Well, we are still in Davao City. The home town of my wife and the place that I would love to retire to one day. I never had any desire to go anywhere overseas all of my life and then I met this lady on the internet. One thing led to another and so I found myself getting my first passport and heading off. What an adventure it was for the first time out of Australia.
I had read heaps about how hard it was to navigate through the international airport at Manila and so was not keen to go that route if possible. Davao City is on the southern most island of the Philippines and of the south of that and considered the southern gateway to the Philippines. It is actually the largest city in the world but only in area and has a population of about 1.5 million. The Philippines is made up of more 7,000 islands and Davao City is quite remote from the capital in Manila and so has a culture all of it's own.
Although the city is reasonably large it is still very much a country town atmosphere in that the people are still very modest in dress styles and behavior and just basically nice people. Very friendly and helpful and love to see a foreigner as they are still some what of a novelty. There are many expats living there mainly for the budget lifestyle but most seem to be locked away in gated communities and not seen much by the locals. So when I walked down town with my wife I was a bit of a celebrity especially with the young kids who would come up and offer a high five. You would often get a 'hey Joe' from a passing truck and generally curious looks where ever you went. It does not pay to linker too long in one spot down town because you would be a target for the many children beggars who would approach rubbing their tummy's and holding out a grubby palm for a handout. The same would happen at traffic lights in the city when you were in a taxi. Most taxi's did not have air conditioning so you would have the windows down and so invite many hands in from young beggars when stopped at the lights.
It was difficult to stop for a coffee and snack in some places too because it would soon be known that you were in there and you would be approached by many vendors selling everything from belts to watches at often inflated prices and who found it difficult to take no for an answer. Some places would have a security man who would chase the beggars away to stop them annoying you. Always plenty of them lined up outside the malls and shopping centers so you always had to run the gauntlet handing out change and small notes as you went. We were traveling on a highway once too and it was the Christmas holidays for the kids and they were gathered in groups on the side of the road with big handmade signs saying merry Christmas. There were hundreds of them for miles all hoping for a handout. You could roll down the window and toss out hands full of change and watch them scramble for it. One young guy was always at the traffic lights with his blind grandfather in tow and he would drag him in and out of the traffic to try and get some cash from the stopped cars.
So, as you can see, this was a very different and interesting culture for me to experience and I really enjoyed it. I was lucky in that I was able to stay at my wife's house in the suburbs rather than at a hotel so I got to see life in the raw so to speak. That was an experience too but more about that next time. Nick http://www.cadenville1.com