Wednesday September 24, 2014
6:50 a.m. Cebu City

I have to admit I was feeling a bit negative yesterday. It was the combination of three broken spokes, riding into Cebu, and then getting the exit visa from immigration. None of that was much fun, and it was all stuff I could have avoided if I’d planned ahead. Oh, well. Nothing I can do about it now.

I would have been at 7-11 having my morning coffee right now, but I called an audible (as Adam Carolla would say). I walked up to the window and I saw the crazy foreign guy sitting at a table, and I saw the rude and very slow clerk behind the cash register. I didn’t want to face either of them – especially when it is only to have an expensive cup of coffee in poor seating. And you never know if the air conditioning will be on or not. And the only seat with a backrest (the air conditioner tower) is beside the window and you get bothered by beggars all the time. So I crossed the street to 7-11, but then I turned left and walked right past it and went to the McDonald’s on the corner. Pretty sad that if I want a cup of coffee – of any quality – the only options are McDonald’s and 7-11. There is nowhere else (at this time of the morning anyway).

I wrote about my trip to immigration a little bit already. I think if I’d waited until this morning, I’d have gone on at some length. Riding there on my bicycle was a trying experience. Traffic was extremely bad, and, as I’ve mentioned many times, Cebu is a very ugly and industrial city. My entire route was through an industrial wasteland that was in the heart of the city, and traffic was constantly brought to a halt by large trucks trying to get in or out of industrial sites. Anyway, I hardly need to go on about that.

The new offices of the immigration office are in the J Center Mall. When they first moved there, I thought it was so that they could make renovations to their old place. That made sense to me. But this move appears to be permanent, and that makes no sense. I don’t see how it is an improvement in any sense, particularly since it is so difficult to locate. It’s a needle in a haystack, and the many, many security guards now have a full time job simply shepherding bewildered foreigners to the office. I’d already been there once, and I had no idea where it was.

Parking my bicycle was a problem. The only spot available was inside a motorcycle parking area, but even to reckless me, it just didn’t look safe. There were some bicycles already there – old rusty things attached to a metal railing with chains. They looked like abandoned bikes. One bike was missing a front wheel – stolen, of course. I locked my bike there because it was the only spot available. But then I had the rare good sense to mention my concerns to a security guard. He told me that there was a bicycle area inside the underground parking garage. He showed me exactly where it was and then he smiled happily at me as I walked my bike into this area. But then other security guards got involved, and it got more complicated. I wasn’t allowed to go in this way. I would have to ride my bike around the mall on the outside and go through the official parking garage entrance. I didn’t argue with them, though it made little sense. I was only going to end up right where I was, and I was already there, but rules are rules in the Philippines. I could have argued that to get to immigration, I’d have to walk past the main entrance, and I could get a ticket from them. But that would have been confusing for everyone.

I was extremely worried as I went into immigration. I didn’t know what could go wrong, but I was sure it was something. My main worry was that the exit visa would turn out to have a one-week turnaround or something. But that didn’t seem to be the case, and I began to breathe easier. I tried to use three smaller photographs, but the woman controlling the flow of documents frowned at them and compared them to the official two by two squares on the forms. She told me that the officials wouldn’t accept those photographs. She was relieved that I calmly went into my passport neckpouch and produced three larger two by two pictures. She commended me on being so prepared. I’m sure she was used to foreigners freaking out over details like this. Why, for example, would they need three photographs for an exit visa? Indeed, a foreigner came in later for the same exit visa, and he happily produced a single photograph. He seemed to be pleased with himself that he’d thought ahead and brought a photograph. He was not so happy when he was told that he needed two more. He was even less happy when he learned that the only place to get these photographs was inside the shopping mall, and unlike the immigration office, it didn’t open until ten a.m.

That’s another big problem with this new location. The old location was inside its own small building – like a house – in a normal neighborhood. This allowed an industry of small businesses to spring up around it – little wooden shacks with photocopiers, places that took ID photographs, other shacks that sold pens and paper clips and glue and notebooks, and shacks selling drinks and snacks for those waiting. Taxi drivers would also wait there to pick up passengers. The new location inside the shopping mall was completely isolated from the outside world and this informal economy couldn’t grow up around it. All the people whose businesses depended on the immigration office were now out of work.

I have to commend the immigration office for one piece of excellent organizing. Every person going there had to first go to a large and open desk and speak to a woman there. It was this woman’s job to find out what you were there to do, give you the right form, and then tell you what you needed to do. You were expected to fill out the form, prepare all the documents, and then return to this desk for the woman to review it. She had to inspect the documents, staple them together properly, and approve them with a stamp before you were allowed to take the documents to the official windows to hand them in. This was a brilliant system – far superior to the usual non-system in which customers go up to the windows and then are waved away impatiently by the people behind them when their forms are incomplete.

