Day Seven of a seven day Fast

I pity the fool who named his kid Sannita...






Well, not to much travel news I'm afraid, the last seven days I've been busy eating nothing, and apart from feeling a little light headed and wondering why I still need to go to the toilet once in a while, I've been living the good life in the Spa Resorts at Lamai Beach... No tennis stars here, or other hi-so people, as it's the kind of Spa yours truly can afford while traveling with his backpack, but all the basics are here... And the food is great, too bad I can't order any. Rumble... Grumble.
It's funny to see most people weighing themselves every day, sometimes even more than once.. I feel a bit sorry for them, as most kilos you lose during the cleansing are gonna be replaced in two weeks after you start eating again. Shit happens. A lot around here... My motto (I came up with this one after day 2, so it's no excuse for being cheesy yet) is "I'm here to lose waste, not weight". Ahem. Lost 6 kilos though by now.
Another interesting thing that happened to me was that I stopped floating. I used to be a happy floater in the refreshing swimming pool near the beach, happily drifting and watching my toes stick out of the water and a little tip of my belly as well. But after day four I couldn't see my belly anymore, and the toes went under as well. By now it's come so far I need to swim to stay above! Good heavens, next thing you know I'll be doing laps again! Well, I guess it's true what they say, "No Bloating, No Floating"... (OK, that was me coming up with that one.. but only after six days of no solid foods, so don't blame me for lacking solid thoughts as well.) I miss being able to support to the alternative energy farming though, poor windmills, they must miss me too...
Well, I'm off before I'm way off again, cheers!

What makes the Philippines a great country to discover?

