking of the Olympics, consider this: Tokyo has the 2020 Summer Olympics. Why not contact the Bangladesh Olympic Team and offer them a cheap, quiet place to train? Then you can advertise that HBL was the home of the Bangladesh Olympic team, drawing in all the Bangladeshi backpackers who want to live in the very same hotel as their athletic heroes. Work those synergies! The 2019 Rugby World Cup is in Japan, too.
     Greg wants $150,000—I mean, he wants $155,000; The Dromomaniac needs the smallest of commissions—and he wants it in small, unmarked bills sent to his fixer, Fat Tony, in the Cayman Islands. Or a check. I can’t remember.

The solar water heater. Eco friendly!

Soaking wet after a rainy hike in the “South Alps” of southern Nagano prefecture. The whole region is a paradise for mountain lovers. I’m more of a 100-yen sushi lover.

Salmon onion sushi, not 100 yen, but only 90 yen, or, OK, with tax, 94 yen, which is just under a dollar. You’re welcome.

The soul-crushing, cheapest place to stay in Tokyo, Japan

Posted on September 11, 2013 by The DromomaniacSeptember 12, 2013

     This is my 12th time in Japan. 12th time! Who visits Japan twelve times?! By now I should be Japan Travel Ambassador. 11 times I was here as a tourist, and once I worked for a couple of months in a dog hotel. (It’s a long story; you gotta do what you gotta do to offset your costs here. Lately I began selling my body, but then everyone kept demanding refunds and I had to give it up.)
     I do have a cheap accommodation tip for Tokyo, if you’re game. I know a hostel in the middle of town, Shinjuku ward, one of the most happening parts of the city and next to a quiet shrine where you can have your own room for only $20, a steal of a price anywhere in Japan. You won’t find it on any hostel booking engine, there’s no website, and few people know it exists. (Soak that in for a moment: The Dromomaniac giving you more FREE money-saving information! What other travel writer does that? Nobody, because I’m the only one getting my hands dirty down here in the trenches! Or would you prefer 5000 words about what I ate for lunch?)
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     Yes, there’s a catch. It’s incredibly filthy and it feels more like a halfway house than hostel. (Is it too late to write about what I ate for lunch?) I’ve stayed here many times over the years, I’m semi-ashamed to admit, and have written about it before. It might have been even worse before. (The new phone number for the owner, Mr. Suzuki, is 080-5547-5824. I would explain how to call from abroad, but if it is the first place you see when you fly in, you will cry.) Back in the day it was a cool, insider place with a good mix of travelers and people living here, but now it’s all gone to seed.
     When I called Suzuki-san this time to see if there was space, I remembered to ask if there was a shower. Sometimes he doesn’t and you have to go to a sento (public bath) down the street. Alas, I forgot to ask if there was a free shower. Now he has this coin-operated shower to the left, 100 yen for four minutes, or there is a free, much scuzzier, cold shower.
     This place might not be for everyone. Or anyone. Here are some photos:

Suzuki laying down the law!

The white building is Suzuki’s cozy part of the estate.

Architectural Digest has short-listed this for a feature.

The zen garden. In the background is allegedly what his brother did with his half of the land: build modern apartments.

Ambience in spades

The sink in my room

The scuzzy cold shower/bathroom combo

I have no idea what business this can be for. Could be a bar, which are everywhere. When I was in China and I asked other travelers their favorite places, the males would say, “Chengdu,” and then follow with a quieter, almost conspiratorial voice, “and the women drink.” Women don’t drink all over China? It’s a funny thing to mention. If you want drinking women, look no farther than Japan. I can’t think I’ve ever met a Japanese woman who doesn’t drink—to excess, and proud of it.

The funny thing about number 4 is that this is from Yasukuni Shrine where politicians visit to commemorate people who gave their lives to help build Japan, including convicted war criminals. It drives China and Korea nuts that they do this and every year it is a big kerfuffle.

