Cebu Part 2: Seeing the Sights

The first thing you need to know about the sights in Cebu city is that, officially, there aren’t many. The second thing you need to know is that this doesn’t matter in the slightest, because just by walking down the streets you will see sights far more interesting than any historical monument or tourist trap. Nevertheless, a couple of things are worth visiting.

We started our sightseeing trip with the cathedral. Apart from a few ugly statues, I quite liked the architechture and the interior because I'm a sucker for light airy buildings with lots of gold, but more interesting was the schedule of masses outside. Colonised by the Spanish from 1571 to 1898, the Philippines is overwhelmingly a Catholic country, and the evidence is everywhere.

Our local parish church in Cebu attracted up to 20 000 worshippers on a given Sunday, so the pressure on the cathedral must be immense. We had a little chuckle at the idea of weddings being carried out on a “first come, first served” basis but presumably this does mean when you book in advance!

The man in the picture is about to become only the second-ever saint from the Philippines and his beatification is clearly a very exciting event. I love the lack of cynicism revealed by "with more priests" being touted as a unique selling point.

After the cathedral, we went to Magellan’s cross. It was Magellan who brought Catholicism to the Philippines and he seems to have done an excellent job of implanting it in the culture before being killed by a tribal chief after he invaded Mactan island in 1521. The cross you can see in Cebu supposedly contains fragments of the original cross that Magellan planted when he arrived in the Philippines.

The final stop on our tour was the Basilica del Santo Niño. The Santo Niño is a statue of the boy Jesus dressed as a Spanish prince, and was presented by Magellan to Queen Juana, wife of the Rajah of Cebu after her conversion to Catholicism. While not officially the patron saint of Cebu because it represents Jesus himself, the locals are devoted to it and queue up to pass in front of it and touch the bullet proof glass that protects it from attack.

Then, having done our duty to official tourist, we headed back out into the streets to experience some more of the endlessly changing sights of everyday existence in Cebu.

Teaching!

After our relaxing mini-break in the jungle, on Tuesday it was time to do some work. For me, this meant being a teaching assistant for my friends' classes in the vocational education centre where they work. The students are all on practical courses, for example to become electricians or carpenters, but they also have weekly classes in English and Maths. As the classes were large, I spent some of the time just being an extra pair of hands, but I also worked on an individual basis with some of the students, consolidating concepts they hadn't understood, and carrying out mock job interviews. I was there for too short a time to make any great impact on their learning, but it was extremely rewarding nonetheless, mainly because it was so enjoyable getting to know the students themselves. In some ways they were boisterous and confident, calling out jokes in class and cheering each other on, but on a one-to-one basis, they were often either very shy or very charming, or sometimes both. I had the opportunity to talk to lots of them and also to read some autobiographies that they had written, which gave me a real insight into life in the Philippines that I wouldn't otherwise have had.

There were a few things that I found striking when reading the autobiographies and talking to the students about their experiences. Many of their concerns were the same as those of young adults the world over: friends, relationships and their place in their families and in society, but others were a testament to the differences between growing up as a poor, or even very ordinary person in the Philippines compared to most people in Western Europe. Many of the students, for example, hoped to graduate from the college and to get a job to be able to support their parents or to allow brothers and sisters to go to school. Lots of them had jobs in addition to full-time school, not for extra pocket money but to fund their education or even just to be able to eat. Some had seen dramatic reversals in their family fortunes when a parent fell ill or lost their job, which really brought home to me how fortunate we are in Europe to have a welfare system which, flawed as it may be, provides a safety net to protect us from the worst when something unavoidable happens.

Another thing that struck me in their attitudes to life was the central role played by religion. The school is Catholic and the programme places a strong emphasis spiritual as well as academic education and growth, so it's hard to say how much of this is part of the national culture and how much was specific to that particular school, but many, when asked to describe how they had solved a problem, would talk about praying to God for help and explained their goals for living as good Christians.

Having this insight into their lives, their plans, their hopes and their dreams felt like a real privilege and I would have loved to have been able to do more, but time was too short (on this trip at least!).

