March 11, 2008

I spent a second day in Puerto Princesa simply looking around and doing a bit of shopping. I didn’t feel quite ready to jump on the bicycle and start pedaling. I can’t say that I had any particular adventures other than shopping for a couple of T-shirts and some toiletries. I was amused at the general store where I bought the toiletries to see that the front window had a series of hand-made signs that put the Bonito brothers to shame. I took a picture of them and can post them later, but the basic gist of them all was to scare and shame shoplifters. They threatened to put your photograph up on their wall of shoplifting shame, and then all your friends and all your family forever will know that you are a thief. I was so distracted in that store, that I actually walked out without my purchases. Unlike the evil shoplifters, I had paid for my purchases. I just forgot to bring my purchases with me. The clerk from the store ran outside after me to give them to me.

The T-shirts were a bigger problem. I went to a number of stores that looked like they’d have larger sizes. Unfortunately, they were all expensive shirts. I finally went into another warehouse kind of place and found two aisles absolutely piled to the ceiling with cheap t-shirts. They weren’t going to win prizes for design or style, but they were cheap and they looked durable enough. The problem was finding any extra-large sizes. A woman helped me out and we had to do a lot of digging. Out of dozens of attempts we managed to find 2 t-shirts that sort of fit me, and I bought them. One is blue, and the other is green. They both look like a little boy should be wearing them. Now that I think about it, I realize I’ve been wearing them for two days, but until this second it hadn’t occurred to me to read what they say on the front. I’ll look right now.

My blue one, which I’m wearing, says: 86 NVJS Collection Classic Sports 1986.

Well, it could have been worse.

For lunch, I was counting on going back to the place with the two Americans and the fantastic burgers. I was keenly disappointed to find that they were closed. I went instead to a pizza place that I think was called Shakeys. I’m not sure if pizzas qualify for “bland bland bland,” but in Cambodia they seemed to make my stomach happy when nothing else would or could.

The pizza and the whole pizza experience weren’t very special. I could have been eating anywhere in the world. I didn’t mind though. I was just looking for simple food, and I found the pizza to be quite tasty. I also ordered a bottomless glass of Coke, and that was a godsend. Whether you cycle for twenty minutes or six hours, the result is always a raging thirst and I drank glass after glass of that Coke.

That afternoon and evening I spent packing and working on the bicycle. This poor GT just isn’t the sort of bike you want to bring on trips like this. Don’t ask me why I brought it on a second one. I almost bought a new mountain bike in Taipei for this trip, and that likely would have been wise.

The problem that afternoon was the front derailleur. I had had endless trouble with the rear derailleur (still ongoing), but I also had trouble with the front derailleur. It simply wouldn’t pop the chain onto the appropriate ring smoothly. And then the chain would rub against it making a horrible sound. It is supposed to be a simple adjustment, but once more it wasn’t simple for me. I tried all the normal ways of adjusting it, but nothing worked. Then I decided to just start from scratch – undo the bolt holding the cable in place, pull it in as tight as I could and position it, and then start the small adjustments from there. A good hour and a half later, I was finished. I have no idea why it was so difficult. I also adjusted the brakes to get them nice and tight. Then I started loading up the pannier bags to begin cycling.

 

 

I went to bed as early as I could and slept as well as I could. Then before the sun was even at the horizon, I was up and showering and puttering around with my gear. The one job I had left to the morning was to purify some water. I had an Ortlieb water bag (which, in keeping with other Ortlieb products, does not suit me – the darn thing leaked inside my pannier bag and soaked all of my clothes!) and I filled it with water from the tap and then added some purifying chemicals. I purchased some special purifying chemicals that are supposed to be pretty good and I felt confident that I could drink the tap water once I purified it. It would probably be safer to buy bottled water, but I knew that would be impossible and expensive. When you’re cycling, you go through so much water that you simply can’t buy it fast enough. I didn’t know what the water situation would be like outside Puerto Princesa, but people live all over the island and they must get water from somewhere. I figured I could get it from there, too. Getting water and purifying it is just one of the daily chores of a cyclist. You eventually work it into your routine. I found in Ethiopia that the water bag is ideal for this – at least if you have a non-Ortlieb bag that doesn’t leak. It folds up to nothing, weighs little, and yet can hold as much water as you can possibly carry. Besides that, it is somewhat shapeless, so when it is full of water, it can go inside a pannier bag quite easily. Stiff water bottles and jugs can’t do that. Plus, they can double as showers.

I had also prepared my bicycle box, which I was going to store at the hotel. I’d checked this out with them five or six times, because I wanted to make sure that we were on the same page. I threw some ropes and cords into the box along with a couple of other things I’d decided I didn’t need. I took this box to the front desk, and they found a spot for it in a back room where they did laundry. Then they prepared my bill and I paid that after a quick check of my e-mail to see if I got any life-altering communications from anyone. I didn’t, and it looked like the great Palawan cycling adventure was going to get underway.

My bags were already attached to the bike, and I wheeled it to the front and lifted it through the doors to the outside. I had taken a series of showers through all these events, hoping to begin the ride fresh and non-sweaty. However, it was so hot and muggy in my room that even the smallest task left me drenched in sweat. I had turned down the air-con option, but if I return there, I will get air-conditioning. The problem was that there was no way to open the windows and air out the room. It did cool down at night, and if the room was more open, it might have been comfortable. However, the screens were torn to pieces and there were armies of mosquitoes waiting outside, so I couldn’t open the windows. It stayed hot and muggy all night and all day.

The first part of my journey went quite smoothly. It was easy to find my way out of town as the intersections were clearly marked with arrows showing you where to go. It was hot, and there was a lot of traffic, but the cycling was easy and gentle.

I didn’t have a clear plan for the day. In fact, I still hadn’t decided if I was going to cycle to Sabang or to skip Sabang and start heading directly to El Nido. The problem with going to Sabang was that I’d then have to backtrack for 40 kilometers to get back to the main road. I’d almost be back at Puerto Princesa! Cyclists don’t like backtracking as a rule.

There were a lot of small surprises on my way. For one thing, I was surprised at how easy it was to find my way. I had gotten accustomed to the “system” in Taiwan where you end up never knowing where you are. Intersections and towns and roads just aren’t marked in any way that makes sense to the foreign non-Chinese reading eye. But on Palawan it was a different story. Whenever I felt that a road sign would help me out, a road sign would appear! They appeared in logical places and they gave me the information I needed. I just wasn’t used to that. There was also a smattering of a tourism infrastructure. This was also a surprise and quite a change from Taiwan, where there is little to help the visitor. There were little spots called “Viewdecks”, where you could pull over, get a cold drink, and as the name implies, get a nice view of something. To my astonishment and great pleasure, these Viewdecks even had public bathrooms. They weren’t the cleanest on earth or the easiest to use, but they were more than adequate and far more than I was expecting.

The second great surprise was how much care the Filipinos put into their property. I passed through the prettiest little towns. They made their houses as attractive and neat as they could with lots of flowers and cultivated hedges and plants. They swept all of the time and kept things neat and tidy. It was a real pleasure to see. Not to keep dissing Taiwan all the time, but the biggest surprise for me about Taiwan in general has been how awful the houses and buildings are. People don’t seem to care in the slightest about how they live. They turn their balconies into garbage dumps. I went on a few scooter rides through the mountains recently, and found that it was no different out there. I assume that the Taiwanese have a lot more money than the Filipinos, but looking around Taiwan you’d assume the people were much, much poorer. Why else would you choose to live in something that looks like a slum? I even saw the difference in the schools. I’ve only been to a couple in Taiwan, but the most recent school I went to had the most disgusting bathrooms. They smelled and nothing worked. They looked like the worst of the bathrooms that you’d find in a bus station somewhere. But the schools that I saw here were neatly tended. They were clean and had flowers and nice fences. People obviously cared about how the buildings looked and spent time on them if not money. I sat outside one school for about twenty minutes or so munching on some bread and resting. From inside the school, I heard entire classrooms replying in chorus to the teacher’s questions. They were so eager to answer and take part, that their voices carried out the windows and over the whole town. The bell rang for lunch and the students all rushed out to play games and run around. They were dressed in neat uniforms and seemed the happiest creatures on earth.

Another surprise was how many places there were to stop and have something to eat or something to drink. Many of these places were even on my basic map. In addition to the Viewdecks, I passed the Hot Springs Hotels and something called the Vietnamese Village. I’d cycled right past the Vietnamese Village, but then a sign caught my eye. It was advertising fresh Vietnamese bread! I turned around and rode my bike into the compound.

Most places so far have huge and detailed signs telling you exactly what you’re looking at. There almost seems to be an obsession with these signs. I suspect it’s related to politics, because many of these signs would then tell you which politician to thank for whatever you were looking at. Each Viewdeck was accredited to this or that mayor from this or that town. Every bridge and road upgrade was brought to you courtesy of this or that politician. I guess to get elected, they have to plaster their names on every public work. This Vietnamese Village had a similar sign and it explained that the village had been created as a home for refugees from Vietnam back in the boat people days. It was now a fully-functioning Vietnamese village, and they also had a very well-known restaurant serving wonderful Vietnamese food. (I read this on their brochures.)

