Philippines Books

Sometimes You Need To Lie Low!

There is even more up to date information on this often never mentioned topic in the new eBook ‘The Philippines Survival Handbook’, OUT NOW!

Some time in your life you may find yourself in need of emergency accommodation, a  place to hide shall we say.  Why you need such a place is irrelevant, all that is important is that you need somewhere to go and you are in a foreign city, what do you do?

Luckily you bought this guide!  You have several options, depending upon who you are hiding from and how much money you have.  If you are on the run from the authorities then you need more money to stay hid. Don’t despair, criminals do it all the time so it can’t be that hard.

First of all avoid anywhere where you have to show ID to register, so keep this in mind if paying with a credit card. Better choice is to use the card to withdraw cash from an ATM and pay cash for your lodging. Even better is if you can stay where you don’t need to pay at all, like with a friend.  Make sure they are a good friend in case there is more incentive for them to turn you in than keep you hidden.

In Cebu you will stand out from the crowd because of who you are.  You can use this and hide in a crowd at a major hotel, be one of many foreign faces.  But you will be recognised by someone and it might be the first place anyone would look for you.  I would stay well away from 5-star hotels.

Right down the other end of the scale you stand out just as much if not more so and you can’t trust the people you’ll meet not to shop you for a few peso’s.  I would get a taxi to help me pick up a hooker, then book in to the Queensland Motel, Amihan Motel or Jade Court/ Princes Court Motels and simply fade into the anonymity of rent by the hour short time sex hotels.  You need the hooker for cover, otherwise you will stand out and the first cop who calls in and asks about strange guests will be shown your door.

Another option is to stay away from hotels altogether. Plenty of all night bars around the place, or at least stay open very late. If you end up on the streets at 2am then it is four hours until dawn, head for
Pier 4 or the Airport.  People hanging around there attract much less notice.  A great, secret place to hang out if you need to stay free is St Francis Funeral Home on Cebu South Road, near the South Bus
Terminal.  There are grieving people there all night, every night and even as a foreigner it will be presumed you are related to one of the deceased. Just hang around in the shadows and look sad, this one works!  You can nip over to the bus terminal in the morning and get out of town.

Depending on when you find yourself needing to stay free, you can grab a bus to Manila or just over to Bacolod on Negros. Ceres Liners go via Tabuelan a few times a day and the Manila bus will keep you out of harms way for days.  At least on the bus you have somewhere fairly secure to crash and kill time.

Another excellent option is to take an overnight ferry anywhere you like, then come back whenever you prefer.  This is one of the great things about this country, you can move around pretty freely and there are so many options it is difficult to keep track.  You can take a ferry to Leyte then come back on the night boat and sleep in your cabin from 6 or 7pm (departure is at midnight) and wake up at 5am to find you are back in Cebu.  Clever application of the timetables can save you an arm and a leg in hotel costs, whether you are on the run or just getting from A to B!

There are many small resorts on Mactan and just north or south of the city where you could hide up and nobody would find you for some time, unless they were conducting a very thorough search.  The lovely thing about Cebu is that the climate is so mild that unless it is pouring with rain, you could sleep out under the stars every night and need little other than a mosquito net.  There are plenty of places to curl up and hide in and live a little rough for a while.  You will stand out but keep moving and nobody will bother you.