Getting out Nagtabon was a challenge. The road was very steep and I had to gun the engine in first gear like some kind of motocross racer. My rear wheel was bouncing all over the place as the bike jumped and skipped from rock to rock. By the way, I kind of changed my mind about the motorcycle. I was disappointed in it and thought that Carlo had given me a piece of junk. In a way, he had, but my motorcycle was pristine compared to the three that the German boys had rented. By comparison, mine looked brand new. One guy in particular had a real crappy one. It was an old 110, and really did look like a moped. He said that it often didn’t even have enough power to get up the hills in first gear.

I really enjoyed myself on the motorcycle today. I said that I preferred riding a bike overall, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a huge amount of fun to be driving a motorcycle down these mountain roads. It’s just too cool for words sometimes. It was physically far tougher than I expected, especially on the rocky roads. It was easily as hard on my butt and back as riding a bicycle. You also had to use a lot of upper body strength just to keep the thing upright and moving forward. It’s not like you can just sit back and cruise like you’re on a Honda Goldwing on the 401. Driving this little 125 is hard work.

The Filipinos were incredibly friendly everywhere I went. They are the nicest people I have ever met on the road. They are just happy and smiling. People can tell I’m a foreigner from a mile off, and they wave and smile. They call all foreigners “Joe” (for G.I. Joe), and I get lots of “Hey, Joe!” and “Hi, Joe!” and “What’s your name, Joe?” And they really want to know. It isn’t just the knee-jerk screaming that you get in so many other countries.

I felt a bit of strangeness as I rode along. Once or twice, I passed a little shack at the side of the road, and there would be a young mother giving her child a bucket bath. The shack would really be just a shack – a thatch roof and thatch walls, and as far as I know, that really would be their home. That’s it. They’re poor people sometimes. It just seems so strange. I guess it seems strange because everyone is so laid back. I have no idea how anyone survives. They don’t seem to do any work at all. Everyone just hangs out all the time. I don’t sense any resentment towards the rich foreigner. And sometimes I wonder just how poor people are. I really don’t know anything about their lives. They are poor, but I do see a lot of cell phones and motorcycles, and in the oddest of places. Where does the money come from for a cell phone?

I had my age-old idea again – the one where I live like a local for a set period of time just to see what it is like. Because their lives really are a mystery. I spent two days and two nights on Nagtabon beach, but I have no idea how the people live really. I saw people everywhere, but what is the rhythm of their day and their lives? I have no idea. The only way to know for sure would be to really live like them – tough as that might be. I thought about this when I saw that woman in the shack. I had just about fallen apart after two days of living in my bungalow. And she might have lived in that shack for years. I wanted to just stop the motorcycle and talk to her and find out about her life. And then just move into the shack. Just live there for a month and witness what life is like. I don’t know what purpose that would serve. People would just call it self-indulgent poverty-tourism (and I might be too old for it), but it is an idea that I’d had as long as I can remember. It goes all the way back to Guatemala when I tried to live with that family in the village. Of course, that family ended up selling off all my belongings the moment my back was turned, but what are you going to do?

Of course, I think it would be an interesting idea. But can you imagine the discomfort? Yikes. Still, I keep thinking about it. Perhaps it would be a better way to spend my time than cycling somewhere.

Anyway, to continue with my day. Despite how adventurous it felt, it only took me 30 minutes to get from Nagtabon back to the main road from Puerto Princesa – the National Highway.

I had a vague idea that I would drive to Roxas about 120 kilometers away. There, I could see about catching a boat out to Coco-Loco Resort. If the place was full, I could then drive a further 40 kilometers or so to a coastal town called San Vincente. I knew (and still know) nothing about this town. Nobody goes there that I’m aware of, which makes it very attractive. I had never been there, so it would be new. Coco-Loco is beautiful and has great snorkeling, but I’ve already been there. The road to San Vincente looked interesting – an old rocky mountain road.