The Philippines, I’m learning, has a great advantage in the tourism department in that there is so much English here dating from their days as an American colony. They think of English as not a foreign language, but as one of their own. They also seem to have a natural instinct to care for things and improve them. The care that I see them take with their homes probably comes from the same instinct that makes them organize things well. Even the jeepneys can be seen as a result of this basic attention to detail. Where else do you see vehicles like that that have been painted and cared for? Each one is practically a work of art, and I don’t think it helps them get customers. People pile into the jeepney that stops for them, not the one with the best paint job. People simply decorate their jeepneys because they take pride in them and want them to look good.

At the Vietnamese Village, I rolled my bicycle up to the restaurant and went inside. This was in the middle of the morning, and there wasn’t anyone at any of the tables. Nevertheless, a woman saw me come in and she immediately grabbed a menu and started to show me to a table. I told the woman that I just wanted some bread that I could take with me. I was imagining delicious buns or croissants like I had in Vietnam. You could get them plain or with different types of fillings. I didn’t know how long I would carry them in the hot sun, so I just went for plain ones. I asked for five at ten pesos each, and the woman encouraged me to get ten instead. I can rarely resist a sales pitch, and I got ten. They ended up being quite large and I knew I didn’t need all ten, but the deed was done and I piled them into a pannier bag and kept cycling.

All was well and good so far, and despite the extreme heat and my concern about sunburn, I was enjoying the day. The cycling wasn’t easy, as I hadn’t had any exercise for the longest time, but it was doable. I passed through San Jose, Batis, Bacungan, and Santa Cruz, each time marveling that the name on my map was the same as the name on the sign and that it was where it was supposed to be. Everything actually made sense!

Then I got to Salvacion, and I had to decide whether I was going to Sabang or not. I was wondering what the intersection would be like and how bewildering it would be to find my way, but it was all good. There was a clear Y-intersection. A big sign told me that to the right was the main road going on to Roxas and El Nido. To the left, was an unpaved road heading to Sabang. I chose the unpaved road on the left.

I should have known by the reaction of the people what I was in for. In Puerto Princesa, I got a lot of smiles and pointing and giggling as I rode past on my bicycle. But once I left the main road at Salvacion, I got belly laughs, and lots of them. People would see me, point, and then laugh so hard that they fell over. I tried not to take it personally. I felt a bit silly myself as it was. I knew I wasn’t doing something that was very sensible. And perhaps one of the boys told a very funny joke and they were laughing sort of with me as opposed to laughing at me. Many of them did wait politely until I was past them before bursting into loud belly laughs. But it was the kind of thing that could get on your nerves after all.

Still, I had to admit that all the laughers had a point – anyone who rode a bike like mine on this road was, to put it kindly, one sandwich short of a picnic. The road was brutally bad – as bad as the worst roads in Ethiopia, and that’s saying something. Perhaps my mountain bike with its huge wheels could have handled the terrain. Perhaps. But even then I doubt it. These roads were so rocky and uneven that I could barely move forward. And on these roads, moving forward was the least of my concerns: I had to go practically straight up. The roads were cut into the mountains at extreme angles – so extreme that I was defeated before I’d even started. I hung in there for a little bit, but before long I was walking my bike up the hills. I simply couldn’t pedal. My wheels were so narrow that I just lurched from rock to rock slipping sideways and every other way. I just couldn’t get any purchase. And when I did, the rocks would simply slide out from under me. And the wheel would slam into the road over and over like a jackhammer sending shockwaves up my arms and through my spine.

Meanwhile, my Ortlieb bags and my piece of junk Topeak handlebar bag were jumping all over the place and slamming around like someone was bashing them with baseball bats. Later, when I went to use my digital camera, I found that the menu had switched to Japanese because of all the bumping around. Each time the wheel hit the ground I expected to hear a loud “ping” as the first spoke broke. I knew it was just a matter of time. It was clearly just a matter of time before everything broke. The American guys had said the road would chew up my bike and spit it out. I didn’t really believe them, but even if I did, I certainly didn’t think it would happen so close to Puerto Princesa! If this road, the one just outside the capital city, going to one of the island’s biggest tourist attractions – the underground river – was this bad, what would the roads to El Nido be like? I couldn’t imagine it.

Over and over, I had to get off my bike and push it up a steep grade. Eventually, I started walking it down as well. The road was so steep that when I rode the bike down, I had to have the brakes applied fully and then I was going so slow that I might as well have been walking. I was feeling quite silly, and I quickly realized that I wouldn’t have the strength or the time to get to Sabang in one day. I was tempted to try it, but my common sense prevailed and I decided to look for a place to stay before Sabang.

At one point, it started to rain quite heavily. I wasn’t expecting rain at all, and it was a big surprise. I rode in the rain for a while enjoying the cool water running down my face, but then it started to get heavier and heavier and I thought it would be wise to find some shelter till it passed. I pulled over and rode my bike a short distance over some grassy land and under some trees. Even there, though, the rain was getting through and I was getting wetter and wetter. Just then, a woman came out of the trees and she pointed to a little shack not far away and said, “Come. House.”

I followed her and she led me under the thatch awning that extended over a cooking area. She patted an area and invited me to sit there and wait out the rain. She didn’t speak English, so we sat there in comfortable silence and I had a chance to look around. A little girl about three or four was there also, and she was trying to clean a little stuffed animal she had. It looked something like a frog, but I couldn’t be sure. She had a bucket of water, a can, and some soap. She was squishing the creature into the can of soapy water and then squeezing the soap suds out again and again. The stuffed animal looked quite old, and I didn’t think she would ever get the dirt out, but she kept at it the whole time I was there.

I wanted to know if the woman lived in the shack, but of course I couldn’t communicate with her. I got the impression that she did live there. I could see inside the shack and it had a small sleeping area and some clothes and other odds and ends that made it look like it was where she lived. I had one of those moments of marveling at the range of existence on the planet. All the time that I’d been hanging out in Rooftop Paradise, going to work and writing sample sentences and worrying endlessly about vocabulary, she had been here in this shack with her daughter.

When the rain let up, I thanked her and went on my way. She walked down the steep road ahead of me and joined some other people and told them all about her strange experience with this foreigner. “On a bicycle!” I could almost hear her say. “You just wait and see for yourself.” Then I came bumping and crashing down the rocky road past them and they all burst into laughter.

 

At this point, I was getting close to a village called Buenavista. It seemed like a good place to stop. I still had enough time to get to Sabang. At least I think I did. It was hard to say how the road would be and exactly how far it was. But I certainly didn’t have the energy. I guess based on my other cycling trips, I thought I could just hop on the bike and go. But those trips were years ago, and the conditioning is long since gone. I’m just a desk jockey at the moment, and it’s unreasonable to expect to just jump on a loaded touring bike and ride 100 km your first day.

I thought Buenavista was a good place to stop, and I thought there was a good chance that there would be someplace to stay there. The town was right on the ocean, it wasn’t far from Sabang, and it had a name like Buenavista. It stood to reason there would be some kind of accommodation. I started asking people at the side of the road about this and they all said, “Yes.” I asked two boys drying rice in the sun, and they said there was a hotel in Buenavista. I asked an old man prodding along a carabao. He said there was a place to stay and just urged me up the road. I asked lots of people and they all said there was a hotel. Of course, when I got there, I found out that there wasn’t, so who knew what question they thought they were answering? I’ve been told that like so many people in the world, Filipinos hate to say no. So they’ll just say yes to anything. I could have asked if there were a thousand pink elephants in Buenavista, and they’d likely all have said yes.

I wasn’t terribly worried about the presence or lack of hotels. I knew that no matter what, I was staying in Buenavista. The closer I got to the place, the worse the roads became and the more tired my legs became. I didn’t have camping gear, but I did have a sheet and a mosquito net and if worse came to worst, I could just sleep in the bush somewhere. A night in the open wasn’t going to kill me, especially when there were definitely a lot of comfortable cottages waiting for me in Sabang.

Like most of the towns I’d seen, Buenavista struck me as a very pleasant and cared-for place. I took a few pictures of the green fields and dawdled as I went into the town. I saw a sign for a medical clinic and decided to go there. I probably could have used some medical attention by that point (I had severe heat rash over large parts of my body and it was driving me crazy), but all I really wanted were directions and I figured that someone there would speak English.

I parked my bike outside and walked up the steps to the front door. A friendly woman with a baby in her arms came out and spoke to me. Instantly, she said that there were no hotels or pensionnes or anything like that in Buenavista. She couldn’t imagine who would tell me that there were, but there was absolutely nothing like that in Buenavista. However, she said that there was a Swedish man living in the town. He was married to a Filipina and had been living there for four years. He had a couple of empty cottages and perhaps he would let me stay in one. She said that he probably wasn’t around, but a caretaker might let me in. I got some vague directions from her and thanked her. She was very concerned about me, and she said that if I couldn’t find the place, I should come back and she would send out inquiries and we’d work something out.

I rode away from the clinic and did some climbing and then the road went down to the ocean. It was a pretty little place with a nice beach and lots of fishing boats. I parked my bike and took some pictures, while continuing to ask about hotels.

Something amusing happened then. And it has happened in every country I’ve ever been to. And I swear sometimes it is the same group of men. I have met these guys in every country I’ve been to. They move around the countryside, and then they find a little place to sit down and get drunk with the local hooch. They get drunk enough, that when they see a dumb white guy on a bike, they always call him over and try to get him drunk while jabbering at him, totally oblivious to the fact that the dumb white guy can’t understand a word.