Despite how well things went, I was still taken by surprise when I was called over to a table at the side of the room and then fingerprinted. I did not know that this was part of the exit visa process. I didn’t really care one way or the other, but it’s a weird thing to be fingerprinted and it would be nice to know about it in advance. With all the movies and TV shows we watch, we are programmed to be suspicious whenever anyone in government tries to fingerprint you. The guy who did me did it so poorly that it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. The good folks at CSI would surely send him back to the academy for more training. But no one at immigration really thought that these fingerprints served any useful purpose or would be used in court to identify me someday. There were empty squares on the form for fingerprints, and those empty squares had to be filled up. Rules were rules. Just follow them. How well you did it was not important.

I was a bit resentful of the exit visa requirement and the fee of 500 pesos. It cost me a lot of time in addition to the money. And they added insult to injury by having some guys from an armored truck security company come and count the money and take it away while I was waiting. I was amused to note that this was done behind the glass windows of the cashier in full view of everyone who happened to look over. A guy sat there with a money-counting machine and went through huge stacks of 500- and 1,000-peso notes. This office clearly took in a lot of money in fees from foreigners. And that, of course, was the entire point of the office. It was a source of revenue for the government (corrupt government officials as locals would surely tell me), and they happily spend their days inventing new fees that have to be paid. I wrote about slogans the other day, and it was amusing to note that the immigration office had their own version of this – a very large poster on the wall with a long list of slogans and acronyms and mottoes with fancy words like integrity, professionalism and pride. Right beside this poster was an even larger poster detailing in excruciating detail all the fees you have to pay at every stage of your dealings with the immigration office. Of the two posters, the list of fees clearly got closer to the real function of this office – to bring in as much money as possible.

However, a happy ending is a happy ending, and I walked out of there with my official piece of paper and then I even got my ARC card. I’d been forced to pay for the darn thing, so it was nice to finally have one in my possession.

I faced even worse traffic on my way back and I got back to my hotel a little worse for wear after a sixteen-kilometer round trip through near gridlock. After a shower and a look in the mirror, I realized I needed a haircut, and I returned to a place I’d used before. The same guy cut my hair and he asked me the exact same questions, including how much I enjoyed “boom boom” time after a party. I told him again that I was a quiet guy and didn’t really live a “boom boom” time sort of life. He gave me a nice haircut, though, and it cost less then a dollar. That’s another example of how prices in the Philippines are all out of whack. This was a relatively fancy salon, and it was weird to think that a full haircut was so cheap. It even came with a short but very good neck and shoulder massage at the end. Then you often come across things in the Philippines that are horribly overpriced. And no one seems to notice the discrepancy.

I didn’t want to face it, but I also returned to an Internet café. It was hot and crowded and noisy. And I was very disappointed to note that the water bottle on their coffee vending machine was still empty. This was a rare machine in that it was in very good condition and it worked well. It is one of the reasons I returned to this Internet café. However, it can’t work if there is no water. And how hard is it to replace the water bottle? It takes thirty seconds. I had gotten the last dribble of water out of that bottle on the previous day. And this was after having to convince the guy to plug in the coffee machine and then wait for the water to heat up. I’d hoped the water bottle would have been replaced, but it still sat there empty yesterday afternoon. I spoke to the guy at the desk about this, but he was not interested in my opinion. I wanted to give him my full dissertation that this empty water bottle was a symbol of everything that was wrong with modern society and the economy in the Philippines.

Things never did improve after that. Two very annoying little boys were plopped down onto the seat at the computer next to mine, and they proceeded to play computer games, scream and scream and scream and bump into my arm as I tried to type. I couldn’t take it anymore and I finally intervened and asked them to be quiet. I asked them several times, but it made no difference to their behavior. They just ignored me. Being ignored was the worst part, so I forced one of them to acknowledge me by covering his eyes. I held my hand in front of his face so he couldn’t see the computer screen. He kept trying to look past my hand, but I moved it to block his view. He eventually lost the game and looked so sad it was comical. But they continued to make too much noise. My next step was to just unplug their keyboard, but it never came to that. Their father came back and took them away. I wonder how long the little boy will remember the time when a foreigner covered his eyes and made him lose a computer game.

I went to a hardware store in search of plastic to wrap up my bike according to the Air Asia policy. I’m nervous about that. I’m tempted to break down and get a bicycle box and spend today dismantling the bike and boxing it up. But I’m going to stick to my guns and see what happens. My plan is to ride my bike to the airport and deal with it there. I have two cheap bags for my pannier bags, tent, and sleeping bag. And I now have a bunch of garbage bags for wrapping up the bike. The garbage bags won’t do anything appreciable in terms of function, but they will fulfill the terms of the Air Asia policy that the bike must be wrapped in plastic. As I said before, there is nothing in their policy about having to remove the wheels. So I’m going to take them at their word – remove the pedals, turn the handlebars sideways, let the air out of the tires, and cover the bike in plastic and leave it at that. It could work. It could be a disaster.

