Sunday September 7, 2014
8:50 a.m. Oslob, Cebu

I’m a bit later on the NEO this morning because I got up at 4:30 this morning to go to Tanawan for a whale shark watching trip. Some people I met yesterday kind of talked me into it. These people were staying in a couple of rooms at this lodge, and in the morning, they were preparing lunch on the big tables in the courtyard area. The women didn’t seem that approachable, but the man seemed more friendly and educated, and I talked to him a bit. He told me a bit about the whale shark watching in Tanawan. He said that it cost 500 pesos per foreigner (much cheaper for Filipinos) and that the trips out to see the whale sharks started as early as five in the morning, maybe six. He knew a bit about the sharks as well, and said that at this time of year most of the sharks there would be juveniles. The adults would have left for their migration and would come back later – during the high season. Because they are feeding the whale sharks, the juveniles are enticed to stay year round. Whether this is good for the whale shark population, I have no idea. There appears to be some controversy and debate about this. One of the women was wearing a T-shirt with a logo and slogans about protecting the whale sharks. I assumed this was a statement of sorts against the whale shark watching activities at Tanawan. However, I learned that the opposite is true. The locals consider the whale shark watching tours to be an active effort to protect the whale sharks and the species as a whole. The idea is that in the past, the whale sharks were in direct competition with local fishermen. The fishermen would beat them with paddles to drive them away and many people killed them to eat them. Now that they have the income from tourism, they don’t need to fish and those that still do fish don’t drive the whale sharks away and are not allowed to harm them in any way. With this bit of information, I decided to check it out. I still had no firm idea of what time things got underway, but I thought if I got there by six, I would be okay. I got up at four thirty and was on the road by five fiteen or so. The sky was already quite light, and I wished I had left earlier. It was just that from my windows, it still looked dark outside, and I didn’t want to be on the road in the dark with those killer Ceres Liners. The rear light on my bike was broken in Tacloban during typhoon Yolanda, and I haven’t been able to find a light to replace it.

I rode at a much faster pace than I usually do, since I had a firm destination, and I got to Tanawan in record time. I have to say that despite my decision to go, I was very nervous. I assumed that everything would go wrong and that it would be a horrible experience. In the end, I have to say that it wasn’t that bad. I won’t say that it was good. It was far from good, but it wasn’t the total nightmare I was anticipating.

I was very surprised when I arrived to see a very large number of employees there. There were three women sitting at a table at one entrance to the main shelter and four other people sitting at another set of tables at the far end. Then there were at least a hundred other people decked out in official whale shark watching T-shirt uniforms. The T-shirts were an attractive light blue with a police shield shaped emblem on the back. Across the top of the shield it read TOSWFA, which stands for Tan-Awan Oslob Sea Warden & Fishermen Association. Inside the shield emblem is a black rendition of a whale shark with a gaping mouth and the words “Gentle Giant Defenders.” Based on what I experienced, this was all a bit of an overstatement.

The place had clearly developed over the years into an assembly-line production, with the tourist being the product to be pushed through as fast as possible – while relieving them of their cash, of course. The atmosphere was familiar to me from many other places that make the same mistake. They allow their systems to develop for the employees and not for the visitors. The employees know how everything works, so they don’t need any information. They never look at it from the point of view of the tourist or visitor, so they don’t realize how confusing and impersonal it can feel. Everyone there knew what was going to happen and what was going on, but I didn’t know. So, for me, it was a bit confusing and impersonal and rushed.