These guys in Buenavista weren’t the most aggressive of the groups I’ve encountered. They were just friendly and a little excited. They quickly jammed a wooden cup with some hooch in it into my hand and indicated I should drink up. I knew I shouldn’t. I have had very bad experiences with drinking things I shouldn’t drink. However, I looked around and I saw that this stuff wasn’t actually homebrew. It was straight gin that they were pouring out of a bottle bought from a store. So I threw it back and then a second shot, but drew the line there. I also turned down their water chaser. That would definitely have been bad news, and I used my own water for a chaser. The gin was actually quite good and I could feel a delicious warmth spreading through my stomach. I knew it was bound to make me sleepy, but it was worth it.

I got to the end of the town and thought that my luck had run out. No hotels and no Swedish man. Then I remembered that the woman had said something about turning left. She also said the Swedish man’s house had a great view of the water. No place I had seen in the town was to the left or had a great view. I cycled on ahead a bit, and then I saw a little road going off to the left. I turned down it and started to think I was on the right track. I had to fight my way through several big mud holes, but it was smoother than the road by far. I stopped and asked a bunch of people questions, but no one could help other than telling me that there were lots of hotels in Sabang.

With no real purpose in mind, I just kept following the road. It swung inland a bit around some thatch houses, and then it hit a big steel gate with a “Beware of Dog” sign on it. This had to be the property of the Swedish man. There was a big fence going all the way around it, and it had a barred gate, plus guard dogs. No place owned by a Filipino that I’d seen had anything like this. I didn’t want to just go through the gate, so I turned back and with something definite to point to, I approached some more people. I pointed at the gate and then made sleeping motions. All the men told me to go to Sabang, but one large woman came out of the hut and told all the men to be quiet. She was obviously several steps ahead of them in intellect (or a lot less drunk). She berated them, saying I guessed, “This is a big white guy. Look at him! What do you think he’s looking for? There’s only one other white guy in town for god’s sake. Obviously, he wants to find the Swedish man.”

This large woman took me out onto the road and just then, the Swedish man’s maid came walking toward us. She sized me up in an instant and signaled that I should follow her. We went to the gate and opened it and went inside. Then she went up a steep road to a group of buildings. Near there was another high fence, and suddenly three very large dogs started barking at me. One of them was a German shepherd and he looked exactly like the dog on the Beware of Dog sign. The woman went through the gate after telling me to wait. She didn’t have to tell me. I wasn’t going to go through that gate anytime soon.

Two or three minutes later, the Swedish man emerged. I was astonished to see him. I really thought he was a myth. I was even more astonished to learn that he did have a place for me to sleep. It wasn’t the Ritz-Carlton, but if I didn’t mind a bit of rough-and-ready, I was more than welcome to stay there.

His name was “Ulf” he told me, and he hopped on a little motorbike with a side car and told me to follow him. He drove down a narrow road to the front and took me to a hut right on the beach and about twenty feet away from the water. I really had no idea what to expect. I was pleased that it was such an established building. I thought we might be looking at a storage shed or something worse. But this looked like a pretty good house or cottage. And best of all, there was electricity, and just up the hill was a cement building that had a toilet and running water. A toilet and running water is amazing to have. Throw electricity into the bargain, and it’s paradise.

Ulf opened the door of the place, and though my enthusiasm didn’t wane in the slightest, I was taken aback to find that the hut was completed stripped and somewhat dirty. It was just an empty room with two wooden sleeping platforms. Ulf explained that he and his wife actually lived in this place for a year and a half when they first got to Palawan. He showed me the shelf in the corner where the TV sat. Then they built their house up on the hill. Ulf did a lot of construction work and he sometimes had construction workers working for him, and they would stay inside this hut.

Meeting Ulf was definitely the high point of the day. It isn’t often you meet someone like him. We sat by the hut for thirty or forty minutes and chatted and I got some of his story. By the end, I told Ulf that he was now my hero. It’s just that he had done so many courageous things, like buying land on Palawan. He built everything himself – all the buildings around me including his house. He did the wiring and the plumbing and everything. He was building his own boat – and not just a banca, but a big full-sized boat. The revelations just kept coming and coming.

Ulf really was from Sweden, and he had been in the construction business since he was fifteen. There was something of a construction boom in Sweden and he made lots of money – not just savings from a job, but actual money. I don’t know the steps exactly that got him from there to Palawan, but he was obviously an adventurer and had done some traveling. He even sailed a little boat solo across the Atlantic Ocean. He lived in the United States for a while and met a woman there and married her. She is American but from the Philippines. The two of them lived in Spain for many years. Then they decided to move to the Philippines. Her parents wanted them to settle in the US, but Ulf didn’t like it there. They lived in the countryside and he didn’t like that they had to drive for twenty minutes just to get to a store. He was accustomed to Europe, where everything was small and close together.

They looked at a bunch of different pieces of land in the Philippines and settled on Palawan. He owned not only the land I had seen, but a bunch more up the coast that he was developing and selling. By this time, I was almost breathless. It seems incredible to think of buying land in a place like the Philippines and moving there with your wife and building your own house. Where do you find the courage to do something like that? It seems so real world. Ulf has no intention of going back to Sweden. This is his home now. It’s an extraordinary thing to me.

I would never make the decision that Ulf made, though. I guess I know myself well enough for that. I enjoy these little adventures and have enjoyed trips overseas, but I couldn’t settle down in a place like Palawan. I’m not nearly tough enough for one thing. I couldn’t handle the heat and the discomfort year round. I also couldn’t handle the difficulties. I like my cold Coke and my hot coffee and my DVDs. Perhaps family and other things could compensate for the loss of all that, but still, I need the conveniences of the modern world.

I could have spoken to Ulf all night, but he had things to do and wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking in terms of my staying at this cottage. Was he doing it as a favor, or was he offering it as a service that I should pay for? I wasn’t sure. The hut was certainly just that – an empty, dirty hut. It seemed odd to pay for it like you were paying for a hotel room. However, it came with running water and a toilet and a beautiful view of the ocean. That’s worth something. I told Ulf I was grateful for this place and I was more than willing to pay him what he thought it was worth. Ulf was thinking of it like that from the beginning apparently, because he came out with the figure of 300 pesos right away. It took me by surprise at first. It seemed like a lot of money for the chance to sleep on a hard wooden platform in a dirty shack. Even a cheap cottage for 300 would offer things like a mattress and a pillow and perhaps a towel. But I took out the money and gratefully paid him. It was still well worth it to me. I did mention, now that money had changed hands, that any kind of mat or thin mattress or whatever he had would be great. I had a sheet and a mosquito net, and I could get by with those, but it wouldn’t be comfortable. Ulf said he could manage that. He also said that he could send someone into town to get some food for me if I wished. I was thinking I could just eat the bread I’d gotten from the Vietnamese Village, but the thought of a real meal sounded good and I said sure.

When Ulf left, I unpacked and inspected my new home a little bit. I was quite excited to be there, and very glad that I wasn’t having to cycle the remaining distance to Sabang. All in all, I had really landed on my feet. I couldn’t have hoped for anything better, and in the end it worked out extremely well.

The little house was about twenty feet by twenty feet, I’d guess. The construction was typical for the Philippines – wood and thatch. The ceiling was completely open at the top and around the edges. There was nothing to prevent anything from the outside world getting in. That gave me a tiny bit of pause, especially when I saw some very large dead spiders strewn about. The doors were made of wood and thatch. There was a double front door and double back door and they were wired closed. There was no furnishing at all – just the two sleeping platforms made of bamboo and a little shelf in the corner where the proud TV once stood. The front doors led to a balcony that went the full width of the house and looked out over the beach and ocean.

Once I’d carried my assorted pannier bags into the house, I grabbed my toiletries kit and walked up to the other cement building. Ulf had told me this was also intended as a kind of cottage. He had built it with half a mind to renting it out to visitors and half a mind to using it for relatives who might visit. I didn’t see inside it, but on the outside it was in okay shape but pretty dirty. No one had been cleaning it for a while, and I assume the construction workers had used the toilet and the shower a lot. I say “shower”, but there really wasn’t anything like that. There was a small wooden enclosure for the toilet with a tap in the wall, and there was a second tap on the wall outside. Ulf said he would bring me a bucket and scoop when he left, and a short time later he came back on his motorbike with these things and with a wave, left them by the bathroom.

I filled the bucket with water and then took a wonderful and delicious and amazing bucket bath. There’s nothing like a long day of pushing your bike over mountains to make you appreciate a bucket bath with cold water. I had purchased a small bottle of Pantene shampoo in Puerto and I washed my hair as well. I got quite the shock, though, when I put my hands to my head and started to work in the shampoo. I quickly pulled my hands back from the pain – the top of my head was badly sunburned. The rest of my body was somewhat burned, but it wasn’t that bad. I had been relatively careful to apply sun screen on all exposed skin. It washed away with sweat of course, and before I applied more, I did get a little burned. I hadn’t, however, worn a hat. Or put sunscreen on the part of my hair, and my scalp was badly burned there and at the very top.

