PHILIPPINES: Board A Jeepney At Your Own Peril, Its Not A Safe Haven

I think the most valuable lessons I've ever had about dealing with people - how to be considerate, mindful of others and staying out of trouble - I learnt from riding jeepneys.

The jeepney the most popular means of public transport in the Philippines is a vehicle made to look like a gaudy, stretched version of the military jeeps the Americans used in World War II.

Passengers sit on two cushioned benches on both sides of what basically is a truck bed, usually 10 on each side. Some really long jeepneys have as many as 20 passengers on each side.

There is a lot of physical contact on board a jeepney. Personal space is always under siege. You sit shoulder to shoulder with a stranger on each side. You also have someone sitting across, just an arm's length away, often with your knees touching theirs.

I sat beside a man who had too much to drink. Passengers like him are usually harmless. All they do is doze off. But they also tend to rest their tired heads on your shoulder, creating some pretty awkward moments.

The way to deal with the sleepy head is not to slap him in the cheek and force him to wake up.

In this case, a slight jerk of the shoulder just as the jeepney rolls over a pothole will be enough to jolt him back into attention.

That is, till his head resumes its slow, inevitable descent onto your shoulder.

Often, a jeepney ride is an exercise in manners and social grace.

You see, the way you pay is that you physically hand over bills or coins to the driver.

Now, if you're sitting 10 people away from the driver, how do you do that? You have to rely on the kindness of others who will take your money, pass it on to the passenger nearest the driver, who will then pass it on to the driver.

Your change will follow the same trajectory.

This, I think, has made the Filipino commuter one of the most helpful and considerate in the world, always quick to yield a seat or let an old woman cut the queue.

Riding a jeepney is not for the shy and timid. At least twice, you'll have to call attention to yourself.

First, when paying, you'll have to shout "Bayad po! meaning - My payment, sir - in a voice loud enough to be heard over the noise of a rickety, diesel-engined jeepney, and a raucous street filled with cars and pedestrians.

Then, when getting off, you'll have to shout Para meaning Stop, in an equally forceful, clear tone.

If you happen to be sitting deep inside the jeepney, you'll have to navigate your way through about a dozen pair of knees and be careful that whatever you're carrying will not hit somebody's head.

It will be a mistake to think of the jeepney as a safe haven. Sure, you're inside a vehicle, surrounded by a group of people.

But with its windows lacking in shutters, glass or anything that will separate you from the outside world, and an open rear, the jeepney is a favourite target for petty thieves.

I have seen a couple of times a woman suddenly scream inside a jeepney, as her necklace is being snatched from behind her.

Sometimes, a nefarious character would step inside a jeepney, grab someone's handphone, and walk away nonchalantly like he just plucked off an apple from a tree.

Other times, it's just plain highway robbery. Two or three men would step into a jeep, stick out a knife or gun, and then clean the passengers of their valuables.

I have had one of these experiences. It was late at night, and I was sitting beside the driver. It had been a long day, so I had been slipping in and out of sleep.

Midway into my journey, I sensed my wallet being pulled out of my pocket. Someone was pulling a fast one on me, but I just pretended I was still asleep.

There was no point being the indignant, crusading victim. I didn't have that much money in my wallet anyway, and I didn't know how many of them were behind me, and they were most likely armed with a knife or something.

So I feigned sleep and let them have my wallet. As I was about to get off, I told the driver I couldn't pay him because someone had stolen my wallet.

Thankfully, he let me off without a fuss.

Anyway, it wasn't so bad. All I lost was a near-empty wallet and a small amount of pride.

I did get something out of it though: I probably walked away with my life, and a story I can tell over and over again.

Enjoy the Jeepney ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Tourism Observer

CHINA: Hainan USD3 Billion Medical Tourism Hotspot

On the hilly and tropical island of Hainan, local officials and companies are investing billions of dollars to transform a string of riverside villages into a medical tourism destination.

Their aim? To lure wealthy Chinese patients, who might otherwise venture overseas, to this province in the South China Sea known for its beach-front resorts.

To do so they are making an unusual promise: The hub will bring in cutting-edge treatments for diseases like cancer that are available abroad, but don’t yet have regulatory approval in China.

There’s plenty of demand. The travel site Ctrip.com estimates about half a million Chinese traveled abroad for medical services last year.

Millions are dying from cancer and heart disease, but regulatory bottlenecks have slowed approvals for the newest international therapies.

Chinese hospitals are overflowing, and affluent jet-setters prefer Japan for physical check-ups or the U.S. for genetic screenings.

In 2013, the provincial government of Hainan, often known as China’s Hawaii, earmarked more than 1,600 acres of fertile farm land along a river flowing to its eastern coast for a medical tourism hub.

Since then fishing villages and rice paddies are slowly being replaced by palm-tree-flanked driveways. The zone’s first hospitals are opening their doors this summer, the effective beginning of this medical experiment.

Local officials say businesses have already committed to spending 23 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) for 27 projects ranging from hospitals to plastic surgery clinics, with dozens more awaiting approval.

The mission is partly to retain domestic consumption, the government body managing the Hainan Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone said in e-mailed comments.

Among the investors are Beijing-based Ciming Health Checkup Management Group and Guangzhou-based medical services firm Evergrande Health Industry Group Ltd., which is being advised by Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.

In an early example, the zone’s Chengmei International Health Center imported 24 vials of the Merck & Co. cancer drug Keytruda for six patients under the special access channel last October, the government says.

The medicine is approved in the U.S. and elsewhere, but remains unavailable in the mainland. The special permits by the Chinese regulator only allow for a small amount of the drug to be used in the tourism hub, and it can’t be distributed elsewhere.

Merck in a statement said it’s conducting clinical trials on Keytruda in China and doesn’t sell the drug in the country. The China Food and Drug Administration and Chengmei didn’t respond to a request for comment.