The process, I learned, begins at the first table with the three women. There, you sign a register. I was pleased to see that I was the very first person to sign up that day. I had no idea how anything worked, so I assumed that I would have to wait until enough people arrived to make up a large group to fill up one boat. Therefore, I was in no hurry to move things along. These women, though, knew that it made no difference. I could hop in a boat all by myself at any time and go. And the whale sharks, rather than being kilometers away, were just a hundred meters offshore. They were right there, and I could go have my whale shark experience right away. To an extent, that was good news, but it was also a bit unpleasant. More than anything in the world, I hate being rushed. I like to take my time and absorb the atmosphere of a place and see how things work and get the lay of the land. To that end, I tried to engage these women in conversation. I had questions about the whale shark watching experience and I had questions about the whale sharks themselves. The women, however, couldn’t have been less interested in talking to me. They wanted to move me on to the next station – the orientation. Again, I assumed that there was a scheduled orientation and I would have to wait until a big group arrived. But they were more than willing to give me my own private orientation. I took one seat out of the array of thirty or forty plastic chairs, and a woman came and stood right in front of me and told me all the rules for my interaction with the whale sharks. They were all common sense rules: You couldn’t touch the whale sharks. You should stay at least four meters away from them. Don’t jump in the water and don’t splash around. Don’t wear sunscreen in the water. Don’t use the flash on your camera. If a whale shark comes near you, don’t panic – they won’t hurt you. Don’t throw garbage in the water. I also learned that what I was paying for was thirty minutes with the whale sharks, and this time began from the moment we arrived at the whale shark interaction area. (I, however, was unceremoniously ordered back into the boat and taken back to shore after only twenty minutes.)

A rather unpleasant surprise was that the fee was 1,000 pesos, not 500 pesos. It cost 500 pesos if you just sat in the boat. If you wanted to snorkel in the water, it cost 1,000 pesos. That included the use of a mask and snorkel and there was no discount if you brought your own. Filipinos were charged roughly half what foreigners were charged. It was 500 pesos for them for snorkeling and 300 pesos to just sit in the boat. For residents of the Oslob area, it was considerably cheaper at just 50 pesos and 30 pesos respectively. I think they could afford to offer this major discount to “Oslobians” because most do it just once and never do it again. I spoke to a number of local people and they all said that they had gone to see the whale sharks once in their lives. Most kind of grimaced when they said it and commented only on how big their mouths were. That was about it for their feelings on the subject. They had zero interest in ever doing it again. I can understand their reaction if they just sat in the boat. From the boat, you really don’t see anything at all but a giant gaping mouth sitting there and sucking in water as the guides toss fish guts and whatnot into the water. Just sitting in the boat for this tour would be a total waste of time and money.

To get back to my experience, I didn’t realize it but I had a dedicated handler. I thought this guy was just hanging out near me to be friendly. But it seems that every group or individual that shows up is assigned a specific handler, and this person takes you through the process – signing in, orientation, payment, getting the lifejacket, and then going down to the boats. I applaud the effort at organization, but no one told me that this guy was my handler. He just seemed like this really annoying character who followed me around and kept telling me to do things I didn’t want to do and urging me to go faster and faster. I finally figured out that he was my handler, and my irritation lessened. However, I was still smarting a little bit under the unpleasant double whammy that the fee was double what I expected and that I would only have half an hour at most to swim with the whale sharks. That was a very expensive half hour. It would have been more reasonable if the fee covered more of an overall experience, but there was really nothing in addition to the thirty minutes (twenty minutes for me) in the water. There was absolutely zero information about the whale sharks anywhere. For an organization purporting to be “Gentle Giant Defenders”, they couldn’t have been less interested in educating any of their visitors about these gentle giants. At the absolute least, I would have expected some exhibits and posters and photographs giving information about the whale sharks – their biology, their migration patterns, their feeding habits, their family groups, their lifespans, etc. You’d think there would be at least some kind of information about how big they are. That is their main attraction to most visitors – their sheer size and that they are friendly enough that we can get very close to them. But sitting here after my experience swimming with the gentle giants I have no idea how big they actually are. And forget that they are very large, they are also extremely beautiful and the whale shark tour experience would have been much more pleasurable if there had been at the very least some photographs on the walls. When I looked around the area, I saw nothing but missed opportunities. I’m a born organizer and it breaks my heart to see so many missed opportunities. Considering the huge amount of money this operation must bring in, it would amount to very little of their operating budget to buy a couple of TVs and DVD players and show video of the whale sharks in the water – even video of the whale sharks interacting with swimming people. The majority of the people who visited this place opted to pay only for the boat tour. They all just sat in the boat and saw nothing but a couple of enormous mouths. I saw those mouths from the surface as well, and I can say that there was no comparison with the experience of being in the water with them and seeing them clearly through a snorkeling mask. My heart beating at a thousand beats per minute as these creatures swam directly underneath me just a couple of feet away can attest to that. For those people who didn’t have that experience, they should at least be able to see some video of what the whale sharks look like swimming through the water and feeding. Even for people like me that opted to snorkel with the whale sharks, the video would have made the experience a thousand percent more enjoyable. As everyone knows, anticipation of an experience is often more pleasurable than the experience itself. In any event, it certainly would add to it, and I would have loved to have been able to watch some video of the whale sharks before I went into the water so that I could get an idea of what I was going to see. There is certainly no economic argument against having some informational displays and some video playing at the very least. I stood around for quite a while after my all-too-brief tour, and I watched the stacks and stacks and stacks of 1,000-peso notes piling up at the payment desk. I can’t even guess at the amount of money they would take in in one day, and this operation goes on all year. Obviously, I don’t have access to their operational budget, but knowing a bit about the minimum daily wage in the Philippines and other things, I can’t imagine that their operating costs are very high. The whale sharks themselves are free beyond having to toss some bits of food into the water. It’s not like they have huge aquarium tanks to maintain. The whale sharks simply swim around the ocean all afternoon and night and then dutifully show up first thing in the morning for their breakfast snack. It’s like having a modern zoo with zero costs – where all the animals feed themselves and take care of themselves and then show up on cue every day at the exact same spot to entertain visitors. Beyond some fish guts, their expenditure consists of the wages of the boatmen and the handlers and some boats and some lifejackets and masks and snorkels. I have no idea where all the money goes, but there is certainly enough of an income to provide a much better experience for visitors.

