The Big Build Up

Sept/Oct/Nov/Dec

One thing I forgot to mention was that no sooner I'd arrived back in the Philippines I was off again the next weekend at short notice to visit Singapore on business.  No complaints there though as it was the usual excuse to indulge in a bit of quality living.

Also mid September I was in KL for the weekend visiting my sister and her friends.

Bodyguard for a Minor Celeb Gets Aggressive

It was a good opportunity to catch up with her as I'd had limited time to see her whilst I was in England.  I really like KL.  It's cheaper than Singapore and considerably more relaxed.  Hand in hand with that, the people are very friendly also.  I went to the KL Bird Park, leaving early to make sure I arrived there before the crowd and sure enough, I was one of the first through the gate.  It really is a fabulous place with plenty of exotic bird life to see and it's very well maintained.  I had nasi lemak in great restaurant that overlooks the park and had various birds watching me eat and hoping to steal a morsel.

I still had a considerable amount of stuff in the apartment in Iloilo so I had a choice of either allowing my trusted staff to place it in the hands of some courier company, or pay for a business class ticket so I could collect it myself and fly it back to Subic.  The last option was to drive there and collect it myself and this seemed to be the best solution.

Rolly volunteered to do the driving so we set off early in the morning at the beginning of October to drive the 150 miles from Subic down to Batangas, south of Manila.  From here we took a ferry to Calapan on the island of Mindoro.  As the ferry left Batangas there were kid swimming precariously close to the ferry.  Rolly told me if I threw coins into the water the kids would dive for them.  Sure enough, each coin was pursued and every one of them retrieved from the depths.  As the ferry came into the port at Calapan there were even more money diving kids in the water and with a fair wash and turbulence in the water as the ferry manoeuvred to the mooring I was sure one of the kids would be sucked under or chopped to bits in the propeller, hence I was reluctant to encourage their recklessness and so didn't partake in the money throwing.

Diving for Money

Once ashore we then started on the 75 mile drive to Roxas, travelling down the grandly named Strong Republic Nautical Highway with the Mindoro mountain range to our right.  The Strong Republic Nautical Highway might have been grand in name but it's in a pretty poor in condition hence it was slow going (combined with numerous roadworks with no discernible traffic management) so the drive took quite some time and longer than anticipated.  It would have been good to have had the time to stop and take some photos but time was pressing.  Roxas is about two-thirds of the way down the south-east coast of Mindoro and by the time we arrived in Roxas it was dark.  We were at the mercy of the ferry timings so we had time to eat and rest for a while before taking the midnight ferry to Caticlan on the island of Panay.

Colourful Travellers

It's a longer journey from Roxas to Caticlan and so it was dawn and we passed by the island of Boracay as we approached Caticlan.  The ferry was chock-a-block and all the best seating and areas had already been bagged.  Rolly and me tried sleeping in the car but I just couldn't get comfortable and so spent most of the night on the top deck peering over the railings as the moonlight shimmering on the sea and the distant lights on passing islands.  How I envied those that had brought their own hammocks and looked so comfortable gently swaying in time to the ferry's rolling.

As I hadn't slept I know it wasn't going to be able to stay awake for the rest of the journey.   The last leg, after some breakfast and a coffee, was the 4 hour drive to Iloilo and so in a total covered around 430 miles.  All my stuff had been removed out of the accommodation and into our office.  I had some business to clear up there but that evening we loaded the car up with all my gear, with my bike on the roof rack.  I stayed overnight in a hotel in Iloilo and whilst the room was spacious it was dreadfully bland and somewhat threadbare.  Thankfully, I was there only for a few hours as we were leaving at 4:00am to be sure to catch the first ferry out of Caticlan.  Going back was much the same as going there so nothing really much more to write about, although we didn't make it to Subic so I spent the night in Balanga (near to where the site is) before heading back to Subic the following day.

Route Taken (Shown in Red)

Late October saw the arrival of "Super" typhoon Megi.  Subic was only on the fringes of the storm so we didn't get the battering from the wind but there was a huge amount of rainfall.  Really, I find it amazing that so much water can drop out of the sky over such and extended period.  Still at the home-stay there was no flooding but on the way to Bataan and the site the extent of the flooding was truly shocking - and I don't think I'm easily shocked.  All the agricultural land, principally rice paddies and to a lessor extent corn fields, was totally inundated. Farms, fields and crops that local people depend on to feed themselves and their families totally submerged.  Houses too.

People try to walk a road between two rice paddies, totally inundated.