After my shower, I settled in for a relaxed afternoon. I walked up and down the beach for a while and took some pictures. I would have gone back into town to meet up with the guys with the gin, but I had no way to lock the little house and I didn’t want to risk leaving my things unattended. I guess Ulf’s security concerns had gotten to me. He talked a lot about the problems of construction work including people ripping you off and stealing from you. I assumed he had had some personal experiences, and that had led to him turning his house into something of a compound with the Beware of Dog signs everywhere. I wondered how the people in the village thought of him. I’m guessing he has a lot more money than anyone around. He had a fair amount of heavy equipment on his place like a bulldozer and other things, and I don’t think you can get that sort of thing onto Palawan cheaply.

To get onto the beach, I had to unwrap electrical wire from around the front gate. Then I had to wrap it up again when I came back in. This was a definite no-no as far as the dogs were concerned. They could see me from behind their fence high up on the hill and they barked like insane things. It must have been quite the insult to see someone brazenly open the gate and just walk in without even trying to hide themselves! I was wondering if Ulf let them outside the compound at night. They actually had seemed friendly to me when I saw them despite the barking and growling. I’m comfortable around dogs and I was pretty sure these guys and I would get along given a couple of minutes together. If they were vicious attack dogs, though, I’d be trapped inside all night. Then again, I was so tired, I didn’t think I’d be up much past sunset anyway.

Another lucky thing was that Buenavista faced west, and there was a beautiful sunset that hung in the air for a long time. I sat on the front porch reading and watching the boats with my binoculars. Then, not long before it was going to start getting dark, Ulf came down on his motorbike. His wife or his housekeeper had made dinner for me and he handed me a plate of rice and a beautiful fried fish. I’m not normally one for seafood unless it is battered and deep fried. It’s not the taste that bothers me or the texture. I actually love the taste of fish. It’s just that I can’t stand all the fiddling around with all the bones. I’m the same way with chicken. I don’t know how other people routinely eat whole chickens. I go crazy trying to get the meat off the bones and I end up with chicken flying everywhere and greasy fingers. The same goes for fish except that I’m constantly choking on bones and then digging bones out of my teeth or trying to spit them onto the plate. It’s just a mess. This particular fish was even more challenging because it came with its head and tail and fins all still attached. However, there is another great thing about cycling – you appreciate food just as much as you do water, and I have to say that no fish ever tasted as good. Even trying to flake the meat off the bones and not being very successful at it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I dug in there and savored every morsel. Ulf said it was a Lapu Lapu fish, and that was a very good omen, because years ago I did a scuba diving course on Boracay with a company called Lapu Lapu. I bought one of their T-shirts with a beautiful Lapu Lapu fish on the front. It was my favorite shirt for a long time – first in the rotation after every wash!

The only down side to this experience was that the wind, which had been flowing steadily and strongly off the ocean suddenly died. It just went away like someone had thrown a switch. This meant that the heat and humidity landed on me like a ton of bricks. The mosquitoes also took this as their cue to come out and start feeding. They were the type that went for my ears first, and for the last half of my meal I ate like a madman. Then I rushed around like crazy cleaning up and getting ready for bed. I raced up to the washing area and took another shower to cool down for bed. Then inside the house, I danced around trying desperately to get under the mosquito net and away from the monsters that were eating me alive. Of course, moving that fast meant I suddenly got hot and sweaty again. Finally, I was inside the net and safe.

I don’t remember what time it was, but it was early – not long after sunset in fact, which means it was probably around 7:00 or 7:30. This is another of the great things about cycling – you also appreciate sleep and the natural rhythm of day and night much more. This little house had a light, and I could have extended daylight, but I didn’t bother. I was more than tired enough to sleep, and, unlike in a normal life, you don’t have the sense that you are missing out by going to bed early. By going to sleep at 7:30, I will get a full night’s rest and I will be awake and feeling great before the sun even rises. In the real world, it would take a tremendous effort to get out of bed at 5:00 in the morning or 5:30. But it is as natural as getting up at 9:00 or 10:00 if you go to bed early enough. With our sleep patterns in the real world, we miss out on some of the nicest parts of the day. We miss early morning sunrises and the early morning when it is cool and fresh. And what do we get in exchange? All we get are the dark hours from eight till eleven in the evening when we just sit around and watch TV.

I think that in the real world there is also a certain sense of guilt when you go to bed early. You feel you have to apologize to people when you mention it. You have to explain how you were really tired because you were really busy lately and all of that. When you’re camping or cycling, there is no excuse necessary. You go to bed when the sun goes down and there is no guilt at all. It’s natural and right.

These are not new thoughts for me by any means. I’ve been having them ever since I was a teenager and went to India on Canada World Youth and lived in a village for three months. Ever since then, I’ve had the same reaction whenever I’ve spent time overseas in poorer countries. On the one hand, there is the sense that people have less than people in the west do. They are poorer and don’t have as much. Yet, you can argue that they get much in return. They live in this natural rhythm of the sun rising and setting. They have large extended families that live together and provide them with a rich emotional life. I could go on and on. In the past, I’ve compared it to how we live in Canada when there is a serious power shortage or natural disaster. People come out of their homes for the first time in years and meet their neighbors and a sense of community is created almost instantly. Of course, as soon as the power comes on, we go back inside to our televisions.

 

I slept very well that night. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore and dozens of cicadas screaming in the trees. From time to time, I heard something larger moving around the little house. I think I was sharing the place with lots of creatures I never saw. They sounded immense in the darkness, but were probably tiny creatures rustling in the thatch.

Ulf said goodbye the night before, and I took that to mean I wouldn’t see him in the morning. I simply cleaned up the house as best I could, took a shower, packed up my bike, and started cycling. Somewhere in there, a switch went off in my brain again and I became very dumb. It’s amazing that I have such giant blind spots. In this case, despite the trauma of the day before, I thought my ride to Sabang would be easy. I had this idea because I had covered most of the distance already. I hadn’t cycled far the day before, but the 57 kilometers I’d ridden was most of the way to Sabang. By my calculations there were at most 30 kilometers left to cover. That is an easy distance to cover when you have an entire day to do it. And somehow I had this idea that the road would get better. I had nothing to base this idea on, but I felt that as I got closer to the coast, the land would flatten and the road would become smoother. With this idea, I didn’t bother to refill my water bag. I hadn’t done it the night before because of the sudden mosquito attack. And in the morning, I was in a hurry to leave and didn’t think I would need any more water than I had in my two water bottles and the bit still in the bag. I didn’t want to carry ten pounds of water to Sabang if I didn’t need to. So I left with very little water.

Almost immediately outside of Buenavista I realized what a mistake that was. Instead of getting easier, the road became far worse. Immediately outside the town, the road started to go straight up. The surface became even rockier and rougher. Then, to top things off, my rear derailleur started to jam. It was a complete mystery, but every time I shifted into either of my two lowest gears, the chain wouldn’t flow through the two bottom rings, but would pull the whole unit forward and up until it hit the frame and the whole thing jammed. I had no idea what was going on or how to fix it. This had never happened to me before and no matter how long I stared at the thing and adjusted it and tried to figure it out, I couldn’t do it. I simply couldn’t use my lowest gears. This meant that I was pushing my bike whether I wanted to or not. There was no way I could ride up these mountains in anything but the lowest gear. Even in the lowest gear, it was almost impossible considering my out-of-shape legs and the roughness of the road. The problem was that in the lowest gear, you got a lot of torque, but at the expense of speed. I was moving at about 4 km/hr and at that speed it was almost impossible to keep the bike upright. I’d hit these huge rocks, and the whole bike would simply tip over. I’d come to a complete stop, and then have to get moving again, which was nearly impossible. I walked and walked and walked, pushing my bike up these long unforgiving slopes. I felt like I’d been out there for hours, and yet when I looked at my odometer, I saw that I had covered less than two kilometers. At that rate, I’d never even cover the 30 kilometers to Sabang before the sun went down.

I was very surprised to pass a Viewdeck just a short distance outside Buenavista. I remembered then that the woman at the clinic had said something about a Viewdeck when she was trying to help me find a place to stay. I could probably have stayed at the Viewdeck without any problem if I hadn’t come across Ulf and his empty ex-home. I assume that the many tour group vans from Puerto would stop at this Viewdeck on their way to Sabang. It was still early in the morning when I got there, and everything was closed. However, a caretaker in a nearby hut indicated that I could climb up and look around. On the bottom floor there was a little shop selling souvenirs and things. The top floor had chairs and benches and tables. It looked like there might even have been hot and cold drinks for sale during the day. If so, it would have been a godsend if I’d come across it during the day. As it was, I enjoyed the view and then I took advantage of the bathrooms. They were perfectly functional, though quite small and cramped and loaded with mosquitoes. By the time you went through the physical gymnastics to get in and out of the place in one piece, you were quite drenched in sweat, so it wasn’t exactly convenient. But it was far better than squatting in the bush, which was my only other alternative. I can only imagine what sort of creatures would have attacked my exposed bottom out there. There was a little donation box outside the bathroom with the suggested donation of 5 pesos per “visit.”

