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.

Hopping Flights

As things are starting to happen at the Iloilo project I took a trip there again to see how the works were progressing. Instead of the time consuming ferry trips I took a local flight. This only takes 45 minutes instead of the whole day it takes by ferry (or two days for the return trip). The flight is in a small propeller driven plane which flies over the central mountains of Cebu where the massive hole of the copper mine in the mountains can be seen. It's because of the mine and the income it generates for Toledo that the place has managed to obtain city status.

From the aeroplane window the mine appears as a huge brown scar in the green and lush mountains. Between my office and the house where I'm staying there are half a dozen rivers and stream but right now each one of these is bone dry or at best stagnant. The rumour is that this is caused by the mining activities, which if it is true, is a sad price to pay for the mining activities.

The flight then passes over Toledo and I was able to snap a photo of the power plant with our chimney clearly visible.

Mine in the Mountains

Toldeo from the Air

However, the best part of the flight is when the plane just about flew directly over the volcano of Mt. Kanlaon and I was able to look down inside the crater. The volcano is considered to still be active and a couple of years back the some tourists were killed near the summit when the crater ejected rocks and boulders, although I read this was caused by steam from water entering the crater rather than a volcanic eruption. Looking down on the crater there was no glowing magma nor was there any smoke and ash being ejected. It all looked very benign.

Mt. Kanlaon Crater

Passing over the Iloilo the surrounding area is covered in rice paddies and is a wonderful vibrant green colour and when you look down on a flock of pure white egrets flying over the fields it is truly spectacular.

Just recently the volcano Mayon located in Luzon, which is a impressive symmetrical cone rising to 2462m, has started erupting. The forecast is that it is going to develop into a major eruption and evacuation of the immediate area has started already. Whilst it is in its preliminary stages I'm hoping to fly to the nearest airport in a couple of week's time to hopefully see and photograph what I imagine will be a awe inspiring sight.

Welcome Back

It didn't take long to fall back into the usual routine on my arrival back in The Philippines from my holiday in the UK. After all, what else is there to do?

There is the new project that's due to start at the end of November to look forward to. In some ways it'll be good to get out of Toledo and go to somewhere different. Reading various guide books there seems to be plenty of interesting things to do in Iloilo and on the island of Panay - including the fact that Boracay is a mere 4 hour drive away. On the other hand, it means more upheaval and the prospect of packing everything up and moving again is not something I relish.

What I like about the job that I do is you're never in one place for longer than a year or so and then you're on the move to see/do something different. A whole new location, different people and varying conditions grab the attention and prevents boredom setting in. However, in equal measures what I really dislike about this process is never being able to settle or become established in any sort of routine. No sooner you've found a place you like to live in, a gym to use, a route to ride your bicycle on, a place to shop, a place to eat then you're off again. And having to be endlessly mobile means never properly having the comforts of home - only what you can pack into a suitcase.

Mountain Biking

I've been up the mountains a couple of times for the down hill cycling, although I think I'm starting to lose my nerve.   Every time I go out I'm trying to beat my previous highest speed and the last time I managed to top 44mph. I can see that this is going to end in tears and combined with a certain paranoia that the front forks on my bike are wobbly, or the brake pads are failing, or the frame is going to snap in half (the last one is borne from seeing it happen to a on TV a guy trying to race a bike down the side of a mountain and ending up with half the hillside embedded in his face). Admittedly he was going much faster but also consider that his bike wasn't a £100 special from down-town Cebu, so I reckon that puts me at the same level of risk and as a consequence I've started to shy away from the mountain.

So the weekend after arriving back I had my driver take me 18 miles out of town along the coast road and dump me there to cycle my own way back to the house. And this is in some ways far more enjoyable than the white-knuckle ride down the mountain as I can take my time, take in the views and it's easier to stop to take photos. The next time I go out I intend to go in the opposite direction and cycle back in again.

Locals in the Rice Fields

On the Sunday afternoon I cycled to the town of Balamban, which again is on the coast. It has an interesting market full of local produce and a prevalence of dried fish of all shapes and sizes. Cycling along the road there are frequent and friendly calls of "Hey Joe". Why it's always Joe I've no idea. Stopping to photograph a rice paddy I was approached by local lady and as the conversation invariably does it turned to asking if I could employ her husband.

In the market and along the road there are some great photo opportunities but I lack the confidence to approach people and photograph them. I don't like surreptitiously photographing people as I do feel that it's an invasion of their privacy and I'm embarrassed to do this. A friend of mine in Singapore has a great solution to this: go and have half a dozen pints beforehand and lose all your photographic inhibitions. However, it's not to be recommended when cycling!

