Well, I’m back in Tacloban. I decided it made more sense to return here to renew my tourist visa rather than try to reach a different town. I know for a fact that it can be done in Tacloban, and there’s no way to be sure about other places.

On my ride back here, I encountered something new, something to add to the travails of Doug and children. I stopped for a rest and a drink at what they call a waiting shed here. It’s a little shed with cement benches and tin roof where people can wait for jeepneys and buses. I sat down on one of the benches, and a little boy about seven years old came up to me and started asking for money. At least I think that’s what he was asking for. I had (for the first time) earphones in and I was listening to music. I smiled at the kid and was pleasant, but I didn’t take out my earphones or give him any money. Lately, everyone has been asking for money, and I’m a bit tired of it.

This kid settles in with me and after a while, he jumps up on the cement wall directly behind my bench and he sits there. He’s really close, and that makes me nervous. He could suddenly grab something like my sunglasses and then run. I’d never be able to catch him. Suddenly, I felt his fingers in my hair. I didn’t jerk away suddenly because kids often reach out and touch my hair or the hair on my arms and that sort of thing. Then I feel a big shot of pain. This kid had taken hold of a big lock of my hair and then ripped it right out of my skull. I didn’t realize at first what had happened. I thought that maybe it was a bee sting or something. Then this kid reaches down and lays the lock of my hair on my arm. He puts it there like he’s giving me a present or something. And he doesn’t move at all. I swear I felt like I was sitting beside a tiny Hannibal Lecter.

Of course, I lose it. I jump up and scream at the kid and swear at him, and to my surprise he barely moves at all. He just looks at me. So I grab one of his flip flops and throw it across the waiting shed. Then I give him a hard slap across the shoulder. He still barely moved. He then slowly made his way along the cement bench and then climbed over the wall and lowered himself to the ground. His flip flop was right there, but he didn’t bother to retrieve it. I have no idea why not. Even then, the kid wouldn’t go away. He loitered just on the other side of the wall. The ground was lower at that point, so his head didn’t even reach the top, and I had to lean over the side of the wall to keep yelling at and tell him to go away. It was certainly the strangest encounter I’ve had in the Philippines, ever.

The ride to Tacloban from Biliran only took two days, and they were fairly short days. However, they weren’t easy. I’ve been doing so little cycling that every time I get back on my fully loaded bike, it feels like I’m starting all over again with zero strength and zero endurance. Besides that, the bike again felt extremely heavy. I’m seriously thinking about overhauling my gear completely to get the weight down. It’s ridiculous that my gear weighs as much as it does. I don’t think what I have with me is unreasonable, but it appears that weight can creep up on you. The gear has a psychological effect, too, particularly when it comes to camping gear. I put in all this effort carrying around a tent and a sleeping pad, but I hardly ever use it. The problem is that when I do use it, I really need it.

A serious attempt at reducing the weight of my gear would probably involve getting rid of my beloved Arkel pannier bags. I love all the pockets and compartments, but they must be twice as heavy as a set of Ortlieb bags. I hated my Ortlieb bags when I used them in Cambodia, but perhaps I just didn’t get used to them. I plan on checking the weight of these bags online and comparing them.

The other big change I might make is in my camping stove. I love my Trangia stove, and it has been extremely handy here in the Philippines because I can buy alcohol fuel easily. But it requires a substantial base and windscreen. I’m a bit stuck, though, because I purchased a Trangia gas burner as well. And this burner requires the same base. That’s how it works. I haven’t used it once in the Philippines, so I don’t know how well it works, but it is supposed to be one of the best on the market.

