Dreary Legaspi

As my time in the Philippines comes to an end, I made an ill-fated trip by myself over to a small city called Legaspi. The region is famous for two things: the massive Mayon Volcano and Pili nuts. Legaspi is the capital and biggest city of Albay province. I took a night bus which took about 12 hours. The bus was so cold from the over-bearing air conditioning and I inevitably caught a cold. I arrived and the weather was nice; serene. The volcano had a small amount of clouds around summit and I could see it spewing out steam from its perfectly shaped cone. I decided not to take a picture because I thought I would wait until I reached this idyllic point which I read about. It is the ruins of a old monastery just 30 minutes away and from there you are supposed to have the best and most beautiful view.

I checked into a hotel (very cheap, only 8 dollars a night), took a shower, and rested for an hour since it is impossible to sleep well on buses. It was only 9 AM when I left my room and made my way to the exit of the hotel. I walked out to find that a massive storm had come out of nowhere. It was raining hard and the volcano was completely obscured by clouds. I was disappointed but I thought maybe I can wait out the rain since it was still very early.
I toured the whole city. I went to everything that could be construed as a tourist spot and by 6 PM it was still raining, if it not harder. 

One thing I can say about Legaspi is that there are definitely not a lot of foreigners going there. I didn't see any non-Filipinos and I felt somewhat like a local celebrity as I walked around. Most people were nice but sometimes the attention got kind of awkward. Every time I walked into a small restaurant it felt like something out of a wild west movie. Everyone turned and stared at me. Even after I order and sit down, some children are still captivated. It's true that I do get some attention here in Manila since I am a foreigner but in Legaspi it was a bit much. During my wandering around the city, I watched a karate tournament for kids and it brought me back to when I did karate. There were two schools that were competing against each other; everyone was Filipino but one seemed to be from a Korean school and the other a Japanese style of karate. The difference between this and my karate was that instead of some hefty American dude in a karate outfit refereeing the match, there was an attractive young lady with a white collared shirt, black straight pants and a bright red necktie. It was refreshing to see this Filipino style karate tournament.

After this I headed to the old district of the city where there was some sort of festival going on. According to the sign it was a month long festival but I guess I had came on the Ladyboy Day since there were several groups of dancing guys dressed up like ladies. Maybe not everyone was gay and it was just for fun since there was a lot of them for a city that small. 

This is one cultural disconnect between the US and Philippines. In the conventions of US religious conservatism, homosexuality is not viewed favorably but I would say that Filipinos are generally more religious than Americans. Abortion is completely out of the question here and even contraception can be hard to find in some cities without a prescription. I don't know what you would need to tell a doctor to write you a prescription for some condoms but I've heard that in some cities here you need a compelling reason. Divorce is also illegal here which according to my co-worker is because the state is trying to protect the family. Abortion is a sticky issue in the States but access to contraception and the ability to divorce has been pretty much agreed upon in mainstream society. So if the Filipinos are apparently so much more conservative, how are they so comfortable with homosexuals? There are plenty of homophobic people in the Philippines, I'm sure of that but they are not as present as they are in the States. Gays, lesbian, transgender people all walk pretty freely and seemingly without de facto persecution. I have no problem with that as long as ladyboys that are very convincing make it a priority to mention that they are actually a man when I meet them in a club so there is so confusion. But really this difference in the conventional understanding of conservative versus liberal society is a common phenomenon. What is considered conservative or liberal is not universally agreed upon around the world. Both the political the social spectrum are culturally subjective. If you talk to conservatives in Canada I think you would hard-pressed to find someone that wants to abolish the national healthcare service while probably every conservative and some liberals in the US would hate a national healthcare system.

Anyway, I was hoping for a clear second day to see the volcano but I was not granted this small wish. I left Legaspi on an earlier bus than I planned. Legaspi is a nice place and it could be a chill place to visit. It reminded me of a lot some of the English towns that I've visited in that I thought it would be a nice place if it wasn't raining the whole time.

Next time I wouldn't travel alone, I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. I was just kind of bored the whole time. Yeah well you live and you learn.