It was immediately after visiting the Viewdeck that my rear derailleur started to cause trouble. I suspected, in fact, that the caretaker and his friend had been fooling around with the bike while I was in the bathroom and had twisted the gear shifters and other things. I suspect this because even before I started to ride, I noticed that the chain had fallen off. It was certainly on when I had stopped. I got my hands all greasy putting the chain back on, and that, combined with my sweaty state after the bathroom, put me into a less than perfect mood. I saw my easy day dissolving in onto one of hassle and pain and with little water.

It was with great relief that a little before the village of Tagabinit, the road became paved. Ulf had told me that some of the road was paved and that some of it was far worse than what I had already covered. I didn’t know how much was paved, but I would take what I could get. The pavement was actually made of big squares of concrete laid together, and the mind boggled at the thought of transporting all that concrete up here. Near the start of the pavement there was another of the big signs crediting this paved road to some mayor or other. I read the sign and it said that the pavement project was to be completed in February of 2008. How lucky was that? I thought. I had gotten there just in time for the paved road to be completed. The sign was a bit optimistic though, and I found that the pavement extended to the village and than no farther. After that there were only little sections of pavement. Oddly enough, they were building the road in staggered chunks. There would be about a hundred feet of cement on one side of the road. Then it would end and there would be a hundred feet of cement a short distance ahead on the opposite side of the road. Vehicles still had to ride on the stone road, but now they had to zigzag in and out of the big cement blocks. On a bicycle, I could sort of take advantage of these bits of cement. It’s a testament to how rough the road was that it was actually an advantage to me to ride up to the cement slab, lift my bike up the 12 inches or so onto the top, then get back on the bike, coast a hundred feet, get off the bike and lift it down onto the rocks, push the bike across and up to the next slab on the opposite side and then do it all over again. It was very slow, but it was still preferable to riding on the rocks and stones. Dignity was not an option in this process. I had to take the jeers and laughter and dumbfounded stares with good humor. The dumbfounded stares and incredulous smiles came from the groups of construction workers who were out there working on the road. They, more than anyone, understood the physical hardship of being out there working under that hot sun on this lonely mountain road. To see a dumb white guy practically carrying a bicycle really made their day. I asked almost everyone I spoke to about how far it was to either Cabayugan or Sabang and got wildly differing answers. My map had been right most of the way, but now it insisted that there were as many as 25 kilometers to go. Many of the men I spoke to said it was only 12 or 8 kilometers to Sabang. I wanted to believe them, but I’ve never had much luck when it comes to local people knowing distances overseas. My maps were usually much more accurate.

It was clear quite early on that I would need more water. I knew that there was water all around me. Villages needed water, and they got it from somewhere. I just had to figure out where it was and get some. I stopped at a little shop first to see if by some miracle they actually sold big gallon jugs of drinking water. They didn’t have any liquids at all – not even a lukewarm orange soda. I appreciated the pit stop anyway and I sat there comfortably with “the guys” watching the village life around me. They had five roosters tied down right around the shop and they sent up a deafening racket. Children came to the store to buy little bits of candy for themselves and laundry soap for their mothers. Directly below me, a woman was doing laundry in a stream. There was a lot of water there, but even I wasn’t dumb enough to try and drink that. I asked a few other people in the village, but no one could understand what I meant. I think all of my drinking motions made them think of beer and gin, and they just shook their heads no.

I didn’t want to leave without water, but it seemed I had no choice. I heaved my bicycle down from the cement slab and walked it over the next. From slab to slab, I made my way over the mountains.

I spent a lot of time just standing at the side of the road with my bicycle. I learned to really appreciate the thickness of the jungle around me and the toughness of the place. The occasional monkey made an appearance and dashed across the road in front me, startled by my relatively silent approach.

I was surprised at the number of tour group vans that went past me. I knew that travel agents in Puerto offered cheap day trips out to Sabang to see the underground river. I didn’t realize, however, how popular it was. I was also surprised that these vans could handle the roads. I thought only 4X4’s of the toughest variety would take it on. However, the vans lumbered along without too much difficulty. Their engines roared in the lowest gear as they made their way up the steepest slopes, but they made steady progress. They all had tinted windows and I didn’t even get one glimpse of who was inside the vans. I assumed they, like the Filipinos, were pointing at me in astonishment, but I couldn’t see them at all. It was the rare van that saw me actually on the bike and riding. Most of the time, I was pushing the bike when I heard a van coming up the road behind me. Then I would stop pushing and just stand there nonchalantly to give the impression that I was just resting for a moment. I let them assume that the moment they were out of sight, I’d be leaping back into the saddle and racing over these roads like Lance Armstrong.

Despite all of this, I still wasn’t totally unhappy with my means of travel. Sure, it didn’t make a lot of sense, and the alternatives looked a lot more comfortable, but in a strange way I was enjoying myself. I certainly would not have enjoyed being inside one of the vans with a tour group. I would probably have enjoyed a jeepney ride, but what I saw didn’t really appeal to me. I saw one or two jeepneys coming from the direction of Sabang. These jeepneys are bigger than the ones you’d see in Manila driving people around the city. They still looked like Jeepneys, but they were almost as large as buses, and they had seats that faced forward. With a normal kind of load, they might even be comfortable for short trips. However, there is no such thing as a normal load in the Philippines. These jeepneys were jammed with people and goods. There were so many people that they were literally being squeezed out the windows like toothpaste out of a tube. Then the outside of the jeepney was covered in what looked like a sheet of people, clutching tightly to a window frame here and a rope there. They draped themselves over every square inch of space and held on tight. The loads were so heavy and awkward that the jeepneys lurched from side to side like drunken elephants. I expected them to topple over at any second. Yet somehow they recovered each time and lumbered along making steady progress.

The next village on my map was called Cabaguyan. It was the only place listed between Tagabinit and Sabang. I figured that I would have to get water there, and I knew that I could if I tried hard enough. I still had much of my two bottles left, but it wasn’t going to last the rest of the day. The odd thing about thirst is that it can be unbearable when you know that there is no water to be had. However, you could probably have lots of water, not drink it, and be just as thirsty, but it wouldn’t bother you as much. The physical thirst would be the same, but when you have no water, it becomes psychologically much stronger.

In this case, my thirst didn’t last as long as it could have. I was riding along and I came to an inspection station. It was the entrance to the national park containing the underground river. They are quite serious about conservation efforts, and there are strict controls on everything that is going on on Palawan. This inspection station was part of those controls, and everyone entering the park had to be noted down in a book. I parked my bike and walked over to the shack and answered their questions about who I was, where I was going, and how long I would stay there. All of this went into a book. I was surprised later to see vans and other vehicles go right past without stopping. The guys would simply look out the window and see what kind of vehicle it was. Then they’d write it down in their book. Apparently, they didn’t need the details then.

I asked these guys about drinking water, and they pointed across the road along a trail. I wanted to ask about what kind of water, but I knew we wouldn’t be able to communicate to that extent. I’d rather have water from a deep well than from a stream. I just asked them how far away it was. They didn’t understand my question and they just waved across the road again. We went through this routine a few times, and I finally just walked across the road and as I got closer, I saw that there was a tap right there! I had stumbled upon the secret source of water on Palawan – little taps at the side of the road. A group of women were standing around waiting for a jeepney, and they all were quite amused as I got out my bright blue water bag and filled it at the tap. Then I asked the men if I could sit inside their shack for a little while. They said okay, and I sat there out of the sun mixing my water purifying chemicals. A tiny old woman swung in a hammock and she watched my every move with great interest and gave a running commentary. If you had no idea what I was doing, I can see how it would look a big strange. This water purifying chemical comes in two containers. To purify 4 liters of water, you have to carefully put 28 drops of one liquid into this tiny little cap. Then you put in 28 drops of the second liquid and allow the two liquids to react for five minutes. The liquid turns yellow as it reacts. After five minutes, you add the liquid to the water and mix it up. Fifteen minutes later, the water is, in theory, safe to drink.

I felt rich beyond measure as I put the water bag into one of my pannier bags. I now had more than enough water to see me through, and I celebrated by taking one of my bottles and polishing the whole thing off in one long glorious series of gulps.

From then on, the day was almost smooth sailing. I had a sense that the numbers on my map were wrong, and that Sabang was much closer than I thought. The landscape also began to change and I stopped again and again to take pictures of beautiful green fields with high limestone cliffs in the background. Occasionally, a carabao would oblige by posing in the middle of the field. At one point, a motorcycle slowed down as it passed me. (I was actually riding the bike for a change.) I looked up and saw a foreigner. He called out “Impressive!” I shouted back, “No, just dumb!”

I ended up getting a lot of false praise that day because people kept asking me if I’d come from Puerto Princesa. Technically, I had and I said yes. Of course, I hadn’t come all the way from Puerto in that one day. I tried to explain that I broke my journey in Buenavista, but no one understood that.

The road began to flatten out a bit, and there were some more stretches of cement paving. This paving was solid and complete. Lots of people were drying rice on the edges, and I had to be careful not to ride over them. The sun was brutal in its strength and I could feel my skin searing off the bones. I stopped several times to put on more sunscreen. Without strong sunscreen, I think those two days on the bike would have put me in the hospital with severe burns. The sunscreen mixed with sweat and poured down into my eyes and made them sting. I had a small white towel which I’d taken from Taiwan, and I kept it right on my handlebars so that I could wipe my face easily. I was also recovering from a bad cold and I had to blow my nose constantly. I still haven’t stopped doing that, and it’s getting a bit annoying. My nose and upper lip are rubbed almost raw from the constant wiping and rubbing. My t-shirt felt way too heavy and it was so wet with sweat that I could actually wring it out and watch the water pour onto the pavement. It was a tough day, and no mistake. I congratulated myself many times for having the foresight not to attempt the entire distance in one day. That overnight stop in Buenavista really saved my neck.