The problem is that I’m essentially carrying two separate stoves, which require two separate fuel bottles plus a hefty base and windscreen. On top of that, I have both a kettle and a pot. Techincally, I could get away with just the pot. I can boil water in the pot for coffee and dispense with the kettle. I just really love the kettle. Pouring water from a pot into a coffee mug is just asking for disaster. It works, but it makes a mess quite often. Plus, when you do a full-on meal, it means that you have to do one at a time. And you have to wash out the pot after you’re done eating in order to boil water for coffee. Not that I do much cooking here. Food is very cheap and readily available, so there is little point to cooking. My thoughts about that go all the way back to my little ride across Canada and my ride down the west coast of the US. In those days, I had my Trangia – the same stove and pot set I still have today – and it became part of my routine to have both a pot and kettle. In fact, I had two pots and the kettle. Of course, I camped out nearly every night back then and I cooked all the time, so it was very handy.

Other items that bother me include my running shoes. I have a pair of Teva sandals (which are worn to practically nothing and need to be replaced soon) and a pair of running shoes and a pair of flip flops. The shoes are brand new. I bought them in Taiwan before I left, and they have not once been worn. I’ve never taken them out of my pannier bags. They just sit there taking up space and adding weight. It’s just that I have always hated shoes. Even as a kid I went barefoot or in sandals all summer long. My feet get very hot and uncomfortable in shoes. So if I have a choice, I will always wear sandals. I figured it would be handy to have shoes. I thought I might need them for visits to embassies and for hikes, etc. So far, I’ve only visited the immigration offices here in the Philippines, and they are very casual. The first time, I rode up on my bike with my full touring load on my bike. I was soaking wet with sweat and looked a complete mess. But it didn’t make any difference. The immigration guys themselves were in sandals and tank tops and basketball shorts.

Another item that bugs me is my Katadyn water filter. That stupid thing has driven me crazy for years and years, ever since I bought it for my trip to Ethiopia. It was extremely useful in Ethiopia. At least, I used it to filter every drop of water I drank. But who knows if it was necessary or if it did any good at all? I still got extremely sick all the time. I didn’t bring it to Guinea because I didn’t want to carry the extra weight. For Guinea, I brought water purifying chemicals, and they worked quite well. If I could buy those chemicals here, I’d buy them and get rid of the Katadyn. It’s just too heavy for a person to carry on a bicycle. I was recently reading the journal from Amaya – the woman from Worldbiking.info – and I saw that she was carrying a full water filter set. She referred to using it while they were in Japan. However, she is traveling with her husband, and they can share the weight of these items between the two of them. And her filter set is a newer one and not as heavy as mine.

I’ve also ended up carrying three flashlights. I have my original Petzl full-on headlamp. I love that headlamp. It’s the workhorse of the flashlight world. But it does take 4 AA batteries. And since the days when I bought it, they’ve come up with much smaller headlamps that are almost as good. I have one of those, too. It only uses 3 AAA batteries, and is extremely small and light yet puts out a huge amount of light. It doesn’t have the same powerful spotlight effect as the full-on headlamp, but it’s not like I go caving every second weekend. Finally, I recently purchased a bicycle headlamp. I bought it to replace the Cateye that I brought with me. The Cateye was just far too big and heavy and I thought I could use the Petzl headlamp as my bike light. So I sent the Cateye back to Canada in the box I sent from Legazpi. Back in Ethiopia, I did use the Petzl headlamp as my bicycle lamp. I put the Petzl on my head and wore it and used it to light up the road ahead of me. But for a variety of reasons, that just doesn’t work here. So I bought this headlamp for the bike, and it is a great little flashlight on its own. So I ended up with three flashlights. I can definitely do without at least one of them. So I think I’ll get rid of the big Petzl somehow.

Compared to my equipment set-up for Ethiopia, the other big changes include having this NEO, the six lenses for my Olympus, and the raincovers for the pannier bags. I didn’t think the NEO added weight because without it, I’d have a big chunk of notebooks to deal with. Still, this NEO always feels really heavy whenever I take it out of my pannier bag. In the end, it is probably heavier than notebooks – assuming that I mailed away extra notebooks as they filled up with my blathering.

