Tight, steep switchbacks in Quezon National Forest Park. One flag person can be seen towards the top. They control the flow of traffic on this dangerous road.

-Sunday-

We left Tubas at 9:30 a.m. to the tune of much crying. An alternate return route took us through Quezon National Forest Park. We climbed extremely tight and steep switchbacks to rise up on a ridge with a commanding view of the area, even back to the ocean. Though it was a two-lane road, there were flag people to limit the traffic to single direction. There had been too many lives lost on this road. But the scenery was beautiful!

Lyn's sister Mylene wanted to be dropped off in Gumaca, but we kidnapped her, deciding to take her with us to Manila and Puerto Galera.

Lyn's cousin, Venus, who rode with us for awhile, had been a college student in civil engineering. She had completed 3 years, before having to leave when the family had money problems. How sad. We dropped Lyn's grandfather (now 90 years old) off in Lucena. Other than being hunched over very badly from an old injury, he seemed to get around quite fine. He had travelled from Lucena to Tubas by himself with luggage. I helped him out of the car and sent him on his way to reunite with his wife. I have seen him all three times down in Tubas, but I have never met his wife.

Shanties along the river in Manila. And, yes, all that stuff in the water is trash. The homes may be very humble (an understatement of course), but the people seem to be happy.

We had lunch in San Pablo City at Max's of Manila, the second most famous home-grown restaurant chain. Later on Tito dropped us off at Lynn and Martial's house in Paranaque, a suburb of Manila. We had dinner at an italian restaurant in a nice mall. Malls are very important to the people of Manila. They provide a way to escape the ever present heat and humidity. Maybe it allows them to escape into a dreamworld of material wealth as well. We drive by shanty after shanty and then see all the people in the malls which are springing up all over Manila.

-Monday-

What's for breakfast? Well, eggs and rice of course. I will gladly eat rice with dinner much of the time and with lunch some of the time, but every morning for breakfast gets old very quickly. Afterwards, we toured Nayong Pilipino which is next to the airport. It has areas patterned after various Philippine regions: Mindanao, Visayas, Bicol, Tagalog, Ilocos, and Cordillera. You see the types of homes and crafts found in these regions. We learned that the people of Ifugao live in raised homes; if they don't want visitors, they just pull up the ladder needed to enter the home. There are plenty of reasonably priced souvenirs. Additionally, there are museums, a small zoo, and miniature versions of the Banaue rice terraces, Chocolate Hills, and Mayon Volcano (which up until a recent eruption, was considered to have a perfectly symmetrical cone). A jeepney can take you around the park. One annoying thing is that foreigners pay a higher admission price (although at 50 pesos for foreigners, it's still a very inexpensive tourist site). It is a wonderful idea and could be quite a showpiece, but it is run down, apparently not getting enough tourist money to maintain the grounds.

Beautiful paintings at Intramuros (the walled city) for about $10 a piece!

It was another steamy hot winter day in Manila. We went to Quiapo to have lunch at Lyn's former employer, the Olga Protective Agency. Another brown-out occurred, with the biggest drawback being no air conditioning in the office. Lyn was reunited with many old friends. More pasa lubong was passed out. Leaving Olga, we were caught in a lengthy, small traffic jam as at the corner, there was a jeepney stop. Each jeepney had to load up fully with passengers before it left and you could move forward one car length. Thirty minutes and thirty yards later we were on our way.

Eventually, we arrived at Intramuros, the walled city. It was built by the Spanish during their domination of the islands. There wasn't too much to look at here as the museum was closed. However, there was a nice view across the Pasig river at the high rise buildings being assembled.

Martial's drain at the Jollibee Restaurant.

As the brownout continued, we met Martial at a Jollibee in Ortigas. Martial sells drain systems for businesses. Their drain system had been used in this Jollibee and Martial wanted some photos of it to be used in a display at some kind of industrial exhibition. He thought an easy way of accomplishing this would involve using my digital camera. This turned out to be more difficult than originally thought. First off, the Jollibee architect had given permission for the photos, but had not communicated this to the on-site manager. Task one, Martial used his cell phone to eventually get in touch with the architect, who told the manager it was okay. We were taken behind the counter to the kitchen area and I took a few photos. Then Martial said he would like some photos with the clean drains.

This is where the brown-out helped us. With the lack of power, Jollibee was closing early. We had to wait a while longer until they cleaned the drains and I took a few more photos. If I would have brought my USB cable, we could have easily uploaded the photos to a computer. Having forgot it in California, Martial and I went to a large mall (Tito dropped Lyn and Mylene off at Martial's house) with about a dozen computer stores expecting to find at least one that could perform this for us. We struck out there, but were able to find a portrait study that could do it provided we used them to make some prints as well. After uploading the photos, Martial and I had a dinner of quesadillas & enchiladas. With a beer for Martial and a Pina Colada for me, the bill came to less than $10. We picked up some tasty small brownies for half price - 2 for 11 pesos. Martial and I were also able to visit an internet cafe; it cost 30 pesos for 30 minutes.

The brown-out lasted for a few hours and involved the entire island of Luzon. It was the second island-wide brown-out in two months. The National Power Corp. chief lost his job because of it. When brown-outs happen, there are always rumors that it's sabotage related to a coup d'etat. In this case, the reason was that a German company's bulldozer hit a power tower. Some businesses, especially shopping malls, have their own backup power generators.

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