It took me a while to get used to driving the motorcycle at speed. I didn’t want to go fast, because I wanted to look at the scenery. But my speed kept creeping up, and I wasn’t sure what gear I should be in. I couldn’t hear the engine over the roar of the wind in my ears, and I didn’t have a feel for it either. I couldn’t tell when it was laboring or revving too high. I stayed in third gear at a relatively slow speed for much of the morning. Then I had to downshift to second to get up the steeper hills. Eventually, though, I put it into fourth and started going faster and faster. Actually, as I was driving along in third, a man walking at the side of the road looked up at the sound of my engine and he pointed up quite strongly. I’m not sure what he meant, but I had the feeling that he was telling me that my engine was revving too high and that I should shift up. Perhaps he was used to foreigners not knowing how to drive. In any case, I took his advice, and I shifted into fourth. Then I let my speed creep up and up until I was going much faster than before. I have no idea what the speed was, but it probably wasn’t that high. I’ve noticed that you feel like you are going very fast on a scooter or motorcycle when you really aren’t. 50 km/hr on my scooter feels like 100 in a car. I’d guess that I was driving steadily at 60 or 70 km/hr.

I felt very happy with my choice to rent a motorcycle when I came to the turn-off to Sabang. Sabang is one of Palawan’s three main tourist towns. And at this turn-off, there was a cluster of about seven backpackers. Some of them were trying to catch a jeepney or bus to Sabang and some were trying to catch a bus or jeepney to El Nido. I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn’t one of them. For some people, that sort of thing is not a hardship. They actually take it in stride and find it fun. But not me. I hate just standing at a road and trying to wave down a bus. You have no idea what is going on. You don’t know which bus to take or if there are any buses at all. There is so much uncertainty. I stopped at this intersection to buy some gas from a corner store (they sell it in 1-liter Coke bottles for 55 pesos a bottle), and I watched as these poor people waved down buses. Then they’d shout and back and forth with the driver about where they were going and whether there was room on the bus. In the time that I was there, no bus had empty seats. I felt uber-cool as I poured my gas out of my Coke bottle into my motorcycle’s tank and then started it up and drove away. No waiting for buses for me, thank you very much!

My sense of cool didn’t last that long, though. I got to this little town called Magara. I was feeling over-confident and just racing along at high speed. At the last second, I spotted a problem. Just before the bridge into Magara, the pavement had dropped away as the land eroded, so there was a huge gap with a wall of concrete on the other side. I hit the brakes as hard as I could, but it wasn’t enough and I slammed into this concrete at a pretty good clip. I flattened the tire and bent the rim pretty good. In Magara, I found what they call a “Vulcanizing” shop. They can repair a flat tire. The guy who fixed mine was a teenager, and he used the same system that I saw in Cambodia. They put a piece of rubber over the hole, and then press it down with a clamp. The thing pressing down looks like an old car engine cylinder, and into the cylinder they pour gasoline. They light this on fire and it heats up the metal and melts the rubber of the patch into the rubber of the tire. I don’t find it to be as reliable as good glue and patches, but it does work. He fixed two punctures. It took him about 30 minutes to do it, and he charged me 30 pesos in total. That’s about 75 cents Canadian I think.

That fixed my flat, but I still had the warped rim. It was just barely rideable, and I rode at a very slow speed to the bigger town of Roxas which was only 10 kilometers away. My vulcanizer told me that someone there could fix the rim. The second place I went to said that they could fix it, but they recommended buying a new rim and new spokes. They said that the rim had been damaged many, many times already, and it would be better to replace it. I balked at that idea and asked them to try to straighten the rim first. I’m only renting the motorcycle after all, and I don’t want to rebuild the thing. I found out a short time later that a new rim and spokes would only cost at most 800 pesos including labor! That’s like $20. However, they’d already started trying to repair it, and I just let them go ahead. They used the classic BFH principle – put the rim down on some blocks and then hit it with a “big fucking hammer.” At that point, I wanted to tell them to stop and that I’d just buy a new rim. If I knew I could get the rim quickly, I’d have done it. But I was worried that it would turn out to be a big job and I’d have to spend the afternoon there. So I just let them beat on the rim with a sledge hammer until they were satisfied. Then they trued it up by adjusting the spokes. The result was far from perfect, but they said it was safe. And when I was back on the road, it rode just like before.