The lenses for my Olympus are a big question mark. I’ve been struggling with that ever since I started thinking about leaving Taiwan. I keep making up my mind to send two or three of the lenses back to Canada (for eventual resale on eBay), but then I put those lenses on the camera and love them. For example, I keep thinking I don’t need my wide-angle zoom lens. But in Naval, I put the lens on the camera to take some pictures of the cockfighting arena, and I found it to be a great lens. It provides a nice ultra-wide perspective – far wider than my regular 12mm wide angle lens – and it allows me to tighten up the perspective to take normal shots. So it’s a good walking around lens. And it may not be as sharp as my 12mm, but it is pretty sharp. I probably could have gotten away with just this wide angle lens and not purchased the 12mm. But I do love that 12mm.

I can write the same thing about every lens. I don’t, technically, need each one, I suppose. But whenever I use them, I love them. The problem might be that I have a separate lens case for each one. Each lens case is quite light, but having six of them starts to add up. And though the Olympus is supposed to be very light as a micro four-thirds camera, I don’t find it to be light at well. It is almost certainly heavier than the Nikon D40X that I used to have. It’s probably heavier than even the new Nikon D5100. It’s lighter than the D7000, of course, but I hated that D7000 with a passion anyway. I sometimes think (as I’m sure I’ve written before) that the smart move would have been to just keep the D40X. But I doubt that I would have gotten the pictures I have using that camera. The Olympus with its tiltable touchscreen makes all the difference in the world for me. I find that I’m willing to just stand in the middle of a huge crowd of people and just take pictures while looking down at this screen. But I would feel different if I were holding a DSLR up to my eye and aiming it at people. The difference is incredible. It’s a psychological thing, but it’s still real.

The rain covers were a sensible purchase, I suppose. But they add a lot of weight to already heavy pannier bags. And though they do work, they don’t work perfectly. And they’re a pain in the ass to put on and take off, especially when you are on the road. Put these two factors together, and it probably goes a long way toward explaining why I stayed in Tacloban as long as I have. I’d hate to be out there cycling in the rain and then having my pannier bags get soaked and ruining the camera or the lenses or the NEO. I figured out early on that the rain covers worked only to an extent. While riding in the rain, there is so much water being thrown around everywhere by the tires, etc., that it gets past the raincovers on the inside and soaks into the pannier bags anyway. And stopping to put them on and then take off when they’re soaking wet and muddy is a giant pain. And once they are on, the advantage of having all those pockets is gone, since the pockets on the pannier bags are now all covered up anyway.

I’ll probably give Ortlieb bags a hard look when I come across them somewhere. I hated them in Cambodia, but that might have had something to do with the bike, too. I had my Taiwan bike at the time with cheap pannier racks. And the Ortlieb bags were a giant pain in the ass to get on and off those racks. And the bike kept tipping over and falling. When it did, the Ortlieb bags would pop off. And, perhaps, I had memories of how wonderful the Arkel bags were, and that memory might have been kind of rosy or nostalgic and made them out to be better than they actually were.

Of course, it would mean a big financial loss to once again make all these changes to my gear. I used to own Ortlieb bags, for example, and I sold them quite cheaply while in Taiwan. Plus, I went to the effort of bringing my Arkel bags with me from Sarnia and I bought the rain covers. The same goes for my Trangia stove gear. Switching over to something lighter and more streamlined would mean wasting more money.

To be honest, I feel like I might have misjudged my mood while in Taiwan. The idea was to get rid of my entire life there and then live on the road. So I sold, gave way, and shipped everything I owned. It might have been better to just keep everything in Taiwan somehow and have that as a homebase. Of course, that would have raised a thousand other problems, mainly the problem of storage – the age-old problem I’ve always faced.

The best thing, I realize now, would have been to go slower. I should have gone on several bike trips in Taiwan to work out these wrinkles in advance. And then I should have flown to the Philippines for a solid bike tour with the plan to return to Taiwan. Then I could make all the changes I wanted to my gear naturally.

