Last Days in Toledo

The weekend just past was my last in Toledo before I transfer to the new project in Iloilo.  I had ideas of doing all the things I'd been meaning to do and photographing everything I'd wanted to photograph during this last weekend but ended up not doing very much at all.

Old Japanese House Window

I went cycling along the coast road on Sunday and due to a misunderstanding with the driver ended up going 25 miles from the house instead of the planned 18.5 miles but I cycled it all the same.  It wasn't so pleasant as it was early afternoon when I set off and so it was very hot, and I was cycling towards the sun so for a fair part of the journey I couldn't see very much at all.  What with the heat and having already cycled 5 miles to the office in the morning I was rather dehydrated by the time I arrived back at the house and I'd developed a headache that bore all the hallmarks of the early onset of heat/sunstroke, so a I set about consuming vast quantities of fluids (principally sports drinks) and ate a large packet of crisps (to replace lost salts).  This seemed to do the trick.  

I've had heat/sunstroke twice (I'm not sure what the difference is?): once when working in Iraq and once when on holiday in Thailand.  It is extremely unpleasant, if not a little dangerous and so now I'm (usually) very mindful of taking precautions to avoid over-exposure to the sun. Symptoms include the worst headache ever and moving your eyeballs is excruciatingly painful so all you can do is try to look straight ahead, and it feels as though your eyes are going to pop out of your eye sockets.  In addition you have severe diarrhoea, vomiting and your body alternates between having shivers, despite being very hot, and then the next minute sweating despite feeling freezing cold.  The whole episode leaves you feeling extremely wretched.

The weekend before we had a shopping trip to Manila but I felt it was hardly worth it.  Manila may only be an hour's flight from Cebu but when you factor in the 2 hour drive from Toledo to the airport, then the 1 hour in the airport for check-in, followed by the taxi journey to the hotel (and not taking into account the the flight delay) it works out at nearly 6 hours from the house to the hotel room, and the same coming back.  Factor into this the cost of the flights and the hotel it seemed kind of pointless, apart from the fact we managed to have something decent to eat for a change.  

In addition, the Philippines seems to excel in shop assistants that stand over you.  Firstly they ask you if they can help and no isn't a word they understand.  It's so bad they actually crowd you and some shove items in your direction saying "this is nice" without having one iota of an idea of what you do or do not like.  But even worse that that, what I really find off-putting is the way that no sooner you've looked at an item on a hanger or display and returned it they're there, refolding it, straightening it or rearranging it in a manner that suggests you should never have disturbed their precious display in the first place.  

I have three different way of dealing with these shops and the assistants: 

1. Walk out; 

2. Walk as fast as I can around the shop to see if they can keep up and change direction suddenly to catch them unaware, and; 

3. As they approach, turn and start to leave the shop.  When they see you leaving and head back to their organising and folding I go back in.  But when they approach me, I start to leave again.  It's amazing how long it takes for some to get the message.

Jewellers in Singapore are even worse: you only have to look in the window from outside the shop and they come out and hassle you.  I can't speak for the rest of the population but I'm sure if people are left alone they are far more likely to buy something and we're not idiots, if we need assistance, WE'LL ASK!

What seems to make this worse is the sheer number of assistants/staff working in not only shops but all organisations.  I can only conclude that due to the criminally low wages that are paid, most establishments can afford to have one or two or three or four more than necessary.  Even the hotel the lobby seemed to be full of employees whose only job seemed to be smile at the hotel guests and look extraordinarily pretty.  If they're really lucky they get a proper job to do, like pressing the lift call button or opening a door.  This excess of numbers does serve to demonstrate that having more personnel definitely doesn't help to actually make things more efficient.  In fact it has the opposite effect in that most places provide pretty hopeless service where they seem to have too many bodies.

On leaving Manila and whilst we were queuing for check-in at the ultra-modern, brand new terminal there was suddenly a loud cock-a-doodle-do.  In the line next to us there was a local checking in two fighting cocks for his flight although we couldn't figure out if they were being checked in for the hold, hand baggage or whether they had their own seats. Actually, the latter isn't as silly as it sounds as Arab Sheiks will book a seat, sometimes in first or business class, for their falcons. We thought the check-in chickens was hilarious but for the Philippines it was the most normal thing in the world.  Can you imagine turning up at Heathrow with your two favourite chooks and trying to check them in?

On the return leg of the flight with Cebu Pacific the cabin crew were offering free Cebu Pacific canvas bags for those passengers who were prepared to come to the front of the plane and sing a Christmas Carol into the PA system.  Incredibly, but unsurprisingly there was no shortage of volunteers so for part of the flight we were subjected to Christmas carol karaoke.

A few observations: despite being one of the poorest places I've ever been to, why does everyone still have a mobile phone?  And what I find makes travelling economy class so unbearable is not the cramped seats or bad food or even being herded like cattle but the pure selfishness and bad manners of fellow travellers.

Just About Completed

By the end of this week I will have packed up my life and existence into a collection of suitcases, rucksacks and holdalls and will be on the move, transferring to Iloilo.  I have now found a house for rent, a rather expensive one I might add, and because I found it on Ebay and have paid rather a large sum in deposits and advanced rent without ever actually meeting the landlord, I'm now wondering and somewhat worried that it might be a scam.  I'm thinking that when I turn up at the house I'm going to find that it's not actually for rent, that the guy who says he owns it, doesn't (and who I've never met and who isn't even in the country) and I'll end up with nowhere to stay, which I find more disconcerting than actually losing the deposit.

