Several years ago, I got an email from Jim, a friend I was stationed in the Air Force with at Zweibrucken AFB, Germany way back in 1977. In fact, I hadn’t heard from Jim since 1977 but he found me through Classmates.com. Jim told me he has been living in the Philippines for several years and if I ever wanted to go there, I could stay with him and his wife. The Philippines has been on my “places to see” list for a long time but Kathy had no desire to go there. Since I knew someone who could show me around, I decided to go by myself. It turns out Carl, another friend who retired from Sacramento International Airport about a year before me was also living in the Philippines, so I could visit him as well.

Jim’s wife Marie happened to be in California on the dates I chose to visit. A few days before I was to leave for the Philippines, I got an email from her saying Jim was in the hospital after having a serious medical problem. Marie had flown back to the Philippines to be with Jim but she or their daughter Erin could still take me to a few places. I told Marie that I could get a hotel in Manila, not to worry about me and hopefully, Jim would be out of the hospital before my trip was over so I could visit him. After many years of traveling, I’ve learned to improvise and I was determined to go on this trip.

This trip was truly planes, trains and automobiles (and even a boat ride). My parents drove me to a nearby AMTRAK station where I boarded a bus for a short ride to the Sacramento AMTRAK station. I then took an AMTRAK train to the San Francisco Bay Area where Kathy who was there caring for her dad picked me up and drove me to the San Francisco Airport. The flight to Hong Kong was 13.5 hours and from there, it was another one and a half hour flight to Manila.

The first thing I noticed about the Philippines was during my taxi ride from the airport to my hotel. The Manila traffic is crazy! The traffic is even crazier than in Mexico City. There are few marked lanes and stopping at red lights seems to be optional. If two cars are trying to veer into the same “lane” at the same time, they play chicken and finally after getting within inches of each other, one backs off.

After settling into my room, I somehow had the energy to take a walk around the Makati district where my hotel was located. That night, I talked to Marie on the phone and she said she would send her driver, Rodel, to the hotel in the morning to pick me up and take me to the pier where the boat leaves for Corregidor.

I’m interested in World War II history so I was really looking forward to seeing Corregidor. Corregidor is the island in Manila Bay where the U.S. built a base called Fort Mills in the early 1900’s. It was heavily bombed by the Japanese starting on December 29, 1941. After being ordered to leave by President Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur left on March 12, 1942 on a PT boat for Mindanao where he boarded a B-17 and flew to Australia. This left General Jonathan Wainwright in charge. Outnumbered, outgunned, facing certain starvation and annihilation, General Wainwright surrendered the remaining forces on the island to the Japanese on May 6, 1942. General Wainwright thus became the oldest prisoner of war in WW II.

After fierce bombardment and then ground fighting, Corregidor was taken back by the Americans on February 26, 1945, but the base lay in ruins. Most of the base has been left as it was – all the buildings are eerie looking shells with trees intertwined in them. There are also several memorials and a lighthouse to see and a nice hotel with a restaurant.

There is only one company that gives tours of the island and they do a great job. After an hour boat ride, my group boarded a tram with a guide. We saw ruins of the Middleside Barracks, the Topside or “Mile Long” barracks, the movie theatre, officers’ quarters and the parade ground as well as several mortar and gun batteries. We walked through several ammunition storage bunkers at these batteries and our guide said this is where most sightings of “uninvited guests” are seen. I didn’t see any “guests” but a few of my digital photos included some rather strange lights in them. One huge gun at Battery Hearn was famous for a photo of it surrounded by Japanese soldiers after they captured it with their arms in the air shouting “Bonsai!” We also saw the Filipino Heroes and Pacific War Memorial and museum.

I climbed to the top of the light house for a great panoramic view and wandered through part of the three-story “Mile Long” barracks. It is actually 1,520 feet (463 meters) long and was the longest barracks in the world at the time. General McArthur had his headquarters there and it even had an indoor swimming pool. The barracks as well as most of the other U.S. Army buildings on Corregidor were built using concrete from Japan. It was rather ironic that the Japanese ended up destroying all the buildings.

After lunch at the hotel, the tour included a sound and light show inside the Malinta Tunnel where the American and Filipino soldiers, civilians and even Philippine Commonwealth President Quezon took shelter during the Japanese bombardments. We saw caved-in sections where Japanese soldiers blew themselves up rather than surrender when the Americans retook the island. Their bodies are still entombed there. We also saw a Japanese memorial garden, Japanese fox holes and cliffs where the Japanese soldiers committed suicide. Finally, we saw Lorcha Dock where General MacArthur and his wife and son boarded a PT boat to make their escape. This was truly a great tour and the highlight of my entire trip.

I visited a couple of large shopping malls around Manila. They basically look like most malls in the U.S. containing stores, restaurants and movie theatres but I didn’t see any of the same stores found in U.S. malls. This is a good thing as when I travel abroad, I don’t want to feel like I’m still in the States. I did see a Bubba Gump’s restaurant though and of course there are several American Embassies, also known as “McDonald’s” there.

The next day, I took a taxi to the old walled city of Manila called Intramuros. I did a lot of walking around the old Spanish Fort Santiago which includes a museum dedicated to Dr. José Rizal, a national hero in the Philippines. Dr. Rizal was a scholar, physician, naturalist, botanist, engineer, linguist, sculptor, musician, composer, poet, dramatist, novelist, reformist, thinker and writer. He died a martyr’s death at age 35, executed by the Spanish toward the end of their rule of the Philippines for complicity in the Philippine revolution. Actually, although offered, Dr. Rizal had declined to lead the revolution.

