Around the world: Philippines Manila 2

So… I am stuck at the airport because Cebu pacific air is a very badly run airline. Almost every one of their flight to the other islands are delayed due to technical issues. I call bullshit and it is probably just a reason to explain that they are running late and can’t handle their Holy week volume. I somehow happened to land here during the Filipino’s equivalent of a holy week.

On day two, I already managed to return to the grittiness that I was at when Mark and I were in Morocco. However, it doesn’t seem like the traveler’s aura is in me yet. The aura seem to be something that’s independent of experience and is a function of your environment in the past two weeks. Or it could be the manifestation of your stress level and control over your own life. In any case,  the aura seem to attract people to you without you having to do anything. It makes people initiate conversation with you instead of you having to work it. You’ll notice that people seem to linger around your vicinity because they want to talk to you. I will be able to definitely confirm this presence this time since the last time I suspect all that is because Mark was a stud that attracted all the woman.

Hostel life is in itself a very strange microcosm of intrigue. Most are not who they claim to be.  The 40 something overweight extreme guy who have been at the same hostel for 4 weeks, the overly friendly dude who’ve been travelling for a year and “Almost died” several time, the social butterfly in her bikinis getting drinks smokes and weed from men desperate for sex to the starry eyed newbie with absolutely no social skills and needs two days before even venturing out of the hostel… oh wait, we don’t have that because everyone “has travelled” for more than a year. But no matter their actions and hidden agendas, everything they do and all their behaviors are all somewhat related to this question: “Do you have a life to return to.

The quiet ones are the jaded veterans who’ve seen too much shit. You can tell them apart from the newbies by looking at how tanned they are, how much makeup is on etc. Basically the level of grittiness that you can only know by going through the same transformation yourself.

Some people has no business being at a hostel though. Mike the wallstreet guy, Etienne the married single guy and Eric the socially inept geek. Though I understand they want to test their limit, but they have a life to return to. Hence this is all a temporary thing. In time they will become, but they don’t usully have enough vacation time to actually be.

Me? I am glad of one thing. That I immediately got into haggling with the taxi driver on prices, something I was only  able to do last time until after 2weeks into the trip. The skills and awareness of traveling is still alive, but with a lingering feeling of being a fake. Maybe this is why the aura hasn’t come out yet.