I hadn’t planned on the two day hiatus on posting, but then, I didn’t plan on getting crushed by a case of food poisening either.  Two weeks.  Twice I’ve been sick.  At this rate I’m on pace for 5 and 1/2 more times.  Excellent.

My trip to Mindanao island has been a complete washout.  About 1 AM the first night in Davao City the food poisoning or whatever it was kicked in, and for the next 30+ hours I left my room once.  And that was to drag myself next door for some bottled water…replete with a stop halfway there to sit on the curb so I wouldn’t throw up. 

I won’t go into the gory details here, but let’s just say I’m very glad my cousins Efra and Lori talked me into bringing antibiotics along with me on the trip just in case.  I ended up chewing them in hopes it would get into my system quickly, cause they weren’t going to be staying in my stomach long.  To add to it all, I’m going to now have nightmares about Beyonce for years to come to come.  I swear the person next door sang “If I Were a Boy” over and over at least 70 times while I was curled up in bed.   Why?  Why??  WHY???

Originally I took this picture because I loved this soup–one of the tastiest things I’ve eaten on this trip.  In retrospect, I’m beginning to think this was the culprit.  I have no evidence, but it probably wasn’t wise to disregard the ‘be wary of any soup where the fish himself is eyeballing you as you eat it’ Rule.

I hate to admit this, but lying there completely knocked, I really thought about pulling the chute and going home.  Luckily I wasn’t in any position to make it up the street let alone take a 20 hour flight back to the states, so I couldn’t wuss out even I wanted to.

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Okay, I’ve got some catching up to do.  Let’s start with the betting night back in Manila and tomorrow I’ll talk about the places I visited where my father had been. 

I was still thinking about what to bet on when I headed out to the Manila Polo Club where my father was a member (I know, polo?).  Cabbing it was the only way there, but taxis are dirt cheap here so I splurged.  After the driver and I got past the obligatory, “so, you want me to meet you a girl?” that appears to be standard anytime a lone male traveller gets in a Manilan cab, he pitched me his services as a tour guide out to the famous volcano or around to Manila sights, whatever I wanted.   It was a great price but I wasn’t here to sight see.

A little later we started talking about Manny Pacquiano, the Filipino boxer who fights Hatton in May for the title.  I knew a little about ‘Pacman’, so started honking the local boxer as the best pound-for-pound fighter out there.  I haven’t no clue whether he is, but when in doubt, pump the local guy.  Lito, the driver agreed and told me he had a bet on him for the Hatton fight.

“Any fights going on now in the next day or so?” I asked.

“You like fights?”

“As long as you can bet on them.”

“We can go to cockfight.”

I don’t want to get too Michael Vick-ish on this trip, so I pushed for something else.  “That tour guide offer.  Would you take me gambling?”

“Oh yes, I take you gambling.”

And so began my 8 hour gambling tour of Manila, Pasay, Paranque, Cormona(?) and Makati.

A quick note…I slightly fudged the ground rules.  Instead of the one single bet, this time I would still take the budget for the next five days, but this time I would make numerous bets until I lost it all or reached that amount in winnings.  Whichever came first.

Up first was this place…

…your standard issue casino for some craps.

Actually, first up was going to tell Lito’s partner that Lito’d be keeping the cab for an extra shirt.  When we got to Johnny’s, I asked if he wanted to come along too. 

And then we were three.

By the way, I’m not going to fool myself that these guys were taking me around for any other reason than cab fare and beer, but regardless, they were awesome company and I have a feeling it wasn’t their usual tour. 

When I walked up to the craps table, a gregarious Canadian, Ryan, told me I chose wisely–the table had sucked for awhile but was just turning hot.  First two bets though we crapped out quickly.  I was having Macao flashbacks.  Then the Japanese guy to my right took the dice.  I’ve never seen a run like his.  Again and again he kept banging his number.  Ryan offered to perform fellatio on him he was making us so much money.

I opted for a high-five.

By the time I left the table I was about 70% of the way to victury. 

From here we drove by the Sabong–rooster fights.

Like I said, I’d feel a little Michael Vick-ish if I were to win money on cockfighting so I told them thanks again but I”ll pass.  I had seen a bit of it on TV the other night.  And it’s as gnarly to watch as you might think.  But it’s one of the national sports and they have ESPN-like shows dedicated to it, complete with ads for Rooster feed and fight training, so it’s far from underground

Next up was the horse track.  After the 45 minute drive to Cormona, we got off the expressway and started driving along an unlit, fairly deserted back road.  I began to second-guess my judgement.

“So the track is out this way?”  I ask.

“Shortcut.”

Shortcut.  Right.  That’s always the story before they roll the sucker.

While I’m running worst-case scenarios through my head, Lito is asking me about the current economic collapse.  “So where did all the money go?”

“Uh, the housing market wasn’t really what it seemed to be…?”

“But where did it go?” 

I’m half paying attention and half peering out the dark window looking for any sign of a horse track and Lito’s on to corruption: If the goverment or a business makes ten pesos and steal one or two, no sweat.  It’s when they make ten pesos and steal twenty that he gets a little irked.

Finally we come around a corner and I see the track lights in the distance, and I feel a little guilty for thinking these guys had bad intentions.  But you do get a little antsy when you’re in the back of a cab on a dark street in who knows where Philippines, with two guys who just saw you cash in your winnings at the casino..

The track didn’t really pan out (I dropped back to up about 50%), but Lito and Johnny just missed nailing a daily double by about two lengths in the second race so we did have a little excitement. 

This is us with our waitress, LG (or Elgie).

After leaving the track, we headed back to Manila to see if the street races were running.  Unfortunately, a bunch of cops were hanging around the spot were they race.  The guys on the motorcycles all hang around this gas station waiting around for the cops to leave, and the cops wait around until they got too bored to wait around any more, and then two riders will drag race for a couple blocks.  No pics on this one.  Wasn’t exactly a scene where you really wanted to be the dork snapping photos.  We hung out for awhile.  But the cops didn’t look like they were going anywhere, so we went to another casino for some blackjack.

This post is getting pretty long, so I’ll just cut to it.  A quick run of good cards and I had my winnings. 

This is where I took the guys out for dinner and beers. 

It was a great spot.  You picked out the seafood you wanted from the fish stands, then pick which of the restaurants you want to cook it. 

As you can see the one we chose had a kareoke mike that they passed around table to table.  Bad move, handing that baby to me.  One rousing rendition of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ later, and the mike mysteriously bypassed our table the next time around.  Eventually we did wrestle it away from the waiter and here’s my man Johnny singing a Spandau Ballet song called Gold. 

We capped the evening with a team effort on that old chestnut, Natatulog Ba Ang Diyos.  Then they dropped me back at my guesthouse and I tipped them what was left of the winnings. 

I’ll leave you with a bit of advice Lito had for any depressed Americans (this after he told me about having read something about Americans taking anti-depressants…which he couldn’t fathom):

“Come to the Philippines, stay out all night, get girl, and give a little money to the poor.  You feel much better.”

“What if you’re a woman?” I asked, knowing I was serving him up a softball.

He grinned, “Then all she need is she come see me.”