I mentioned two things that would improve the place dramatically – informational displays with still photography and TVs with video displays. Informed guides would also have been nice. I asked lots of questions about the whale sharks, and no one there could answer any of my questions. The two men who rowed me out in their boat were stonefaced the entire time. They could not have been more bored and less interested in me and my experience as a visitor. The only words that emerged from them was a loud “Time’s up!” when they wanted me to get back in the boat – ten minutes early. In fact, I felt, as a visitor, like a bit of an outsider. This is a common experience I’ve had in the Philippines. The staff in general everywhere I go seem to be involved in their own private party. I guess wages are low enough that businesses can afford to hire more people than they need. And there is little for employees to do, so they end up just hanging out all day and chatting and laughing with other staff. They are not focused on the visitors and the tourists. All their energy and emotion is focused inward on having fun with fellow employees, and as a visitor or customer, I’m left to fend for myself, and I feel excluded. There is no effort on their part to make my experience better.

Another wonderful addition would be a place for people to take the ever-popular self-portrait with perhaps a huge model of a whale shark. Most of the visitors at this place were Japanese or Filipino (I only saw two other white people out of hundreds and hundreds of visitors), and everyone had the latest in digital cameras, and they would go crazy for some kind of display where they could pose for pictures with a whale shark – it could be just a very large photograph of a whale shark, and people could stand beside it for scale.

Also a lot of fun would be a big board displaying pictures from visitors. Each visitor could be handed a business card or a brochure containing an email address, and you could ask them to email photos or videos that they took with the whale sharks. The best of these could be put on display. Over time, the center could amass a huge collection of wonderful video and photography. Many visitors had underwater cameras and other gear, and I’m sure many would love to send in samples when they got back home.

