My fathering, being a war history fan loves traveling around the world to where famous battles involving American history took place. One of the top things on his list was to visit Corregidor Island, which is the site of a military base that was involved in battles in World War II. Some of my relatives were taking a flight from Manila the next day, so my dad and the departing relatives took a trip from our resort island to see Corregidor and go on a tour before they left. We had to catch a ferry out to the island at a particular time, which meant staying in Manila the night before the trip, then getting up extra early to fight the Manila traffic. Luckily we had a professional tour guide the group found before I arrived that worked out the logistics involved in trip.

I got to crash at a nice four star Manila hotel on my father’s dime and watch insane Filipino game shows while historic things were going down back in Korea. Eventually we crashed for the night and then woke up the next morning to abuse the buffet. We ate, then set off for the pier for the tour with the help of our guide. After some waiting in line, and a ride in a jeepney(!), we got to the boat that would take us to the island. It was an uneventful ride, and upon debarkation we got loaded into a tour bus with lots of people from around the world for the “FUCK JAPAN, LOVE AMERICA” Corrigedor tour.

I don’t know enough about Filipino history, but the strong Anti-Japanese sentiment in some of the Korean museums and tours I have was also present in the tour around Corrigedor island. Americans were always painted in the best possible light, and the ties between the Filipino and American cultures were a lot deeper than I had realized. It was nice to hear positive things about something my country did for a change.

There were lots of interesting buildings on the island that were made with the expectation of a war like World War I, static defenses against ships, and quickly rendered obsolete with the advent of air power. It’s the classic example of building for the last war. The Malinta Tunnel had an interesting light and sound show explaining what happened to the people that tried to hold onto the army despite never being resupplied or given any real help internationally. The tour guide was very entertaining, and I learned a lot about the battles and the history of the time.

After the tour, my father and I left our group to take a taxi and go back to their hotel before their flight, while the tour guide tried to get us to a ferry that would return us to our island. We didn’t make the ferry because of Manila traffic (surprise!) so we had to stay at a place near the pier. We were dropped off hungry, and headed to a nearby buffet to eat. There were 25 Filipino dishes labeled in English, and I recognized the ingredients of maybe three of them. Fish heads, fried entrails, and mystery mixes were this restaurants specialty. We ordered some food, and after five rounds of beer decided it was time to go to our rooms for the night.

It was probably the grossest place I’ve stayed in my travels since I’ve been married by a wide margin. There were hourly rates, private garages to protect people’s identities, and mirrors on nearly every surface. My father had the room on one side, and the other was had a john and prostitute going at it far louder than I would have thought necessary unless major surgery without anesthetic was involved in their escapades. The place had a shower in the room, but after finishing getting cleaned up I had to wonder if I wasn’t just allowing for more possible routes to exposure to disease by getting myself wet. Discovering that the clean sheets on the bed were only placed to cover up the numerous, nasty stains wasn’t helping me sleep. $15 a night in the Philippines is far, far more disgusting an accommodation than what $15 dollars a day got my wife and I in Cambodia.

I got up early the next morning because my skin was crawling with general creeped out grossness of the entire place, and sat around listening to some podcasts. We had worked out transportation to the pier with the owner of the place, which arrived promptly. It was a motorcycle with a sidecar. One sidecar, for both my dad and me! These are a tight squeeze for one person, but with two people in the sidecar it was comical. It is a good thing we packed light. As we approached the pier, there was a point where the motorcycle engine failed to fire, and I assumed we’d end up being robbed, stabbed, and left in a ditch by the creepy dudes that were hanging out in the parks and weird buildings at 4 AM. Luckily the engine fired back up and there were no frantic chases by shifty looking guys that couldn’t have been up to any good that late at night.

The same guys that ripped me off earlier when I was arriving at the pier the first time were still at their scams. My father isn’t savvy about hiding the amount of money he carries, always flashing enormous amounts of cash that says, “Well, I clearly have no qualms about being ripped off.” I caught a barker trying to palm money from the purchase of a ticket when we were owed change and realized that I probably lost a small amount of money to the same scam last time. These guys just live off of ripping off tourists, and it is that kind of activity that prevents me from wanting to return in the future. There are plenty of things to like about our trip so far, but every time I have to warn off a guy selling crappy tourist trinkets it annoys me. It’s so short sided to allow things that stifle your economic growth engine like that to continually persist. If someone wants to spend money on that crap, that’s fine, but put it somewhere so that I don’t have to go there if I don’t want to, and I don’t have to worry about them stealing my stuff when I am on the beach.

Anyway, after another boat ride, and another jeepney ride back to the city, we returned to our resort. I immediately scrubbed myself clean from the gross feeling I got from the sex motel bed, and got to eat a nice breakfast and catch up on what had been going on with my wife and daughter while my father and I were on this side-trip. It was a nice tour around the historical sites, and a bit of a gross adventure on the side.