Cebu City Part 1

In Cebu city, the green hills behind the city merge gently into the smoky horizon and the turquoise sea laps softly at the dirty shore. Tower blocks look down on the mazes of the shanty towns and wooden shacks sit precariously among solid concrete. Advertising shouts down from every wall and roof top and rubbish builds up in silent piles in every corner. The traffic roars, the engines splutter, the crowds swirl and in the midst of it all, the people sit by the market stalls and on the kerbs, staring out at it all in quiet contemplation.

In Cebu city lives are lived piled on top of each other, wealth, desperate poverty and everything in between. Trying to understand its endless contrasts and contradictions was the most culturally difficult part of my trip, but when the end came and it was time to go home, Cebu city was the place that I didn’t want to leave.

I didn’t want to leave because I hadn’t finished with it yet. I didn’t feel that I had completely understood. When I went to the Philippines I knew that I would see poverty on a scale that I had never seen before, and I did. Whole families sleep on cardboard boxes, mothers desperately try to bathe naked children in the gutters of the main road and frail elderly women pick through the rubbish looking for things to sell. I was anxious about seeing all of these things and not liking my reactions, of feeling guilty and finding it all to easy to flee.

What I wasn’t expecting were all the other layers of the tapestry, the interwoven threads that twist and merge and make it impossible to straight away point a finger and say, yes, this is what I see. For me, part of the difference was due to the climate. It’s not shocking to spend a large part of your day out on the streets when the weather is consistently hot but it is shocking to have nowhere to go at night. It doesn’t matter if the bus has no glass in the windows, but it does matter that people’s homes can be blown or washed away when a typhoon comes.



A second element in the picture is the fact that there are plenty of rich people in Cebu as well. Large 4x4s with blacked out windows wend their way between the tricycle taxis and the jeepneys. If you want to buy designer clothes, or even just shop at Promod, there are three air-conditioned shopping malls to shop at. The Philippines is poor compared to Europe, but per capita income is four times higher than in many of the poorer African countries, for example. But because on equal distribution of wealth, it scores relatively badly, there are extremes of poverty and extremes of wealth, as well as everything in between. There are plenty of sad and shocking things in the Philippines, but they don’t jump out and strike you straight away. You have to look carefully at the tapestry to begin to understand the picture.

Bohol: The Loboc River and the Tarsier Sanctuary

We were fairly lazy the afternoon of our arrival at Nuts Huts, but the following morning we rented kayaks and paddled our way up the river to a nearby waterfall. It wasn't very far, but gliding over the green water and admiring the coconut palms up above, you could imagine that you were an intrepid jungle explorer. My friend was even intrepid enough not only to jump in for a swim but also to get back successfully into her kayak afterwards.

We had to leave Nuts Huts that morning, but on our way back to Tagbilaran, we stopped off at the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary. The Philippine Tarsier is a rare animal about the size of your hand that used to be thought to be the world's smallest monkey until its zoological classification was changed. The tarsiers generally sleep during the day, so the guides at the sanctuary go out and locate them in the morning, then take visitors to the correct spots to look at them during the day. One of the ones we saw was actually awake, so we were able to see that they really can leap three metres from branch to branch, as well as rotating their heads through 180 degrees.

Bohol: Loboc

The alarm went off early the next morning. My friends had decided that I was not to be allowed to waste a single minute of my time in the Philippines and, as they had two days off over the weekend, we were going on a trip to the island of Bohol.

The island of Cebu is part of the Visayas, which make up the middle part of the Philippine archipelago. Cebu city isn't really a touristy place but the rest of the Visayas are highly recommended in the guidebooks and Bohol is major holiday destination for the Philippinos themselves. I had my first ever jeepney ride down to the pier, then it took a couple of hours to make the crossing from Cebu to the port of Tagbilaran.

Stepping off the boat, you could tell straight away that this was a tourist hotspot because we were immediately descended upon by a crowd of insistent tricycle drivers demanding to take us to wherever we wanted to go. My friend negotiated a price with one of them and off we went. Our first port of call was the shopping centre to withdraw money and have lunch, then all we had to do was walk over to the neighbouring bus station. Except that as we were eating, it started to rain. And when it rains in the Philippines, it really rains. Within minutes, the streets were awash and I suddenly realised that wearing socks and trainers was a really bad idea.

The most common footwear in the Philippines seems to be flip-flops, and because it's so hot and the rain is so heavy, an umbrella is a better bet than a waterproof jacket. You live and learn.