In terms of practical matters, the center would benefit a great deal from having storage lockers for visitors. I had arrived with a pannier bag and some valuables, and I asked about where I could keep this safe while I was out on the boat. The very idea seemed to surprise the staff. The first woman I spoke to asked me specifically whether I had a wallet with me. Well, of course, I had a wallet. I could have gotten a bit sarcastic with her and asked her to look around Tanawan and see if anyone was giving away stuff for free. No? Well, then yes, I have a wallet because I have to pay you a thousand pesos for starters. And if I want to eat and drink, I have to pay some more. She suggested I just take my wallet with me. I felt kind of dumb doing it, but I had to point out to her that my wallet would end up getting wet, wouldn’t it? Of course, I’m not an idiot. I had a waterproof bag with me that I intended to bring with me onto the boat. But that didn’t really solve the problem, because I’d have to leave that bag on the boat while I was in the water. The boatmen could help themselves to whatever they wanted. I also assumed there would be other people on the boat, and who knows if I could trust them? The only suggestion anyone could make is that I could just leave my pannier bag “in the corner over there.” This wasn’t even inside an office or a secure location. They just wanted me to leave my bag sitting there out in the open in the corner. I was really puzzled by this and a bit annoyed because you can’t go into any store or building in the Philippines without going through intense security checks – metal detectors, physical pat downs, a search through your bags. And you can forget about bringing a knapsack with you into a store. They don’t trust you even a tiny bit, and you have to check your bag at the entrance. This is to protect them from you, to prevent you from stealing from them. But when the roles are reversed, and I need some security, the issue is completely ignored. I’m then told to just leave my bag in the corner and “It’ll be fine.” I’m expected to trust not only them but all of the hundreds of people from all over the world milling around. Where is all this trust when I need them to trust me? Nope. It doesn’t work that way. In any event, I had no choice but to just leave my pannier bag attached to my bicycle and lock up my bicycle. I took what steps I could and put everything inside the main compartment and then locked that compartment’s zipper with a padlock. But that wouldn’t prevent anyone from just detaching the pannier bag and running off with the whole thing. Granted, my pannier bags are extremely tough and it’s very difficult to take them off the pannier racks. You really have to know how to do it. But still, I was there to relax and enjoy myself swimming with the whale sharks. I couldn’t do that while worried about my possessions just sitting there out in the open. I can’t be the first person to ever show up at this place with some valuables that they didn’t want to take out onto the boat with them. Wouldn’t they, over time, have developed some kind of system for secure storage? They don’t even need to go so far as to have actual lockers with locks. They can just put the bags into the office or behind a table and put a numbered card on them and give you the matching card – like they do at every other business in the country. But, as I said, that is to protect them. When it comes to protecting you, there is not as much concern. It’s really weird when I think about it because there are signs EVERYWHERE in the Philippines telling you not to leave your things unattended. Yet, at a major tourist attraction with hundreds of visitors a day, the official policy is to just leave your things sitting there in the corner completely unattended. Granted, most people are coming directly from the local beach resorts. They leave all their valuables in their hotel rooms and come to the whale shark watching area with just those things they need. But surely, even some of them have a wallet or some other item that they don’t want to drop and lose down the gaping mouth of some hungry whale shark.

I realize I’m being very negative about my experience. I’m focusing on everything that was wrong or missing or ignored. A person might think I’m being unfair. After all, this isn’t a state-of-the-art aquatic park in Las Vegas. This is the Philippines, and you have to cut the place some slack. And I would cut them some slack if they charged a reasonable fee. The experience I had was worth a couple hundred pesos. It wasn’t worth a thousand. A thousand pesos is a premium price, and for that you have a right to expect certain standards. Basically, two men rowed me out a hundred yards from shore – a distance I could have swum on my own easily – and then dumped me in the water. That’s about it for service. I don’t see a thousand pesos worth of service there, especially when “Time’s up!” came ten minutes early and I used my own snorkeling equipment. And so far I’ve ignored the glaring problem that I was charged the foreigner price of double the local price. Maybe there is a convincing logical argument why foreigners should pay more than locals. But if there is such an argument, I’ve never heard it. For me, the foreigner price is a racist system. I’m being charged double because I’m from a different race. Period. It has nothing to do with economics. Many if not all of the Filipinos there have more money than I do. They were all staying in nice beach resorts and came to this place by dedicated shuttle bus. They certainly drove to the beach resort in the first place in their own car or SUV. And they were simply dripping with all the latest fashionable clothes and the latest high-tech camera gear. Charging me double what they are charged is simply a racist system. To be honest, when I first showed up and I learned that actually going into the water cost twice as much as I was told, I nearly turned around and left. It felt ridiculous to me that everyone who told me it cost 500 pesos was referring to just sitting in the boat. Why would anyone just sit in the boat? It never even occurred to me that a person would go to see the whale sharks and not go in the water. To me, they are synonymous. So, swimming with the whale sharks seemed worth 500 pesos, and even that is a stretch. It wasn’t worth 1,000 pesos. And not to beat a dead horse, but for 1,000 pesos I think I have a right to expect a bit more effort on the part of the Gentle Giant Defenders. How hard would it be, for example, to put a sign above the registration desk that says “Register Here” and a sign above the other desks saying “Please Pay Here” and another sign listing the various prices and options? Not hard at all. Heck, just use a magic marker and a few sheets of paper and some scotch tape. Not having even that basic level of organization smacks to me of laziness. Visitors like me end up wandering around not even sure what we’re supposed to do. Take a dozen of the hundred employees wandering around doing very little and get them to pencil up a few signs. That would at least make the operation seem a little bit less like a plain cash grab.