Practical Information
The mistake everyone makes when they come to Japan is to buy a railpass, which is unnecessary if you use buses (or hitchhike), but that is a subject for another time when I write the best seller, “The Dromomaniac’s Guide to Japan for Extreme Cheapskates.”
Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

Every yen counts at the Tokyo Narita Airport Hostel

Posted on September 7, 2013 by The DromomaniacSeptember 10, 2013

First things first. This is the greatest music video ever, which just happens to be Japanese. Note the three seconds from 1:19-1:22. So good. If you can’t see it below, the link is here. The first and last thirty seconds are filler from a TV show. Don’t let it bother you.

Second things second. If you want (yet another) free business idea from The Dromomaniac, open a hostel as near an airport as possible. Everyone can name at least five airports off the top of their heads situated far from the city center where they are desperately needed: Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Denver, Paris-Beauvais, Istanbul-Sabiha Gokcen, Jakarta, Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Washington-Dulles, etc., etc.—it’s a long list. Tokyo’s Narita Airport, which feels halfway to Bolivia, was one such a place, but now there’s this:

Yes, this is the Tokyo Narita Airport Hostel. Look at it. If this can be a successful hostel, anywhere can be. The vending machine is key additional revenue.

The business plan is to keep it simple. All you need are the basics: a semi-clean place, a free shuttle, and hopefully near some food, which this isn’t—plus almighty wifi, of course. It’s not even that close to the airport at 8km (5 miles) away.
The downsides are the heavy driving—the owner says he drives to the airport about five times a day—and you’d have to get used to everyone staying just one night.

There are two rooms like this, $20 a night for a futon, which is cheap for Japan. It’s not as depressing as it looks. I mentioned the free wifi, right?

     If you insist on going through a booking engine to make your reservation, you can use this if you like, or you contact the owner, Mr. Yama, directly:
     Calling from overseas to this cell: +81-80-3020-2746 (if calling from inside Japan 080-3020-2746)
     Calling from overseas to this home: +81-479-772-732 (if calling from inside Japan 0479-772-732)
     Email is enya51@hotmail.com and this is the map.
     It’ll be about $2 less if you deal directly with Yama-san. What’s the big deal about saving $2? That’s 200 yen. THAT’S TWO PLATES OF SUSHI! THAT’S FOUR PIECES OF SUSHI!!!

A busy 100 yen “kaiten zushi” (conveyor belt sushi) place. Even if the sushi isn’t great, the atmosphere is very fun. Ueda, Nagano-ken

100 yen sushi places aren’t uncommon. Even 90 yen sushi can be had. That’s why I was shaking and the photo came out blurry.

All this was 400 yen ($4)

I can’t figure out what they sell here. I need a bigger font!

Practical Information
I hitchhiked, but, otherwise, the cheapest way to go from the airport to town is the Keisei Limited Express train that costs 1000 yen ($10). Don’t be swayed by the more expensive and luxurious Skyliners and fast direct trains when the good old Keisei train gets you there not much slower.

Pondering Death in Room 3 of the Hotan Happy Hotel, China

Posted on August 31, 2013 by The DromomaniacSeptember 4, 2013

The Happy Hotel was so sad I was ready to hang myself, but I couldn’t decide to whom to bequeath my baseball card collection.

After a long stay in Kashgar, I went to the desert. Hotan was an eight hour, 33 yuan ($5) “hard seat” ride, it’s called, but the seats weren’t so hard. The train was, however, filthy as all hell by the time we arrived from sandstorms blowing through the windows and the garbage piled up on the floor. (Hotan has an enormous train station, bigger than the White House. How busy is it? One train a day.) Little did I expect that the train would prepare me for my hotel…

Hotan Happy Hotel
     Congratulations to the impeccably-named Happy Hotel in Hotan (aka Khotan, aka Hetian) Xinjiang province, western China, for vaulting into the Top 5 Worst Hotels Ever status. Well done. Competition has been fierce over the years, but it is a very worthy honor. Take a bow.
     The owner said he had other rooms, but mine was in the best condition and he didn’t even want to show others. The best condition! Condition is a temporary thing. They didn’t even try. Cigarette butts were on the floor, garbage was in the corners, the toilet wasn’t even wiped off.
     The only other lao wai on the train came with me to check out the hotel. He thought it was OK, that he’d stayed in worse in Bolivia—as if that should be a basis for comparison, and I’m sure he didn’t pay $13 for the privilege. Part of the reason accommodation is expensive for what you get is because often only a few hotels in each town will accept foreigners.
     By the way, next time I hear someone defend that China charges American citizens the same price for a visa as we charge them, I will counter, does USA allow you to stay in the country only 30 days (and you can’t renew)? Are you restricted in what hotels you can go to? Do you have to register with the police? How many “sensitive areas” are there where you need special permits that you will never get? Do you see military encamped around town like here?