I really felt I was making progress when I came across the official park office. There was a big sign saying that everyone needed a permit to visit the underground river. The sign hinted that you had to get your permit here, and you should do so so that you don’t “risk being sent back. Just a friendly remember from the park staff!”

I rode my bike up the longish driveway and found a group of people under a thatch roof with some desks and information about the park. I registered again and then filled out a form, which was my permit to visit the river. The cost of the permit was 200 pesos or about $5, though for some reason I didn’t have to pay yet. Before I left, a group of men came out to take a look at my bicycle. One of them asked me my name. When I said Douglas, he cried out, “You have returned!” I’ve since found this to be a common reaction to my name, as everyone here knows the famous story of Douglas Macarthur.

The road wasn’t through with me yet, though, and the last eight kilometers were also very hard. The pavement disappeared again and I had to ride down some very rough roads. It was manageable though, because somehow my derailleur had sorted itself out and if I shifted very carefully and slowly, I could get the bike into first gear. At long last, I saw signs that I was arriving in Sabang. A man on a motorbike raced past and shouted, “You are almost at the beach!”

 

 

I’m never very good at arriving at a new place. I allow myself to be rushed by touts and agents of various hotels and other places. In this case, I was adopted by a man named Miguel. He behaved as if we had met before and were good friends, almost as if we had made arrangements to meet here and he would now show me to my cottage – as we arranged.

I didn’t have a clear idea of what Sabang was all about. I didn’t know if there were dozens of different places to stay or just one or two. I knew there were places to stay and that was enough for me. If I got a beautiful bungalow right on the beach, that would be fine. If I didn’t, well, I’m sure things would work out fine. From the point of view of cycling all day, you stop worrying about the finer points of whether you ended up with a great cottage or not. Almost anything would seem like paradise. I just wanted to find a home, any home.

I had been told by a couple of people that Mary’s was a good place to stay. I mentioned this to Miguel, and he said that this was Mary’s. I looked up and the sign said Robert’s. He said it was the same thing. It was Mary Robert’s. They just didn’t put that on the sign. It goes without saying that this was all nonsense. Mary’s was a completely different place way at the other end of the beach. Miguel, like the tricycle driver at the airport, just wanted to dump me off at the first and most convenient place for him. He probably had all kinds of kickback deals with different places. At the time, he sort of represented himself as working for Mary’s. He spoke fairly good English and I was glad to meet him. I thought he would be a good source of information about Sabang and the options for travel onwards. However, since that initial meeting, I haven’t seen him. He just disappeared and obviously doesn’t work for Mary’s or Robert’s or anyone else. Or perhaps he works for all of them. One can just never really know. These places have a behind-the-scenes life that a foreigner visiting for a day or two can never figure out.

Who knows how things would have worked out had I gone slower and investigated lots of places to stay? I’m not sure that I even would have found Mary’s that first day because it really was quite far away at the end of the beach. Getting my bicycle there through the sand would have been quite the challenge. I’m happy with the way things turned out, though. I had arrived at exactly the right time. The last crop of foreigners had just left on the boats and jeepneys and the new crop hadn’t arrived yet, so the best cottages were still available. Miguel showed me to a beautiful little cottage that was literally right on the water. From the front balcony I could see the whole ocean and all the boats moving back and forth. It got a great breeze from the water. I looked inside and saw a nice bed with a good mosquito net. It came with its own bathroom that had a shower, a sink, and a toilet. I turned on the water and water came gushing out. There were a couple of electric lights and even a fan. I couldn’t see a thing wrong with the place except perhaps that it was a bit close to the center of things and might be a bit busy. I didn’t know that yet, however, and I instantly took it for 500 pesos a night. That’s about $12.50 or NT$400. Compared to Taiwan and Canada it’s a pretty good deal, but it is a bit more than I was expecting. The Philippines in general has been a bit more expensive than I expected. It’s certainly affordable for a trip like this, but it isn’t super cheap.

Once I registered and settled in, I went for a walk around Sabang. It’s a lot smaller than I expected and there isn’t much of a town here. It is essentially a collection of cottages and hotels along with some shops and the park office and the boats to go on to Part Barton and El Nido. It’s certainly beautiful. I walked along, comparing my little cottage with all the ones that I saw along the way. I saw advantages and disadvantages to many that I saw, but none had the commanding view of the ocean that mine has. I finally found Mary’s way at the end of the beach, and I could see the appeal of the place. It is all by itself out there in a beautiful spot. There is a large tree out front and plenty of hammocks to swing in. I could have been happy there, but I’m just as happy where I am. The cottages at Mary’s were set back from the water, and fairly close together. With my cottage, I never even have to move. I’m sitting on the front balcony right now with a spectacular view of the beach, the waves and the boats. I have my binoculars with me and I love just sitting here and watching the activity. I thought it might be a bit close to “downtown” Sabang, and it’s true that there is fair amount of foot traffic around my cottage, but I enjoy that, too. Everyone is friendly here, and everyone greets me as they walk past.

 

When I got to the end of the beach, I kept walking out onto some rocks that went around the point. I wanted to see how far I could go. I had my camera with me and I was taking a few pictures. I turned around at one point, and found a young guy right behind me taking pictures with his digital camera. We started chatting, and I was pleased to see that he was friendly and open to a conversation. I had earlier had a bad experience with that. I had just arrived, and was feeling quite friendly to humanity in general. I was going to the little restaurant to register when I saw my neighbors sitting on their balcony to my left. I thought I would introduce myself and I went up to them. I don’t know what nationality they were, but as I got closer, I saw that the guy was a pretty tough-looking character. He had shaved his head bald, had earrings, lots of tattoos, and was smoking. He looked at me like I was a disgusting piece of garbage that had fallen to the ground near him. I persevered though, and even held out my hand for a handshake and greeting. He actually went so far as to shake my hand, but then he looked at me and said, “What do you want?” It was very unfriendly and cold. I explained that I was just saying hello, nothing more. He waved me away with his cigarette and turned away. It wasn’t exactly a Hallmark moment. I remember from my days of being a Lonely Planeteer backpacker that one just met everyone on the road. It was part of the deal. But I guess these two were more package tour types, and they had no interested in meeting anyone. Ah well.

The young fellow on the beach, by contrast, was very friendly. His name (or nickname rather) was Mace. He was a student in Germany and was here on a holiday visiting his friend, Dane, who was working in Manila as a kind of social worker. He had come here with a third friend, Marick. Marick was from Poland, but had lived in Germany for 15 years. I met up with all three of these guys and we walked along the beach together. We saw a sign that indicated the start of the Monkey Trail to the underground river and we agreed to go there together the next day. It made me quite happy to have made friends with these guys. They struck me as full of life and energy, and I definitely needed the company. I have enjoyed traveling on my own in the past, but it’s never been completely on my own. One of the great attractions of traveling alone is that you have the chance to meet lots of other people and then travel with them for a short time. The idea is not to be alone all the time.

Dane had been in Manila for 7 months and had 5 months to go on his 1-year stint there. He was working at a center that helped drug addicts, and I believe he was doing this in lieu of his military service in Germany. He spoke excellent English and was a thoughtful and serious sort of person. Mace had done some traveling himself. He’d been to South Africa and to Australia, where his English became much improved. He had long hair pulled back into a pony tail and was quick to smile and laugh. He included me in their group as easily as can be. Their friend Marick was also a very nice guy. He seemed quieter, but that was largely because he wasn’t as comfortable in English. He was content to let the others speak and to simply listen.

Mace and Marick had come directly from a German winter to here and bubbled over with enthusiasm for the tropical paradise they found here. I reflected that I must be a bit jaded, because though I appreciated my surroundings, I didn’t react nearly as strongly as they did.

The three of them were staying in a cottage together, and it sounded like they would have to move the next morning, as it was reserved for someone else. After they moved, we would meet up and then leave on the Monkey Trail. I had gotten mixed reports on that trail, but it was clear that in this sun it was nothing to be taken lightly, and you should leave as early as possible and bring a lot of water. I was a little worried about my feet, as my Teva sandles were already rubbing blisters into my ankles. I didn’t think the trail itself would be too much for me, but I knew I couldn’t do it in bare feet, and if I had bad blisters, I wouldn’t be able to walk in the Tevas either.

At some point in the afternoon, I went by the park office to pay for my permit. I already had my permit, but I hadn’t paid for it yet. When I got there, though, I realized I’d left the paper back in my cottage. I figured I could just get another paper seeing as how I hadn’t even paid yet. It didn’t work that way, though, and the man at the office had to radio the park office I’d been to and confirm with them that I’d registered there. He then got my permit number from them and copied it into their records here. They take this permit business pretty seriously. I paid my 200 pesos ($5), and was all set. We had planned on a seven a.m. start and I wanted everything to be ready to go.