It’s funny that I’ve gone on this long without even mentioning my actual experience in the water with the whale sharks. I suspect that’s because my overall experience was so rushed and rather chaotic and then when I got in the water, so much was happening that it was hard to even focus. I suppose that’s a good thing. The fact is that my problem was NOT with finding and viewing the whale sharks. That wasn’t a problem at all. There were so many of the gentle giants in the water with me that it was all I could do just to stay out of their way. Forget about the rule of staying at least four meters away from the whale sharks. Somebody forgot to tell the whale sharks about the rule, and they had no problem whatsoever with getting right up in my grill. I’d be focusing with all my might on the massive creature directly in front of me and be completely unaware of the other big fellow swimming right up behind. Luckily, whale sharks have good vision and they did not just barrel right into me. The creatures coming up from behind me or from the side would simply duck down and swim right underneath me. They were probably a few feet under me, but they were so huge that it felt like they were inches away. I hardly dared move a muscle and just let them skim by, hoping that the tail – considerably taller than my six-foot frame – wouldn’t swat me to the side like a fly swatter. The thing is that when you are in the water with a basic snorkeling mask, your field of vision is extremely limited. I simply couldn’t see behind me or even very far in front of me. I could see down quite easily and then at an angle in all directions. But these whale sharks were largely swimming right on the surface, and time and again I was surprised to find them right beside me, right in front of me, or suddenly behind and then underneath me. The best views I got were of the whale sharks that had taken a break from feeding and were gliding past in slightly deeper water – perhaps fifteen feet below me. Then I could see the entire whale shark from mouth to tail and take it all in.

Adding to the confusion was simply being in the water – trying to keep my snorkeling mask clear, trying to keep from running into the outriggers of the feeding boats, and trying to keep from drifting out to sea. I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t keep track of my position, and I kept finding myself far away from the boats and drifting out to sea. I found it difficult to actually swim and go in any direction because no matter which way I turned, I found myself facing another whale shark. I would take a reading on where the boats were (my boatmen were frantically waving at me and indicating that I should swim back to the boats) and then try to swim in that direction, but a whale shark would be right in my path, and I couldn’t do anything but float there and try not to run into the giant dude. I couldn’t really kick with my feet because the whale sharks were that close. It was like we were magnets and I kept getting pulled right into them. Perhaps it was the suction of the draft they made in the water. I don’t know. I was trying very hard to stay the regulation four meters away, but it was impossible. I had far too many whale shark friends. When I eventually made my way back to my boat, one of the boatmen suddenly called out, “Sir! Behind you!” I looked, and, of course, there was one of the whale sharks – mouth agape – steaming up on my feet. It was nice to be warned so that I could get a good view as the behemoth slid past, but if the boatman was warning me to get out of the way, he might as well have held his breath. The whale shark was way too fast for me to even have a chance of getting out of his way. If he wanted to swallow me whole or ram into me, that was what was going to happen. Luckily, he or she was quite aware of my presence and deftly slid past me with hardly any room to spare. During the orientation, I was told that people disobeying the rules and getting too close to the whale sharks and touching them could face six months in prison. In terms of getting too close, I was facing a couple of lifetime sentences, but there was nothing I could do about it. Might as well have asked me to climb into a small cage with fifty puppies and tell me to keep my distance. Strange to call mega-ton whale sharks puppies, but that’s how they seemed to me. They were intent on what they wanted to do – mainly eat – and I was just some random object in the water.

