Leave This City!

"Why don't you leave town?"

Like most of what my dad says, that question made sense. So I took his advice, borrowed money from him (which in my world means take, with little to no intention of returning it) and packed off for the last four days of my leave from work.

I was planning on taking surfing lessons at this resort in Zambales. I was not, however, planning on paying an arm and a leg for it, which was what would have happened. So I found myself heading for Option Number Two: La Union.

***

I'm guessing in English, La Union means "The Union." I have no idea what big union happened there, and I never got around to asking, but I did learn some other things.

1. There are no beach resorts in the main city, San Fernando. None. This I found out after walking around the city and it's surroundings for about two hours, carrying a backpack about the same weight as my kid brother (come on, I never pack light).

2. There is surfing in La Union, in a place just beyond San Fernando called San Juan. Thus, there are white people around. And this apparently gives (ahem) "resort" owners the right to jack up their prices to monstrous rates. I found this out after being shown a room about the size of my bathroom at home, with two bunkbeds and an electric fan. And just that. Then I was told it would cost me P1000 a night to stay there. Right... Calling that place a crappy dump would have elevated it a hundred points. Naturally, I came up with an excuse and scampered.

3. There are a lot of old white men around too, looking for tight young Pinays. This I found out after ending up on the other side of San Fernando, in a place called Bauang. I'd given up hunting for a nice, cheap, non-fully booked place and just stopped at this one resort. After taking a room there, I noticed what was apparently a nightclub, the seedily-named Butterfly Club, in the resort. Looked more like a closet to me. Anyway, the door swung open long enough for me to see an old white man sitting and watching a not-so-pretty girl dancing not-so-very-well on a raised platform. Naturally I scampered off to the room, locked it, and stayed in for a while watching Mystic Force Power Rangers. I only stepped out after the raucous Caucasian laughter had died down outside my room and I was sure I could go out and get dinner without seeing anything sleazy. Well, anything more. I really don't need to see one more sign that sex tourism is alive and well in our country.

***

The day after I checked into Resorto El Sleazo, I checked out, and headed next door, to a much cheaper, nicer and family-/barkada-friendly resort. The room I got was way cheaper, bigger, and though it didn't have a TV, it didn't have a girly club next door too, and that's always a good thing.

***

Besides, I didn't drag my ass across five provinces just so I could sit in front of a TV making sure that Marimar is still busy bitch-slapping Sergio, like 47.9% of Mega Manila (or so Wikipedia claims. Yes, I looked it up.)

***

So what did I do? I read Wintersmith. I sat around watching the scenery. I realized that La Union really is a surfing place, which dawned on me as I was being tossed and flung around by waves stronger than even the crowds of shoppers surging through an SM during a three day sale.

La Union isn't exactly one of those stunning beach paradises, but it's not a bad place to get away. If you find a decent place, you can tune everything out, be alone with your thoughts, and there won't be a lot of people around to bug you. And believe me, living in Manila and doing the work that I do, not being around a lot of people for a few days ain't a bad thing, lets me tells ya.

***

There were a bunch of groups coming and going while I was there. Barkadas I take it, and buying a lot of booze. Bauang, La Union, I guess, is also good for if you and your friends want to sit by the sea and get hammered like Lindsay Lohan during New Years' Eve.

***

Oh and it's pronounced "Bu-wung". This I learned after I said Bauang as in "Bawang", and a jeepney driver turned around and pronounced it properly for my benefit. Thank you manong. I promise not to mangle the name of your city/municipality/barangay/whatever-the-hell-Bu-wung-is again.

***

I was wandering around San Fernando looking for a Chinese temple I'd read about. It's apparently a Taoist temple to a woman-turned-goddess called Ma-Cho. During the Spanish colonial period, the Filipino-Chinese in the area apparently decided the Taoist goddess also corresponds to Our Lady of Something-or-the-Other in Taal. Taoism is apparently, after all, a philosophy, not a religion, which explaines why they felt like equating a Chinese goddess with Mary.

Neat. I always say, If you're going to convert to an invading religion, subvert it with something from your old one. Or philosophy, whatever, if you want to play semantic games.

Take that Padre Damaso.

***

But being away from It All makes you appreciate It All even more after some time. And that's the point of leaving the city, methinks: to get away so that you go back home with a better appreciation of your bed, your family, your internet connection, your cable TV, your overpriced mocha crappucino, and mindless consumerism in general.

***

You know what else makes you appreciate home more? Being squeezed into a chair the size of a laundry hamper for eight hours on a bus.

***

And, of course, I Learned A Lesson From My Trip, as all people who go on trips do: Never, before setting out, buy a pair of "quirky" tsinelas just because they're a hundred bucks. Or you'll get what you paid for.

And what I got was my feet cut up while I walked around for two hours looking for a room in the "quirky" but murderously painful tsinelas. Damn you Bench. I'm never wearing those again.

***

I suppose if you can't afford ridiculously-overpriced konyo crap tsinelas made in Brazil, stick to the trusty Made-in-Pinas Islanders-types. Don't get anything in between. So there.