Out Of The City
Vacation at San Felipe — Beach, Surf and Bitcoin
37coins team decided to take their time off the weekend to travel out to the beach. Philippines is famous for its beautiful beaches — Boracay, Cebu, Palawan amongst the most popular spots — but we decided to go somewhere close to the city and relatively non-touristy. As one of the recommendations by our business partner, we chose San Felipe.
San Felipe is located Northwest of Manila, about 3 hours away from the city by car. Unfortunately, we got caught in a heavy traffic and it took about 8 hours to get there — using different numbers of transportation — jeepney, train, bus and tricycle(motorbike), we finally arrived at the Circle hostel around 10pm. The hostel was full of locals drinking, playing music and swinging on the hammock enjoying their Saturday night. We took a short stroll at the beach that was very close to the hostel, drinking beer and watching the moon in the clouds. Afterwards, we went into a deep sleep in the tent and the hammock.
The next day, we all woke up early in the morning to the sounds of the noisy roosters in the village. We had some Filipino breakfast— rice and egg with spam/fish (Spamsilog/Tuyosilog)— played some cards, took some nap and then went out to the beach. The beach was almost empty with some locals and fishermen and the water was warm.
After the lunch(and delicious fruit shakes) and the nap, we headed to the beach again for surfing. The beach was still mild but in the afternoon there were some waves good for beginners. Around 4pm, the ocean was crowded with surfers and instructors, which went on until the sunset. We all tried out surfing and relaxed on the beach watching the sunset and the surfers.
Next morning, the receptionist at the hostel tried out our bitcoin transfer service. Although she did not know anything about bitcoin, nor how 37coins worked, she showed her interest when we told her that she could send and receive money on her phone, from anywhere. Like the locals in the area, she owned a simple, cheap phone. Without any registration process, she easily received money quickly via SMS.
Also, a traveler from South Korea told us about the inconvenience of banking service as a traveler — he often has to use credit card withdrawal as he travels in the area without the banks and it costs him about 500 pesos (about 15 dollars) per transaction. Besides this huge fee, he has to carry all the money he withdrew from the ATM. This was a similar story that was told by a Norwegian woman in the Manila hostel — she had to withdraw all the money to live 2 weeks from the bank as she was traveling to Palawan that had no banks nor ATMs that accepted International credit cards.
If combined with 37coins’ simple solution, bitcoin surely could bring a big change to the locals and the travelers in the areas without the access to the Internet and the financial institutions.
After another long travel of 8 hours, 37coins team came back to the bustling city of Manila. Despite exhausting travel, it was a great break for all of the team who had been busy for the last few months. Also we saw the opportunity of spreading bitcoin to the underbanked and under-teched areas as we dreamed of.