I can't help but feel like making up for those first reports on life in Manila. After the first three days of paranoia and actual rip offs I started to settle in and slowly but surely I started growing fond of the way life worked in this place. I realize as well I only saw some of the more populated places and as far as I can imagine from meeting people coming from different parts in Philippines, every island has its own way of dealing with life and mostly it involves a lot of smiling even if the shit hits the fan. Not that people are fond of problems here, but they tend to worry mostly over the real big ones, the ones that truly matter, making life a bit less complicated than it is for your average European, who seems to carry some illustrious stress-magnet-device that turns your regular daily in life into a day of worries and upsetting events. (I consider myself as one of those average Europeans, especially when traveling around in these parts of the world.)
So, I figured I would mention some of the things that made my stay in Manila and surrounding areas appreciate the Filipino society, even if the reasons seem a bit strange at times.
Let's start with aforementioned Alex Garland. He wrote this book, "The Tesseract", which takes place in a rundown motel in Angeles City. Well, if one reads this book it doesn't take much to feel unsafe and paranoid in the streets of Manila, turning the sunsets into backgrounds of dramatic events to come in the following night. But after adjusting to life here it seems Garland has gotten the place wrong. Angeles is not really part of Manila, it's three hours away and is much like Pattaya, but then without the crappy beach. In fact, no beach at all. No less old farts barhoppin' though. But it is like some of the more infamous parts of Manila in its seedier days, in a not so distant past. Malate and Ermita come to mind. The gogo-bars may have been mostly washed away in a tide of catholic and fatherly mayorship, but the Korea's seem to have taken over nowadays and KTV and Videokes with their assets of GRO's (Guest Related Officers, all of them female and willing to make your life more comfortable in ways you wouldn't want to mention to your mummy) pop up like mushrooms on a freshly manured damp cellar floor. I thought Old Fat Sweating Germans and Drunk Blokes From England on a Roll where good in making people feel ashamed of the male species in general, but that was before Koreans and Japanese entered the picture. What is it with Asian men and their obsession of young and brainless giggling girls to entertain and stupefy their otherwise so well organized and productive lives? And why do they seem to have such an active interest in meeting girls that are not allowed to consume alcohol even in some countries? (I mean those countries where 18 is the limit.) Anyway, I almost felt like wishing the Germans to move back in, and some English blokes on a bachelor trip. But the images of Angeles still fresh in mind, I don't know which one is worse... This wasn't my war anyway. I started writing this post to be positive, so let's move on.
One of the things that makes you feel like calling up Garland and telling him he got it all wrong is the way people here try to be helpful if they don't get anything out of it. (Actually this is a bit logical, as the people who do profit from helping you will certainly try to make the most of it for their own profit, so they are not to be considered as objective standards.) I even once was taken along by someone who couldn't explain me how to get somewhere without getting blank stares from me, so he decided to just take me there. After which he walked all the way back to his busstop where undoubtedly he had missed his bus... Or that time when I was taking a bus to Puerto Galera to go diving before leaving the Philippines. It was that or Banaue, the rice fields of northern Luzon. But since the typhoon season wasn't over yet I was suggested not to go there this time around. So anyway, I was sitting on the bus next to some old guy and smiled at him to show I had been properly raised. Of course he smiled back and soon a conversation in rather perfect English unrolled itself like the fields enrolling themselves outside the bus. (That's another plus for traveling here, in general people speak English better around here than in any other Asian country, except maybe Singapore, but that's more like a city.) So this guy turned out to be a freshly pensioned police officer. Even more so, he was the kind that didn't like to play cards or drink, as it seemed to him that to many people forgot about taking care of their families with such behavior. The light burning in his eyes told you he was adamant on taking care of his family and upholding the law. I felt suddenly very comfortable sitting next to this noble man. He told me with great pleasure how he now spend his days taking care of the stuff in his garden and playing with his grandkids when they stayed over. He lived in a place not far from Taal Volcano, and without a trace of suspicion he invited me as a guest should I ever come that way. Truth is I almost gave up on the diving trip and went along, but I realized his warm and honest invitation would also mean he had to take me in the house at night by lack of hotels around there and probably his wife would be lovingly ordered to disappear into the kitchen and come up with a royal feast for this unexpected guest. Somehow I could see all these things unraveling before my eyes as he gave the invitation, and it felt good to know that this was all possible. So I declined, and noted down his number so I could visit him another time (where I would be just passing during the day and not imposing too much on them. But events such as these are not uncommon for people who travel in this country. One really feels welcome indeed.
Another thing about Filipino people I the way they like to communicate using their mobiles as little Telex machines after than as actual phones. It is a rare sight to see a person actually having a conversation on the phone, however countless mobiles are being constant pulled out of pockets and with the speed of trained marconists people tap in message after message to loved ones or even their colleagues at work, giving instructions or passing on words of love as they send text after text. No wonder one of the bigger pictures in the movie theatres was a ghost movie that used text messages as its mayor plotline. (It seems that the Philippines are just like other Asian countries in that way, consuming one scary ghost movie after the other.)
Jeepneys and Trikes is yet another thing that makes life here so interesting. As a foreigner moving on foot in Manila means being constantly addressed to and taxi after taxi hoots the horn as they pass by hoping you will exchange the fumes and heat of the traffic jammed streets for an airconditioned seat in their (not necessarily used) metered cars. But why take a taxi if you can sit in one of the most extravagant pimped up modes of transportation ever seen: the jeepney. Stickered from bumper to bumper, painted, airsprayed, fitted with light tubes or sometimes even whole disco installations, these two-row vans are a pleasant and fun way of moving from point A to ... Well to some point. And the trikes! Think of motorbike meets the A-team meets pimp-my-ride. Sidecars are welded with various degrees of efficiency to a motorbike and then fitted with rooftops, stickers, logo's and all sort of little details to make each trike into a unique driving vehicle. Expect to overpay if you don't Know your way around here, but then again, expect also to just sit back and enjoy the ride as if you were sitting in a rollercoaster back in some themepark, but then without safety belts and the reassurance of stepping out in one piece at the end of the ride. Which adds up to the fun of course. Tip your driver and enjoy his bewildered look as he already overcharged you and almost got you killed seven times. Then have a San Miguel while listening to tagalog love songs in some karaoke restaurant.
Ah yes, the beer! San Miguel is definitely one of the cheaper and better beers around in SE Asia, except for my all time favorite, Singha, but the funny thing is that San Miguel comes in various forms lately. So you have the San Mig Dry, the San Mig Ice, and the San Mig Light. Now I ordered a Light to start with soon as I arrived in Manila and was settled down in a guesthouse. Out of healthy chauvinism I decided to look on the bottle for more info about this national beer. I noticed it contained 5 % alcohol. Hmm. I wondered how much a regular would be then... Then someone kindly pointed out that light here means less calories, not less alcohol. Bugger! That's also something you gotta appreciate them for. Indeed, what is the point of ordering a beer if it has no power? So light means that now even the types that went to fitness or were trying not to sport a beer belly could happily order their beers and still get hammered. Cheers for pinoy logic on this one!
Well, I guess there are plenty of more reasons to love this country, and I'll make sure to discover them sooner rather than later, but for now I'll have to do with Reading Garlands "The Beach" while sitting on a beach in Southern Thailand. Since Alex did actually got the Philippines right, he just decided not to spoil the country with numerous backpackers and the likes washing in on Mig Lights and surfboards. After all, The Beach was originally inspired by the wonderful islands that are part of the Philippines. Not for nothing was Apocalypse Now shot there. Thanks to Alex for getting it all wrong and doing it with style. ;-)

From Manila to Angeles, City of Fallen Angels..