While I was in Roxas, I went down to the dock to see about going to Coco-Loco. I knew how it worked from my previous visit. It was a very different experience back then, though, as this whole trip is different. There was almost no one else on Palawan on my first visit. I rode my bike down to the dock just to look around, and I stumbled across an office for Coco-Loco Resort. They said that their regular boat was heading out to the island in an hour or so, and they had lots of bungalows available, so I could just hop on the boat. I quickly unloaded the bike (leaving the bike in their office) and then got on the boat and we were off.

I didn’t think it would be as easy this time, and I was right. The girl at the Coco-Loco office was less than friendly, less than organized, and less than helpful. She seemed to know nothing and didn’t think there was anything unusual about that. But after a lot of questions and my forcing her to telephone someone who might actually know something, I was told that Coco-Loco was fully booked. She said that they might have a bungalow the next day, but it wouldn’t be one of the regular beachside bungalows, but a small one in the interior with a communal bathroom. I might even have gone for that except that it would mean waiting in Roxas overnight and then only on the off-chance that this bungalow would be available. This woman simply refused to pin it down for me. It seemed simple enough. It was either reserved or it wasn’t. But she wouldn’t bite either way.

I then asked her about reserving a beachside bungalow for the future. I was thinking that I could continue on my trip up to El Nido and then I could stop off at Coco-Loco on my way back down. She was maddeningly vague about that as well, and her attention kept drifting. We finally got to the point where she phoned someone else and learned that there was one of those cheaper interior bungalows available later on. However, she couldn’t be totally sure. She then said that it might be possible on that date to upgrade to a better bungalow when I got to the island. She said there might be a cancellation. I pointed out that if there was a cancellation, it would be nice to know BEFORE I went all the way out to the island. Why do I have to wait until I get there to know for sure? I also tried to get her to understand that if my name were down on some kind of waiting list, I should be next in line for a beachside bungalow when it is available no matter when the cancellation comes in. It all made logical sense to me, but this woman was obtuse beyond words. Against my better judgement I made a reservation for the weekend following a trip to El Nido. But even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew it wasn’t a very good idea. There were too many ifs and buts in the arrangement. And for me to get back to Roxas on a particular day would mean some serious effort on my part. I didn’t want to put in that effort without some kind of guarantee. Plus, I needed to know when the boat went to the island. I had to get to Roxas in time to meet the boat. But this woman insisted that she didn’t know when the boat left. And this would mean I’d have to come to Roxas the day before and stay in a hotel in the town so that I could then get the boat the next day whenever it left. And on top of all of this, if all these arrangements came through, what would I end up with at the end? I’d be on a tourist island, fully booked with families and tour groups – not exactly an adventure. The last time when I went to Coco-Loco it was a complete surprise. I had no idea what it was and it was a real adventure. On top of that, the place was nearly empty, and I had a wonderful time because of the snorkeling. The island was ringed with a beautiful coral reef, and I had a great time just checking out the reef and all the fantastical fish that called it home. This time, it would just be a pre-packaged tour with a bunch of fat white tourists.

I thought about all of this while the guys were beating on my bent rim with their sledge hammer. When they were finished, I rode my motorcycle back to the dock and cancelled my reservation. I hardly needed to bother. My “reservation” consisted of my name scrawled on the bottom of a pad of paper. Still, I felt I should. I almost yelled at the woman a little bit, because she wouldn’t even pay attention to me as I cancelled my reservation. I was going to get all “ugly American” on her ass and tell her that I was going to write a letter to her boss and complain about her. But then again, why bother? It’s a mixed bag, isn’t it? One of the things that makes travel here attractive is that it is cheap and disorganized. That’s why I can rent a motorcycle for very little per day and with no insurance and no formalities. The guy just drops off the motorcycle and away you go. And when you need repairs, they beat on your rim with a sledge hammer and charge you a dollar for the labor. This kind of craziness means that there will also be some informality and looseness when it comes to other stuff – like reserving a bungalow at a resort. The problem, I realized, was that there was a mismatch between my idea of what the trip was about and Coco-Loco. I saw Coco-Loco as an expensive resort – a place where there should be organization (especially when it requires an hour and a half by boat just to get to the place). If I was here winging it on a grand adventure with my motorcycle, then I had no business going to a place like Coco-Loco anyway – at least not during Chinese New Year when it is a zoo of tourists.

