Camera Museum

I nearly forgot about this.  Last June I went back to the camera museum (it was closed last time I passed by), which is located in Taal, around 150 miles south of Subic.

Taal is a small town with plenty of old Spanish colonial era buildings and a rather impressive church.  Located in one of these buildings is Galleria Taal, which is a museum of cameras and photography.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

Now, whilst I tend to be somewhat cynical of the quality of attractions in the Philippines I have to say that this is very well done.  The house itself is rather grand, with gleaming hardwood floors and high ceilings, but if you're interested in cameras then there is an interesting and varied display to see.

Here are a few snapshots taken from my visit.

A (Very) Large Format Portrait Camera

...with a drawer containing the apertures.

A Captivating Portrait

Historical Photographs

An Overview to Catch Up.

I've fallen somewhat behind with blogging lately, partly because of pressures of work and partly because I lose momentum and catching up becomes a bit of chore.

I now have a new project in the Philippines to look after and two more on the books to commence the middle of next year.  Added to this, I have also taken responsibility for at least one, if not two projects in Taiwan, which has necessitated my frequent travelling back and forth to that country.

I probably would have preferred to shift my centre of operations to Taiwan, being as it is a favourite location of mine and considerably more civilised than the Philippines, but the thought of all that upheaval to relocate for the sake of a two year project is just too much to contemplate at this stage.  I'm of the opinion that where ever I go next will be my final place of permanent residence so there needs to be enough work prospects to keep me going.

Since the boat trip and the Mt. Pinatubu hike last April my time has been spent with the following (illustrated with photos rather than words, where appropriate):

May

A fleeting visit to the UK (sorry to those I didn't get round to see) to organise various building maintenance work on the house and a short trip to North Yorkshire to visit some friends.

North York Moors in May

. . . . and when the weather improves.

Roseberry Topping

Whitby Bay Beach Huts

Staithes lobster Pots

June

A trip to kidnap central to close out the project in Mindanao. The good news is I should never have to go back there again.

The Finished Product
(it's straight, it's the photo that's crooked)

In late June it was a trip to Bangkok for a friend's 40th birthday party.  I'm not going back to Bangkok until they sort out the traffic there.  It's horrendous.

Birthday boy 2nd from left
He doesn't look a day over 50

July

A business trip, mixed with some R&R in Singapore.

Kev babysitting when he'd rather be quaffing champagne

At the end of the month a trip to Taiwan as part of my inaugural introduction to the new project I'll be taking care of there.

Taipei rush hour traffic

Taipei City from 101

August 

A long weekend in Hong Kong.

September 

Another trip to Taiwan, with mix of business and pleasure.  My sister and her boyfriend were visiting.

Kaohsiung Harbour

Early Tattooist

You on the Left: Lose the Face.

Moon Cake Everywhere

October

Singapore for business and to see my good friend Kev who is leaving Singapore to start a new job in Perth.

Mt. Pinatubo Trek

My mate Luis was over visiting for a long weekend late April. It's hard to believe that it was a year ago when he last was here. Time passes so quickly.

Having had a great time last year with whale shark spotting, lots of diving and trekking the rice terraces at Banaue, it was hard to think of something to match the level of interest and excitement.

One of the things we'd planned to do last year was the trek to the Mt. Pinatubo volcano but we just run out of time and so it seemed the logical thing to do this time around. I booked the trip through a local tour agency (Pinaykeypoint) and we were all signed up to go on the Sunday.  Having done the exhausting Mt. Kanlaon trek I was expecting the worst but I also knew that Pinatubo was considerably lower at only 1,485m at the peak (Kanlaon is 2,435m) so was hoping that it wasn't going to be quite so demanding.  Anyone arriving at Clark/Angeles City or Subic will be disappointed in learning that the volcano isn't actually visible from either of these places as it sits behind other mountains and doesn't dominate the skyline like a Mt. Mayon, Kilimanjaro or Fuji, which is surprising as when it erupted in 1991 it was the second largest recorded eruption of the 20th century.

Here's an interesting video recorded by the Americans at Clark Air Base:

The starting point for the trek was to be Tarlac, or so we thought.  Due to it being an early start, we set off the night before to find the meet up place and stay over night.  Having driven to Tarlac following some very vague directions, and making a large number of futile queries for directions at the roadside we eventually ended halfway back at Angeles City, which is much nearer to where we set off from.