Late October I was off to Bangkok for a friend's wedding, which was at the same venue as my sister's 50th.  As I flew into Thailand it was evident that there was widespread flooding there too - from the aeroplane I could see that vast tracts of the countryside was underwater, such was the size and influence of the typhoon.  The wedding ceremony was in a church on the opposite side to the river to the reception and the church had been sandbagged to protect it from flooding.  At the Chakrabongse Villas the gardens were being protected by a flood wall that was only under construction during my last visit there and the pier was totally submerged and an improvised system of gangplanks had been constructed in order to access the venue and not get wet feet.  The wedding was great and the weekend fantastic.

The Happy Couple

I had plenty of time to indulge myself and visit the big second-hand camera market and treated myself to a new macro lens and pushed the boat out and bought a Konica Hexar AF, which has an almost cult status among camera aficionados.

My Konica Hexar AF

I'd read about a village near Mt. Pinatubo that had become submerged during the eruption when a lahar flow had blocked a river forming a new lake (Lake Mampaen) and drowning the village, leaving the only visible remains the church steeple poking out of the lake waters.  During the last weekend in October I took a drive up to the location.  There are no road signs and no one we asked in the towns and villages along the route had heard of such a place so we were heavily reliant on the GPS that I had programmed with what I thought were the co-ordinates for the location.  It took us a while to get there and the drive along the flood embankments containing the lahar to the west of Mt. Pinatuno was impressive.  It's hard to capture the size and extent of the the valleys and plains created by the flows and equally, the fact that 20 years on from the event they are still largely void of vegetation gives you an indication of the power and volume of the flows.  

Lahar Plain

We found the relocated village on the shores of the lake and sure enough, there was the church spire sticking out of the waters.  Not a spire in the tradition sense but more of a modern church spire but quite interesting nonetheless.

Church Spire in Lake Mampaen

November saw my 49th birthday and I spent it in Singapore, working but also visiting my good friend Tall Kev (Tall Kev) who like me is a keen photographer and camera enthusiast.  Between myself, Kev and Dave in Taiwan I think we have enough cameras and gear to start our own dealership up.

Singapore is always a very refreshing change to my existence in the Philippines.  It's such a contrast.  It is hellishly expensive though.  A beer in the pubs is S$12, which works out at current exchange rates to be a tad under £6.  Go to the clubs and prestige bars and you'll end up paying even more.

Over £6 Worth

Now that I'm properly ensconced in the house in Subic I can concentrate on setting up for the next project.  This can't really come quickly enough but it's extremely frustrating moving the project out of the train yard and heading on the right track, only to have others come along and move the points so we end up travelling down a branch line. Sometimes even towards the buffers.

In December I went to my favourite city, Kaohsiung, to visit Dave.  There's new airline called Spirit of Manila that has very cheap flights from Clark to Taipei, although the plane was so empty (around 10 passengers going there, even less coming back) I don't think they'll be in business for much longer unless they can drum up more trade.  The problem seems to be a lack of awareness.  I hadn't heard about them until the Australian home-stay people told me and no one else I've spoken to has ever heard of them so I think some advertising wouldn't go amiss.

Dave (With Newly Acquired Olympus) & Some Beardy Bloke

Unfortunately the flight goes into the international airport in the north of Taiwan so a train journey is necessary to get to Kaohsiung, and a short bus ride from the airport to the station is also required.  I can't understand why the Taiwanese didn't route the railway alongside the airport.  That seems to be a lost opportunity and a major mistake to me.  Having said that, the bus ride is easy enough and cheap and it's all very well organised - unlike the bus ride I took from Heathrow to Gatwick a couple of years back that was astonishingly expensive at £25 one way and that had a very rude, unhelpful and abrupt driver.

The train journey on the relatively new high speed railway was fantastic and reasonably priced at just under £30 each way (and there's no need to book weeks in advance, you can just pitch up)  for the 200 mile journey and which only took 1 hour & 40 minutes on a comfortable, spotlessly clean and graffiti free carriage.  In the UK, the shorter distance from King's Cross to York is nearly £90 and takes 2 hours.  The 15 mile journey from Heathrow to Paddington Station starts at £16.50 provided you book it on-line in advance. Buy a ticket on the train and it'll cost you £23.  How can that be right for a 15 mile journey?

Kaohsiung in Bloom

My time in Kaohsiung was spent drinking and eating the wonderful food available and as the weather is particularly agreeable at this time of year, plenty of walking visiting camera shops (I bought a Zeiss Ikonta 532/16 on a whim).  Too much temptation.

Zeiss Ikonta 532/16