As fellow teacher, Autumn, and I discovered: when in the Philippines, it is a much better approach to compile a retro list than to have any prior expectations. (Note: second person voice does necessarily indicate which or both of us participated in the following activities):
1. Make a midnight run on Christmas, in Manila, solo, in the rain, for bottled water after the hotel lobby sells you an unsealed bottle.
2. Then tell your travel mate she can kill the cockroach that flies out of your bath towel as you go to dry off after showering.
3. Crawl beneath the bed to find your roll-away malaria pill.
4. Order a hard-boiled egg to-go for the van ride to an underground river, only to discover (in the van) that
it's soft boiled.
5. Arrive to the best restaurant in town only to discover they are solidly reserved for the night. Return the next day and find that the floors are gone; they are renovating. The roof’s next.
6. Under threat of monkeys and vampires, pee in the jungle in the pitch dark night on the drive to El Nido.
7. Redefine the 9 to 5. Go beach hopping with a rule: must finish the 375ml bottle of Tanguy Rum when the boat returns at five p.m.
8. Order your entire New Year’s Eve dinner off-menu and ask the waiter, Dodong, to show you how to extract crab brains.
9. Hire a catamaran to drop you on a deserted beach for the afternoon. Collect hermit crabs and create a race track for them in the sand. Find this immensely entertaining.
10. Start a street party on the cardboard remains of firecrackers to the music of Marley.
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