From One Third World to Another

At the beginning of October I went back to the UK on leave. Yes it's nice and sunny here and hot but you get tired of it eventually. What I really miss are the seasons. In the tropics every day is the same and without a calender you wouldn't know if it was spring, summer, autumn or winter. Similarly, it gets light at the same time and dark at the same time nigh on all year round. Sunrises and sunsets are extraordinary rapid as the sun makes a steep vertical path towards the horizon. One minute it's light, the next it's dark. In the UK the sun takes a leisurely arc to the horizon thus bathing everything in a wonderful soft light for much longer. That is when it's not grey or cloudy . . . .

Autumn Colours

Whilst I admit the winters in the UK aren't so great and not really something to look forward to, the anticipation of the other seasons is always welcome. This time it was autumn and I was looking forward to the colours that that season brings and having a house in the countryside meant this could be fully realised.

Most of our time was spent day tripping, visiting the towns and villages nearby. What really jumps out at you having been away for so long is how very, very expensive the UK is. And I don't mean the price of luxury goods, I mean just the basics needed to exist now seem impossibly costly.

This was hammered home during a long weekend in London. Okay, so we didn't have to pay for accommodation but the cost for just everything else was astronomical. For example, the rail fares into London from mid Kent were £25 each - they would have been £50 each if we'd taken the new high speed train into St. Pancras. It seemed like everything else was priced at £20. Breakfast for two in a run of the mill cafe was £20. Lunch for 2 was £20. A round of drinks for 4 people was £20. A ride on an open top bus was a shameful £25 each. The London Dungeon is £21.95 each. The Tower of London - £19.50. London Eye - £17.50 or £27 if you want to jump the queue. St. Paul's Catherdral is a shocking £19 for two. What happens if you want to go inside and say a few prayers?

London Pubs

Combined with the rail fares this surely puts a day trip to London out of reach of a large majority of families in the UK and it gave me a certain feeling of resentment that I should have to pay so much to visit what essentially isn't a theme park but our heritage and history. Tourists, especially from poorer parts of the world must be in for a severe shock when visiting London.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. London has some fantastic architecture and walking around is free (for the time being). London pubs are also the best in the world in my humble opinion. I love the high ceilings, the big windows, the architecture, the ambiance. The distinct lack of soulless theme pubs. None of that silent treatment you get when you walk into a pub in the provinces. The vast majority of pubs in central London just accept you for what you are. Yes, the beer's expensive but it's no more expensive than a pseudo-Irish pub in Singapore or other big capital city, and I know where I'd rather be having a quiet pint!

Legal Alien

I have finally been given my work permit over 6 months since arriving in The Philippines. There's bureaucratic efficiency for you. What I don't understand is that you're not really meant to work until you're given the work permit but as it takes so long, what else are you meant to do?

You win a contract, you're given a month to mobilise and get started but it takes 6 months to obtain the work permits. God only knows what the process involves. The company lawyers in Manila became rather agitated when I criticised them for the time the whole process took, but it was them that told me it would only take a few weeks to obtain the permit. Still, why should they care, they get paid regardless of win, lose or draw. It's only the people like us who live in the real world that get paid by results.

The final step in obtaining the work permit necessitated yet another trip to Manila to be finger-printed like a common criminal. The immigration office was better than the one where I have my interview (see my earlier posting) but was equally chaotic. The sordid business of being fingerprinted was done in the waiting hall. A rotund looking official was sat on a stool by the window with a the required forms, a pad of ink and an inky roller. When it's your turn to be finger-printed, she grabs your wrist like an irritated mother would grab a child's hand, tutting and scowling with intolerance if you try to anticipate her moves and assist so the only thing to do is be totally compliant. Without a smile or any sign of good manners she takes each and every finger and thumb and rolls it in the thick sticky ink and then rolls it across the form in the allocated spot. I have to admit, for each digit I tried my hardest to smear the prints as my finger left the page as I don't see why I should be finger-printed when I haven't broken the law. Once completed you're tossed aside and left to find your own means of cleaning off the ink.

This form then goes off for processing and you have to wait while this is done. During this time a peddler came into the offices selling bootleg DVDs and did a roaring trade with the finger-printing officer whilst she made all her other victims wait as she scoured the DVDs for her coming evening's entertainment.

Following the finger-printing, and to make me feel even more like a criminal I had to have the mugshots with the height indicators behind me, being photographed from the front, each side plus a quarter-on shot. Then I had to be digitally finger printed in addition. My guess is that all this data is flogged to the US government as a sideline in revenue collection for The Philippines government. We're all being put on a database by stealth.

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.