Manila - Pampanga Week1

After Landing in Manila and spending the day with Andrew and Brenda, I went my separate way. I headed north to Pampanga to the home of Mount Pinatabu, the volcano that in lack of a better description drove the US out of the Philippines from the Clark Air base and Subic Naval base. I spent a week at the Marquis Hotel, a quaint little place costing about 1,200 pesos (1:44.3) a night, a great bargin, and close to the balibago. Although my initial plans were not to spend the entire time in Angeles City, but to in fact do the sight seeing tours of Pinatabu. This did not happen it rained every day and there was no reprieve. I did have the fortune of meeting a bloke named Martin on the bus ride up from Manila. He had traveled in northern Luzon before and was well versed in how to get around, as well as the scams to avoid. Come to find out, Martin was orginally from London, now in Dubai where he owns a GPS company, both selling and repairing. He does quite well their and was in the Philippines to do a little recruiting, but as it was the weekend he was off for some sight seeing as well. His story is actually interesting, he had travelled from Dubai via Thailand where he was to visit a friend, this friend never picked him up from the airport and, well his excuse for not doing so was that he had passed.

On the first night in Angeles, we did a bar hop (Martin, Jerry (another guy from the bus) and me) and stopped by the bar where another friend of Martin's, Geoff, frequents. Based on the description from the door man, Geoff was in the hospital as well, something along the lines of a heart attack. We would later find out that it was not a heart attach and the end result was a problem that was discovered with his liver.

Bar hopping done we headed back to the hotel, this process would repeat itself for the remainder of the week. On Thursday, we organized a boon doogle, due to the weather still be rainy and no Pinatabu viewing, to Subic, the site of the former USA naval base. This was interesting until the Americans left any area designated the naval base was off limits to the Philippina's, and now to travel through they need to pay a toll. The differences are remarkable, both in Subic and Angeles when it comes to seeing what was built by the Americans and what was built by the Filipinas. In Subic we met up with Martin's friend Geoff, He was recovering well and had been in the hospital in Angeles, where he has a home. We were unsure why he was in Subic, but later found out that he enjoyed getting away from Angeles and that he had just bought property and was looking at building a new home in Subic. Geoff told us the entire story of what had happened to him, and that he is recovering nicely, with a little swelling still remaining in his feet and that he should be in tip top shape before he knows it. In Subic we stayed at the Jonas hotel.

From Subic it was back to Angeles, where I made my way back to the hotel, and Martin made his way to Manila to actually fulfill the recruiting reason he had come to the philippines for in the first place. I did a couple more bar hops on my own, and was content with the pinatabu tour being cancelled. On Saturday I checked out and made my way back to Manila to meet up with Andrew and Brenda Again.