Well, it’s too late for all of that. And of course had I done that, I’m sure it would have proved to be a problem for a dozen other reasons I can’t anticipate. Thinking along these lines, it might be that even bringing my Rocky Mountain Route 66 back from Sarnia might have been a mistake. Getting it back in shape in Sarnia was actually fairly expensive. The entire drive train – chain, rear derailleur, freewheel, and crankset – had to be replaced. The brake and gear cables also had to be replaced. New tires and tubes. And I even ended up having to buy a new seat, as the awesome seat I had was stolen in Sarnia. Then there was all the effort of packing it up and bringing it to Taiwan. I might as well have just left it in Canada and gotten a new bike in Taiwan. A new bike would have cost a couple thousand dollars, but it might have been a better investment in the long run. I could have picked up a nice, light Surly Long Haul Trucker and used my Ortlieb bags and been all set.

Anyway, if I didn’t waste money and keep changing my mind, I wouldn’t be me, would I?

As I mentioned, the ride from Biliran back to Tacloban was relatively short but very difficult. The hills I had to get over were extremely tough and my legs were like jelly. For most of the hills, I had to get off the bike and push it. There was no way I could ride up those hills. And as I mentioned before, it made little difference anyway. Riding, I’d hit about 7 km/hr. And I walked at about 4.5 or 5 km/hr. And even if my legs could produce enough power to get me up those steep hills, I was worried about snapping the chain and/or wearing out the drive train again. I’d have to ride in first gear the entire time and really crank on those pedals – grinding down the cog teeth and the chain.

I spent the night in the town of Carigara – the same place I stayed at on my own out from Tacloban. This time, however, I tried out a new beach “resort”. I stayed in a place called Kaligusan the first time. That was the place I had an ongoing battle with mosquitoes and ants and heat. But while there, I saw signs for other places. This time, I thought I’d check out the other places and to my chagrin I found that one of them – a place called Harupy or something like that – was the same price and ten times better. It was unbelievable the difference. It was called Harupy’s Traveller’s Inn. It had lovely little rooms with actual toilet seats and showers plus mosquito netting on the windows, so they could be left open. There was a nice, big restaurant with tables and chairs and ice-cold beer. There was even an Internet café and – get this – a functioning swimming pool! It was a paradise by comparison and it cost the same amount as the dump I stayed in before. It was also in a much nicer area and it would have been a great place to hang out in and take pictures. Live and learn.

I got lucky in another way on this return trip. I arrived at Harupy Traveller’s Inn literally at the exact second that the daily downpour began. I had been racing monstrous dark clouds, and the second I rode my bike up to the door of the big restaurant, the rain came down. It was a massive rainstorm – like a typhoon – but I could roll my bike right inside the restaurant and park it there. I had missed being out in that storm by one second.

I was exhausted and my clothes were soaked through with sweat. Having two bottles of ice cold beer didn’t help my energy levels, and after unloading my bike gear (in the rain) and getting into my room and a quick shower, I collapsed on the bed. My legs and arms felt like they were made out of lead. I couldn’t even move.