I'd like to say I'm a little saddened at leaving the accommodation where I've been staying for the duration of my stay in Toledo  but I can't.  There's been no internet for over a week, which is bad enough, but what really irks me is the couldn't-give-a-toss attitude and that's-the-way-it-is mentality to it all.  And apart from the occasional fresh mango I won't miss the stone cold fired eggs and greasy bacon for breakfast in the mornings.  

Reflections in the Car Window

I also won't miss the inhabitants of the loft space, whatever they are.  I suspect they're rats.  For the most part they're silent but every once in while they have what sounds like a game of tag and there a loud, mad fit of scurrying and running about.  This is made all the more disconcerting by the fact that there is recessed lighting in the ceiling of the bedroom and in a Winston Smith type of way I go to bed at night and imagine waking up with a rat on my face after it has popped out the light bulb and fallen through the ceiling.  I've stopped referring to it as the bedroom and now call it Room 101.

Alternatively there's the very high possibility the rats will chew through the plastic insulation on some electrical wiring as they consider this to be a highly delicious and nutritious delicacy, thereby causing a huge fire that will  burn down the entire block made even more likely by fact that the fire station is some distance away and the fuel for the fire engines has probably been embezzled to fuel the fire chief's car.  Still, supposing we aren't all incinerated, the residents could use the water in the swimming pool to put the fire out.  The Canadian living next door to me would have a team of his own judging by the amount of hookers he has going back and forth.  Once again, complaining about the rats in the loft yields no response or action from the owner.  

Tropical Storm

ollowing a long weekend in Singapore and Malaysia I had a rather bumpy return as a tropical storm was passing over the Central Visayas region. On the approach to Mactan (Cebu) Airport the aircraft hit an air-pocket and dropped suddenly, leaving most passengers with their hearts in their mouth.  In addition there was a fair amount of rough air causing the aircraft to jump about to add to the white knuckle experience.  I found myself going over in my mind the process of removing the emergency exit door (where I was fortunately seated) and was checking under my seat for the life vest.  At one stage it became so rough that the pilot told the cabin crew to take a seat and strap themselves in, which was the first time that's has happened to a flight I've been on.

The amount of rainfall has been phenomenal and it's hard to appreciate the persistent intensity without experiencing it first hand. At times it's as though the rain is no longer falling due to the effects of gravity but sounded and felt as though it was being fired out of a fire hose.  The house where I'm staying has a tin roof, as most housing in the region have, and the noise at times was deafening.  The garden was under water and I had to paddle to the car carrying my shoes and the swimming pool was inundated with dirty flood water.  Following the storms the pool has been emptied (by hand using buckets) and is now in the process of (very slowly) refilling. 

Heavy rains mean no TV and no internet in the house. Fortunately, there has been no lightning as this invariably means the power will go off too. Whilst no internet, TV and swimming pool might be considered a hardship to me, to see the impact on the local communities is to understand what hardship really is.  Some have had their rice and other crops close to being devastated and others who have been foolish enough to plant close to the rivers have had plantations wiped out.

Although no houses appear to have been destroyed there are plenty that are flooded or have become islands surrounded by flood water.  There have been numerous landslides on the roads crossing the mountains, one of them so large that it buried and blocked the road so much that not only were vehicles unable to pass, but it was considered too large and unstable for people to climb over to reach transportation on the other side to continue their journeys.  It's hardly surprising, what with all the hillside farming, excavation and building that occurs which destabilises the hillsides.  In one location there is a police training school that is constructed immediately above a very steep hillside.  I've often commented to my driver that in the event of an earthquake or landslide the whole school is going to be very suddenly relocated at the base of the hill.  Sure enough, during the storm there was a minor landslide that has brought the school even closer to the edge so it'll be interesting to see if any steps are taken to prevent a disaster in the near future. Also, a brand new footbridge crossing a river and linking communities has collapsed as well, although it's still being used in it's present state of disrepair.

The rivers that were dry or stagnant (as mentioned in an earlier blog) quickly became raging torrents that were at the point of spilling over the banks that contain them (they don't "burst" their banks as the media likes to state) and inundating the surrounding areas.  The rivers were cocoa coloured from either the local sand winning, farming on the river banks, construction activities or possibly from the copper mine or a combination of all of these factors. With the rivers flowing into the sea the whole coast line was transformed from a pretty blue/green colour to a murky, muddy hue. I'm sure this has a devastating impact on the corals and more delicate marine life that inhabits the shores. In places like Singapore there are extremely strict laws to prevent this from happening but here there seems to nothing more than lip service to rather lax controls.

After the Storm

Great visibility after the storm, unless you're in the muddy, murky sea...

In the office we were making contingency plans for localised flooding by ensuring electrical items are stored off the floor and similarly at the house we've been doing likewise, moving items upstairs just in case, although I think the risk of flooding is more perceived than actual.  What is apparent is that as the ground becomes waterlogged the impact of smaller showers has a bigger effect that the initial deluge, which was largely soaked up by the dry soils and empty rivers.

It's not all doom and gloom though, the kids seem to love it and were out paddling in flooding fields, floating around  in makeshift rafts, playing in the puddles or just showering in the rain falling from the roof of their homes.