Thrills & Hopefull, No Spills

As there are no more islands within easy reach of where I'm stationed I've had to resort to alternative means of entertainment and as part of my fitness drive I've taken to cycling on a Sunday. This consists of waking up at 5:00am and getting my driver to drive me and my bike into the mountains, dropping me off and making my own way back again.

If you're wondering why it's so early, it's to escape the suffocating heat of midday, although with the recent tropical storms passing nearby that hasn't been so much of a problem.

The route that I use is almost a 3,000 ft descent to sea level so it's not exactly hard work. But then it's not all down hill coasting either. The first week I tried it I covered nearly 18 miles and only a quarter of that is the downhill rush.

Lush Mountain Terrain

And a rush is certainly what it is. It is exhilarating to feel the pull of gravity on such a steep slope with tight winding bends fringed with shear drops with largely unprotected edges. The feel of the cycle's brakes struggling to control the speed and buzz of acceleration when the brakes are released. Top speed the first week was a tad short of 40mph - it could have been faster but fears for my unprotected cranium, the lack of an ambulance service (never mind the possibility of an air-ambulance) and the thought of leaving a veneer of flesh from my knees, ankles and elbows forces me to keep my speed somewhat in check.

I always take a camera with the intention of capturing some of the scenery and local people but it rarely makes it out of my backpack and the journey is just one memory blur of passing mountain dwellings, people working in impossibly steep fields, grazing water buffalo, happy, smiling children, bewildered stares and friendly greetings of "Hey Joe".

View Across to Neighbouring Negros

The following week I decided to push the boundaries and went further into the mountains, dropping down into a valley and back up the other side. To start with it was a short lived rush down to the bottom of the valley and then the hard slog back up the other side to where the really long drop back down to the sea started. This section was impossibly steep and I could only manage it with a mixture of cycling and walking. All along the route are rows mountain shacks and houses engaged in a bit of free enterprise market gardening, with the side of the road being used as a nursery for all kinds of potted plants, shrubs, trees, orchids and flowers, which all helped to distract me from the pain in my legs as my muscles burned under the exertion.

Nearly 4 miles on and I was approaching the summit and was looking forward to the rapid descent but noticing the bike feeling sluggish I looked down to see I had a flat tyre! All this pain and no gain. I had the embarrassment of having to call my driver to come and rescue me. In the meantime I kept walking and pushing my bike, covering yet another 2 miles before he turned up. Whilst appreciating the workout in climbing to the summit I felt cheated by not being able to enjoy the descent.

Next time, I'll be taking a bicycle pump and a puncture repair kit.

Between Jobs

Another trip was necessary to Iloilo to go and check out possible accommodation and premises for an office. This time, having done the trip before there wasn't the anticipation of what might be seen or discovered. Added to which the weather was grey and rather dull so the drive across the island of Negros was very uneventful and there weren't many photographic opportunities.

In Iloilo I'd booked into a hotel located in an area called Smallville, which was an district we'd seen during our last visit. Smallville is completely unique in that it consists of a small area of modern bars, restaurants and cafes like I've never seen in the Philippines. In the event it wasn't such a great idea staying in the middle of this district as the surrounding bars had live music playing outside until 3:00am and to say the noise was intrusive in the hotel room is a complete understatement. I may as well been staying in the bar itself. Philippines build quality means that the windows rattling loose in the frames provide no sound insulation whatsoever and the in-wall aircon unit meant that there may as well been a big hole in the wall (which there was!).

Looking at potential houses and offices was the usual pain and disappointment. There is very little concept of western build quality or comfort. At one potential office rental the landlord, a pervy looking mass murderer type, told me that he had some accommodation attached to the office I might be interested renting. What they consisted of was some dirty, dusty plywood shacks with filthy mattresses covered in ominous dark stains. He obviously thought it was the Ritz. I'd rather sleep on the streets.

We wanted to rent the office for 6 months. He said he wanted a minimum of 1 year and so there was a impasse. What I don't understand is he'd rather leave his property empty (and clearly they'd been empty for some time and he had several units) rather than rent it for 6 months at what was good rates for the area.

