Scammed

Our recent trip to Manila was, first and foremost, awesome. We had a great time and the majority of people were friendly and helpful.

However, we did have two unpleasant experiences of getting totally ripped off, and I had a lot of trouble not dwelling on those. Even though I can understand objectively that it wasn't personal, it still, essentially, hurt my feelings. It also made me think about the ups and downs of traveling and how to go about embracing the full breadth of traveling adventures, even when that means getting taken for a ride (literally and figuratively).

So both our experiences had to do with transport, and we should have (and sort of did) see them both coming.

We arrived at the airport late after midnight, exiting into a windy, rainy night. Our trusty Lonely Planet book has warned us not to hail a yellow (or was it white?) taxi, as those were airport taxis, not city taxis, and were a lot more expensive. It had also suggested going up to the departure level to catch a cab, which we did. We were quickly approached by a drier who ushered us into his taxi - which apparently was the wrong color, but I couldn't remember which was which. Jacob realized it, I think, but it was sort of too late to do anything.
He told us the metered rate - 10 pesos per 100m - but by the time we worked out the rate, we were off and running. That's $.23 US cents per football field, or $3.71 USD per MILE! So what should have been a 400 peso ride was soon skyrocketing to over 1000 pesos. He also ended up driving the long (wrong) way around a big circle (which even we could figure out), though whether he didn't know or was running up the meter is hard to say. In the end, the charge was 1300+ pesos for an 8 mile ride, and we were so frustrated. This is the part where it was hard to tell what to do - do we pay the full fare even though it isn't fair? Do we haggle and come off as total tourist jerks? We tried to find a middle ground, handing over 1000 ($24) pesos and telling him that was all we could pay. Yeah, it was a bit of a lie, and I felt crummy about it. I felt a little better the next day when we looked at a map and saw how he'd driven an extra couple miles before finding our hotel.
My two major flaws in a situation like this: I tend to pretend I understand what someone says, even when I don't fully understand, because I don't want them to feel embarrassed or to seem like I'm not in the know. And I don't like confrontation or suggesting to someone that I don't trust them - even if I don't, or shouldn't!

Our carriage driver and the ear of our horse!

The second event happened the following day when, tired after a whole day of walking, we decided to take a taxi to a cool bar we'd read about. Along came a horse and buggy - we'd seen a lot of them throughout the day and had been harangued repeatedly to take a ride. We decided that it was a short distance, so if the driver would agree to 150 pesos, we'd go for it. We asked the driver, saying 'one hundred?' and he replied 'one...one fifty.' 150? Sure, sounds good. (You can probably guess where this is going). So we enjoyed a nice ride - a bit further than we expected, but nice. Along the way, another guy jumped up alongside the driver, ('my brother' the driver explained - er, yeah, right.) 

We had a good time on the ride at least!

We turned down a side street and the driver told us the bar was just up the road we'd been on, one more block, then asked for 1,150 pesos. $33 for a 10 minute carriage ride?! We said no way, tried to argue that he'd said less, that we never would have taken the ride if we thought it was that much. He just kept repeating the price, and telling us how his horse was tired. We got out of the carriage and the four of us were standing around, the driver getting more agitated, threatening to 'go get his manger' and demanding that we pay. It started to get uncomfortable when the driver took his whip and smacked his horse hard (which made me plain old mad) and Jacob started telling me that we should just walk away (um, he was right - I was so mad I hadn't realized that the situation was getting dangerous. The driver flicked his whip at the horse and it actually brushed my nose and stung a bit, although I really don't believe he did that on purpose...) But we also didn't want to walk away without paying what we'd agreed to. We weren't trying to cheat him. We also lacked the small change that would have helped us offer a portion of the payment. Finally I just stuffed the 1000 peso bill towards him and we stormed off back to a busy street where we weren't alone, feeling shaky and pissed off. We calmed down and got some dinner at a nearby restaurant, and couldn't help but go over the situation again and again. Then, when we decided to go on to the bar we were going to in the first place, we couldn't find it. We pulled out a map and found out he'd taken us a mile past the destination - which explains turning down the side road and not taking us to the place. We should have insisted! But it was already done.

It is still a little frustrating to me as I write about it. I try to remind myself of other truths - or possible truths - about the situation. Tourism is an important industry in many of the cities we visit and some of it is predicated on taking money from tourists, even in unfair ways. Compared to the people doing the cheating, we are incredibly rich and while it doesn't feel fair, it isn't the worst thing in the world for them to try and take more than they technically should. To them, it probably does feel fair. They probably think we won't even miss it because we have so much. And when I think about it, I guess they're right. In the long run, are we going to suffer from paying an extra $50 during our trip? No. We'll be fine. And I comfort myself with the thought that maybe, just maybe, that extra money is going to be used to do something worthwhile - maybe buy the guy's kid new shoes or a school uniform. Probably not, but it could happen. And I try to remember that there are always a few bad apples, but that most of the people we encountered were polite if not downright friendly.

So getting scammed stinks. It makes me less trusting of similar interactions in the future. It makes me suspicious and guarded with people who may not deserve it. It hurts my feelings. But it is also just a part of travel. You can prepare and plan, read up on appropriate prices, learn about common local scams, and it'll help - but it isn't foolproof. In the end, you just have to count those extra costs as the price you have to pay if you want to go exploring. It wasn't the first time, it won't be the last. But we do like to explore, so I'll continue to try to make my peace with it!