I felt much better as I drove my motorcycle away after canceling my reservation. Now I was free once more to just let things happen as they happen. To go to El Nido and then back to Coco-Loco would have meant rushing and I hate rushing. To be honest, I’m also not that thrilled about going to El Nido. I had a wonderful time there last time. I did everything. I visited every island you could visit. I even did the sunset tour and the cliff climbing tour. I had a series of bungalows right on the beach. There were some hiccups, but overall it was a wonderful experience. This time, I’d be repeating all that stuff. And it seems like it is going to be very crowded. I’d heard from the German boys that it was very difficult to get a place to stay. And that means there is no way I’d be on the beach. Worse, there’s a good chance all the boat trips out to the islands would be fully booked. And even if I could get a place on one of the boat trips, if it is that crowded, then the islands and the beaches will be jammed with people all doing the same thing I’d be doing. I had the place almost entirely to myself last time. Perhaps I should just keep that memory and give El Nido a miss.

I’m thinking that even more now that I am San Vicente, but that is getting slightly ahead of my story.

So, after fixing my rim and canceling my vague and unreliable reservation at Coco-Loco, I was ready to hit the road. I stopped at a gas station and topped up the tank with 2 liters of fuel. Then I was racing out of town. The front wheel seemed to bounce up and down a little bit more than it did before, but that could also be because the pavement was now made up of big slabs of concrete. I remembered the road very well from when I cycled it going up and then going down. The road was a complete mess because they were putting down those concrete slabs and they were doing it in bits and pieces. They weren’t finished yet, but much of the concrete was in place. Where it wasn’t, there were piles of rocks and dirt and various barricades. I really had to be on my toes as I drove, There was almost no traffic, which was nice. I think two buses and a truck passed me on the whole stretch from Roxas to the turn-off to San Vicente.

The trip to San Vicente was everything I could have hoped for. I was getting a little bored of the paved road and then the paved concrete road. The road to San Vicente was unpaved and very challenging. It was a narrow road with jungle crowding in on both sides. I had to go very slowly, and without the howling wind in my ears, I could hear the sounds of birds and other creatures. I felt totally relaxed and happy to be beetling along that road.

The entire trip from the National Highway to San Vicente itself was only 13 kilometers, but it felt much longer than that. And at times, I wasn’t sure if I was going the right away. The road came down out of the mountains and onto a flat coastal plain. I started to see some farms and huts, but I had no idea if I was on the right road. I stopped to ask a bunch of people, and they confirmed that I was on the right path to San Vicente. They just couldn’t be clear on how far it was or what it would look like.

The road finally hit the ocean, and I was a little bit confused because there was no town there at all. From the size of the dot on the map, I assumed San Vicente was more of a town than a village and that it would have a school and shops and markets and, hopefully, a hotel. But where the road hit the water, there was nothing but a few fishermen’s shacks. I was all up for adventure, but I wasn’t prepared to sleep on the sand out in the open. And I wasn’t in the mood to turn around. Going back to Roxas didn’t appeal to me at all. Going on to Taytay was equally unattractive. I remember from my bike ride that it was a tough, tough road from there to Taytay with some serious long climbs. I’d already been driving for six hours, and I didn’t have the energy (or the feeling in my butt) for much more.

I stopped another local man and asked about San Vicente. To my relief, he pointed north up the coast. That made no sense at all when you looked at my map, but the road didn’t go south at all, so my map had to be wrong. I turned my front wheel north, and in a few minutes I was rewarded with a fantastic view of the coastline and another bay. Then a bit further on, I came to San Vicente.

 

 

 

Tags: bike, Coco Loco, El Nido, Palawan Motorbike Trip, San Vicente