In the morning, Grandpa took me on a tour of Salvacion before I left. He knew everyone in the barangay, of course, and he introduced me to everyone, including his five brothers. Five brothers and no sisters at all. And then DNA evened up the affair quite a bit by providing him with an entire sea of granddaughters. The five brothers were all farmers and fishermen making their living from a variety of products from the sea and the land. The eldest brother was quite sick with some kind of heart problem and he bent over in front of me coughing and heaving.

I set off on my bike amidst the usual gale of laughter – very happy to have had the experience of staying with Grandpa and his extended family, but also very happy to be on the road and in control of my own destiny once more. Living in a village is a difficult thing when you aren’t used to it.

After a day of hard cycling through gorgeous scenery, I ended up in the barangay of Caramoran. When I entered the barangay, I stopped to chat with a man working on a motorcycle at a small garage. He said that his sister had some kind of lodgings down on the water at Coco Beach, and he sent his helper on a motorcycle to guide me there.

The Coco Beach resort was nice in its way – a quiet area on the beach nicely sheltered by many tall trees. There were shade huts and I was invited to rest and relax in one of the huts. I had a cup of coffee while I was there and despite the rooms they offered being quite primitive, I decided to take one and spend the night.

In retrospect it was a big mistake. I found out the next day that the town of Pandan had some very nice places to stay and if I had pushed on just a bit longer, I would have been able to stay there. But I didn’t know that, and Coco Beach seemed my only alternative. The room got much worse after close inspection. The bed itself was not so much a bed as a collection of bed springs covered by an old sheet. The walls were made of bamboo and old wood and were rotting badly. Everything was dirty and mouldy. I was very glad to have my mosquito net this time because the area was infested with mosquitos and most of them were congregated in my room.

The worst part, however, was what happened at 9 p.m. What was it? Can’t you guess? Of course someone fired up the videoke machine. And it went on until 2 o’clock in the morning. Five hours straight of the most horrible caterwauling and bassy thumping you can imagine. Each time the song ended there was a blessed period of silence for a second or two and I hoped with all my being that that would be the last song. But another song would start up. And then another. And another. Endless torture. I can’t imagine what kind of pleasure is derived from this, let alone how it can go on for five hours. Who wants to listen to their drunk friends sing off-key western hits? And I can imagine it for one hour. Maybe two. But how can the same group of just seven people (I had to go outside to check them out) sit there at their table and sing for five straight hours? How is that possible? I thought I was going to die. Death would have been a relief, to be honest. I learned how important it is to scope out your surroundings and make sure that there is no videoke machine nearby, but that is not a surefire strategy. They are everywhere and you never know when they will strike. I’m sure that won’t be my last night of videoke torture in the Philippines.

Despite the late night, I was up before dawn with the roosters. One naturally falls into that rhythm in the Philipines as the cool morning hours can’t be wasted. You have to take advantage of them before the heat of the day arrives. Plus, you are not as cut off from the outside world as you are in the West inside an apartment or house. Here, the sun streams through all the cracks in the bamboo and the walls and the roof. The bathroom is outside, of course, so you must leave your room to go there and you are outside in the world. And, to be honest, outside in the world is far more comfortable than inside buildings or rooms, so you naturally want to get out of your room as quickly as possible. Why hide inside the hot dirty room when the cool morning breeze is out there waiting for you? This is a land for being outside.

The previous day, I had tracked down a decent eatery and I went there again for breakfast. During the day, there had been a row of women sitting across the street in the shade selling fish. A group of people gathered around them just to pass the time and joke with customers. This morning, the line of women and observers and fish were back, but they were on the opposite side of the street as the rising sun had changed the position of the shade. This was the same side of the street as the eatery, and the observers all sat on stools outside the restaurant and took the opportunity to watch me eat and comment on and laugh about everything I did. I had a very good breakfast and then I got on my bike and cycled out of town.

The ride to Pandan was a relatively short and easy one. There was pavement the entire way, and I passed through beautiful rice fields and low hills. People were harvesting rice and drying abaca and doing other things. I stopped a few times to take pictures.

Outside Pandan, I saw a sign for a beach resort and I followed the arrow down a small road over some hills in that direction. I doubted I would stay there, but I wanted to check it out. I stopped at the base of one very steep hill, and a man asked me where I was going. He then informed me that the beach resort was closed. The owners had closed it up when the full heat of summer arrived and they had gone to the United States. I find it hard to reconcile the economy of this place with the incredible amount of travel that takes place. People seem to be poor, but then in conversation they will mention seven or eight countries that they have been to in their life plus all their children studying in faraway places. How do you pay for that when it seems like you have no income?

I rode through Pandan feeling a mild sense of accomplishment. “Too far” had turned out not to really be “too far.” I had an invitation from a minister at a local church (I’d met him in Salvacion) to drop in for coffee, but I couldn’t find his church. His church was the Iglesia ni Cristo, and I gathered this was a protestant branch of Christianity as opposed to the dominant Catholic church in the Philippines. He said the church was right on the main road heading into town, but I never did see it.

I rode my bike to the waterfront as I always do, and there I found a lovely little park stretching along the water. There were some nice rooms to be rented there – big and clean with air conditioning and a private bathroom for 650 pesos a night. I thought about staying for the night to take advantage of this, but I didn’t really know what I would do in Pandan for the whole day and night if I stayed there. To stay in comfort would be nice, but it would also be nice to spend the day cycling. In the end, I made the decision to move on and see where I ended up.

 

Tags: barangay, bike, Catanduanes Bike Trip, Coco Beach, Gigmoto, Outside Pandan, Pandan, Philippines Bike Trip 2013