By 2025, the hub’s managers want to draw more than one million tourists a year on health-related visits.

Still, China has a patchy record of managing specialized economic zones. Centers like Shenzhen, the fishing-village-turned metropolis, have thrived.

But others have had a quick boom and bust, like the Caofeidian industrial zone in the northeast, which ended up as a ghost town.

The Hainan medical hub’s relatively remote location and the country’s shortage of qualified doctors make it harder to draw patients. Competition for medical resources is fierce, said Chen Bo, associate partner at consultancy McKinsey & Co.

Building health-care capabilities there will require attracting excellent talent to work and live in the pilot zone, and good doctors are already badly needed in China’s major cities,said Chen.

On a recent visit, the area still had the feel of an underdeveloped backwater, showing the challenges to transforming it into a flourishing tourist center. It is dotted with semi-finished hospitals that remain under construction, without medical equipment inside and prefabricated homes outside for construction workers.

By the end of March, five facilities had begun operating on a trial basis, local officials say.

Evergrande has said it plans to spend 5 billion yuan on its cancer hospital there. Brigham and Women’s hospital in an e-mailed statement said it is serving as a strategic advisor as Evergrande expands its health-care network in China, helping the development of clinical programs and other aspects like training.

Working with international partners has shown that local staffing tends to be the most effective, and Boao Evergrande International Hospital clinicians will be providing all patient care at that facility, Brigham said.

The hospital was slated to start operating in the first half of this year, according to a December statement on Evergrande’s website. In a later March release the company noted the start date would be in 2017.

In late March, balloons and banners adorned the hospital’s front gate, even though a quick glance inside the bronze-colored building from a back entrance showed dark rooms with bare concrete walls, unpacked crates and cement piles.

An Evergrande representative said the decorations were for the opening of the Boao Asian Forum Healthcare Track and that a soft launch date will be released later.

Off the main street, behind the hospital pilot zone, was a side road yet to be paved with plywood and empty barrels of asphalt scattered around.

Li Peijuan, an analyst at Forward Industries Institute, a Chinese research firm, said the area can benefit from Hainan island’s environmental beauty, but the quality of service, the standard of medical technology as well as costs will ultimately be key to its success.

Foreign medicines have in the past taken longer to reach the Asian country partly because the regulator has been understaffed and so struggled to shepherd surging numbers of drug applications through its complex review process.

The China Food and Drug Administration is now in the midst of dramatic reforms to its approval system to reduce the so-called “drug lag” on the mainland. If that succeeds, Hainan will need to find other selling points.

It was very appealing a few years back when approval of innovative drugs was relatively slow, but if the pilot zone can’t build full-fledged medical teams and business models in the next two to three years, its attractiveness will be greatly weakened, said McKinsey’s Chen.

UNITED KINGDOM: Norwegian Expands In The United Kingdom

Low-cost airline Norwegian is ready to take-off its biggest year ever, with the introduction of brand new aircraft, exclusive new routes – including its first long-haul flights outside the USA – and more affordable flights on the UK’s only direct low-cost transatlantic services.

Europe’s third largest low-cost airline will expand its young aircraft fleet with nine brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft and launching Boeing’s latest aircraft, the Boeing 737 MAX.

These new aircraft will unlock more affordable flights and never before seen routes while offering UK passengers, high-quality travel at great value. Norwegian last year, carried more than 4.5 million passengers from London, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Birmingham airports.

The fast growing airline launched more than 10 new routes from the UK, including routes to Boston, Oakland-San Francisco and Las Vegas on its award-winning USA flights at a time when Norwegian flew more than four million passengers to and from Gatwick for the first time in a single year.

SYRIA: Is Aleppo War-ravaged Aleppo A Travel Destination?

In the next instalment of its increasingly bizarre strategy to woo tourists, Syria’s Ministry of Tourism has released a new video spruiking war-ravaged Aleppo as a travel destination — using the Game of Thrones theme song as a soundtrack.

In the video, sweeping, panoramic scenes of Aleppo — a peaceful, green and thriving Aleppo — are presented against an acoustic version of composer Ramin Djawadi’s theme for the HBO series.

The one-minute clip shows off the city’s wide boulevards, impressive buildings and lush parks, and ends with the words: “Aleppo: Will of Life”.

It’s likely the scenes in the video were filmed quite some distance from the eastern, rebel-held areas of Aleppo, where air strikes are daily and whole neighbourhoods have been destroyed due to the five-year conflict, according to the United Nations.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week “even a slaughterhouse is more humane” than the humanitarian crisis crippling Aleppo.

Elsewhere in Syria, all six of the country’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites have been destroyed or badly damaged, including Palmyra’s 2000-year-old Arch of Triumph, a former tourist hotspot destroyed by the Islamic State terror group last year.

Given Game of Thrones is centred on a bloodied, years-long civil war in fictional Westeros, Syria’s decision to use it in its latest tourism promo seems a little odd. But it’s just the latest attempt by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to brag about Syria’s worth as a holiday hotspot.

In August, the Ministry of Tourism released a clip portraying the Mediterranean city of Tartus as a glamorous, sun-drenched luxury resort, packed with expensive speed boats and happy beachgoers.

Earlier this year, Syria’s tourism minister Bushr Yazedji talked up his country’s potential as an international travel destination, saying: “After the liberation of some of our cities, which once used to be major touristic highlights, we noticed that their residents were willing to revitalise local tourism.”

And just last week, Syria’s state news agency tweeted a picture of locals enjoying Aleppo’s “thriving night-life” despite the city’s dangerous reputation.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade strongly advises Australians against travelling to anywhere in Syria, in what is the highest travel advisory level issued by the Australian government.