I saw Dane, Mace, and Marick later that evening and learned that they hadn’t gotten their permits yet. They went to the office then, but it was already closed. The earliest they could get it was at eight the following morning. That didn’t matter, though, because I had the feeling that a seven a.m. start was too early for them anyway. Three people always have a lot more trouble getting it together in the morning than one person. I knew I would be awake at the crack of dawn myself, and I could use the extra time to relax and get ready myself.

I bought two gallons of drinking water from a store near the pier, and poured one gallon into my water bag to take on the hike the next day. In the morning, I ended up rushing a bit myself as I suddenly had many things to do like get my camera and film ready, put bandaids all over my ankles, apply sunscreen, wash my sunglasses, and pack my flashlight and binoculars and other things. When I met up with the three guys, they were ready to go with little more than a gallon jug swinging from one hand.

The start of the Monkey Trail was a little bit confusing. We followed the sign that pointed down the path past Mary’s. This trail seemed promising, but then it sort of ended in a clearing with some kind of official building. There were many trails leading away from the building, but it wasn’t clear which way we were supposed to go. This surprised me, considering all the signs and things I’d noticed on Palawan. Dane spoke with an older Filipino man there, and we got the usual confusing story that really didn’t make any sense to us. He said that there used to be a bridge there that led you to the Monkey Trail, but a typhoon had destroyed the bridge. Now there was no way to cross the river except by boat. He was willing to take us by boat for a small donation – whatever we wanted to pay. Dane was clearly suspicious. He felt this was a con job, and I agreed with him. People walk the Monkey Trail every day, so how it could be that one had to swim across a river just to get started? We thought there must be a clear trail nearby, and we just couldn’t see it. We couldn’t see it, though, and it felt like we had no choice but to climb into the boat and get paddled across the river. As we went across, we could see to the left the mouth of the river and it was clear that we could have just walked across there. This boat fellow didn’t feel it was his job to have told us that. I don’t think Dane and the boys wanted to pay the guy anything, but I didn’t mind and I gave him 50 pesos for his trouble.

Even from the other side, it wasn’t clear exactly where we were supposed to be going. We followed a trail, and it quickly dumped us out on to the beach. I hadn’t done any research at all, but Dane remembered something about having to walk along the beach for a while, so we set out. We had something of a guide with us, and he seemed happy to go along the beach, so we thought it must be right. This guide was a very nice dog who joined us in Sabang. I got the sense that he knew we were going to the underground river and that he wanted to come along. He stuck with us all the way to the boat man, and then as we were ferried across the river, the dog jumped into the river and swam beside us. On the other side, he shook himself dry and then trotted up the path. All the way to the underground river, he stuck with us, running ahead, then running behind and then dashing past us to get in front again. We stopped at a couple of beautiful spots on the beach, and I poured some water into my hand for the dog. He lapped it up, and then politely looked away. He would accept this water, but he wasn’t going to beg for it. I even poured some into a coconut shell, and he drank that politely. A second larger dog joined our little parade, but he was a bit more aloof and he wouldn’t accept any water.

We walked to the very end of the beach, and there we saw a sign that pointed up the cliff along a steep trail. The trail got much more challenging at this point, and I was soon breathing hard and sweating buckets. My bandaids wouldn’t stay in place in the water and I quickly developed sores on my ankles that made it harder and harder to walk. I didn’t think I was doing much worse than my companions, but apparently I was. Mace turned to me at one point and said that I could just tell them if I wanted them to slow down. We met up with a park employee at one point and she asked us to write down our names and permit numbers in a book. Mace, Dane, and Marick went first, and then I wrote my name in last. I noticed under “Age” they had written 47, 48, and 49! I thought this was a very clever joke at my expense and I commented on it to Mace later. He had no idea what I was talking about. I explained, and then he started to laugh. They hadn’t meant it as a joke at all. They thought that column was for the number of visitors. The person before that had written 46 as their age. They just wrote down 47, 48, and 49 following in sequence. I thought that was too bad. I preferred it as a joke.

The trail ended up being shorter than we had expected, but it was also much tougher than I had expected. My legs started to give out very early on as we climbed up and up and up. I was sweating so badly that my shirt was once again just a wet rag on my body. Yet, it wasn’t impossible and with a stop here and there for a drink of water from my water bag and their water jug, we made steady progress. I was comforted to hear my companions moaning and groaning over the effort and how the trail just seemed to go up and up.

It was called the Monkey Trail, but we saw no monkeys until almost the very end. Then there were just a couple in the trees. There were warnings about how aggressive the monkeys could be, but the warnings were hardly necessary considering how few monkeys there were.

We finally reached the end of the Monkey Trail and came upon a most unwelcome yet interesting sight. There were about fifty people already there milling about in lifejackets and blue helmets. It looked like total chaos as people piled into boats and went off into the underground river. All of the boats looked overloaded to me, and they seemed to have a system whereby they kept putting more and more people into the boat until it looked like it was about to sink, and then they removed one person. It was all done with great humor though, and there were lots of jokes and lots of laughter.

There was a system to all of this, but in a pattern I find true in most poorer countries, the system was known only to a select few. People like us were left to just mill around helplessly and bleat. It didn’t matter to the majority, because they were there with tour groups and they could count on their guides to tell them what to do. Those of us who had conquered the Monkey Trail had no guides and were left bewildered. My three companions weren’t as bothered and they simply donned lifejackets and blue helmets and settled in to see what happened. I followed suit, but I felt pretty sure that there was some formalities to the process if we could but figure them out. I decided to ask someone and approached a woman who looked like a guide and she explained how it worked. You had to register at a table by writing your name legibly into the ubiquitous lined notebook. Then when the names were all written down, someone would take the notebook and call out the names and have you load into boats – one by one until the boat nearly sank, and then taking one out.

The reason this wasn’t apparent, was that we had just happened to arrive right after a very large number of tour groups had arrived. So the notebook wasn’t on the table, but was in the hands of a man by the dock who was marshaling the troops and getting them into boats. I parked myself by the table as instructed, and waited for the notebook to come back. It eventually did and the four of us wrote down our names. Then all the other newcomers wrote down their names and the loading of the next batch began.

I began to understand why the woman had asked me to write my name “legibly.” The man orchestrating this whole circus then had to read out the names from the notebook. With people coming from all over the world, this was no easy task. Over time, he’d developed a bit of a stand-up routine as he read out the names. If he couldn’t make out anything, he’d say “Someone from Korea!” “Someone else from Korea!” This was for the boat just before ours, and these two little Korean women were seated at the very front of the boat. This may not have been the best choice, because whoever sat in the front of the boat had to control the spotlight. They were explaining this to the Korean women, and they were looking blankly back. There was lots of joking about this, and they said that this group won’t see anything. They’ll be in total darkness in the cave.

I didn’t really understand what all that meant, but it became very clear to me as my boat began to load. They put me in the front and that meant I would have to control the spotlight. I speak English, obviously, but even I had no real idea of what they were talking about. There was a large car battery sitting on the floor of the boat. The spotlight was quite a large unit with jumper cables attached. One end of the jumper cables was already attached to a terminal on the battery. My helper explained that when I got into the cave, I should attach the other end of the jumper cable to the other terminal. He demonstrated this, and I understood. But then he indicated the switch on the spotlight. I played with the switch, but it didn’t do anything. It didn’t turn the light on or off or increase the brightness. So what was the deal with the switch? He kept talking about it, but as far as I could tell, it didn’t do anything, and the only way to turn on the light was to attach the jumper cable.

I felt I was within my abilities here. I’d attached jumper cables before and I had some idea of the power contained in one of these batteries. I knew enough to have a healthy respect for them, and I was going to be very careful to do it right. I could only imagine if something went wrong and in the dark of the cave you blew up the battery or gave yourself a shock and sent yourself overboard. I felt I would be able to handle it, but I certainly wouldn’t have been comfortable giving that responsibility to those two Korean women especially when they couldn’t speak English.

I still wasn’t sure what I would have to do once we were in the cave. I guessed I could shine the light around and illuminate things for people to look at. However, it was a bit easier than that. Once we got in the cave, the fellow driving the boat started his stand-up routine. He had a set patter that he went through, probably changing it based on the nationalities onboard, and he would bark out instructions for me and my spotlight- “Left. Left. Left. Up. Up. There!” And then he would describe how that stalactite formation looked like two hands, and how that one was a giant magic mushroom. He described a couple of dozen of these things, but I didn’t make out more than two or three. Luckily, I could make out his terse right left up down commands and I managed to pinpoint most of the things he wanted lit up.

The underground river is famous as perhaps the longest one in the world. It is over eight kilometers long, though most of it is kept closed to the public and is used for scientific research (or so everyone keeps saying). I’m sure it was quite extraordinary, and yet I found myself quite blasé about the whole thing. We floated through there on our boat and I kept pointing the spotlight at rocks that looked like things, and then during the downtime, at things I thought were interesting. I kept thinking about the other passengers in the boat and trying to figure out what they’d like me to keep the light on longer. I couldn’t imagine anything more annoying than getting interested in something and then having the twit with the spotlight suddenly move the light away. I was quite interested in the bats and I kept them illuminated for a long time when the ceiling came low and we could see the bats clearly. The most impressive part for me was one section with a very high ceiling. I believe our guide said it was 65 meters high. It was also quite atmospheric to see the other boats dotted here and there with their spotlights roaming around. It was completely quiet except for the jokes that people occasionally made. Yet, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I was on Disney ride, a tunnel of love or something. There were a couple of Koreans sitting behind me, and one of them kept letting out tremendous yawns. I thought he was going to fall asleep and fall over the side. Perhaps caves are soporific.