Luckily the rain had more or less stopped by the time our bus left the bus station, so we were treated to stunning views of the coast as we travelled from Tagbilaran to Loboc.

Loboc is famous for having the second-oldest church in the Philippines. Unfortunately, it wasn't famous enough for the builders of this bridge to remember that it might be something of an impediment to their construction plans.

The town is also the starting point for cruises up the Loboc river with opportunities on board for dining and of course, videoke. We decided not to indulge this time and instead walked through the jungle to Nuts Huts, our accommodation further up the river.

Nuts Huts is a total backpacker experience and owes its success almost entirely to being “Our Pick” in the Lonely Planet guidebook, but that doesn't make it any less of a cool place to stay. You are ferried across the river and on the other side, almost entirely hidden amongst the trees, is a small group of jungle huts on stilts that you can book for the night. You have to flush the toilet yourself using a bucket but the huts are extremely comfortable, and where else could you sit on your own private balcony and admire the banana tree just outside your front door for 800 pesos (about 8 euros) per night? And if you climb the very steep steps up to the reception area, the restaurant, complete with terrace tables and hammocks, serves delicious food as well.

Arrival in Cebu

I was lucky enough to be met by my friends at the airport and given a lift back to our acommodation because dealing with public transport, directions and the need for local currency would have been an extra bit of stress at that time. They are living in a Salesian community in Cebu city and working as volunteer teachers in a technical college for students who otherwise wouldn't be able to access higher education, and I was staying with them on campus.

The community is quite small (around ten people) and most of them were leaving for the week just around the time that I arrived. We had lunch together, then spent the afternoon interspersing exploring the campus and the local area with naps for me to catch up on my sleep.

Not that I did a huge amount of that. As it was Easter Saturday, we went to vigil at the college chapel in the evening. The service started with a bonfire outside the church which was then used to light candles for the vigil. It also involved the blessing of bottles of water and liberal sprinkling of it over the congregation, but having been brought up as a Protestant, I don't know how many of the things that were new to me were specific to the Philippines and how many are common to the whole of the Catholic church.

After the vigil, we headed back to the boarding house for a bit of a party. And in the Philippines, I learned, no party can take place without a bit of karaoke, or videoke, as they call it. Parties with priests being no exception. So the Salesian Fathers, Brothers, my friends and I ended the evening belting out Bohemian Rhapsody and I Will Survive until the early hours of the morning. Jet lag? What jet lag?

A Confession

When I booked my ticket to the Philippines back in November of last year, I should probably have felt excited. And to some extent I was: excited to see good friends again, to do something different, to travel not only to a new country but a new continent. But in truth, I have to admit that, faced with my first trip outside of Europe, my first journey of the first world and my first voyage to a country where the Foreign Office Advisory map is not purely a reassuring shade of green, I was probably more nervous than anything else. Nervous about everything from jet lag to dengue fever, and also a little bit embarrassed to be so worried about what leaving my Euro-comfort zone would be like. I knew that it would be a worthwhile experience but my over-cautious brain was stopping me from truly looking forward to what I was going to do.

It was only when I set off for Charles de Gaulle airport that that started to change. As I checked in for my flight, I smiled at the fact that for the first time I was on a long haul flight to an exotic destination and not a short EasyJet hop, and I realised that while I did have a little knot in my stomach, it was made up as much of excitement as of nerves.

And my optimism proved well-founded. Far from being the equivalent of spending 15 hours on Ryanair (something akin to experiencing one of the deeper circles of hell), my flight with Cathay Pacific was actually enjoyable. I had a window seat and spent a large part of it comparing the position of the little plane on the screen with the view down below of Eastern Europe and the plains of Siberia. When it got dark, the selection of in-flight films and TV series was so good that I was reluctant to go to sleep. The knowledge that I would be arriving at 11.30 local time and 5.30 my time, having missed out on an entire night of sleep did push me to get some shut-eye, but only when I had caught up on a couple of the movies that I had recently missed in the cinema.

My transit in Hong Kong was ridiculously smooth and I was lucky enough to be by the window again for the short flight to Cebu. My only regret was not keeping my camera out as we prepared for landing, because the view of the Philippine islands with their lush greenery, coloured roofs and silver beaches nestling in the tropical turquoise sea was absolutely stunning.

And then there I was in the Philippines, suddenly ready for the experience of a lifetime.