Before moving to Angeles to catch a plane that wouldn't leave on account of yet another typhoon passing by, I decided to see what the other cemeteries in Manila where like. I was growing accustomed on being approached on the streets of Malate by gloomy merchants of all sorts of vices by now and even having a riot gun stuck up my nose didn't bother me anymore while getting cash out of an ATM (There' security guards wearing guns in front of the bigger hotels, so a bank has to make a difference in size I guess. And anyway, rather a couple of smiling security guards waving riot guns standing next to me while I get 500 pesos out of the wall than getting some undetermined sharp piece of cutting device in my kidney from some desperate cowboy.) and even the hassle of getting taxi drivers to use their meter was more like some sort of a game by now.



After the adventures of yours truly on North cemetery I decided to spend some time on South cemetery in Manila, since it seemed to also be housing squatters. By now I was quite accustomed to moving around in Manila with my camera and I decided that reading "The Tesseract" by Alex Garland was maybe not such a good idea to feel safe in this country. After all it turned out that these people where mostly very friendly and welcoming and con artists always lurks where people mingle and congest into traffic lanes on public sidewalks, so nothing out of the ordinary there.. (Still, if a man in uniform walks up to you and demands to see your money to verify there are no fake bills amongst them, simply refuse. Uniforms are cheap here, and official uniforms don't cost more than a janitors uniform.) Anyway, I started to feel at ease in this big city and appreciate the curious melange of several non-native backgrounds. Some people might feel disappointed entering the Philippines and expecting a full-on Asian country, as with the Spanish colonial history and the less hidden Americanizes way of living mixed in.. But truth is that this country is as exotic as any other destination in SE Asia. You just had to look beyond first impressions to note how different things where here. But back to the South cemetery. I was expecting much of the same as North, mausoleums everywhere and people setting up shop in them, kids playing on tombstones and funeral cars blasting music at top volume after having dropped of very seriously their not so living cargo... But no funeral cars where to be seen, some parts of the cemetery seemed desolate, and most people here seemed to be in worse shape than on North cemetery. Cholera, Hepatitis, even TBC still roamed this place. It was not as well organized as North, one might say. Indeed, the garbage seemed to be piling up between tombstones (Not really flattering for visiting families of departed loved ones, especially if you think of the squatters main income came from "caretaker" activities... Not much care was taken it seemed, and not much visitors either...) and there was the constant smell of human waste floating like an invisible cloud over the graves. As I wandered around and noticed there where far less mausoleums here I came across a family living here, and started talking to them. Apparently the sanitary was a big problem, but water in general was a problem for these poor people. There were big jerrycans lying around everywhere near there little improvised bed, and filling them meant walking all the way to the outer limits of the cemetery, paying one of the guards 5 pesos a can as some sort of "custom tax" and outside the cemetery filling up each can for another 5 pesos. Now 1 euro is about 63 pesos, so to me 10 pesos is no biggie. I wondered what 20 eurocents could buy me back home... Maybe a chewing gum, but I don't think that would be one of my biggest concerns living in a place like this... Given the fact that those people had no official income whatsoever there only income came from being "Caretakers" of the place, and one set of graves generally made about 30 to 40 pesos. But families of deceased ones didn't always come by, so all saints day and other special days where a welcome period of economic blossoming. Except that they were evicted more often than not when lots of people came to visit, since the officials running the cemetery don't like the squatters. The whole difference with North cemetery it seemed was the surrounding area. North is in a poor area of Manila, with lots of slum areas. This seemed like a blessing in ways, as they where mostly unbothered by government and officials. But South was almost smack in the middle of Makati, the booming business district of Manila. Skyscrapers, securityguards on every corner, no punters or hasslers roaming the streets, lots of shopping bags sporting names such as Prada or Givenchy and the likes... This it seemed was making life very hard for the people trying to survive in the cemetery. They were like dinosaurs that still hadn't given in on the meteorite striking the earth. They were not really considered as a part of the future of this place. So I could not get rid of the notion that their difficult lives were being made even less easy by some hidden forces at work. The water supply, the lack of garbage disposal units taking away the garbage... Everything seemed to be aimed towards letting these people feel as uncomfortable as possible. But this is me thinking here, it's not rocket-science. It's funny yet also seems like a given fact that where rich people get richer poor people seem to be getting poorer. It was written in the garbage piling up between the brightly painted angels, it was written on the rashes and sores on the skin of people carrying their jerrycans from A to B, it was carried around in the foul smell coming from between the graves. As I said goodbye to the honest and ever smiling family I was talking with, I glanced up to see the skyscrapers towering like detached soldiers over the angels dancing on the gravestones. Even turning the corner I could still hear their warm pinoy jokes about this strange tall white guy walking in the place and exchanging jokes and buying mango candy for the kids as if it was Christmas. I wondered if any of the rich Prada people ever got around to come here and try and talk with them.. Actually I didn't wonder, not really...