We did a lot of talking on the way there on the Monkey Trail and then on the Jungle Trail back. Mace and Dane seemed quite curious about me, and through their questions I became very curious about me, too. They’re all extremely nice and normal guys. If anything, they are probably nicer than normal. I was picking up on a Christian vibe, and that night when we had dinner together, the three of them prayed before they started, which confirmed it if it needed any confirming. I’m not entirely sure how old they are, but I don’t think Mace can be more than 22. Yet he is already engaged and is going to get married next year. He and Dane both asked me at separate times why I wasn’t married. I liked their phrasing. Mace said something like, “You’re a very friendly guy. Why aren’t you married?”

The Jungle Trail back was just as hard as the Monkey Trail, and I was really working hard to keep the legs pumping. My companions, young as they are, were also huffing and puffing. Poor Marick was getting bitten by mosquitoes regularly, though I never saw one of them. I was comparing it to what a walk in the Canadian bush would be like, and it was a dream. In Canada, you really would have been eaten alive by all manner of insects. Here, I have hardly seen any mosquitoes. A few found Marrick, but I didn’t get a single bite, and didn’t even see one.

The Jungle Trail eventually met up with the Monkey Trail and we were back on the ocean again. The guys wanted to stop for a swim, and we took a dip on a beautiful little beach. I caught them giving little glances at me and trying to gauge how I was doing. I found it surprising. Most people say that I look much younger than my age. They also say I do things that people my age don’t do – things like this bike trip to Palawan. But these three were treating me with the respect and concern they might afford a grandfather figure. They kept looking at me to see how the old guy was holding up. They clearly wanted to go for a swim on this beach, but I think they wondered if I was eager to get back to my cottage so I could call for an ambulance. However, I was all for a swim and we went into the water. I definitely cramped their style a little bit. They are in their twenties, and yet they act like young teenagers with sand fights and all manner of horsing around. Mace even used me for protection once. He swam around to the other side of me saying that the other guys wouldn’t dare throw sand at him now. I could see his point. It’s not that sand would be fatal to my decrepit body, but it was pretty clear that even if I joined in the sand fight, I’d just be faking it. It certainly wouldn’t come naturally.

I noticed the difference between us today quite clearly. They went for a swim and invited me to join them. I got out my mask and snorkel and went out into the water and we paddled around for a while. But eventually I left and came back here to my cottage. I could still see them though, and the three of them were racing around the sand and water like puppies – throwing sand at each other, splashing each other, jumping on each other’s backs, doing handstands, and shouting. Perhaps I have that kind of energy in me, but my reaction to this place doesn’t bring that out in me. Perhaps it’s that jaded thing again in addition to my being much older. There was a time when a beach like this would have blown my mind. But I guess I’ve seen a few of them since then, and though I appreciate it, it isn’t a life-altering sort of thing.

 

I’ve eaten almost all of my meals at the little restaurant attached to Robert’s. My first meal there made me feel this might not be the best place to stay. They have a parking lot where all the tour group vans park, and they also seem to have a deal where they serve meals to many of them. The kitchen was extremely busy preparing set meals for these groups that kept pouring through. Most of the groups that I saw were made up of middle-aged Korean women. They were your classic ajimahs with a fair amount of weight on them, and they all clapped with delight when some new delicacy like a coconut with straw in it was brought out to them. I felt distinctly out of place. I felt even more out of place when I tried to place an order from the menu. They were focused very much on the group tours, and working hard to serve them. Fitting a solitary order in there was tricky. However, I figured out the proper method. You just walk right into the back kitchen and stand around and place your order. That way you can’t be ignored (which you would be if you were sitting at a table), and you can see what they have available. It was better to order something similar to what the tour groups were having. Then you had a better chance of getting it.

At one point, a van drove right up in front of my table and parked there with the motor running. It blocked the view of the ocean and seemed to annoy a lot of people. I was glad to see the owners of Robert’s react very strongly. They came out and ran the guy off in short order. However, I can see some problems here in the future once the road is paved all the way to Puerto Princesa. A lot more people will come, and a lot more vehicles will come. If it isn’t tightly controlled, I can see this area turning into a big parking lot with motorbikes and such things roaring up and down the sand. The place isn’t that big, and I don’t see it handling growth very well. Already, there is a fairly large and luxurious resort up the beach called Dayulon. It looked empty, but it appeared to be the wave of the future. Almost directly behind me, they are building a new hotel with 92 rooms. It won’t be very high as there are height restrictions on Palawan, but it will still be quite big compared to places like Robert’s and Mary’s.

Since that day, I’ve gotten quite accustomed to Robert’s. I think the day I arrived was a particularly big day for tour groups. It has never been that busy since, and they don’t hang around that long. They park their vans, get in the boats, go to the river, have a meal, and then head back to Puerto. The rest of the time, the place is very quiet and relaxed. The food is excellent and according to the three guys, it is cheap compared to the rest of Sabang. Most of the meals are some variation on rice – fried fish with rice, grilled fish with rice, fried pork with rice, chicken curry with rice, fish curry with rice. They also make a bunch of other stuff like an American Breakfast, pancakes, pizzas, and spaghetti. Last night, I met up with the boys by accident at this restaurant. They had already ordered an assortment of meals with rice. I wanted something different and had spaghetti carbonara. It was quite good and exactly what I needed.

 

I’m still keeping an eye on my poor body. I had a bad moment last night when some stomach cramps hit and I thought my time had come. However, it seems to have been a passing thing. Knock on wood, I’m still relatively healthy and I still have an appetite all the time.

The bigger problem has been my skin. I haven’t burned that badly, but I’ve developed prickly heat almost everywhere. It has been driving me crazy with itchiness. It got so bad that I actually went out in search of some kind of cream that could sooth it. Most people didn’t understand me, and they offered me insect repellant, tanning lotion, and shampoo. However, the woman who seems to run Robert’s knew exactly what I needed and suggested that I get some Katialis cream. I had never heard of it of course, and she wrote the name down for me. I then went to all the little shops in Sabang asking for this cream. One place had a bottle, but it expired in 2005. Another place was sure they had it, but were out of stock. I finally found it in a store at the very end of Sabang. So far it seems to be working wonders, and according to the packaging, that’s no surprise. It comes with its own little marketing campaign in the package. It was invented by a Filipino in 1921, and has been getting rave reviews ever since. It has won numerous awards and cures practically everything! I’m not sure if it is something to really brag about, but right on the insert it says proudly: “2005 BEST Skin Disease Ointment.”

It has helped a lot with the worst of the heat rash on my legs and arms, but last night I just about went crazy scratching my lower legs, stomach, and trying to get at my back. I eventually fell asleep, but I thought I would be scratching myself silly all night long.

 

When I came back from Cambodia, I had lost over 20 pounds and was glad of it. I could finally fit into the pants that I had come to Taiwan with. I had hoped to stay at that fighting weight, but with three rice meals a day in Taipei, it didn’t happen, and my weight creeped back up to over 200 pounds. I’m sort of hoping that whatever else happens on this trip, I’ll get back to my fighting weight, and then somehow find a way to stay there. I haven’t been here very long, but I can already feel the weight dropping off. I think the weight will continue to drop off whether I keep cycling or not.

All of this pretty much brings this blournal (blog/journal) up to date. It’s 2 in the afternoon and I’ve spent the day writing and reading and going for the occasional swim. Now I’m faced with a very difficult decision. I have to decide what I’m going to do for the rest of the trip. When I first got to Sabang, I thought that there was no way I would keep cycling. It seemed impossible given this bicycle anyway. However, I started to change my mind, and yesterday I actually bought a ticket on a boat going to Port Barton. The idea was to take the boat (with my bicycle) to Port Barton, stay there for a day or two, and then cycle from there to El Nido. It seemed like a good plan, but I’m rethinking again. I’ve been looking at my map, and I just don’t know that it’s a reasonable trip. I’m also not equipped for it. If I had my regular bike and my camping gear, I could be confident of at least being able to do it. But with this bike and no camping gear, I’m not sure that it’s wise or even possible. But then again . . .

It all depends on who you speak to. You really have to consider the source. And in this case, when it comes to the possibility of cycling, I have to trust my own judgement above everyone else’s. It’s not like anyone here is going to have more experience on a bicycle than I have. I’ve experienced what I hope are the worst that roads can be – the road to Sabang. Then I’ll just have to make a choice. I just went over my map again, and I have to conclude that it is actually possible. Some guy this morning was saying that it would take four days to go by bicycle from Taytay to El Nido. I don’t know how he came up with that figure, but he did say that it takes four hours by jeepney. That figure gave me pause, because as a rule of thumb one hour in a car takes me one day on a bicycle. Four hours in a jeepney would mean four days on a bicycle. And from what I can see, there just aren’t very many people on that road. There is one small village halfway to El Nido, and that is it. If that trip took four days, I’d have to really think about it, because I’d be sleeping out for three nights and I don’t even have a tent. It wouldn’t be very comfortable.

 

Tags: bike, Monkey Trail, Palawan Bike Trip, Taiwan