Friday, January 25, 2008

Left turns

I met up with my two German friends, Peter & Cathrin, last night. They visit the Philippines each year to escape Europe's bitter winter. Basically, Boracay is their second home. They've been going since the late 1990s, staying at the same resort each year, up to a month at a time! I swear, I love their life.


Gasthof, Boracay. Jan 2006

For the past two weeks, they've been traveling around Thailand and China, so understandably they were craving for European food. My dilemma:: Peter does not eat garlic or onions. You cannot trick him. His taste buds are so sensitive that he knows if there is even a sliver of garlic in his dish. This being the Philippines, a land of garlic lovers, our options were limited. After not much ado, we settled on Italiani's. He requested no garlic on his pasta sauce. Usually my experience in restaurants is that something is always amiss, you don't always get what you ask for. In this case, I'm happy to say that Italiani's followed through, not a hint of garlic in Peter's sauce! Kudos to them.

Anyway, this post isn't about that, so I'll get on with my story.

We were on our way back to Peter & Cathrin's hotel in the Adriatico area. My driver, who is not that familiar with the area, made an illegal left turn. Now, I'm not sure what the case was, but I wouldn't be surprised if he knew what he was doing. This driver is notorious for making his own routes, cutting corners, straddling several lanes and what not. He's been talked to several times, but nothing. He's been with our family for quite a while, and due to his mature age is not easily employable. In other words, my mom can't let him go.



So anyway, we were pulled over by a police officer. The cop, seeing two caucasians in the car got giddy. He took my driver's drivers license and apologized. Said there was something about meeting a quota, blah blah blah, but that it can fixed. My driver and I, in Tagalog, pleaded with the cop to let us go this one time, that we were new to the area, the usual yadi yada. I didn't want to pay up, especially not in front of my European guests. It must have been strange for my friends to see a police officer asking for a handout.

It was late. In the end, my driver figuring I wouldn't be fishing out my wallet anytime soon, stepped out of the car to settle the matter with the officer. Less than five minutes later, we were on our way.

I do not condone it, but eventually I reimbursed my driver.

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