I had arrived there relatively early in the afternoon, and I just lay there until after dark. Then I had no choice but to get up and look for something to eat. The restaurant only had short-order expensive dishes, and I decided to ride into Carigara to eat there. It was only sprinkling by that time, so I didn’t bother gearing up for rain. It was a great decision from the point of view of getting a good meal, but it was incredibly dangerous to ride down that road in the dark. There was a surprising amount of traffic on the road and if it was dangerous to ride on those roads in the day, it was triply dangerous at night. To my surprise, the road was still filled with the bicycle taxis. And these pedicabs had no lights at all. No headlights and no taillights. Worse, they had no reflectors and they take up a huge part of the road. They loomed out of the darkness so suddenly that even I nearly ran into them. Those guys must be desperate for money to ride in those conditions. I felt on my well-lit bike that I was risking my life. Those guys were dicing with death. My return to the resort from Carigara was even worse. One bus cut so close to me that I swear I felt something on the bus go through my hair. I’m pretty sure that driver hadn’t seen me at all. He was in the exact spot in the lane he would normally be if there was nothing else on the road. There was no shoulder at all, so I was riding in the lane, though as far to the right as I could go. That bus scared me so badly that I screamed profanities at it as it whipped past me. If there are parallel universes out there, I’m sure there is one in which that bus hit me and killed me. It was so dangerous to be out on that road in the dark in the rain, it was ridiculous. Sure, I get some pleasure out of these strange adventures on my bike, but I’d rather not pay the price of being killed by a stupid and irresponsible and arrogant bus driver.

My mood was not the greatest after that day and that night. I pondered my age the next morning. Getting out of bed took all my strength. I could barely move my legs. My whole body felt like it was weighed down with hundreds of pounds of lead. It was all I could do to roll onto my side and to the edge of the bed so I could lower my feet to the ground and slowly get to my feet. My back was so sore that I couldn’t sit up naturally. My legs and arms were so heavy and dull that I had trouble going through the motions of taking a shower. Then packing up was so hard. The thing is that I don’t remember ever feeling that way in Ethiopia or Guinea. I had to do all the same things, and I remember so clearly packing up in the morning in Ethiopia. I had that little tape recorder with me and I was talking to myself as I packed up. I remember being fresh and alert and energetic. I would often be ready to start cycling before dawn while it was still pitch black. In Guinea, I was often awake and making coffee at 4:00 in the morning so that I could write in my journal for an hour or two before starting to ride. Here I am in the Philippines barely able to heave my sore body out of bed, barely able to think, and that as late as 7:00 a.m. My energy levels seem to be something like 10% of what they were on those other trips.

I did manage to get out of bed and get packed up. I rode into Carigara and had breakfast at a little streetside stall. The man running the stall was very friendly, and I sat beside him in a little plastic chair while I had my breakfast of vegetable rolls and noodles. Unfortunately, I had to endure the interrogation and not just by him but by every customer that came to his stall. Certain things still surprise me about that interrogation and conversation. It’s no surprise that everyone I talk to has a sister or a brother living in Canada. I mean everyone. They ask me where I’m from. I say Canada. They say, “I have a sister living in Canada.” Every time. Every single person says this. It gets boring, but it also gets weird because in order to keep the conversation interesting, I have to ask them about this brother or sister in Canada. Then I find out that they know nothing about them. They don’t even know what city they are living in. They don’t know what they do for a living. They don’t know how long the’ve been there. They don’t know how much money they make. They don’t know if they send money back to the Philippines. They know nothing. And that makes me suspect that like in Africa, the words “brother” and “sister” don’t really mean brother and sister. They probably mean a distant relative or even a friend or neighbor. Yet, here they insist that they are really their true brother or sister. How can they not know what they are doing in Canada? It’s like that man I met in Naval. He told me that his mother was a professor at the local university, but he had no idea what subject she taught. That seems impossible to me. I met his mother one time, and she was clearly a professional of some kind. Her English was excellent. She seemed intelligent and she was dressed like a professor. So that she was a professor was probably true. But how can her son not know what she taught? Despite all the talking I hear in the Philippines, does no one actually pass on actual information?

While in Carigara, I stocked up on water for the day. A water refilling station was open even at that early hour, and I had my two extra-large Nalgene bottles filled up. They each hold 1.5 liters and they charge only 4 pesos each. That’s about ten cents Canadian. My only problem with these places is that they wash the bottles every time. That’s good service, but they scrub them really hard and they don’t really need to be washed that hard and that often. Then they overtighten the lids. It’s good service to make sure the lids are tight, but Nalgene bottles are well made. They don’t need to be tightened that much in order not to leak. I’m worried they are damaging the threads when they tighten them up that much. Plus, they then carry the full bottles by the little strap that connects the lid to the bottle. Those straps are just meant to keep the lid in place. They aren’t designed to be carrying straps. I hate handing over my precious Nalgene bottles because they treat them so harshly.