I was so encrusted in thick dust from the train ride, I had to take a (cold) shower here. Gulp. Even in normal hostels I curl my toes up with my rubber sandals on in the shower. What do you do in this?

This is the bathtub where foreigners wake up in ice with a note saying that they no longer have a kidney.

Another delightful view!

That’s some nice carpentry there.

Incredibly, there is a flat screen TV in the room. A freaking flat screen TV in the room!? With human labor in China costing almost nothing, why not spend two cents on cleaning the place or a couple of bucks to do anything to the toilet? No, you spend good money on a freaking TV! Flat screen! Maybe even cable! (I didn’t check; I thought I would get an STD if I touched the remote control.)

When I left the next morning (“checked out” is too fine a word for such a dive), I saw the owner’s wife holding her baby girl while chatting to someone next to her, and I had to do a double-take to notice that the baby was naked and had just taken a dump. The woman was nonplussed by this as it lay there in a luminescent pile, glistening on the driveway, irrefutable evidence that the kid needs to eat a titch less fiber.
Children use the streets and parks as a toilet all the time. In Hotan I saw the quintessential example when a mother held her baby boy in her lap on the back of a flatbed truck used as public transport. The baby peed as it drove by, almost getting me in the line of fire. Treacherous streets indeed.

Delicious Uyghur bread, baked in a tandoor, three yuan each (50 US cents)

     I can’t remember the last time I was so ready to leave a country. 62.37% of that feeling is me (I’ve been gone seven months now, and if that doesn’t sound like a big deal, try backpacking that long every year for 27 straight years and then tell me how it feels) and 37.63% of it is being trapped in western China with no trains or planes out and not relishing epic bus rides just to get anywhere. It’s like being stuck in Winnemucca, Nevada. Plus, I’m ready to pummel the next person who coughs in my face.
     I’m running out of steam and I’ve become irritable, so there’s not much fun in traveling. It’s kind of interesting to be in Hotan, but it suffers from Kashgar Syndrome: it feels like I’m in the middle of a Chinese experiment in urban planning, a place in transition meant to marginalize Uyghurs. I heard there was a recent uprising, so there are tons of police, tons of military, the main square is cordoned off with few people inside, there is construction everywhere—it’s time to go. To Japan.
     I’m not down on China. I had a fantastic time my previous visit along the east coast and came away impressed, thinking how genius everyone is. I’m down on a lot of things the Chinese government does, but I’m down on a lot of things the American government does; it’s no reason not to visit. Every American should visit China. I used to say that about India, mostly as a personal challenge, but China can be equally difficult and it can only be good to try and have an appreciation and understanding of it.
     I was curious about visiting Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, also said to be the town farthest away from the sea of anywhere in the world. The Prime Minister of Singapore is there now. Singapore was China’s model as it concerns social engineering (I hate that term) and dampening dissent, but now China is the example as well as for economic growth. I’m in the camp that thinks the only thing that can stop China’s ascent is democracy.

In most countries this would be Sign of the Month, but in China, it’s only Sign of the Week.

