Whizzing across the Philippines on a jeepney, I saw a quote painted on a school that said “the difference between wealth and poverty is education”. Singapore is a marvel of engineering intellect, prompting friends I met up with there to exclaim “it’s the future!” every time they came across a new innovation. The same card is used for the metro, parking fees, and even entrance fees some places. The tallest, most prominent building, Marina Bay Sands, is actually a cantilever, the top deck grounded to one stand but only resting on the other two; right next to it is the world's first & longest DNA bridge. There is a general air of efficiency with marked bus lines, designated taxi wait areas, and high rises.
The Philippines is something else entirely. Whereas you get the impression after a while that every major project in Singapore is geared toward tourism (the ubiquitous shopping malls, preserved natural areas turned into paid-entry parks), tourism isn't a huge market in the Philippines - so it seemed like the best way to see the islands is by using transportation.
After flying into Bohol, my cousin Tina and I took a bus to the Chocolate Hills, an area with several thousand eery hills in the middle of the island. With my bag, there was absolutely no way I was walking up the hill the hotel was on, but after getting off the bus, it looked like our only option was... a motorcycle. Straddling my 45-pound bag, the driver slowly putted up the hill, me and Tina behind him, holding on for dear life. Thank goodness it was a 5-minute ride.
In Cebu City, we used primarily jeepneys, trucks where the riders sit on seats on the truck bed under an overhang. On Bohol, we dealt with a stubborn tricycle driver, who insisted on a 20-peso ride and mentioned after arrival that it was 20 per person (we came to find out that that's a pretty typical ploy). Ferries ranged from car-shipping boats to push boats. As annoyingly cumbersome as my bag was, it brought out the best in everyone we met, from those that helped bring my bag into congested buses, to those that moved over to give me a bit more space, smiling all the while.
From the vantage point of buses, jeepneys, and ferries, we saw dense tropical forests, towns celebrating their annual festivals, amazing views of beaches, and plenty of parents pointing out to their kids the strange-looking foreigners. That took getting used to!
Eating was always an experience, although (fortunately) not the kind I had the first time I went to the Manila airport. Our first meal in the Philippines was.. pizza. There were all the typical American chains and somehow we managed to frequent a lot of them: McDonald's (we had to try the spaghetti), California Pizza Kitchen, Pizza Hut. There were bakeries in even the small towns, serving all kinds of things that couldn't often be described in English.
"Vegetarian" seems to be a flexible word in the Philippines. The vegetarian part of the menu usually included such dishes as "crabmeat with stir-fried vegetables", and dishes that sounded meat-free would come with gratuitous pieces of chicken or pork. So getting traditional dishes, like chicken adobo and squid, was the most predictable way to go.
Food was a lot more straight-forward in Singapore, prepared with the advertised ingredients, but different enough to push my culinary limits. Since I was there for a little over 2 days, my friend Esther's family was convinced that I had to try all the available varieties of food in that timeframe. Somehow we managed to eat pork rolls for breakfast, dim sum, Indian food, Malaysian-influenced food, sting ray, and all sorts of brightly-colored gelatinous desserts. So pretty much all the weight I lost in the temple in Thailand came creeping back. But it was delicious.
Both countries, though, as polar opposite as they are, were amazing in their own ways. Singapore's botanical gardens highlighted a number of amazing plant species, especially orchids (which, of course, they created their own varieties of); Esther (who took the photography class with me at Cornell) and I enjoyed honing our macro shots on all the orchid varieties. The Philippines was a great place to jump around and soak up the last bit of my adventures in Asia, and the spa time we got at the end was the perfect treat after the craziness of traveling.
I'm now enjoying the beautiful weather and amazing food in Hawaii with my aunt & uncle before I head back to the States on July 2!
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