We ended up staying in a motel that we were told was only a kilometre away but must have been at least 6 km away.  At least it was reasonably cheap and clean, although the aircon was a bit asthmatic so it was a bit of a sweaty night.

What also makes the trek easier is the fact that you are actually driven halfway to the volcano along the lahar flow in an old jalopy.  We were up early for breakfast and joined the Jeep at 4:30am and headed off.

That plastic bottle under the bonnet is actually the fuel tank.

Apparently, the Americans were conducting war games in the area so access to the route along the lahar was restricted (and delayed) by them as they were using it to do their target practice - and you don't want to be anywhere near the US military when they're firing weapons.

The ride up the lahar was uneventful, if a little bumpy and uncomfortable.  It was interesting to see how the lahar went from being spread out far and wide to a slowly narrowing canyon.  When you read about the volume of material ejected from the volcano when it erupted it's kind of hard to imagine but when you see the towering cliffs cut through the ash by the river, you begin to get an appreciation.

Jeep Ride

Depth  of the Deposited Ash

The hike was easy enough.  I was expecting it to be like Mt. Kinabalu or Kanlaon but because it is a relatively low rise mountain getting to the lake is not particularly strenuous.

Once at the lake, which apparently is the 6th deepest in the world (Wikipedia) at 2,600 feet deep we had a swim in it to cool off. Apparently it doesn't support any fish life due to it's high acidity. 

Help! I Can't Touch the Bottom.

Other than the swim, there really wasn't too much else to do (except plant a tree for the ecology) but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless and an opportunity to take some photos.

Kids from the Local Tribes

Face in the Ash Deposit

Local Tribes Women and Baby

A Slow Boat from China - Berk's Revenge.

Wednesday 11th April 2012 - Day 7

The night before I was quickly asleep at 6pm due to the beer and being gently rocked to sleep by the boat.

I was woken up by Berk telling me it was my shift and I reckoned that I might have had more beers than I reckoned because I felt a bit foggy and rather tired.  Still, a man has to do . . . . 

So I got up and took the controls and looked around to see if I could see if Jim was about to join me.  No sign of him so I soldered on with steering the boat.  There was a mass of fishing boats out there, like fireflies dotted all over the place so I felt I needed to be alert to make sure I didn't collide with one.  It was only then I looked at my watch and saw that it was only 9pm!  It was way before my shift and Berk had disappeared below deck - revenge I wondered?  It was little surprise then that I was feeling tired.  

I looked around the rest of the boat and there were bodies slumped everywhere, like a navy ship after shore leave.  I figured there was no point in trying to wake any of them up and so I just knuckled down to steering the boat.  I struggled to stay awake so what I did was to point the boat on the right heading and then walk port side and take a look, then walk to starboard side and take a look, and then back to the wheel to correct the course had the boat drifted off, but as the sea was calm and there was no wind it generally stayed on course.

From 9pm through to 1am I managed to do what England expects - my D.U.T.Y. - but by 1:00am I needed someone to take over so I went and found Jim and roused him.  I stayed on watch until sunrise. Again, we were poodling along, more so than normal, so that we didn't arrive in Subic too early and by sunrise we were just approaching the entrance to Subic Bay. Berk re-appeared and took over to bring the boat in.

Sunrise on the approach to Subic Bay

There was wonderful sunrise again and the sea in the bay was like a looking glass.  It was a fabulous feeling.

On the final approach to Vascos

The team at the end

Coming into dock

Our final destination was a bar/dive shop/hotel called Vascos on the shores of the bay. There was a small welcoming committee, mostly consisting of concerned friends an relatives.  On arrival at 6:30am I had a big fry up breakfast and then went straight to the office to do some urgently needed reports.

Once I'd finished them I rested my head on the edge of my desk and just zonked out, which is hardly surprising as I'd only had 3 hours sleep in the past 36 hours.  I awoke a short while later as the sharp edge of the desk was digging into my forehead and had made a groove in the skin making me look decidedly like Frankenstein.