And speaking of weight on the bike, this amount of water is certainly contributing. I started the day with those two bottles plus the three bike bottles full. That’s a lot of weight. In the Philippines, in fact, I don’t really have to carry that much water. With every meal, I get access to unlimited amounts of potable (sometimes chilled) water, and I drink at least a half dozen full glasses with each meal. And I pass water sources all day. I could refill my bottles pretty easily all day long. Still, I like having a lot of water. I go through almost all of it anyway. I certainly did when I first got to the Philippines and it was so unbelievably hot. Now in the rainy season it isn’t nearly as hot. I drink a bit less but not much less.

The ride from Carigara to Tacloban was not terribly far – only about 60 kilometers. And it was flat most of the way. Even so, it was a long and hard day for me. My butt was incredibly sore and I had to stop often to relieve the pressure. My butt hurt so badly that I found myself holding my breath while I rode. I was holding my body so tense with the pain that it was difficult to breathe. That’s not good. The traffic was also overpowering. The noise level from the engines and the honking was beyond what I could endure. I finally decided to break out my earphones and my Sansa Clip to listen to some music. I hadn’t done this before because then I wouldn’t be able to hear people calling out greetings. I didn’t want to be rude. But I needed some help on this day, and I found that riding while listening to music was wonderful. Before the music was playing, my adrenaline levels were through the roof. Every blast of an air horn and every sudden roar of a badly tuned engine made me nearly jump off the bike. And I found myself getting angrier and angrier. But once the music filled my head and I couldn’t hear the engines and horns as much, I relaxed about a thousand percent. I was worried that lots of people were calling out greetings to me and I wasn’t hearing them, but there was nothing I could do about that. Besides, the greetings were often not real anyway. I was starting to hear way too much laughter and way too many requests for money to keep up my good humor about it. And the questions often made no sense. People often called out “Where have you been?” I don’t know what kind of answer they are looking for, especially since I am zipping past them at 20 km/hr. The question doesn’t suit the circumstances, so I assume they aren’t really expecting an answer. Lots of other greetings fell into the “Hey, Joe! Give me money!” category. I’ve done some pondering about this. In Ethiopia, it made sense that everyone asked for money from every foreigner they saw. But the Philippines is different in every conceivable way. It is a far richer country. People have all kinds of possessions including cars and trucks and motorcycles. And the few foreigners around me that I see are long-term residents living on some kind of pension. They don’t look rich. Most that I’ve seen look almost like bums. They are poorly dressed and unshaven. They also aren’t exactly friendly. I don’t see them wandering around the country handing out cash to everyone who asks for it. So how do the Filipinos come to think that they can get money from foreigners like me? I also get confused about the people asking for money. There is no pattern to it. If all the people who asked me for money were obviously very poor, then I could come up with a system to deal with it. But lots of people ask me for money. The other day, I went up to a sari-sari store to buy a cold drink and there was a group of six high school girls there in their crisp, nice uniforms. They were all nicely dressed and were carrying nice bags and had smartphones and other expensive things. They all started shouting at me, “Give me one peso!” It was ridiculous. They were all drinking sodas and eating snacks that had cost them probably thirty or forty pesos. So why were they asking me for money? What would make them think I would give them any? And why ask for just one peso? What could they possibly do with one peso? You can buy one candy with one peso, but that’s about it. Even a soda costs eight or ten pesos at a minimum. So I end up being confused about the people asking me for money. I don’t know who these people are.

Well, it is time to head over to the immigration office to see about extending my visa one more time. I imagine this will be the last time.

 

 

Tags: bike, Biliran Trip, Canada, Cycling, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Taiwan