In the end we left Iloilo without having secured anything, which was disappointing.

On Saturday morning we were up early at 3:30pm to catch the first ferry at 5:00am from Iloilo to Bacolod. However, when we arrived at the ferry terminal it was chock-a-block with vehicles. My driver came back to me and said that the first ferry was fully booked and the next one, at 11:00am was likely to be fully booked too, so I hunkered down for the long wait and enviously watched all the other vehicles loading on to the ferry. Just as the last vehicles were boarding and I was adjusting the car seat for some sleep my driver suddenly started getting all excited saying there might be a spare space on the ferry. I have no idea how he knew this as the quay side was still full of vehicles, but as I was re-adjusting the car seat he was driving towards the ferry. There was one tiny space that didn't look big enough for a large 4x4 but with certain amount of vehicle manoeuvring we were on board, although it didn't look as though they would be able to close the bow doors and I had visions of the ferry becoming a repeat of the Herald of Free Enterprise. However, the space was (thankfully) deceptive and the doors were closed and we were off.

To cross Negros we decided to take an alternative route, passing to the south of the volcano, Kanlaon. This was mostly on unpaved roads and it was interesting the see the remote and isolated villages located on the side of the volcano and to see the faces of kids that had probably never seen a westerner before. I was hoping to get some good views of the volcano but for the whole time it was shrouded in low cloud.

The ferry trip from San Carlos back to Toledo was routine until we were a mile or so from the Toledo terminal. I was sitting down near the rail when I spotted a group of a dozen or so dolphins leaping from the water just off the bow of the ferry. Extremely excited at this sighting I jump up with my camera but by the time I'd switched it on and run round to the starboard side of the ferry where the dolphins were headed they were out of sight. What I found astounding about this was that the locals stood at the rail didn't bat an eyelid at this sighting. Was this because sightings are so common that it's no longer an event for them or was it that they just didn't care or have an interest?

Twitching and Touring

There are 7107 islands making up the Philippines archipelago so visiting yet another island is an easy option on the sightseeing list.

Olango Island is a short ferry ride from Mactan Island where Cebu Airport is located and the ferry terminal is located right next door to the Hilton Hotel, which looks as though the external paint scheme was chosen by Paris as it's bright pink. It doesn't exactly blend in with the surrounding environment.

The Pink Hilton Hotel

I say that it's only a short ferry ride to Olango Island but the ferry is the slowest I've ever been on, travelling at a mere 4mph it seem to take ages.

Olango is famous for its bird watching sanctuary as it is on the one of the principle bird migratory routes so having taken our bikes we took the short cycle ride to the reserve. The entrance fee to the reserve was Php100 but for locals it's only Php20. I love the two tier pricing for tourists. If only we had it in the UK.

When we wanted to head out to the observatory to see the birds I was told that I'd have to pay an extra Php500 if I wanted to take photographs. So let me get this right: I pay 5 times what a local pays to enter the reserve and then I'm expected to pay an extra Php500 just to take some sodding photos. Consequently, I had a bit of an argument with the staff and they conceded that I only needed to pay if I was going to take photos like the one on the wall (which was a full frame photo of some wader) and as I pointed out that I'd left my 1000mm super-telephoto lens for my compact camera at home I was highly unlikely to be able take a photo of such clarity. As it turned out, at the bird hide (which wasn't very hidden) the nearest birds were but mere dots on the horizon. I doubt if even Hubble Telescope could have managed a full frame photo at that distance so I was pleased I hadn't paid the Php500.

Bird Watching Platform

I stayed at the observatory for as long as I could but as there were a couple of kids there banging around and jumping up and down I figured that if they were irritating me the chances of some kid loving birds coming close were negligible. Added to which, there was some local wandering around in the shallows collecting shells and dressed like a scarecrow so I reckoned the chances of seeing anything worthwhile were zilch.

We had lunch back at the reserve's entrance but I had no appetite as it was unbelievably hot and humid.

