It has been a long while since I’ve broken out the NEO. I guess just hanging out in Tacloban didn’t inspire any journal-keeping. I did write when I first got there and was busy. I wrote about my last few days on the road before arriving there. And I wrote about my various errands, such as getting my visa extension and buying some things for my bike. I bought a front light, two heavy-duty tire tubes, two very large Nalgene water bottles, and cycling gloves. And just before I left from Tacloban, I discovered that my rear tire had fallen apart. The rubber around the big knobs had ripped open. And so I had to buy a new rear tire. I would have purchased a front tire, too, but I couldn’t find one. But after the flurry of activity at the beginning, I stopped writing and accounting for my days. I lost myself in a rhythm of walking around the city, taking pictures, reading, hanging out in cafes, and watching TV back in my hotel room. I never made the decision to stay there as long as I did. It just sort of happened. It’s like I made the decision to stay just one more day over and over and over again.

Anyway, I’m back on the NEO because I finally escaped from Tacloban and I’m sort of back on the road. I was annoyed with myself for staying in Tacloban so long. But once I started cycling, I wasn’t annoyed anymore. In fact, staying in Tacloban made perfect sense. Each day was a pleasure while my day of cycling yesterday was brutal and horrible. It’s no wonder that I resisted getting back on my bike for so long. I don’t know if something has changed or if perhaps cycling has always been brutal and horrible and I just didn’t notice it as much.

A big problem was that staying in Tacloban for so long and being so sedentary, I had lost the little conditioning I had built up. Riding the bike was extremely difficult and painful. Everything hurt, and it wasn’t just ordinary pain and hurt. It was bad. My left knee, for example, hurt so much that I could barely turn the pedals. And I had no strength in my legs at all. Luckily, the terrain was largely flat. I don’t think I could have made it up any hills or mountains.

There was a great deal of mental pain as well. I felt bored just sitting on the bike and turning the pedals. I wanted to be back in Tacloban and enjoying life. Riding the bike through that heat and traffic just seemed stupid and silly (not to mention extremely dangerous). I was sweating badly and my clothes were drenched. there was a huge amount of traffic, and it drove me crazy with all the honking. I was ready to kill someone in a very short time. Why people in the third world feel compelled to honk their horns all the time is something of a mystery. I was also very annoyed with the heavy load on my bike. That’s another reason that I had trouble leaving Tacloban. Every time I looked at all my gear and thought about loading it on the bike, I felt depressed. And somehow, my gear just won’t settle into any kind of a reasonable shape or pattern. I’ve been packing and repacking ever since I got to the Philippines, but it refuses to get organized. I don’t know what is different this time, but my gear simply won’t get organized. On other trips, my four pannier bags sorted themselves neatly into categories and everything fit with lots of room leftover for food. Now, nothing will fit naturally, and I don’t seem to have enough room. I don’t know what is different or what is causing the problem.

I hate to say it, but I think my body has changed as well. I was never very tough physically, but it’s worse now. Again, I hate to say it, but I guess I’m just getting old and I can’t handle the physical challenge of cycling as well anymore. For one thing, my eyes are shot and I can’t read anything up close anymore. There even seems to be a cloud over my right eye – like a cataract developing. So I have trouble reading my maps. I find that very annoying. I got bifocals before I left Taiwan, but I hate them and I haven’t been able to wear them regularly. Besides, I have to wear sunglasses and I can’t wear reading glasses at the same time. It’s just very annoying. And I have pains in all my finger joints. I started to develop arthritis or something like that while I was in Taiwan, and it is continuing and getting worse. So everything hurts – all my fingers, my neck, my back, my shoulders, my knees. And I’d been off the road for so long that I wasn’t used to the sun and sweating. I started to burn and the bad sweating led to prickly heat. It was hard cycling.

The day was also tough because during my long break, I got used to the easy life again, and I wasn’t prepared for all the hard work of a day of cycling – the constant concern for food and water and lodging plus all the details you have to think about all the time. It’s a lot easier to just hang out in a nice hotel and spend the day reading in air-conditioned comfort and then deciding where to go for coffee and mango shakes. Cycling is complicated and it takes a while to get used to it. I was slowly getting used to it before I arrived in Tacloban, but then I lost all my mental and physical conditioning and I’m starting all over again.