Here's the final GPS plot for the last part of the trip:

. . . and the final lap of honour

A Slow Boat from China - Break Down in Bolinao

Tuesday 10th April 2012 - Day 6

After our shift had finished I didn't really go back to sleep.  I was keen to watch the day arrive again and see our progress into Bolinao. Whoever was supposed to be on shift with Berk wasn't around so I thought I'd do the right thing and fill in doing the watch because as we approached the coastline the shipping traffic became heavier. Plenty of badly illuminated fishing boats and the occasional passing freighter. We didn't want to sink or be sunk.

The trip into Bolinao harbour was painfully slow but Berk was avoiding getting there too early and didn't want to have to navigate into the harbour in the dark. Seems like the most sensible thing he'd done for the whole of the trip.

By 6am were were tied up at the quay side. Jim and me volunteered to go and get provisions and diesel whilst the others just went to find a local bar. I left my camera battery, which was exhausted by now, plugged in at the coast guard's office.

Coastguard's office in Bolinao

We rented a trike and driver and went into town. Firstly we found a diesel supplier and bought another 45 gallons. Then went looking in the market for the provisions and some ice to chill the drinks. We arrived back at the boat by around 10am and unpacked the provisions and transferred the fuel. I started filling the cooler boxes with ice and drinks and Berk just started sticking his oar in, barking at me and telling me I was putting the ice in the wrong way! Well, I wasn't going to take any more shite from him and I told him to do it himself but probably not as polite as that. Jim could see I was furious and said, in all seriousness, that Berk was an ice expert, which only served to antagonise me even more.

Once the ice was expertly broken up and in the coolers and the provisions were loaded, Adam cooked a great tuna omelette for a late breakfast.  

Moored up in Bolinao

Kids entertain us on the quayside

Then we were ready to head off. Or rather we weren't because the engine wouldn't start. It just made a screeching sound, which to my learned ear I reckoned was the starter motor. John, being the mechanical engineer was the logical one to take a look at it but said he didn't have the tools to work on the starter motor and so gave up. Jim went to see the coast guard to see if he could help. He came back and told us that the coast guard said that there was no mechanics in Bolinao who could help but he would send for his brother who was in the next town and who would take 3 hours to get there (remember, 3 hours in the Philippines can be anything from 6 hours to the next day). Jim seemed to take this at face value, as did the others who all seemed resigned to our fate and a long wait. 

I wasn't having any of it, so it was either do something proactive to get it fixed or I was on the next bus to Subic. So I told Jim I just didn't accept that a town the size of Bolinao didn't have any mechanics and I was going into town to find one. Jim said he would come with me. John's disparaging remark as we left was that if we found one to make sure he brought his tool kit, which would be a shifting spanner and a hammer.

But here's a universal truth about the Philippines that I've learnt:  they have very little concept of preventative maintenance but they are exceptionally good at keeping things going when they should have been consigned to the scrap heap years ago. You can see this by the state of the cars, trucks, trike and jeepneys on the road.

We rented another trike and told the driver to take us to a mechanic. Off we whizzed through Bolinao and then out the other side and up the hill. Jim commented that it looked as though we were heading to the next town where the coast guards's brother lived but at the top of the hill we pulled in to a garage. Now, forget any concepts or minds eye you might have of a shiny Kwik Fit, this was a rickety old lean-to with the soil being soil soaked with years of oil and grease.  

Under a bus there was a pair of thin brown legs sticking out to which the trike driver spoke to and evidently asked him if could come and fix a boat. Without removing himself from under the bus the legs replied, asking what the engine was? Jim said a Perkins. The legs said (through the trike driver as an interpreter) that he had no experience of working with a Perkins engine so couldn't make any guarantee he could do anything, although we tried to explain that we thought the problem might be electrical rather than mechanical. The legs slid out from under the bus and out came a tall (for a Filipino), gangling, scowling old guy who was either very, very brown to the point of being black or was soaked in old engine oil and wearing a nothing but a tatty, oily pair of shorts. 