I also saw the Manila Cathedral, Casa Manila (a reconstruction of a Spanish colonial home of the 19th century), San Agustin Church and Rizal Park including the Rizal Monument. It was very hot and humid and I ended up at the historic Manila Hotel for lunch and a cold San Miguel beer. The stately and historic Manila Hotel was built in 1912 and General MacArthur used it as his headquarters in Manila.

The next day, I planned to visit Carl in Angeles City and see the former site of Clark Air Base, the largest U.S. air base outside the continental U.S. Clark Air Base was first known as Fort Stotsenburg. War historians considered the bombing of Fort Stotsenburg on December 8, 1941 at 12:30 p.m. (within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor) as one of the most destructive air raids in World War II because almost all the American war planes on the ground were damaged by the bombing. In thirty minutes, the air might of America in the Far East was completely destroyed.

Rodel drove me to Angeles City, located about 50 miles (80 km) north of Manila where we met Carl at his apartment. By the looks of all the bars in Angeles City, there are still many expatriate Americans and other westerners living there. Carl showed us around the nearby site of the former Clark Air Force Base. After the U.S. turned it back over to the Philippines in 1991 (hastened by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo), Clark was turned into a Special Economic Zone. It’s now called Clark Freeport. The site now contains an international airport, hotels, condos, malls, casinos and golf courses.

We went to the base museum, the “White House” where the Philippine President and other VIPs stay when visiting Clark and the site of the Kamikaze airfield where the Japanese Kamikaze pilots took off for their one-way missions. We walked into a tunnel that the Japanese dug there and were promptly chased out by a guard.

From Clark, we drove north a short distance to Capas National Shrine. Carl had an idea of it’s location but we had to stop and ask several people for directions. Capas National Shrine is located on the site of Camp O’Donnell where the American and Filipino survivors of the Bataan Death March were held before being transferred to Cabanatuan Prison Camp. A 229 foot (70 meter) obelisk towers above the grounds of the former interment camp. The obelisk is surrounded by a black marble wall engraved with the names of the Filipinos and Americans known to have died at the location. On the three large wall segments that almost encircle the obelisk, there are statistics about the total numbers of prisoners and deaths, together with poems for peace. There is also a small memorial erected by the "Battling Bastards of Bataan", honoring the Americans who died there.

Just outside of Capas National Shrine and on the side of the road, we saw a marker depicting the 111th km (69th mile) of the Bataan Death March. On the flights to Manila, I read a book called “My Hitch in Hell” written by Lester Tenney, a survivor of the Bataan Death March, disease, torture and slave labor in Japan. It was an epic tale of survival and made me appreciate the sites I visited even more.

After returning to my hotel, I went for a walk to take photos of Jeepneys. The word Jeepney combines jeep with jitney. It is a low cost, high-pollution form of public transit. What began as a sensible recycling of surplus U.S. Army Jeeps left behind after WW II has grown into an institution of folk and pop art on wheels. After the supply of Army Jeeps ran out, the ingenious Filipinos have been building these vehicles from scratch. Most now look like small buses made out of chrome with colorful paint schemes and brazen embellishments.

The next day, I took a taxi to the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. It contains the largest number of graves of our military dead of World War II, a total of 17,202, most of whom lost their lives in operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. The memorial contains 36,285 names of those whose bodies were never found or were buried at sea. While I was there, I saw an American play “Taps” on a trumpet that he brought to the Philippines. What a great way to show his respect and appreciation!

On my last full day, Marie told me Jim finally was back at home recuperating. Rodel picked me up and took me to Jim and Marie’s house located in a nice gated neighborhood. I visited with Jim but he was still too weak to leave the house. Marie took me on a short road trip to Taal Lake which was formed when a large volcano blew its top and the crater filled with water. In the lake is located another small volcano which is very active. We went to a couple of places with great scenic overlooks of the lake and surrounding area. We could also see Manila in the distance.

That night, Marie and Erin took me out for a great seafood dinner. Jim and Marie were disappointed that they couldn’t do more for me during my visit but I thought they did way more than they should have considering the circumstances. I was just glad that Jim was on his way to a full recovery.

The State Department still has a travel warning on the Philippines in effect. Islamic terrorist groups such as Abu Sayyaf have kidnapped foreigners for ransom and are responsible for bombings mostly on Mindanao or the Sulu Archipelago. Both of my American friends there told me they don’t feel it is dangerous for them to live there. Carl told me it is safer than Costa Rica where he lived for several months.

I picked a good time of year to go weather-wise. It was the dry season and only rained twice for short periods while I was there. Yes, it was hot and humid but it gets a lot hotter and more humid later in the year.

Unfortunately, I only planned eight days for this trip. If I ever get back to the Philippines, I would like to see Mt. Mayon, the most active volcano in the Philippines and said to be one of the most perfectly formed volcanoes in the world; the site of the former American Naval Base at Subic Bay, like Clark, converted into a Freeport Zone; the fabled Rice Terraces of Ifugao, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; and the white sand Laiya Beach, where Jim had planned to take me.

It was great seeing Jim after 31 years, meeting Marie and Erin and visiting Carl. Rodel is an excellent driver with nerves of steel. To sum up the Philippines: The country is beautiful and the natives are friendly (and most speak English)!