I don’t know if I just happened to get lucky being out there by myself so early. Maybe everyone encountered that many whale sharks and had that many close encounters with them. I don’t know. But I certainly can’t complain about the experience itself when it comes to encountering whale sharks. I can talk about this or that not being worth 1,000 pesos, but to be floating in the water while a marine creature of that size and beauty suddenly appears what feels like a foot below you and its entire massive length from massive mouth to towering tail passes serenely by, it’s a priceless moment.

I should say that the experience wasn’t limited only to the whale sharks. Each shark came with its personal colony of feeding fish. And within the first few seconds of my getting into the water, I encountered a very large sea turtle right at my feet. I’ve only seen a few of these in my life, and they have always been short glimpses. They are much faster than their size and shape would imply, and a simple flick or two of their feet sends them plummeting down and out of sight. This fellow stuck around and I was mesmerized by the ease with which he moved. In fact, I was so entranced by the turtle that it took me some time to even recognize that I was just a few feet away from the largest animal I had ever seen – my first whale shark buddy – happily snacking on some tidbits being tossed overboard by the man in the boat.

I mentioned that my tour was cut short, and I was out there for only twenty minutes. But truth be told, that twenty minutes felt much, much longer. I thought about arguing with the boatman and pointing at my watch to indicate that my time wasn’t up, but considering the almost spiritual experience I’d just had, that would have felt petty – to argue over a matter of ten minutes and getting my money’s worth. There really wasn’t more that could be added to what I had experienced by staying in the water another ten minutes. I have to say that some show of interest by the boatmen might have added to my experience – even a simple question of how I felt about the experience. But they pretty much ignored me and paddled me hard to shore as soon as I had climbed back aboard.

I hung out at the center for a while afterwards just to let the experience sink in and to watch the activity around me. It was getting later, and shuttle bus loads of people were now arriving from the beach resorts and more and more boats were jostling for space out in the water. I realized how lucky I had been to get there so early and have my time with the whale sharks in relative peace. I don’t think if I’d arrived when so many people were there that I’d have had as pleasurable a time. Big family groups with young children were now arriving and the kids were running around and creating chaos. As I stood there taking it all in, I reflected on the risky nature of this venture. I’m a strong swimmer and I’ve had lots of experience in the water with a snorkel and mask. And I don’t think I’m spooked very easily. Even so, when that first whale shark was suddenly right there under me, I experienced a moment of real shock. I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I knew logically I was getting in the water with sharks that weighed many, many tons, but that isn’t the same as knowing what it meant emotionally. It still came as a huge surprise, and the orientation lady’s words about not panicking suddenly felt real. I can see someone panicking very easily. And I know from experience that it doesn’t take much to get in real trouble when your snorkel and mask suddenly fill with water and you begin to choke a little bit. It’s a simple matter to clear your snorkel and breathe again – but that’s when you are coolheaded and in control. You could easily lose control when surrounded by whale sharks. So there was a real risk of visitors getting in trouble in the water. I started to wonder how many times it happened and whether the staff were prepared to deal with those eventualities. I guess that’s one of the joys of traveling in places like the Philippines – concerns for safety and insurance liability can be quite relaxed. My boatmen had simply paddled me out and let me get into the water and look after myself. It’s not like they had lifesaving equipment – rings and ropes and certificates on the wall attesting that they’d passed this or that lifesaving course. If I wanted to jump into the water with who knows how many multi-ton whale sharks at feeding time, well, that was my concern. One policy I was very glad to hear was that we didn’t have to wear a lifevest while in the water. We were required to wear a lifevest while in the boat and going out to and returning from the whale shark interaction area. But if we were strong enough swimmers, we were allowed to take the jacket off to go into the water. That made sense because it is very difficult to snorkel while wearing a big lifevest. I was worried we would have to wear it the whole time and it would be really difficult to actually see the whale sharks.

