Lapu-Lapu, Mactan Island, Cebu Philippines

This will be quite a different story. Here in Mactan Newtown, there will be no hiking, no mastering the local transportation system, very little city exploration, no strolling through botanical gardens, and no sitting in streetside cafes sipping a latte.  It is even doubtful if we get to meet neighbors or friendly owners of local restaurants and shops. 

We are living in a resort area, one in which condos are hawked by neatly dressed, very attractive people on the street, offering a free 3-day vacation, and book today/pay next year if you take a look at their plan.  Mactan Newtown looks like a Hilton Head Community.  Our cute and comfy apartment has water views of the Cebu Strait on two sides. That’s the good news. 

The bad news is that resort communities are the only appealing places here, and the weather is hot, hot, hot.    A year or two ago, we took a trip down the Amazon River.  We boarded the boat at the port in Minaus, Brazil.  It was the hottest, most miserable place we had ever experienced.    Outside felt like being in an oven; day and night, it was powerfully hot and dusty.  Here is not much better. Daytime temps are in the high nineties and feel like 110 or more, with 80% humidity.  Stepping outside is sweltering; it is like being in a pressure cooker.  Granted, May is the hottest month of the year here in Cebu, but temperatures here even in December and January are only just a few degrees cooler. 

When Tessa was with us in Taiwan, we talked about how easily we sweat in warm weather.  Both Stan and Tessa said they perspire with the slightest heat or activity.  I said, it takes a lot for me to get sweaty.  However, like lots of people we see carrying a cloth to wipe their faces, I found out I sweat here.  I hit the shower the minute we return inside.   

I don’t know how the locals stand it. Stan says they are used to it.  That may be correct, but they must feel hot and uncomfortable most of the time.   I feel for them.  Much of the population here lives in dire poverty, in rag-tag houses, certainly with no air conditioning.  Real estate developments are gentrifying coastal areas with hotels and resorts, but just outside their walls are shanties in informal settlements that appear to have no electricity and no indoor running water.  From our apartment, we can see into one of these communities; their kids play in dirt and trash litter.  

On a better note, the people here are beautiful, kind, clean, and helpful.  Several have told us they have high regard for America, not only for the support their country receives from the US today but for the education system and infrastructure installations made by the American military during and following WWII. 

Yesterday, Stan and I bit the bullet to venture out in the heat.  We booked a 40-minute GRAB ride, Philippines’ UBER rideshare service, to the city for a food tour at Pusa Village.  What a place! Located near the port, it’s a well-known open-air market plaza featuring Cebu’s traditional and favorite foods.  In booth after booth, people cooked and served foods traditionally enjoyed at Filipino celebrations as well as common street-food items.  Puso Village is named after a popular local food called puzo, which consists of a triangular-shaped packet woven of banana leaf strips, and packed so tightly with white rice that the rice can be picked up in a chunk from the packet by the fingers and sopped in bubbling tuslob buwa. Tuslob buwa is a sauce/gravy made of pureed pork brain fried in oil with garlic and onion.  We cooked buwa at our table and ate everything with our fingers – sissies use plastic gloves when eating, but we locals used our fingers.  We sampled undeniably delectable Lechon, which is roasted pig, a traditional fare served at celebrations and family gatherings. Next, we tasted a salted egg salad served with a pater . . . more rice topped with stewed, spiced, and shredded chicken wrapped in a banana leaf square. We ate the meat and skipped the rice as our bellies were getting their fill. The salted egg salad was rubbery and way too salty for our tastes, but people here love salted egg. Salting the egg preserves them. Then our guide brought a big plate of seafood slathered in spicy red sauce and a plate of sea grape and seaweed, eaten dipped in vinegar.  By then, we were full and not impressed with either the overcooked shellfish or the seaweeds. Finally, our sampling meal was topped off with sweet but cool, icy, and rather addictive drinks.  One was sugarcane, and the other was mango and cream. Whooo! 

Fully sated and feeling very steamy after such a big meal, we walked through the oldest and largest market in the region, the Carbon Market.  It’s a noisy, crowded, massive collection of vendors selling everything from kitchen equipment to lechon, and fresh produce and flowers, sold wholesale and retail or packed and exported at the Cebu port.  Mangoes, watermelons, and onions are in peak season now and are being brought to the market by truckloads.  Although open 24/7, the market is like a ghost town during the daytime heat, but as late afternoon approaches, it livens up, getting progressively busier and louder as the evening hours go on.  As we walked the crowded lanes, our guide selected and treated us to his favorite Philippine tropical fruits.  He bought just-harvested champagne mangoes, bananas, mangosteens, and Philippine specialty breads.   Sounds like breakfast for us tomorrow.

Clothing is also sold at the Carbon market, and it is a gold mine for thrift store items.  Cebu merchants buy 600-kilo bales of clothing as they come off cargo ships, usually from the USA. The surprise contents are sorted and resold in booths. Most of the items are quite decent; jeans go for 100 Philippine pesos a pair. 

Our overall thoughts on the Philippines so far?  I call it as I see it.  Cebu is not a place I’d recommend, but I am trying not to be judgmental yet, since Stan and I have seen only one of the 4,000 islands that make up the Philippines, that is, except for Stan’s Naval stay at Subic Bay 55 years ago. But wow, what an eye-opening experience.  We do hope to see more of this vast Asian country during our time here, particularly spots with cooler but probably rainier weather.  Meanwhile, we’ll pretend we are hoity-toity tourists taking a resort vacation in Cebu, enjoying drinks on the beach and at the pool, and dining at over-priced American-style restaurants on the property. Otherwise, find us inside, during the heat of the day, planning island hopping and mountain trips and re-watching Breaking Bad.