We awoke to 10,000 fruit flies buzzing around the durian, so I tossed it in the trash and summoned our final Gojek. Thankfully we were close to the airport and left early enough that there was no problem getting there on time. We filled out our online immigration forms in line, and put on our warm clothes for the cold plane, and before we knew it we were off to Manila. I slept hard on the plane and felt like I was teleported to Manila. We got off the plane and I looked for a local SIM card, for whatever reason I thought I really wanted Globe over Smart, even though Smart was the only one available at the airport. Trying to not be suckers we walked out of the airport, and I gave a sleeping homeless lady (Mark said “that was a woman?”) my glutinated meal they gave me on the plane. We walked to several 711s in search of a Globe SIM, and we eventually waited in line for someone to refill the ATM then made a withdrawal. We found a different chain in Pasay that had one Globe SIM left, so I bought it and popped it into my phone. We sat inside that store for almost an hour trying to figure out how to get a load on the SIM, learned what G-Cash was, added cash in a G-Cash machine, and still nothing. So much nothing that eventually we gave up, and kept walking. A small kid ran up to Mark and said “you want food?” and then fired a cap gun at his face, yelled “Bitch!” and ran off. While we were inside the store trying to get the load on the SIM a woman who was dressed in casual clothing told us she was a police officer, and asked if we were staying in Pasay. I told her we were staying in Paco and she seemed relieved, and said, “oh that’s a nice place.” A child questioned that she was really an officer so she showed him her badge and he ran off. We walked past many shanty looking places with various things for sale, food, toys, and random auto parts. I told Mark that we could just hop on a Jeepney on the main road up towards Greg’s house. No Jeepneys ever showed up and I still couldn’t get the SIM to load. I taught Mark my advice from last time, if anyone comes up to you to ask you for something, just reply “Merry Christmas” and be on your way, and we used it many times on that walk. Our walk brought us through several places in the densely populated Manila, by a spillway, by the highway, and along the train tracks. Mark and I walked up to a basketball game being played by some young kids, and they were excited with how tall we were but underestimated how bad my ball handling skills really are. They asked me to take a shot, and I tried and bricked, then they asked Mark to dunk, and he jumped up and slammed the ball into their little hoop with his backpack on and was bombarded with high fives. With a bunch of “Merry Christmases” we were back on the hike. At one point Mark downloaded Grab and set it up and still was unable to get a ride, so we admitted defeat and just walked all the way to Greg’s.
Greg is an American who has lived in the Philippines since the 80s. Jim met him while staying at his guesthouse, and they really hit it off. Greg is the kind of man you can have a conversation with on any subject with extreme amounts of depth, and he’s also a tour guide and knows a lot about the history of the Philippines. His specialty is in the area known as Intramuros, the walled city which was the final standoff between the Americans and the Japanese in Manila during World War II. We arrived, and were suggested to shower up since we were ripe and maybe even smelled like yesterday’s durian for all I knew, and we joined them upstairs at the dinner table. Three guests were present and the conversations were all top notch, and then Greg decided to heat up some of his husband’s chicken adobo. I no longer drink but the food and conversation were sublime, and Mark can vouch that the gin was also on par. We learned about the things that made our trip so difficult, one being the government had decided to do away with all the old SIM cards, and make everyone have to register with them to have access to a working phone. We also learned that the Jeepneys were on strike in protest of some of the changes the government was trying to do about transportation. It all made sense why it took hours instead of seconds to try and get the phone up and running, and why we were unable to get any rides, that in combination with it almost being Christmas and the surplus of humans on the road. Eventually the guests headed out as the night grew old and Mark and I went to the room downstairs to retire for the night. I told him Jim had slept in this very room a couple times before, all a part of the backtracking experience.
Continue to the next page for additional photos from the day