I should say that there were some compensations – the usual ones that come with cycling. The scenery was beautiful for one thing. The rainy season has meant that all the fields are planted with rice and being plowed. So there were green fields everywhere plus lots of water buffalo in the fields pulling plows – your typical third world scenic vista. I also developed a strong appetite, so my lunch, when I found it, was delicious. I had trouble though. I was so tired by that point that I had trouble manipulating my fork. My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t keep the food on the fork as I raised it to my mouth. And I was sweating terribly and sitting in a horrible plastic chair with no room to move. It’s all an adventure, I suppose, but there is no denying that it is brutal and unpleasant at the same time.

I didn’t have a particular goal for the day. It would have been enough just to get packed up and moving. If I had just gotten to the other side of Tacloban and spent the night in a new hotel, it would have been enough. I just needed to break my static condition and get moving. But I kept going out of Tacloban and cycled about 60 kilometers and stopped in the town of Carigara. All the dots on my map look the same, so I had no idea if one town was a better destination than other or if one had hotels and the others didn’t. Carigara just seemed to be mentioned on road signs more than other places, so I got the idea it was a larger place. Plus, it was close to the coast, and that usually means there will be “resorts” along the water if all else fails.

I got to Carigara at the absolute end of my strength. I hardly had the energy to cycle up and down the roads looking for a hotel of some kind. It seemed a pleasant enough place and had a nice waterfront area. Judging from the reaction of the people, they had never seen a foreigner before. I felt like a movie star as I rode around. That always surprises me. I keep expecting Filipinos to be more used to foreigners, but they don’t seem to be.

I asked a few people about hotels, but they had no suggestions to make. They all said that there were no guest houses or lodging houses of any kind. I did eventually find one. It called itself a beach resort. It was mainly a bar and videoke joint, but they also had rooms. I rode my bike down their long sandy driveway and after a couple of senseless conversations with various people who worked there, I was told that the person in charge of the rooms was sleeping. And that was that. I was a bit annoyed, of course. I had had to endure the usual conversation about how the Philippines was a wonderful place, a beautiful place, with friendly and helpful people. It was a paradise on earth they all wanted me to agree. But then when it came to simply helping a potential guest move into one of their hotel rooms, there was nothing anyone can do. They all just stood there and looked at me until I had no choice but to just cycle away. The rooms were right there. I was standing beside them. They were in a separate building – a long line of rooms with marked doors and an air conditioner in each window. It was a beach resort and I was a customer wanting to stay at their beach resort, but they refused to actually help me out and let me check in. It was probably for the better, though. The rooms were very close to the videoke bar, and I imagine the noise level would have been astronomical and gone on till three in the morning. The tone of the place was also probably not my style. When I first rode in, I noticed a young woman in hot pants and a halter top. The guys who made me agree that the Philippines was a wonderful country for visitors then pointed out the woman and then made pelvic thrusting motions and giggled crazily and offered her to me. Apparently, no one could be found to show me a room, but the local prostitutes were open for business if I were interested. I suppose if I took them on that service, I probably could have gotten a room…

I rode around the town for a few more minutes getting more and more annoyed at the crazy and senseless honking, but I couldn’t find a place to stay. I did find a water store, and I filled up all my bottles with fresh water. Then I just rode out of town hoping that there would be a place to stay long the coast.

I have my tent and camping gear for such occasions, but there really doesn’t seem to be a reasonable way to use them. I honestly don’t know how other cyclists do it. At that point in the day, my clothing was soaked with sweat and I was covered in dirt and dust and barely holding it together mentally. I could see no way of setting up a tent and sleeping in it. It would just be miserable and nasty. In any event, where could one possibly put up a tent and camp? There were people everywhere and every speck of land was occupied or being used for farming.

Luckily, I stumbled across a place just two or three kilometers outside of Carigara. It billed itself as a beach resort and they had a set of rooms in an ugly concrete building. There was nothing particularly attractive about the place, but beggars can’t be choosers and I took a room. It was your basic concrete cell with a bed, a dirty table, and a plastic chair. It had a bathroom of its own consisting of a plain toilet bowl and a tap and a bucket. No sink or mirror or shower or anything like that. Just your basic third world room complete with geckos and ants. There was no food available at this place or anywhere around it, so if I wanted to have dinner, I’d have to cycle back into Carigara. I thought about just going to bed hungry. I wasn’t sure I could face the chaos of the town again. But I decided to risk it and after a quick shower and a rest, I got back on my bike and rode into town. I was worried about leaving my gear at this “resort”. I thought I’d come back and find my room broken into and empty, but there was nothing I could do about that. Again, I don’t know how other lone cyclists do it. It’s impossible to protect your valuables. You have no choice but to leave them unattended.

My trip into town was pretty bad. It started to rain and I had trouble finding food. I ended up buying some spaghetti and some spaghetti sauce and bringing it back to the resort to cook it myself. The problem with that was how hot the room was. It was actually quite pleasantly cool outside after a heavy rain and after the sun had gone down, but inside the concrete cell of my room it was sweltering. There were a couple of small windows that I could have opened, but there were no screens of any kind and opening them would have let in a flood of mosquitoes to torment me. I had no choice but to keep all the windows closed and suffer in the heat. I would have risked opening the windows except there was no possible way to hang my mosquito net above the bed. I fired up my stove and set it to cooking the pasta outside my room. It was quite tasty when cooked and I enjoyed my spaghetti very much, but it was a lot of work after such a hard day especially when there was no convenient way to clean up afterwards. Again, I wondered how all the other cyclists did it. I read about them camping out all the time and cooking their own food. How is that possible? Perhaps I yearn for the civilized life more than they do.

While I was in Tacloban, I used my Trangia stove every day, especially to boil water for coffee. I could buy alcohol fuel in all the hardware stores and it was easy to keep myself well supplied. I set up my stove in the bathroom and opened the window there to provide for some ventilation. Being extremely dumb, it was only towards the end of my stay that I realized I could have purchased a simple electric kettle. In fact, buying a simple kettle would have cost far, far less than all the alcohol fuel I had to purchase. It never occurred to me simply because in my mind I wasn’t staying in Tacloban that long. I was only staying “one more night” each and every night. So I kept living as if I was staying there for just one day and yet I stayed for months. Not a very efficient manner of living. One day, during some very heavy rains, I went into a store to see what they had in the way of umbrellas. It was then that I saw an entire wall of cheap electric kettles. The cheapest cost about $3. That would have served me very well. I remember buying one of those on my holiday to Camiguin a couple of years ago, and it worked very well and I just left it behind at the end of my trip, I could have done that this time as well. In fact, an electric kettle would be perfect to add to my regular kit since I like to boil water for coffee all the time. An umbrella would also be very handy. But I just can’t face adding more stuff to my overloaded bicycle.

I didn’t sleep very well last night because of the extreme heat, but I slept for a long time. I was so tired that I turned out the lights at about 8:00 p.m. I dodged a bullet in that I soon heard the local massive and powerful videoke machine power up, but it was far enough away that I only heard the bass thumping through my bed frame. What a nightmare it would have been if my room had been closer to the videoke machine. The music and singing was still going on when I woke up this morning at 5:00 a.m.

It’s already 8 in the morning now and I don’t seem to be any closer to leaving this place. I could still leave if I wanted to, but I think I’m going to hang out for a day. I actually liked the look of Carigara, and I’d like to head in there to take a look around the waterfront area. Plus, I think it would be best to give my body some time to adjust. I’m worried mainly about my left knee. I hardly made it into town last night on my bike. I had to do all the cycling with my right leg and just let my left leg coast. It would be best to break my body in gently and give it a rest today after the troubles of yesterday. I wish I had found a nicer place to stay, though. There isn’t much to recommend this place. It calls itself a beach resort, but the beach is not much of a swimming beach. It is black sand, shallow, and muddy. I went to the beach yesterday and I saw people out in the water about a mile away and they were only up to their knees. Granted, the tide was out, but I don’t think it would be much nicer even with the tide being in.

There were a bunch of large tables with thatched roofs along the water, and a big dog suddenly jumped up from under one of them and started growling and barking savagely at me. I was all ready to do battle when I noticed that the dog was wagging its tail even as it barked and growled. Its barking attracted the attention of other dogs on the beach and they all came running toward me. But I stood my ground, and the first dog suddenly stopped barking and came right up to me and clearly was friendly. It probably had been attacked by the local boys a number of times and was suspicious but friendly. So it barked and growled even as it wagged its tail. I pet the dog for a while and soothed it with my voice, and it became my friend and followed me everywhere after that and even watched as I cooked my spaghetti that night.

And that’s about it. I started reading a new Dickens novel last night called “Our Mutual Friend.” It’s new in that I’d never read it before. And it looks to be a very long one, so it should be keep me happy for a while. I occasionally visit Amazon and then search through all the free books and download them to my Kindle so that I always have new books to read. It’s very convenient, assuming you don’t mind reading Dickens and things like that. Luckily, I enjoy them, so I get all the free books I want.

3:00 p.m.

After my coffee and journal-keeping session this morning, I walked down to the beach to take a look around. The tide had come in and I could have gone in for a swim had I been in the mood. The water wasn’t that appealing though – quite grey and murky. The skies were overcast and there was a strong wind making for some choppy waters, too.

I went over to the main building at this “beach resort” to see about paying for another night. I found an older man there who said that he was the owner of the resort. He looked to be in his sixties and had a fairly large stomach hanging out in front of him. He wore nothing but shorts and was barefoot. We chatted for a while and I found out that he was not really the owner. His sister owned the resort and he was looking after it for her. His sister was in England. She had gone there to get training as a nurse and ended up marrying a British man and now lived there. He had another daughter working as a nurse in Saudi Arabia. She didn’t like it in Saudi Arabia – particularly that she had no personal freedom – but there was no work for her in the Philippines. This man said that he had worked at a bank for twenty plus years and was now retired. He said he was a bank manager but then later said he worked in security for three different banks. I find it is always difficult to understand people here when they talk about what they do or have done. I was also curious about the three or four young mean I saw hanging about the resort. They were not his sons, I found out, but simply employees. Again, it was hard to understand their situation. They work here, but I have never seen them actually working yet. I’ve seen them play basketball and I’ve seen them watch TV and I’ve seen them just hanging out. So I don’t know what their work is. I’d be curious to know how much they get paid, where they slept, what they ate, and all that stuff.

After my chat with this man, I got organized to go out for a bike ride. I wanted to explore the area and run some errands. That’s another part of what makes travel like this a bit more difficult than what one would expect. All I wanted to do was ride my bike to town, but getting organized for that seems to take forever. I had to think about all the things I wanted to bring with me from my camera to my water bag to my flat tire kit to my rain jacket to a rain cover for the pannier bag to my passport to other valuables to my bike lock and perhaps sun screen and on and on. Running an errand becomes like going on a major expedition.

I first turned west from the resort to the next little town up the road. Apparently, they were having a fiesta there. (The man I spoke with said the music I had heard was not from a videoke machine but from the fiesta. The sound travels across the water, he said.) I have yet to come across a town that wasn’t having a fiesta of some sort. On the way, I passed a hardware store. I thought it would be a good spot to stop and see if they had any alcohol fuel for my stove. I ended up being ignored by the store clerks for so long that I lost my temper and just left. That happens a lot here. There isn’t much of a work ethic that I can see and people will simply ignore you in shops sometimes. I try to be patient and go with the flow, but I was feeling irritable. I hadn’t had breakfast and the traffic and honking had annoyed me right from the first.

There wasn’t much going on in this town, and I eventually turned around and rode back to Carigara. I was lucky there in that I found a nice little spot to have a late breakfast/early lunch. It was just a family-run stall built into the front of their house. They had good food and I had a huge meal. I was surprised that I was that hungry. And that hunger might have explained my irritability.

After that, I rode around the town checking things out. There was a cement pier going nearly a kilometer out into the water and I rode my bike out there just to look around. There were a few fishermen out there and a few interesting boats. I sat out there for a while just enjoying the cool wind off the ocean and the view of the coast in all directions. There were a lot of clouds around and it made me nervous about the upcoming days. I’m not really in the mood to cycle in heavy rains.

I then ran some quick errands and got some cooking fuel, some spaghetti ingredients for tonight, and some water. I filled up my water bag with 10 liters and strapped it to the back of my bike. It’s a good system for getting water. They only charged me 15 pesos, which is about 33 cents Canadian.

 

 

Tags: bike, Biliran Trip, Cycling, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Tacloban, tent