     The check-in agent in Hotan’s airport only gave me boarding passes to Beijing, which deflated me. It meant that for my 15-hour layover in Beijing I would be spending the night in the check-in part of the terminal and not in the cozy, spacious transit area. I knew this was a big difference since I had a 15-hour layover in the same airport last year.
     Imagine if I had lost my passport before I made it to the airport in Hotan. The nearest American consulate is in Chengdu, several days of traveling away. You can’t check into a hotel without a passport, you can’t take a train without transport—my despair would provoke me to immediately hang myself without caring who got my baseball cards.
     Beijing’s gleaming, shiny new airport is said to have the biggest terminal building in the world (to go with the world’s biggest building, opened last week, a shopping mall in Chengdu). If you thought that being in such cleanliness might make Chinese behave differently, I found while walking in circles looking for an available chair that they still clear their throats with gusto and spit on the floor like anywhere else.
     There aren’t many electrical outlets in the airport so everyone huddles around them as if the current was methadone. At 4am an American guy approached me to ask if there was an outlet available for his laptop. He made a show of being tired, exhaling to say he’s been on the road since July 5—seven weeks, he computed for me, to emphasize it. I gave him my Clint Eastwood stare. Trying to impress me at 4am with this achievement in my half-stupor wasn’t going to work. I was about to hector him that he was barking up the wrong tree, but I let it go. He’s a young American traveling. I need to nurture these guys. I unplugged.

Ah yes, the well-known Chinese wine trademark, Les Champs d’Or. So mellow.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
     I used 10,000 United Airlines frequent flyer miles to go from Hotan to Tokyo and paid $22 in taxes plus a $75 penalty for using the miles within three weeks of my flight. That is a recent fee from United as is the $100 fee every time you want to change the date despite the ticket being valid for a year. (Teeth gnashing.)
     The important thing to remember is that I am using 10,000 miles to go from Country A to Country B, China to Japan in this instance, which means I could go from anywhere in China to anywhere in Japan. Use the miles where it would normally cost a lot to fly to if you are touring around, or fly to one end of the country and then make your way back.
     Young Kent Foster would have flown from Hotan to Ishigaki island in the far, far south of Japan, farther south than Okinawa, farther south than Taipei, Taiwan, in fact. It’s the end of Japan, and from Ishigaki I could have used one of two airlines flying there as a new route, Skymark and Peach (Hey Peach, Japanese credit cards only?! Come on, it’s 2013 already!), to get back to the mainland cheaply. But Young Kent Foster, like Elvis, has left the building. It is typhoon season in southern Japan and I got put off by reading about beaches you aren’t allowed to swim at and similar nonsense.

Classic! “In order to serve you better”, we will charge you US$10 to change money. Beijing Airport.

In the Land of the Midnight Sun: Kashgar, Xinjiang, China

Posted on August 30, 2013 by The DromomaniacSeptember 4, 2013

The Chinese might be on to something here. Shouldn’t all public toilets be ranked?

     This is my Uyghur cold noodle restaurant. The “chef” let me video him in his hyper splendor. I love this guy. If you can’t see the video below, the link is here. It’s not blurry like this image suggests! A noodle dish like this is about 5 yuan, or 85 US cents.

     This is my fourth time in China, but two of those were short trips to Guangzhou, so I don’t know the country well. Far western China is hardly China, anyway—for now. Ethnically, this province, Xinjiang, if I’m not mistaken, used to be almost 90% non-Chinese, but with a government push to dilute that, a la Tibet, I read that now non-Chinese make up less than half of the province.
     When crossing from Kyrgyzstan into China, clocks are set ahead two hours. All of China is in the same time zone, which makes for weird official sunrise and sunset times; northern Xinjiang must have midnight sun on the solstice. However, in a clever form of rebellion against Chinese rule, locals go by “Urumqi time”, Urumqi being the capital of the province. Everything government-run such as post offices and trains are on Beijing time, while nearly everything else is on Urumqi time, two hours earlier.

Yeah, I used to have a XMQ6532CEG4C, but now I drive an V!G4$@49#*JE.

I went inside and the guy looked me up and down and said, “You’re about an 8.”

