I traveled to the Philippines to learn martial arts

My university studies in physics were tough. Endless nights plowing through math problems. My friends and I often stayed up all night in the lecture halls pushing the deadlines of our hand-ins. The frozen food boxes piled up in our club room, growing to a towering height, looming over those that entered.

We were a bleary-eyed group pushed to the brink of our existence. Half of all the students had either dropped out or changed fields. By the shadow cast by the tower onto our bleary eyes, doom was imminent. Yet we stood strong like warriors despite our meek and nerdy appearances, the finals were to be exuberantly defeated and our diligence trumpeted to our parents and our grades thrown in the face of our siblings. May your summer break be fortuitous, a fellow student cheered as the tower crumbled on top of the metrology girls. Hear hear, I mocked back.

Weeks pass and whilst my friends had traveled home and were preparing for their summer jobs, I'm on a plane towards the Philippines. I'd inherited a small amount of money from my late grandmother and I intended to spend trying to get fit. More specifically I intended spend 2 weeks of being a tourist and subsequently 2 months on the beach learning Escrima, a stick fighting type of martial arts.

As the plane descended, the sun was setting over Manila, casting a golden glow that made the city look like a postcard come to life. I navigated through the crowded airport, the humid air clinging to my skin like a warm blanket. The noise, the colors, the people—it was overwhelming, yet liberating. Walking down the street here was different. People were constantly glancing at me in fascination. Am I looking weird? I asked myself and went to pick up some second hand clothes and slippers in an attempt to blend in better. But the looks continued, even the young school girls passed me by in giggles. It was then I realized, the beauty ideals here were radically different from that of back home. I now stood in a country of over 100 million people that all found me attractive. Even the guys would walk by calling out 'oy guapo', a word for handsome, which I found a little too creepy.

After quickly getting new friends and having some crazy karaoke nights with locals I decided to take a break from the city life and boated to an island to rent a scooter to tour the more rural parts of the country. For some reason I'd been oblivious to a giant brewing storm and as I sought myself cover from the heavy rain and wind I found myself in front of a rusty iron gate. Next to me was a couple in the same situation as me and we could all three see that on the other side of the gate was a closed down cave. The perfect cover and mini adventure for three dumb tourists. We climbed the fence and entered with our phones lighting up the cave entrance stairs that wound downwards.

The damp air inside the cave clung to my skin, and the musty scent of stale water filled my nose as we descended the narrow staircase. My phone's light flickered off the uneven stone walls, casting strange shadows that danced around us. The couple with me—Sarah and Tom, as I’d learned during our hurried introductions—seemed equally excited and wary. We exchanged nervous glances but pressed on, the howling wind outside only serving as further motivation to delve deeper into the mysterious cave.

We stumbled upon a large chamber, the ceiling arching high above like a cathedral. The remnants of old lighting fixtures dangled precariously from the stone, rusted and long unused. Puddles of water shimmered in the faint glow of our phones, and the echo of dripping water created an eerie soundtrack. I wish I could buy this cave and live here, Tom teased to Sarah who had been creeped out ever since some wet sand had entered her shoes up next to the entrance. Here we go again she countered and continued with a slightly raised voice so to maximally embarrass Tom, I'm not sure Bruce Wayne would take his fiancé down in a wet forsaken hell hole as a celebration of their anniversary. And he would make damn sure to at least check the weather before driving cat girl around on a way past its prime scooter with a broken ass saddle.

That's all I remember from the cave, and the rest of the trip went by in a breeze. I had so much fun and put on a few kilos of muscle and even lost some fat. I will always cherish my time in the Philippines and the people I met. It's one of the best destinations for young English speaking adults to solo-travel within.