Reaching There

It's tough to be a vegetarian deep inside the provinces of Philippines, far away from the cosmopolitan Metro Manila! I would have been forced to survive on cup noodles for almost thirty hours if not for the new friends I made on the trek. The plan that began with a seventy-five percent chance ended up with me on the top of Mount Cristobal in Philippines.  "You'll have to bring vegetarian food", cautioned Cbass, my host for the trek. I amassed as many cup noodles and snacks I could for the trek. I was hoping someone would bring a burner to boil water for my noodles (I was lucky that Josh had enough gas to "burn down the mountain "- his exact words). When I landed in Philippines I hadn't thought I would take a local bus ride to a province almost three hours away from the Makati City. A bus ride, my first jeepney ride, surviving loud snores, Emperador shots, meeting wonderful people and about four-five hours of trek later I was on the top o...

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; Rudyard Kipling I beg to differ slightly with Mr. Kipling. Manila is turning out to be a mixture of east and west. In an earlier post I wrote about Manila - as an Americanized Asia. Almost a week here and I seem to agree more and more with this observation. Today was the first day of my driving in Manila. Philippines drives the US-way, on the wrong side of the road for Indians. Most of the traffic seems to believe in lane driving, unlike India. The infrastructure is well maintained; it's easy for a foreigner to drive here (most of the foreigners would never dare to drive in India). Makati City has a lot of one ways that makes the driving slightly easier. However, don't be fooled by this! Like any other Asian country Manila has its share of craziness on road. The best I can say is if you mix about 75% craziness of Indian...