Shortly afterwards we were back on our bikes and heading off to a beach. Not much to do there except fall asleep in the sun.

The good news, so I was told, was that we were going back on a super-fast pump boat so no more dilly-dalling on clunky old ferry. In reality, once on board the pump boat we had to sit there for an hour as they won't leave until they're full, so it kind of defeated the object as the ferry left before the pump boat and was back before us. But none of that matters because it was "faster" than the ferry!

Going back there was quite a heavy swell and at one point a huge wave crashed over the side of the boat swamping it and causing the onset of some panic and hysteria in some of the passengers. I nearly became a Philippines shipping accident statistic but at least it livened the day up.

Bird Life (Caged)

Odds & Sods

I've noticed that all just about all vehicles here have the "How's my driving" painted onto the rear, from the biggest trucks down to the Jeepneys and even the tricycles. As driving is universally bad (although it all still works surprisingly well), the need to place this on all vehicles seems rather pointless to me. What are you supposed to do? Call up the number and tell them that vehicle registration ABC 123 is being driven badly - really badly. Particularly badly. More badly than is the norm. This is not really possible as it couldn't deteriorate much worse otherwise the streets would be like the bumper cars you get at fairgrounds (but probably not anymore on the grounds of health & safety). And besides, even if you did call the number on the back of the vehicle I really, really doubt that anyone would care.

The placing of "How's my driving" on the back of all the vehicles here is as worthless as the disclaimer that's placed at the bottom of all corporate e-mail. Whose idea was that? And why specifically e-mails? It has absolutely no worth in my opinion, although I'm sure there's some corporate lawyer that would come up with some pathetic argument for including it. I mean, when did you ever receive a letter in the post, or a birthday card, or an electricity bill with the wording at the bottom stating, "This communication is for use by the intended recipients and may contain information that may be privileged, confidential or copyrighted, blah, blah, blah, blah, ad-infinitum". Really, does anyone take any notice of this drivel? But all companies do it. I bet there isn't a recorded instance of a company ending up in court because they didn't include a disclaimer at the bottom of an e-mail. What the disclaimer does make you do should you receive an e-mail by mistake (just how many e-mails have you received that weren't intended for you? Not many, if any, I reckon) from the office of No. 10 Downing Street is read it from top to bottom to see if there is anything privileged, confidential or copyrighted in it to see if it's worthwhile sending to the News of the World.

I worked for a small engineering company several years ago and as it grew they introduced a policy of adding the disclaimer to all e-mails. When I asked why this was suddenly necessary I was told "because we're a big company now and that's what big companies do".  Pathetic.

Furthermore, you then get those morons that also add the words "Only print this if absolutely necessary - save the environment", or words to that effect. What's it supposed to mean? Are they trying to tell the world that they're environmentally aware tree huggers? Do they suppose that I print out every e-mail I receive, regardless of the drivel they send, just so I can have an office full of files and paper? The only thing it does ensure, along with the pointless disclaimer, is that if you do have to print the e-mail it's going to go into at least an extra page. How environmentally friendly is that?

Here's what the Lonely Planet says about Toledo:

The port city of Toledo, due west of Cebu City, presents a cheap and quick way to travel between Cebu and San Carlos, Negros. Once home to one of Asia's copper-mining giants [it still is], and currently home to a massive coal and oil power plant, this nondescript little city has little to offer the traveller. Its choice of food and accommodation is extremely limited, but with frequent ferry services, no one should be forced to stay the night.

That says it all really.

I've taken to cycling home from work these days in an ongoing quest to lose a bit of weight and to improve my fitness for my pending climb to the top of Mt. Kanlaon. To this end I've bought yet another bike - it seems that I end up buying a bike in whatever country I'm working in at the time so I've accumulated several now. Fortunately the condition of the roads here pretty good and as there are very few vehicles on the road, other than the plethora of motor tricycles and tricycles, it's possibly not as dangerous as you might think. Hopefully that's the case . . . . . Perhaps I should get a tee shirt made with the wording on the back saying, "How's my cycling?"