The mechanic collected up his tools, a shifting spanner and a hammer and a little light bulb with two wire hanging out of it and placed them in a plastic bag. We piled onto the trike and went back to the boat. John was even more dismissive and the others highly sceptical that this guy could get the boat started. I had high hopes, even just to prove them all wrong. The mechanic went down below and I went to the helm. He shouted up to turn the motor over, which I did. We did this several times.  He did a lot of shouting to the trike driver. After bashing around for a while he motioned for me to turn the engine over again and hallelujah, the engine started! I'm not sure who was happiest, me or the mechanic. Actually, I think it was the mechanic, he was absolutely overjoyed and his scowl went to a large, toothless smile. And good for him.

So we were on our way. Berk was looking for volunteers to tie off the boat and then jump back on board as the boat departed. I wasn't going to be doing anything to help him so it was left to John and Adam.  As the boat was tied off Berk immediately started throttling away and yelling, and I mean YELLING for John to jump on the boat but even for someone quite agile it would have been difficult but it was going to be impossible for John and his beer baby. Hence, Berk had to manoeuvre back to the key side all the time drifting towards some shallow rocks and still all the time hollering at John to jump on. There were loads of Filipinos on the shore watching us leave, as they are want to do (anything different to break up the daily monotony) and this little performance was all very undignified.  

Anyway, John did manage to get back on board and Berk did manage to avoid the shallow rocks and off we went with the coast guard scowling on the shore, probably because we didn't drop any diesel in the harbour so he could 'fine' us and because we'd fixed he boat without having to wait for his brother, which was going to be a good little earner for him. And all the while Berk was cursing John and John was cursing Berk.

At 1145am as we pulled out of the harbour and into the open seas, being waved at by all the other boats, parts of the sea were literally boiling with jumping fish, and large ones at that but John still couldn't catch anything.

We were on our way back to Subic and a quick check showed we should be back by early tomorrow morning. I was looking forward to it. And the sun was shining.

John & Jim chew the fat

Beer and sunshine

That afternoon there was probably too much beer and wine consumed. I figured that being on the midnight to 3am shift if I went to sleep at 6pm and slept for 6 hours I'd be fine and sober enough to do my shift with Jim.

Progress for the day (in green):

A Slow Boat from China - The Weather Breaks

Monday 9th April 2012 (Easter Monday) - Day 5

Last night the seas calmed down significantly and this morning the sea was significantly calmer.  This is what I had imagined the whole journey was going to be like.  Being on the 3am to 6am watch meant we were able to see the sun rise.

Wonderful sunrise

The cabin downstairs was stinking. I mean really stinking, a rancid mix of bad feet and good old fashioned BO.  I hadn't spent too much time below deck so I'm sure I wasn't the main cause.  I think Brian's feet had a lot to answer for.

In fact none of us had had a wash since leaving the hotel on Thursday morning.  None of us were expecting to be at sea for this long.  I decided as the boat was no longer rocking around and the sun was shining I was going to have a wash, so I stripped off on the front deck and hosed myself down.  Fortunately, no diesel came out of the hose so we either had plenty of water still or Berk was wrong about mixing up the fuel/water tanks. 

Beautiful! It doesn't get any better than this.

Time to catch some rays

We had a cooked breakfast and cups of tea.  It's amazing how much everyone's spirits pick up when the sun was shining and instead of everyone falling asleep we were chatting, joking, telling tales and actually enjoying being on the high seas.   We were heading for Bolinao, which we expected to reach by tomorrow morning, and so I think making landfall and having the end in sight boosted everyone's morale.

By lunchtime someone cracked open a bottle of wine and the atmosphere was very relaxed and dolphins were spotted riding our (slow) bow wave.

We also spotted our first ship since we set off and Berk was able to contact them on the radio and asked them to e-mail his wife so she could spread the word to other worried family members as were should have been back days ago (in the event, the message did reach Berk's wife but she didn't pass it on for some reason that escapes me).

Our first ship sighting

Late that day we saw a passing Filipino fishing boat and hailed to them to ask if they had any fish for sale as John wasn't having any further success in catching anything.  They had two tuna fish, which at first they wanted to trade for cigarettes but there were no smokers on board.  In the end they settled for cash.  Dinner that night was sashimi.

A passing fishing boat sells us dinner

Jim and me were on the midnight to 3am shift.  I had a dream that night I was on the Star Ferry in Hong Kong, even to the point when I woke up and it took a moment to realise I wasn't, which was a strange sensation because the dream was so real.

Progress for the day is as shown in green below: