Tuesday January 28, 2014

4:45 a.m. Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines

Getting out of bed this early might not be a wise idea, but I had woken up and I felt like having a cup of coffee. I’m fairly certain that I am not allowed to fire up my little Trangia cookstove inside this hotel room, but I’m careful and clean. I often do little things like this that break the rules. I imagine the rules do not apply to me. In this case, I could offer up a technicality as a defence, because the long list of rules posted on the back of the door do not specifically say “no cooking”. One rule does state that you can’t use an electric kettle, but I didn’t. I used my Trangia to boil the water.

I’m also awake early because I plan to visit the immigration office today to extend my tourist visa. That is not such a big deal, but considering that it’s important and I have no idea where the office is, I decided it would be wise to get a running start at the day. So here I am. I just boiled the water in my Trangia without a mishap, and I’m sipping away on a cup of instant coffee. I’ve gotten used to the sugary 3-in-1 coffee mixes, but this is just coffee plus creamer – no sugar. I miss the sugar, but it’s best to wean myself off that habit. My teeth will thank me at some point.

My room at the Cebu Hallmark Hotel is fairly standard for my accommodation in this part of the world. At 370 pesos a night for a private room with a bathroom, it is about as cheap a place as you can find. I shudder to think what a cheaper place would look like. When I first saw the room, I was a bit taken aback. I guess I’d gotten used to the relative luxury of the Your Home Pensionne in Tacloban (pre-typhoon, of course). And my first night out of Tacloban, I stayed at that beach resort. The room was small and plain, but it was much newer than this place, and it had nice homey touches, such as a window and a toilet seat. THIS room is a windowless and rather worn specimen. I’m sure it is decades old. It is an odd mix, in fact. It’s a mix of grotty age and solid construction. It’s old and dirty and broken down, yes, but the walls are extremely thick and solid. And some fixings are quite solid. The light switch in the bathroom is of a type that was popular in perhaps the fifties. I didn’t even know it was a light switch. I hung my toiletry bag on it while I looked for a light switch. When I had exhausted all other possibilities, I concluded that that weird metal lever had to be the light switch. I hardly dared touch it. It looked like something that would deliver a deadly shock of electricity to my finger rather than send a steady current of light-producing electricity to the industrial fluorescent tube in the ceiling. I’m sure it was once covered in a decorative plastic casing, but that casing is long gone. I can’t imagine what it would have looked like.

The main light in the room is a circular fluorescent tube. There, too, the fixture seems appropriate and very old – more solid in structure than a modern fixture would be. The round tube does send out light, but it isn’t the pleasing light that delighted me at the Marupoy Traveller’s Inn in Carigara. This is more of a prison light, a light that highlights the shadows rather than providing illumination. It emphasizes the age of the room rather than brightening it up.

There is a smattering of furniture. The bed is a wooden affair with wooden slats. A single bed. It, too, struck me as institutional when I first saw the room. However, it looks more cosy now with my mosquito net draped over it. There isn’t a pressing need for the net, but I did see one mosquito last night as I was unpacking. One visible mosquito can indicate a countless horde in hiding, so up when the net.

A matching set of dark brown items complete the room. There is an open wardrobe of a sort in the corner. I have hung my two shirts up over there and put some of my luggage on the bottom shelf. There is a vanity-style desk, at which I am sitting. And there is a little end table stuck in another corner. The wardrobe and the desk both have drawers. Drawers are interesting items in rooms like these. When absolutely brand new, a person might be tempted to slide open a drawer and put something inside. However, no one in their right mind would do so now. Why would you? Why put something you value in there with the possible cockroaches and the dirt and dust and goo of ages? This begs the question of why put furniture with drawers in any hotel rooms. No one ever uses them.

The last piece of furniture in the main room is the chair. It does not match anything and probably has more stories to tell than all the other furniture combined. It has a sturdy metal frame with legs that scream in protest if you try to drag it across the tiled floor. The cushion is substantial and probably original. The thick vinyl covering has split across in two places exposing the foam beneath. For typing, it is not an uncomfortable chair. I am not typing at the desk, however. As with most desks of this type, the bottom edge descends to a point far below my knees. I cannot scootch up to it with legs comfortably housed beneath. Plus, if I were sitting at the desk, my back would be to the round fluorescent sun of this room, and my keyboard would be in dismal shadow.

I haven’t mentioned the most interesting aspect of the room. This is a matching set of two exhaust fans facing each other, one blowing air in from the hallway and the other sucking it out and blowing it into an undefined space beyond my room on the other side. It creates quite a pleasant and very necessary cross-breeze. The smell of the room was quite strong when I first moved in, but with the fans blowing and sucking, I don’t really notice it. Perhaps I’ve just become accustomed to it.

I don’t know if this has come across in my description, but I find I’m quite delighted with this room. It is a fine addition to the long list of similar rooms I’ve stayed in over the years around the world. It has character. It may not have comfort or luxury, but it has character. I suppose if I had more money, I would have opted for a superior sort of place – one with rooms NOT designed for despair. I suppose that is an odd twist to my personality. This is the type of room that a movie set designer would chose to house a character on the brink or even far past a complete breakdown. It’s a room to house despair and misery and forlorn hopes. Yet, I’m quite content in here. It feels real whereas a modern and comfortable hotel would feel plastic and replaceable. To the extent that this room can contain despair, it can also contain creativity. One can picture a struggling artist staying here and working on his masterpiece through the long nights.

I did, in fact, look at a much more upscale hotel in Cebu when I arrived. A friend of a friend, Chris, was actually kind enough to meet me at the docks when my ferry arrived, and he showed me a range of hotels in the downtown area of Cebu. He showed me this one and another one in roughly the same price range. Then, just to be thorough, we also checked out a more upscale place called the Cebu Century Hotel. The Cebu Century terms itself a “no frills value hotel” and would be viewed by most normal people as a budget choice, I suppose. By comparison to the Hallmark, however, it was luxurious. It had a real hotel lobby and wi-fi, for example. And the Double Standard room I was shown came with air conditioning and a TV and many other things. It was also quite clean and had a nice modern bathroom. Even a toilet seat! That room cost 820 pesos a night, which is about $18.50. For normal people, that would be a bargain. But I do the math based on staying somewhere for a month, and that works out to nearly $600 a month – far more than I’ve ever paid for rent for an entire apartment. My room here at the character-driven Hallmark costs less than half that – 370 pesos a night, or $8.50. That works out to $260 a month, which is more reasonable, especially when you consider that it comes with what for me is a premium location – right in the heart of the old downtown area of Cebu – right in the action of a fascinating world city.

I still might not have ended up at the Hallmark except for two key features. One is simply the size of the room. It may be built and designed for utter despair, but it has substantial floor space, which is an advantage for a guy with a bicycle. There is plenty of room in here for my bicycle and for me to spread out and get organized and stay organized. The second feature is the elevator – not that it is a great elevator, just that the hotel actually HAS an elevator. And the elevator is the perfect size for a bicycle. That elevator was what sold me on the place. What a luxury to be able to roll my bicycle into the elevator and then press a button to end up on the fourth floor. The other super-budget hotel that Chris showed me did not have an elevator. Staying there would have meant carrying the bicycle up and down several flights of stairs many times a day. That’s normal for me, and it wouldn’t be a deal breaker by any means, but an elevator is sure nice to have. It says a lot about my life that having an elevator is something of a unique pleasure. Even my apartment in Taipei – a place I stayed in for years and loved – did not have an elevator, and I had to climb up and down six floors worth of stairs many times a day. And no hotel I’ve stayed in in the Philippines to date on this trip has had an elevator. I think I have a permanent groove cut into my shoulder where I bear the weight of the bike as I trudge up and down stairs.

Yes, I’m quite pleased with this place. I’ve mentioned some of the things that I like about it – things that it has. It also pleases me – so far – with things that are wonderfully absent. I speak, of course, about noise. Other than the high school cafeteria kitchen roar of the exhaust fans, it is perfectly quiet. There is no karaoke anywhere. Not even a hint. There is no traffic noise – no roar of engines or honking of horns. No screaming television and no screaming babies.

I also like the lobby and front desk – if you can call it that. From the outside, you are barely aware that a hotel even exists. It has just a single door opening onto a very busy and crowded sidewalk and street. If you weren’t looking for it specifically, you wouldn’t even see it. The lobby area is very small and the front desk is crowded into a little cubbyhole in a narrow space to the left of the elevator. The desk itself is L-shaped and it is all the desk clerk can do to squeeze himself in there and do his work. It’s wonderfully down-beat and would fit nicely into any movie about some poor soul at the end of his rope. It’s the kind of front desk that, if you were to photograph it, would have to be done in black and white. And the desk clerk should have a cigarette in his mouth, smoke curling up to the ceiling. Cheap prostitutes should be strolling past and there should be a dozen pawn shops across the way.

 

My journey to arrive at this place was something a small adventure. I woke up very early at the Marupoy Traveller’s Inn in Carigara to very dark skies and high winds. It had rained heavily during the night, and I was concerned that the bad weather would continue throughout the day and make my life miserable. However, I had very good luck throughout the entire day.

It was cool and pleasant once I had cycled out of the hotel’s courtyard and onto the main road. The wind was strong, but it was at my back and pushed me along gently almost the entire day. It was a good thing, because it gave me the energy and positive state of mind to cycle hard and make good time. At the back of my mind was the thought that if I got to Ormoc early enough, I could get on a ferry right away and go to Cebu rather than spend the night in Ormoc. That would give me more time to get to the immigration office.

Having a positive state of mind was particularly helpful, as I faced quite a long and hard climb up to the town of Lemon and then again after Lemon. I had done almost no cycling – certainly no uphill cycling on a fully-loaded bicycle – in the months since the typhoon, and I was worried that my body would not be up for it. But with the tailwind and the cool temperatures, I practically flew up the mountains – if you can call a steady grind of 7 or 8 km/hr flying. I was surprised at how well my body stood up to the challenge. I never had to stop to rest, and my knees gave me no serious trouble. I felt a small twinge in my left knee at one point, but it never developed into anything, and it went away. I wouldn’t call those sixty kilometers effortless, but they certainly were not difficult. I simply powered up the mountains, raced down the other side, and enjoyed myself immensely.

Food and water wasn’t a problem either. I got a bag of baked goods quite early on. Then I came across a nice eatery with lots of character before the long climb to Lemon. The food was basic and there were no vegetable at all, but it was food. The eating area itself was huge with a very high ceiling – a very interesting place. An older woman ran the place with a teenage girl, who was mentally challenged. The teenager was very quick on her feet, though, and she took an eager interest in serving customers. She could only communicate with one sound – a kind of anxious groan – and she used it all the time.

My main meal of the day came in the town of Kananga in the flat area beyond the mountains and on the way to Ormoc. I saw a wonderfully clean and spacious eatery with lots of good food, and I ordered a full meal of lots of dishes. There was even a pitcher of delicious ice water on the table. It was great. Beyond Kananga, it was a straight shot of 23 kilometers to Ormoc.

The scenery on the far side (the western side) of the mountains was wonderful. A long and bright green grassy slope swept down from the mountains and offered wonderful uninterrupted views of the entire area. There were small towns dotted around this slope, and I was eager to speed off in that direction to explore them. Maybe another time. Here and there, I spotted large clouds of pure white smoke rising up from folds in the earth. I was puzzled by them for a long time, and I tried to imagine what kind of fire could produce such large and such white clouds of smoke. They seemed unnatural. During lunch in Kananga, I spotted a man wearing a T-shirt that said something about geothermal energy. I puzzled that over in my mind for a while, too. Then my sluggish brain finally made the connection, and I realized that all those clouds of white smoke were in fact the result of large geothermal steam vents in the earth. That realization made me doubly interested in exploring the area, but I simply didn’t have the time. Besides which, the climb by bicycle up there would have been very tough. It would be a great area to explore by motorcycle.

People were extremely friendly as I rode up and the down this mountain range. I had started early, and I was out there with the crowds of children heading to school in their uniforms. The cries of “Hey, Joe!” never stopped. I passed through one village which had developed a cottage industry manufacturing chairs and other furniture out of strips of bamboo and things like that. I spoke to one man hard at work at the side of the road and asked him how long it took to make one of the elaborate chairs he had on display. He said that it took him two days to make one chair, and he charged one five for them – one thousand, five hundred pesos.

If there was a negative side to this day of cycling, it was, as always, the traffic and the honking of horns. Being the main road between Tacloban and Ormoc, it was quite busy and the roar of badly tuned and poorly muffled engines never stopped. The drivers, as always, were in a tremendous rush to get to where they were going and cared little for anyone else on the road. The endless honking of the horn appeared a reasonable substitute for every other aspect of driving – like going at a reasonable speed, watching the road ahead, signaling, braking, and being patient. All of this could be rendered unnecessary in their minds by simply laying on the horn. That horrific noise cancelled out all driving sins. Once or twice, my life flashed before my eyes. This usually involved buses that cut far too close on blind corners. I swear I felt bits of bus whip through my hair and brush the sleeve of my shirt. I reflected at these times on how stupid it was to be out there cycling on the road and what a trusting exercise it was. The odds were certainly against my safety. Being the slowest thing on the road (barring caribao and the occasional pedicab), every single vehicle on that road passed me at high speed. Every one. And my life and health depended on every single driver paying attention and judging the distance between us correctly. Only one driver out of those thousands had to be a bad driver for my life to end badly. Those are not good odds. I am going to replace the flashing tail light on my bike as soon as possible. Even a flag would not go amiss. Perhaps I will be a jerk and put a large “Please DON’T honk” message or emblem on the flag.

I did not see very much of Ormoc when I arrived. It looked to be a plain and uninteresting town. I certainly didn’t see much of interest. As I rode along, I kept my eyes open for the various businesses I might end up needing – hotels, water refilling stations, Internet cafes, and carenderias. I saw few of those, but I did see a large number of NGO vehicles. I hadn’t really given it much thought, but it occurred to me then that, just like in Tacloban, all the hotels might be fully booked by NGO staff. I did not relish the idea of cycling around Ormoc from hotel to hotel and being told that there were no rooms available. When I speak to people about my travels, I often casually dismiss concerns about places to stay. I say that I have my tent and I can just sleep in my tent. And that’s true to an extent, but a tent is a difficult thing to erect in the middle of bustling town in the Philippines. It’s more of a countryside option.

With these thoughts in my mind, I kept pedaling and made a beeline for the harbor. I had no idea where it was, but I just headed for the water and by pure luck found myself right at the ferry terminal within minutes. Riding in and getting a ticket for a ferry to Cebu was as simple a process as could be imagined. Everyone around me had the ferry schedule practically memorized, and I was told that there was a SuperCat fastferry leaving at 1:45. I had arrived at about 12:30, so that was perfect. My preference would normally be to take a slower boat – one of the big ferries – but I did not have the luxury of time. I needed to get to Cebu to extend my visa, and I wanted to arrive with at least some daylight. I did not know anything about Cebu, but it was a good guess that it would be an intimidating place for a lone cyclist to face in the dark after a long day of cycling.

I was delighted when my bicycle did not freak people out. In fact, I got the impression that they saw fully loaded touring bikes all the time. They didn’t bat an eye and just waved me right inside, bike and all. I parked my bike against a wall, filled out a passenger form and then got in line. The friendly clerk told me about the slow boat and the fast boat. The slow boat left much later and took many hours longer and did not, in fact, cost much less. The SuperCat Fastferry left at 1:45, got to Cebu in two and a half hours and cost 750 pesos ($17). I was surprised and somewhat pleased to see that I was given an assigned seat. I don’t need an assigned seat, but having that system in place meant that there would be far less panic and confusion when it came to boarding. At that time, I didn’t realize that the assigned seating was necessary. This SuperCat was not so much a ferry as a jet that travelled on water. The cabin looked very much like the cabin of a jet, and the seats were the same with numbers and letters assigned to them – window seat, middle seat, aisle seat, etc. There was an exact number of seats and they sold tickets for only those seats. Once full, that was it. The ferry was full when we left, and I realized how lucky I was to get there on time to get a seat. It could easily have been sold out.

The second part of my boarding process was not so pleasant. This was the check-in process at which I had to pay 336 pesos for my bicycle. I get the logic, but it seems unfair. Lots of people had an amount of luggage that surpassed my bicycle in bulk and weight. But they didn’t have to pay extra. And my payment of 336 pesos didn’t really come with much in the way of bike-loading and safe bike-storing of my precious bicycle. I was reassured – as always seems to happen – that everything was fine. All I had to do was roll my bicycle out to the ferry when boarding started and staff would help me and show me where to put the bicycle. The rolling of my bicycle went fine, but then I was totally ignored by everyone. The SuperCat did not look bike friendly at all. There was no question of rolling my bike down a ramp into a vast vehicle area. There was no vehicle area. This was a craft designed to carry passengers and carry-on luggage and little more. I had to approach a lot of different people to get information. Most just ignored me. They weren’t being unfriendly. They simply assumed that I knew the procedures. But I didn’t. In the end, things worked out, as they always do. I had to take all the bags off the bicycle and then roll the bike down a rickety and moving gangplank at the back of the ferry. There was a tiny space there, and a man grabbed my bicycle and started jamming into a tight space – the bottom of the wheels jammed into a tight crack and then the whole bike leaning over. It was a recipe for a disaster and I had to jump in and try to improve things. There wasn’t much I could do, and I was a bit flustered. I had no idea what was going on, and I was burdened with four pannier bags, a tent, and a sleeping bag. The bike was eventually settled into a spot that seemed somewhat safe. I wasn’t pleased with it, but the men were urging me along. I discovered that the ferry was waiting for me to get inside and seated. The moment I got to my seat, the ferry was pushing off from the dock.

I worried about my bicycle the entire trip, and I had good reason to be worried. Being an idiot, it hadn’t occurred to me that we were going out to sea – and probably rough seas – and during the typhoon, I had realized what kind of damage salt water can do to a bicycle. I had asked the men on the ferry about whether that part of the ferry got wet. They assured me that they would cover the bicycle, but I didn’t have the time or the luxury of witnessing any of this “covering” of the bike. So I sat in my seat imagining my bicycle out there, the wheels warping, and salt water seeping into all the bearings once more. I had good reason to worry about this because the ocean was far rougher than I (or anyone else apparently) imagined. It was so rough and this SuperCat moved so quickly that I wasn’t the only one thinking that we were going to capsize and go down. From the number of screams in the cabin, most people were thinking that. We got tossed from side to side hard and made sharp turns like an Indy 500 race car. I had no idea any kind of ocean craft could turn that sharply. The ocean swells were high, and a corner of the craft would cut into the water and go straight down while the rest slewed around behind it. Water wasn’t so much spraying against the windows as soaking it. A casual glance might trick you into thinking that you were inside a submarine. Motion sickness bags were handed out to lots of people and ferry personnel were going around comforting and reassuring quite a number of hysterical women. As I said, it was a rough crossing, and I kept thinking about my unsecured bike out there crashing and banging and getting soaked in seawater. I cursed myself again for not being more assertive. I am far too trusting when it comes to my bicycle and transportation. I should have taken charge and insisted on bringing the bike inside the main cabin. I doubt they would have let me, but I should have tried. It just never occurred to me how rough the ocean would be and how much water would pour over the craft. I always underestimate how difficult these trips can be. Going out into the ocean, no matter what you are aboard, is no joke. I always forget that.

As I said, the craft was full and it was much like a jet aircraft. Some people even went up and down the aisles with a snacks and drinks tray. This was before we hit the open ocean, and I got a cup of coffee. I would have probably purchased more drinks, but they never came back after that. The ride was so rough that I never once got out of my seat to even explore the rest of the boat – not that there was much to explore. There was even onboard entertainment in the form of a movie – The Green Lantern – on a big TV screen. Not surprisingly, the volume on the speakers was so low that no one could hear anything. Karaoke, engines, and horns – all things I don’t want to hear – are so loud as to be deafening. But when a movie comes on and I WANT to hear it, they don’t turn up the volume. And, no, it wasn’t because the local people would just read the subtitles. There were no subtitles in any language.

The journey eventually came to an end, and I found myself chugging into Cebu harbor. I really wished I was up on deck in an open ferry. There was so much to see – huge ships everywhere, big bridges, high mountains, bright lights. The size and number of the ships brought home the fact that I was arriving in a major city – a place that dwarfs anything I’d experienced since Taipei. And the more I saw, the more I realized that compared to Cebu, Taipei was Disneyland. Cebu was the real deal – a big and aggressive and intimidating urban sprawl. I was very glad that Chris – an American man who had lived in Cebu for years – was waiting for me on the docks. I’m sure that I would have had no problem finding a hotel on my own. It’s not like I haven’t arrived on my own in a city like Cebu before, but it removed a lot of the stress to have some help. I hadn’t even bothered to get out my maps of Cebu and do any research. Chris had promised to show me some suitable places to stay – ie, places in my budget and in an interesting part of town – and from all our emails and text messages, he seemed like a great guy and a reliable guy.

Once we’d docked, I was pleased to see that my bike was pretty dry. And other than the rear derailleur being all out of whack (somebody always twists the gear shifter when they grab the handlebars), it seemed to have survived the journey. It was a bit of an effort to carry the bike off the ferry and then reattach all my bags, but I was eventually trundling through the ferry building and heading for the exit. It was all as simple as could be. There were no stairs to negotiate or formalities or hassles. Just a simple stroll and I was outside and shaking hands with Chris.

Chris had prepared a printed list of lots of hotels in Cebu and had even brought me a tourist map of the city. He was clearly a man after my own heart. We chatted for a while, and then since it was rapidly getting dark, we set off on foot towards the downtown area. It wasn’t easy pushing my bike through the crowded streets in all the road and foot traffic, but it wasn’t that hard either. I chatted with Chris and just ignored the chaos around me. I had to walk out in the middle of the street a lot, since there was no possibility of going down the sidewalk, but things worked out. Chris pointed out a few items of interest, such as the St. Nino church, an old Spanish fort, and Colon Street – the oldest street in the Philippines. He also gave me some helpful hints to get oriented. As I said, a man after my own heart.

Chris showed me three hotels in quick succession. It was nice to be able to leave my bicycle and all its bags with Chris while I went in to look at the rooms. Normally, that is a complicated process – securing my bicycle while I dash inside. But with a second person, it was much easier. I eventually settled on the cheapest option – this Hallmark hotel with its elevator – and Chris helped me bring my bike and all my bags up to the room. We then went out into the city to grab a meal at a local eatery and took a stroll through the nearby Carbon market. Being in such a bustling city was quite the change after my months in the much smaller and darker Tacloban. I was a bit like a kid in a candy store. I’d spent nearly three months in Tacloban yearning for a simple bottle of mosquito repellant. Now there were display cases packed with the stuff all round. I had spent weeks and months yearning for any kind of a bicycle shop. Now I saw three big ones in just a two-block area. It went on and on. There were consumer goods and services anywhere. With one trip, I had gone from a world of shortages to one where everything was available. It was a bit overwhelming.

I was left with the happy impression that there was a LOT of interest in Cebu City. Probably too much. I keep telling myself that I’m on this trip to travel. But I’m not doing much actual traveling. I could see spending months in Cebu exploring and experiencing what it has to offer.

Well, time is passing here in my room. I have much more I could say, but I have to get organized for my trip out to the immigration office. I don’t want to miss my window of opportunity today.

 

 

 

 

Tags: bike, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Tacloban