I would wonder lots of things however after arriving in Angeles and getting stuck there while sporting a 38.5 degree fever.

Life on a cemetary still is life..

Night of living with the dead...

Wandering around on Manila's North cemetery proved to be quite a stroll. This cemetery has the size of a small village, and some rumors have it that there are around a 1000 inhabitants on this cemetery, apart from the dead that is. Children playing on top of the graves, grinning old ladies selling drinks and snacks from their tombshops, there was even an improvised church in one of the larger memorial buildings. It seems all the graves are in use, and not only by the deceased. It was very busy on the cemetery grounds, and I even had to get out of my cab and walk to get in, as there was a major traffic congestion at the entrance. Somewhere in the middle of the square in front of the entrance an ambulance was trying to be as noisy as possible but the cars, jeepneys and trikes simply had no way of moving so it just stood there, sirens going and surrounded by people who where on their way to visit their dead family members. I couldn't help but think that whoever was in that ambulance couldn't have picked a better place to get stuck in traffic. As I walked in it was crowded everywhere, and soon after I managed to walk into one of the quieter areas I found the time to take some pictures. Of course soon kids where surrounding this tall white faced stranger and they happily tried their TV-American on me. I say American instead of English because when a 5 year old pinoy kid smiles at you and then says defiantly "Hey bro, what's up?" or when a 7 year old filipina girl waves at you and then calls out loudly "Yo man, what's your problem?" I don't really think of a guy sipping his tea with his pinkie up teaching those kids... MTV seems to have found its way to the cemetery just as it seems to find its way into every other home on this planet. Like any city, some areas where pretty clean and more upscale, with tombs that looked more like the old houses in New Orleans would look, or even a pyramid erected somewhere. Other places were more down to earth, so to speak, just a little tomb with a couple of nameplates on them. Most of the time I was very aware that I was an unfamiliar sight to the people living there, but I must say I never felt unsafe. Most places felt like daytime would not pose any threats, and friendly nods and lifting of eyebrows always accompanied the stares I got. (The pinoy way of saying hi). However some of the streets did send out a sense that after dark ghosts would be the least of your worries. Thanks to Jude, a Manila based writer and very resourceful man, I will soon be exploring the South Manila cemetery, as it is also being used as living space but it's smack in the middle of a thriving business and office centre of Manila.

Scamcity beware, Mr. Paranoid is coming to get you...

