Friday, November 21, 2008

The Super Long Post


Adam November 21, 2008


Cast of Characters:


Bahbi (pronounced Baby)—The woman we are staying with. Bahbi manages the woodcarving export business (known as JP Artcraft) in the Philippines.


Mavich—Babhi’s friend and accountant for JP Artcraft, and Screw King, grew up in a small town 30 mins south of Vigan City.


Screw King—Mavich’s friend and owner of a screw store, known as “The Screw King”, we never figured out her real name so we just call her Screw King.


Dale—Screw King’s driver


Mo-Moy—Jim’s good friend and supplier of carvings for JP Artcraft\


Vanjee—Mo-Moy’s wife.


Piaga—Sister of Mo-Moy, Mother of Susan and Louie, our hostess in Banaue


Jonny—Susan’s husband supplier of carvings for JP Artcraft


Susan—Piaga’s daughter, Jonny’s wife


Louie—Piaga’s daughter currently attending medical school in Baguio City, our hostess in Baguio City.


Preface: I have to apologize for the insanely long post I got a little carried away at the beginning and then got tired at the end so skimped on some details which Jim will fill in.


Back from the journey through North Luzon, and much to report. First things first since I have some down time while Jim is doing work and a computer I can use for free I made a little map of our trip…probably won’t ever happen again but everyone can enjoy it this time. The trip started out on Tuesday night with us pulling out of Mavich’s parking lot in a rather nice Isuzu Trooper accompanied by Bahbi, Mavich, and Screw King with Dale behind the wheel. How we ended up in the Trooper is no simple matter. Earlier in the week we had decided to visit Vigan city in order to obtain some pottery samples for a dealer that Jim and Paul met in SC. The whole ordeal started out with Babhi, Jim and I taking the bus there, when Mavich heard we were going she insisted on going with us, having her husband drive us, and us staying in her mother’s house. This was all well and good until Mavich’s husband had to go to the hospital with heart problems (he’s fine), so we were back to taking the bus. Enter Screw King, turns out Screw King has a car, a driver, and an urge to visit Vigan, so we agree to pay for the gas and were back to driving up. As I was saying we pulled out around 8pm (driving at night is preferable in the Philippines since traffic makes NYC look pleasant). Now we planned on a peaceful drive up to Vigan City, what we got was far from it. Jim and I affectionately refer to Dale as Dale because of the Dale Earnheart Jr. tee shirt he was wearing that night. As we began driving it became apparent that he thought he could drive like Dale Earnheart as he quickly accelerated to 150 kmph on single lane road weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. Our speeding Trooper Sent tricycle drivers (essentially dirt bikes with a side car attached) and pedestrians running for their lives while we had close encounters with oncoming busses. By some miracle we safely arrived in Mavich’s Mothers house at around 2am where in true Pilipino style we were quickly force-fed a snack and then shown to our rooms.


The next day we awoke and went for a short walk around the fields owned by Mavich’s family where we harvested some bananas and picked up a chicken to be butchered later. After our walk we proceeded to Vigan City, once again in the suicidal hands of Dale. In Vigan we had lunch and then Jim and I were shooed away by our Pilipino companions since our presence at the pottery would instantly increase the price. With our free time we walked around Vigan city, which features some of the only Spanish buildings, not destroyed during WWII or allowed to fall into completely disrepair. After a few hours we met our companions at Baluarte a so called wildlife preserve owned and operated by extremely corrupt Governor Chavit Signson. The tiger preserve was one of the more disturbing things we saw all the tigers were in cages with barely more than twice their body length to walk around in either direction, when we arrived the tigers were anxiously pacing back and forth. From there we returned to Mavich’s for dinner quickly followed by bed as we would be setting out at four the next morning.


The next day Jim and I were dropped off in Carmen to take the bus to Solano where we would meet Mo-Moy and his wife and go with them to their house in Lamut. Travelling took most of the day and once we arrived at Mo-Moy’s we took a short rest and then sat down to dinner. The following day we visited one of the two tree farms purchased and by JP Artcraft and reforested in order to help compensate for the trees cut for woodcarvings. The next day Jim and Mo-Moy discussed business and then we went by Jeepney (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeepney) to Banaue where we were warmly greeted by Piaga. During dinner Susan and Jonny came up (they live just next door and down a little) and we decided to go on a little hike to Batad the next day with Jonny and Regi (Piaga’s grandson). As for the hike to Batad I know that Jim wants to write about all the details so I’ll skip to the following day or November 17th in case any one has lost track. On the 17th Jim was still feeling good even after the hike so we decided to walk along the road to a view point above Banaue. At the top we stumbled into the Noah’s Ark Orphanage operated by a Canadian named Linda from the Canada Pentecostal Church. Linda showed us around the very impressive orphanage and then showed us a shortcut down.


On the 18th we departed from Banaue via Jeepney heading to Bontoc and then to Baguio, this was the long way but we decided to take it for the scenery (which there was none since we were in clouds the whole time). In Bontoc we proceeded to find the bus to Baguio, unfortunately an encounter with the local Police delayed our journey…which you can read more about when Jim decides to post (I’m getting tired of typing). Despite our little hang up we successfully made it to Baguio where we were greeted by Louie and brought to a house shared by her and some number of cousins (we never really figured out who lived there). By this time Jim had suspected he was sick and a thermometer at Louie’s confirmed his suspicion. Jim ate a few spoonfuls of dinner and then promptly retired, I chatted with Efrin (one of Louie’s cousins) for a while and then watched the end of Made of Honor and the entire cartoon version of Balto (both of which were horrible). The next day Jim rested for awhile and then boosted by some Tylenol ventured out with Louie, another one of her cousins and I for lunch and a walk around Baguio. By that night I came down with the same thing as Jim (basically fever, and feeling bad, no cough or anything). The next morning (November 20th), we got a bus back to Manila, and then returned to Bahbi’s in time for dinner. Phew sorry for writing so much hope everyone enjoys, we’ll be posting pictures in the near future.

4 comments:

Sheila said...

That was great but I hope Jim is up to filing in the blanks soon - like reading a novel with pages missing. Both of you rest and get well.

Becky said...

I really missed you until I read about you picking out a chicken to butcher....

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