3:35 p.m.

A bit later in the day. Back in my room after a few hours out exploring the town and the coastline. I realized that I hadn’t said anything about the actual feeding of the whale sharks and how they looked. It was a bit amusing because the whale sharks simply hung tail down in the water next to a feeding boat and opened their mouths – like baby chicks waiting to be fed. It was exactly like the whale shark feeding that I had seen in the aquarium in Taiwan. That whale shark also just went vertical in the water, tail pointing straight down, and opened its mouth. The handlers picked up large buckets of some type of food and poured it straight down the whale shark’s gullet. The whale sharks at Tanawan weren’t quite as vertical, but they were nearly so, and they kept their huge tails moving to stay in place or move around as the boats moved. I was most nervous around these feeding whale sharks. I would end up – without trying to – somewhere near or even over their tails. I was nervous that I’d spook the whale shark and the tail would suddenly come up and smack me as it swam away. I did my best to stay away from the tail, but there were so many whale sharks that whenever I swam away from one, I’d end up running into the next one over. It was a bit like that children’s game Statue, when you could only move when the person who was “it” wasn’t looking at you. The problem is that you can’t look at everyone, and by the time you turned around to look behind you, the person there was inches away. Sneaky whale sharks. Good thing they didn’t find Canadian cyclists to be that tasty.

I also didn’t say anything about yesterday. After speaking with the group of people about the whale sharks, I jumped on my bike and rode down a narrow road that I was told led up into the mountains and the highland region. The fellow who told me about the whale sharks also recommended this road. He said the road was in great shape and it led to some great scenery. He was right about the condition of the road and the scenery. However, I have to believe that he has never ridden a bike in his life, because it was completely impossible to ride a bike up that road. Anyone could see that instantly if they gave it a moment’s thought. The road was simply far too steep to even attempt. After just a couple hundred yards, I dismounted and started pushing my bike. Eight kilometers later and at the top of the mountain, I was still walking the bike. There were stretches of road so steep that it was all I could do to even push the unloaded bike. My whole body was practically flat to the road as if I was climbing straight up a cliff. It gave me again a real respect for the power of the mighty 125cc engine on the standard motorcycle you see in these parts. It took all my strength to even walk up that road, and yet motorcycles just zipped past me, some of them carrying three people and a heavy load. To really explore the remote mountainous areas of the Philippines, a motorcycle is definitely the way to go. You could attempt it on a bicycle for bragging rights, but you’d likely be pushing your bicycle most of the way – if you could manage even that. I admired the power of these motorcycles, but I had to worry about the strain it was putting on the engines. I imagine motorcycles that routinely made that trip would wear out twice as fast as those used on flat ground. It makes me wonder if the long term cost to the country of these very steep roads is actually much higher than the money they saved by building them this way. I’m sure such steep roads were cheaper to engineer and build than roads with a gentler grade (and many switchbacks), but they would also be brutal on any motorcycles, cars, or trucks that have to use them.