I get a charge out of hearing Chinese people tell me their easier-to-remember western name. Sometimes the name matches their personality: quiet, bookish girls are Janes and Marys, then come the Angelinas and Tiffanys, but why not go all way and choose a cool ethnic name? What about Tyrone? Joaquin? If I ever meet a Chinese Tyrone we will be best friends forever, and if I ever meet a Chinese Moesha I will go down on one knee and propose on the spot.
I expected to see a million motorbikes in Kashgar, but I was surprised to hear almost no engine noise—they’re all electric. Impressive. Now they just need to invent a quiet horn. The noise can be brutal. I thought I was at Grandmaster status in crossing chaotic city streets all over the world, but China has humbled me. The police are sometimes directing traffic and there are plenty of timed stoplights, but it’s all anarchy in disguise.
kashgar hostel card

I am the most uninteresting person at my hostel. There are a whole host of lean cyclists who all have the same burnt skin after so much time pedaling in the Silk Road sun; foreigners who study in other parts of China who’ve come to check out the wild west; long-distance hitchhikers (quick story: a Chinese girl told me that hitchhiking has suddenly taken off among Chinese and when she was in Chengdu there were a line of twenty people waiting for a ride to Tibet. She also said they were treating drivers badly and ruining it for everyone); travelers coming from exotic locales like Pakistan and Iran; an Italian brother and sister traveling together (what’s rarer: Italians traveling or brother and sister traveling?)
There is also a young Polish traveler who has hitchhiked from home to here. He had amazing stories of spending minuscule amounts of money and receiving endless hospitality by everyone he came in contact with, but something about him rubbed me the wrong way, as it seemed like he was manipulating everyone for food, transport and shelter. The line isn’t so fine between accepting offers and getting people to do stuff for you. He said in Iran that he would hitchhike when he got hungry and when he needed a place to sleep. Iran’s hospitality is legendary, but still, at some point they are going to feel used. He said his goal was to spend $136 in one month in China and he will become what I call a scorched earth traveler to achieve it. I’m glad he isn’t going to Japan or he’d really see how easy it is to roll over people into helping the “hapless” tourist.

Preparing some soup at the Sunday livestock market on the edge of town.

The man is collecting wool under some uncomfortable sheep. Nothing is wasted in China.

Mao and me. I don’t recognize myself in shoes, but in a rare moment of wisdom, I wore them at the livestock market.

“All of it shows fully…” This is from a description of the main mosque in the middle of town. I love when the heavy-handed government tries to show how benevolent they are.

Kashgar night market food. It’s been very handy to know some Turkish, especially for the numbers, which are almost the same, and food. It’s fun, for example, to see that “nokut” is the word for chickpea here and then remember that it is “nohut” in Turkish. Turkey is far, but culturally, it feels near.

Pilau, enough for everyone

A fountain of white drink, probably something related to kefir.

Even though I spent 12 long days in Kashgar–three or four of them sick in bed—if you take away the people, it isn’t an intrinsically interesting place. The old town is hemmed in on all sides by high-rise “modern” China, making the old town feel like Uyghurland, a tourist district.

This is a renovated old town street. A Chinese guy in my dorm room who calls himself Neil (Neill? Neal?) pointed out that the government spent seven billion yuan (over a billion US dollars) to renovate Kashgar, but it has become soulless, which makes it money well spent in the government’s eyes, I guess.

     The special thing about Kashgar—for me, the only thing—are the people. Kashgar is world class people watching. Even better is when you can find people who speak English, though sometimes a common language isn’t needed. I sat with an ethnic Kazakh who communicated with me via his iPad. We wrote messages and passed it back and forth to be translated. He asked me if I knew about the Chinese cultural invasion and what my impressions were.
     One guy at a shop down the street from my hostel always bounds out of his chair when he sees me to shake my hand. Once he rushed over to a desk and pulled out a book. It was in Uyghur—before I came I didn’t know the language was written in Arabic script—and, beaming, he proudly said that he was reading “Hamlet” by “William”, as he put it.
     I wasn’t expecting to see such a variety in the way women dress, particularly the bright colors and designs. Some cover themselves completely, showing only dark henna stains on their fingertips and with a thick garment over the face that they have to hold close so they can see through it, but at the same time they’ll have shiny, eye-catching rhinestone-like designs on the sleeves and I saw one such woman wear purple and white pumps. My favorite look was from the 60s: big bouffant hair in a scarf, huge Jackie O sunglasses, mid-length skirt, nearly running me over in a scooter.
kashgar smile kashgar smile kashgar smile

kashgar smile kashgar smile kashgar smile