Just before we left Manila, we stopped by the Amex office to see if my mom's pictures had arrived. We hadn't been carrying any family pictures with us, and many people we've met would have liked to have seen some. I figured it might be especially good in the Philippines, since I'm part Filipina but don't look like it. My mom said she'd send some. But Amex didn't have them.

The road out of Manila was awful, but I have to say, not as bad as city riding in Bangkok, or that worst of all hell holes, Medan (in Sumatra, Indonesia). It took us about 30 km or so to get away from the trucks and jeepneys and onto a back road. (Eric: We passed worse poverty than we've seen anywhere else on this trip and it depressed the hell out of me. We went down this industrial street competing with lots of heavy trucks. Shack houses came right up to the edge of the road and kids and families walked and played right there in the grit and grime and smoke. The smell of the diesel fumes was a relief from the stench of fish in this area).

The back roads in the Philippines are wonderful. They're narrow and made of concrete, but they hardly have any traffic, and are often lined with trees, fuschia flowers, or awesome views of valleys, with mountains in the distance.

That night we planned to head to San Fernando (the one about 70 km north of Manila, not the resort town further north on the West coast), but we decided to go to Angeles instead. Our guide book said there were lots of places to stay in Angeles. Not knowing better, we went.

Angeles was the site of the Clark U.S. Air Force Base until 1991. Our guide book said that since the base closed, the locals have managed to replace some of the lost money with new businesses like tours of Mt. Pinatubo. The book didn't mention that the biggest source of revenue is an old one: prostitution left over from the Air Force base.

Eric and I checked into a hotel which seemed pretty nice. Then we noticed that all the doors in our hallway had been broken into; anyone with a butter knife could have gotten into any of the rooms. Inside our room was a sign that told guests they "must take your lady escort with you when you leave the room." the same sign admonished the lady escorts to wipe their make-up off on tissue paper, not the walls. Suddenly we understood why the hotel offered 12-hour rates. (That was a big difference from the Malate Pension, which said in its rule book that it wouldn't rent rooms to couples without a marriage certificate. However, this turned out to be wrong. The Pension never asked us for a marriage certificate, and later, on our way out of the country, we saw two guys in our Pension walking down the stairs with giggling prostitutes hanging all over their bodies).

That night, we decided to walk into town to a restaurant recommended by our guide book. The closer we got, the more we saw girlie bars and hourly-rate hotels. We finally got to the restaurant, which had decent food, but was also a girlie bar. Two booths away, these two middle-aged American-sounding men surrounded by four voluptuous Filipinas. These guys looked like washed-up vacuum cleaner salesmen. One of them had a pathetic comb-over. I'll never know since I didn't talk to them, but I bet they are left over from the Air Force Base.

Angeles had one good thing: email. The next morning, on our way out of town, we checked our email and reread a note from my cousin Gina. By coincidence Gina had found my email address just a week or so before we flew to Manila. She wrote to tell me about the family and about her dad's brother Ciano, who is still living in Mayantoc, a barrio in Tarlac. I had read the note in Manila but hadn't memorized the barrio. In fact, I had thought it was a neighborhood in Manila, so I had figured I'd just look it up on our next swing through that town. I'm glad I reread Gina's note, since it turns out Mayantoc was just 70 km from Angeles, and only a little off our planned route. We immediately set course for Mayantoc.

next: We find Uncle Ciano.