The sun was out in force as I made this forced march, and it was no surprise that I ended up drenched in sweat. Absolutely drenched. What did surprise me was the lack of activity and human habitation on this road. I saw no villages and only one uninhabited farm house. I assume the road eventually led to some kind of settlement deep in the mountains, but at eight kilometers, I still hadn’t seen anything of interest and the road then started to go down again. Rather than go down the far side and have to then climb back up, I just turned around. Another surprise was that all of the land in the mountains was completely deforested. On the ocean side, there was thick forest. As I rode my bike along the coast, I admired the beautiful green carpet going up the side of the mountains. But the second I reached the top of the mountain, I saw that all the greenery vanished. There was some low bush and shrubbery here and there, but nearly all the trees were gone. I assume that they had all been cut down over the years for firewood. But I wonder why there was such a clear and straight line where the forest simply ended and bare land began. Was it because once you reached the top of the mountain, you became invisible to those below and then could cut down trees at will? Perhaps there was a law against cutting the trees, and the law was enforced on the ocean side of the mountains but not in the interior. While I was thinking about this up on the mountain, I suddenly heard a chainsaw start up somewhere below me. That seemed apropos. I remember a couple of decades ago on my first trip to the Philippines, I went to the island of Bohol to see the Chocolate Hills. While there, I noticed that a lot of people made a living cutting trees for timber and firewood. This was generally done with axes and long handheld saws. However, chainsaws had recently been introduced and I heard and saw them in action everywhere I went and the forest on Bohol was coming down right before my eyes. I remember thinking that at that pace, the entire island would be deforested in a year or less. The trees were being felled that fast. Perhaps that happened on Cebu as well.

The road that I took up into the mountains was paved and smooth, but with no tree cover at all, it was brutally hot. I noticed, however, that a type of pine tree seedling had been planted every few feet along the entire length of the road. Assuming they take root and grow, the road will be a much greener and cooler place in a few years.

Coming down was clearly a lot faster than going up. I had to ride the brakes and be very careful the entire way. It would have been only too easy to pick up too much speed and end up flying off the road. I worried about my brake pads and rims overheating, and at one point I actually smelled burning rubber. I was worried for a minute, but I soon realized the smell was coming from a garbage dump. I pulled into this rather disgusting place to check it out, and I disturbed a large pack of dogs and puppies rummaging through the garbage and eating what they could. I saw what looked like a kind of dwelling built into a rocky ravine beside the dump, and I think a homeless man that I saw there had taken up residence and lived off what he could scavenge from the dump.

Back at my lodge, I spent the afternoon enjoying the late afternoon sunshine on the ocean front. Late in the afternoon, the tide had gone way out and a few dozen women and young children had moved out onto the tidal flats to look for clams and sea urchins they could eat. I spoke with one woman for a few minutes, and she said she was looking for “viande” to complete their evening meal. Viande translates as meat, so I guess she was looking for some protein to add to their diet of rice and vegetables. It’s always odd to see children working like that. It’s actually fun for them, but at the same time, it’s weird to see such young children working so hard to pull up and cut open sea urchins and whatever else they could to put together enough gooey meat to bring home to their mothers to add to their dinners. Take away the grocery store and the 7-11, and a Canadian child wouldn’t have a clue how to gather anything to eat. The thought of taking a bucket and a dull knife out into the tidal flats to find mussels for dinner would be totally alien to them.

I had my camera with me and for the occasion, I’d put on my 60mm macro lens. I’ve been very hard on my Olympus lately, often writing that I should have purchased an entry-level DSLR instead. However, the advantages of the Olympus were abundantly clear yesterday. It’s safe to say that if I’d had a DSLR with me, I would have taken none of the pictures I took yesterday. I managed to take them for the simple reason that the Olympus allows me to hold the camera at my waist and shoot from the hip while looking down and simply tapping on the LCD screen. It’s so psychologically different from holding the camera up to my eye and aiming the camera lens directly at people. I have to be very strong-willed to take pictures that way. But being able to shoot from the hip, I can be very candid about the pictures I take and just shoot away without a care in the world. Of course, I’d prefer to have a larger sensor in the camera, a longer-lasting battery, and a better viewfinder (all the things you get with a DSLR). I just prefer the ability to shoot from the waist using the LCD screen. The entry level DSLRs don’t allow you to do that in the same way. The basic technology is there, but the focusing system is completely different in Live View (as Nikon calls it). It is far too slow to be useful. Anyway, my Olympus got a lot of love from me yesterday and the day before – especially now that I have a circular polarizer filter.

Tags: bike, LCD screen, pannier bags, Philippines Bike Trip 2013