Speaking of small time entrepreneurs, Manila is (not surprisingly to many apparently) probably the capital city of con artists and scams are a daily risk when you are considered a walking ATM. While I was hopping from guesthouse to guesthouse and budget hotel to budget hotel looking for a clean economy room that would feel a bit safe to leave my stuff in, I came across many a reading board in the lounge areas and every time there would be a notion to be careful of this or that scam. It seemed like every place had its own warning, and I must say I did feel like getting a lot of conspicuous glares while walking with my backpack and a metal case filled with god knows what.. (I know what, but the locals don't, so as far as they know it's stuffed with dollar bills or uncut cocaine, or maybe just heaps and heaps of illegal porn discs.) Now this isn't unusual in Asia, but what is a little more unusual is that when I was just shopping later on and thus free of any attention attracting bags and all I couldn't help but notice being followed around. Now I know some of my dear friends back home think one of my flaws is that I can be uselessly paranoid at times, but around here it really saved me a couple of times already for some scary traps... Sure enough, when I stopped window shopping and decided to return where I came from, the guy who I considered to be my secret admirer (always try to keep it cheerful, no use in calling him a scary moneygrabbing thug yet) suddenly seemed to have something of interest in that same direction as well. When I stopped to check out some goodies in the windows, he did the same. Soon this was becoming something of a cartooneske chase, and I decided to get rid of him using one of the many cramped elevators in the mall. On another occasion that same day, I was walking back from having had dinner in one of the malls restaurants and as I walked past some Filipino body builder type he glanced me a smile and said "Hello Sir". I smiled back at him as I find people around here to be polite to me, but sure enough this guy wasn't just polite, he was part of a bigger game. After some cat and mouse I turned around and wanted to pass him by in opposite directions, and he tried to get a conversation again. This time I didn't smile but just did my Steven Seagal look (it's actually not difficult if you ever had a botox cure, but I relied purely on my professional acting skills of course) and passed him by radiating with a "I'm ready if you are" attitude. The good thing about being so tall and having quite wide shoulders, people actually believe I am one of Arnies cousins if I want to around here. Anyway, he followed me from what he must have considered a more discrete distance by then, probably hoping I would return to my hotel or do something else that would give him a starting point on working on me. What I did was I would just move erratically, whilst sending text messages on my phone and from time to time I would just look over my shoulder and give him a long disappointed look. After a couple of times he got the point and I finally lost him entering one of the supermarkets around. Now I had no idea which scam he was gonna use on me, it could have been any of the following ones: Stranger walks up to you, smiles and all, after some chit chat (Where you from? Oh, Belgium! Jean Claude Van Damme, he is a good actor Sir!) they will start to give you some tips and advice about where to go and what to do in Manila, and after you grow confident that they are good people, invite you for a drink in a public place or maybe offer you some candy or a snack. Truth is, they spike it with a local variation of Rohypnol, and there are numerous accounts of people waking up in a gutter or some unfamiliar hotel room (guess what, they paid for it with your money!) in some shady area of town, with no valuables left on you. Sounds like an urban legend? There are just too many people leaving messages\ behind in the guesthouse lounges not to consider this a true tale. Another popular scam is the one where you are instead invited by the friendly folks that wanted to show you their city, and if you are adventurous enough to do so, you will enjoy a rather good meal after which some kind uncle starts a friendly game of cards with the family, inviting you in. Invariable these games all end up with you losing loads of money and the friendly uncle suddenly seems to have lots of not-so-friendly cousins that accompany you to the nearest ATM. Since the police can't help here (they're not called Manila's finest around here) you always end up broke and ready to go home wit yet another story of adventure and lots of red numbers on your bank account. Now don't get me wrong, Manila isn't all like that fishy bar in Star Wars where you see all these scoundrels and thugs having futuristic beers and all, but if you are not careful you will end up getting scammed around here. The other popular scam involves a guy or girl wearing a uniform of the hotel where you stay chatting up with you about some bad luck story and trying to borrow some money. They aren't part of the hotel and that number and email they gave you is just fake. Ok, since I seem to be on a roll here let's hand out some more scams. People will follow you discretely (yeah, if you're paranoid like me no one is discrete of course) to your hotel, try to see what room you stay in by either seeing you receive your key with attached roomnumber, or by watching you from a balcony as you walk in your room if it's one of those hotels where the rooms are centered around an open air atrium. Anyway, next step is they call reception, ask them for getting connected to such and such room, and then when you answer the phone pretend to be from reception. Apparently the best way to get out of the scam is pretending you are staying with a whole lot of people in the room (say your wife and three kids, or two brothers). Otherwise they start to threaten you and try and force you to deliver a large sum of money at some undisclosed location. How they do that? I have no idea, but the hotel where I stay politely asks not to give in (splendid, I wasn't planning so) and contact them with all the information you have, so they can take action against those people. Anyways, this feels like a very farfetched one. But apparently some people get scared very easily when staying far from home and all, as it does work on some. Comfortingly to know there are also the regular scams that are going on everywhere else on this planet, like the "meter doesn't work in my taxi sir" scam (yup, even I had it happening to me when I arrived, after talking the driver into using his meter or I would get out, he relented and used it, only to press some buttons when we arrived and the magic number disappeared from the screen and some error came up, so I was politely asked for 60 instead of 40 pesos. (Which means 1 euro instead of 75 cents, so I resigned in sighing heavily while I gave him his little extra money that I would otherwise have given as tip, since the taxis here run by the distance, not by the time you spend in it
I started thinking the other day that there are probably not many ways of avoiding life's little scams unless you took some serious action. I wondered if a god fearing filipino (oh, like mexicans they are when it comes to religion) would dare ripping off a pastor if he was white, but then again I didn't feel like dressing up for the part and swating even more than usual wearing some black dress in this tropic environment... But then ust today as I was once more approached by a smiling man on his horse (they have two wheeled carriages around the tourist area and invariably they try to get you to get into them by pretending it's ust 20 pesos and by the end of the tour it turns out they meant 20 US dollars, unfortunately they always drop you off in a quite plqce where lots of fellow carriages are standing to help out if thee is trouble... for them...) Anyway, I just politely told him "I don't need no horse today Pare", trying to show off my few pinoy words, so he would know i wasn't all green behind the ears... Of course this didn't impress my smiling friend and he kept on trying to get me on the carriage. I tried ignoring him casually while changing lenses on my camera, when all of a sudden he gave me a way out... "Are you here on holiday Sir?" He asked as it is part of their little chit chats with tourists so that there is always interaction between the two parties. Now I had to concentrate not to start grinning because of the option he gave me.... I just continued attaching the lens on my big and professional looking camera and with all the cool I had on this blazing hot day said the magic words: "Nah, I work for the newspaper Pare" Now, either those words had some real magic quality to them and I just made an adult male and his horse disappear in thin air, or this guy had learned from the sorts like Batman and other ninja-like fellas that seem to appear and disappear as they please, because when I lifted up my head again after the lens was properly attached to my Nikon D200, neither horse nor smiling man were to be seen... Oh, sometimes it's ust fun to play along with the world of friendly cons... This was the moment I starte to relax into my skin and appreciate this new place I was visiting. And I'm sure more pictures like the one above will follow now that I'm adapting to this pearl of the Orient....