This is another aspect of life that drives me crazy. I was in communication with a cyclist in Kuala Lumpur through the Warm Showers website. He said that it was no problem to box up the bike, and I should do that. That’s what everyone says. However, boxing up my bike is a huge challenge and it just doesn’t work. It takes many hours to do it, and even then it just won’t fit in the box. It won’t fit. Why does no one else ever seem to have this problem – or any of the other problems I always have? Hopefully, the ability to ride my bike to and from the airport will make up for whatever challenges I face in terms of getting it ready for the airline. I’ve done it twice before, and despite some trouble, it worked out. That was when I flew to Cambodia and once within Cambodia with an unboxed bike. So modern jets can handle the length of my bicycle with the wheels still attached. It’s just a question of whether they want to.

I got an email from a guest house in Kuala Lumpur asking to confirm my reservation. I’d actually booked a room through their online reservation system. I don’t think I’ve ever made a reservation before. There was no payment required, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’d looked into rooms at a bunch of places and found that they were all fully booked and occupied already. So that got me nervous.

While looking into this, I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in tone between the Philippines and Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, for example, seems to be full of these backpacker hostels/hotels and they look very nice. I looked at at least a dozen online, and I’ve never seen even one such place anywhere in the Philippines.

I was pleased to get the confirmation email back. It was personal and friendly. I then looked up reviews of this place, and it got very good reviews with some negative feedback about how small and hot the fan rooms can be. I also decided to reserve a room because I was unpleasantly surprised at how expensive Kuala Lumpur seemed to be. No $5/night rooms there, to put it mildly.

5:00 p.m.

No big stories to tell, but the countdown to tomorrow’s flight continues. This marriage of bicycle and airplane is as stressful as ever. I’ve gone over Air Asia’s policy many times to convince myself that I can just ride my bike to the airport and not have to put the bicycle in a box. Logic is on my side, as the policy clearly states that I have to remove the pedals, turn the handlebars, let the air out of the tires, and cover the bike in plastic (though technically it says shrink wrap). That’s all it says. I panicked at the last minute, and I did go to a bicycle shop where one clerk is friendly, and she went so far as to get me a bicycle box. They kept them in their warehouse, and, luckily, they had a shipment being delivered this afternoon, so she had them toss a bicycle box onto the truck. I just returned from picking it up. It is a bit on the small side unfortunately. My tires when inflated are taller than the box itself. I could take the tires off the rims and squash them down and they would fit vertically, but from past experience I know that it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to fit the bike frame, the rims, the pannier racks, and the tires in. Despite my doubts, I nearly attempted it. But I steeled my nerve, and I’m going to just ride my bike to the airport. I’m due for a bit of luck, I think.

It’s fitting that my last encounter with a bicycle shop here was so weird. I can’t really say anything against this one clerk. She was quite friendly and chatty and she went the extra mile to get me a bicycle box and didn’t charge me anything. However, she constantly had to answer the phone and I felt a bit rejected. Plus I had brought along my Lonely Planet guidebook to the Philippines and my maps to the Philippines to give to her as a gift for helping me out. I assumed she would appreciate them. She seemed the type of person who would. But she wouldn’t even take them from my hand. She looked at the book and the maps and kind of curled her lip and said she didn’t want them and waved them off. I suppose I’m absurdly sensitive, but it really hurt my feelings. I thought it was a very nice gesture on my part, but she rejected my gift like it was garbage. She’s a nice enough person, but I had a strong negative response going on in my brain as I left the bicycle shop. (It didn’t help that, like most shops in the Philippines, it was extremely badly designed and laid out and so crowded that you could hardly move and other customers kept pushing roughly past me.) I guess I’ll just leave the book in this wretched hotel room. I’m sure the hotel dudes will find a good home for it. They’ll find a way to turn it into money in some fashion. It’s interesting that this human encounter only serves to increase my instinct to avoid all human encounters. I can’t even give someone a free book without being rejected.

Some other bad news. I went to the same Internet café to check my email one last time. There was a follow-up email from the guest house in Kuala Lumpur. I had asked about keeping a bicycle there, and they said it would be fine. I’d also asked about getting a bicycle from the airport to downtown KL. The owner of this guest house said that it should be no problem at all to put it on the trains. I checked online and these airport trains have a definite policy that 100% prohibits bicycles. So this dude, like 99.99999999% of the people in the world had no idea what he was talking about. I did some other research, and I did find some cyclists talking about having success in putting bicycles on airport buses either in a box or not in a box. It just depends on how crowded the bus is. We’ll see. Right now, my reservation at the guest house is for the 26th, not the 25th when my flight lands. It sounds like I could, with effort, find a bus to take me and my bike and gear into downtown KL at night. But I’m not sure I want to face that. Better, perhaps, to stay the night in the airport. Even better would be to arrive with a small daypack and be picked up by a hotel shuttle bus and whisked to a pleasant room from which I could explore the city. If you took all the money I’ve spent on this friggin’ bicycle, I could stay in nice hotels and have a very pleasant experience rather than the brutal one that cycling always seems to entail. I’ve always been a bit of a tender soul, but I appear to be getting even softer.

And while at the Internet café, I noticed that my blog had exploded again. I have no idea what happened, but the menu system self-destructed and all the photographs used as thumbnails for each post had vanished. I tried to figure out what the problem could be, but it was hopeless. So frustrating.

Tags: bike, Exit visa, Philippines Bike Trip 2013