Pearl of the Orient, the beginning...

Manila, pearl of the orient according to the guys from Lonely Planet... If you ask me, Manila is a bizarre mixture of Bangkok and Pnomh Penh, with both the feeling of a big bustling city as it feels like a rural yet moving city... It took me some time to get adapted to this place, contrary to my experiences with other cities in Asia, but once I had relented that room rates would always feel a tad overpriced for what you get (ok, I don't mind having shared bathroom if it makes for more budget accommodation, but do they really have to squeeze in those restrooms so that I'm sitting with my knees pulled up against my chin in order to sit on the seat and ehm, find relief? There's no relief to be found for a 2 meters tall man sitting on a toilet that even midgets consider as cramped. Heck, airplane restrooms suddenly feel like vast luxurious loftlike spaces when I try not to bump my knee against my chin after some spicy chicken stuff looks for a fast way out...) I slowly started to get used to this place. Walking around in Manila sure is a demanding action if you're white, people seem to consider you can help them with all sorts of stuff, mostly the kind that involves you departing with your hard saved cash. Now, I'm not the type to be shocked or irritated easily by strangers walking up to me and giving me their best impression of the "I haven't had any food in three days, please give me some coins sir"-face, but why do they keep following me after I politely have said no several times, or better yet, once they have spotted me rounding a corner they send up their youngest kids, who of course are even better at the sad looking business and all. Now don't get me wrong, these people are really poor and all, but also they not really very convincing when you look better. Giving them 5 pesos (this would be like giving a beggar back home a 2 euro coinpiece) doesn't make them happy, no, they just glare at you and make you feel like a cheapskate for not handing them over all your personal belongings... Aww well, the only times I seemed to be able to get some smiles was when I gave the same 5 pesos to someone who didn't follow me around and just sat on the side of the street looking hungry. The bad thing is I know all of them, the thankful ones and the more skeptical ones, are living a hard life, but then again I know handing out money isn't going to make a long term difference. And I'm too realistic to trick myself into feeling like a messiahs when handing out some coins, so mostly I just keep the coins and spend them at street corners on little vendors who try to make a living in this big tough city. Blame me for being an enthusiast of small time entrepreneurs...