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The night
seemed to turn the colour of orangeade - 04/09/2006
I left you
last time as we were leaving the paradise island of Malapascua.
A typhoon arrived just as we left which was lucky for us that we
were leaving the beach but it did mean enduring an horrific
pump-boat ride from the north of Cebu to San Isidro on the
island of Leyte, in fact just disembarking the boat was
life-threatening in those conditions! And so began one of the
most enjoyable sectors of this entire trip.
Leyte is most often in the press due to catastrophes such as
landslides and floodings and indeed the undeveloped roads and
infrastructure through its mountainous terrain suggested that it
was not perhaps the most hospitable place. We headed straight
for Tacloban, the capital, where, to our dismay, there was a
teachers exam the next day, despite it being Sunday, and as a
result all the lodges and guesthouses were full. Tacloban must
have more than ten budget accommodations but we had to shell out
for a room at the Tacloban Plaza Hotel. Sounds a bit flashy,
and indeed it did have carpets, TV and air-con but it was
decidedly worn around the edges and therefore not a splurge we
were happy about paying for! The town is nice and it has some
of the best jeepneys we have seen, really colourful and
decorated.
We did not linger long however and soon crossed the San Juanico
bridge to Samar. We wanted to stay somewhere in view of the
Marabut islands, which are a group of limestone formations off
the coast of Samar. Unfortunately the only places to stay nearby
were more pricey Filipino resorts so in the end we had to gave
up and head 80km south to Guiuan on the southern tip of Samar.
The town was nothing special and after hearing the tuneless
karaoke warblings from the bars at night (which is something you
are guaranteed in any Filipino town) I was beginning to have a
negative impression of the place as it seemed like a dead-end
town with nothing to do but drink and sing. The next day
however my impressions changed as we took a walk around the
town, finding it to be amazingly friendly. An old woman with a
food stall even lent us plates and cutlery to enjoy her tasty
food whilst sitting on the park bench, incidentally each plate
of food cost only around 5 Pesos.
Locals in Sapao
Just outside of town is the Sapau beach, the access to which is
along dusty tracks through a series of small villages. As we
walked through we had one of our best experiences in the
Philippines. Everybody welcomed us, the children were all
excited and wanted their photos taken, people offered us food
and wanted to know what we were doing there and why. II would
easily believe that these people had never seen any foreigners
before, and certainly had never thought of how to profit from
them, no-one asked for pens or sweets or anything else.
Actually there are not many places in the Philippines where this
would happen, unlike other countries, but here the absence of it
just seemed more obvious.
Fishermen at Sapao
From Guiuan all roads led to Manila. We stopped in Catbalogan
after enduring a days slow, arduous bus riding. Another
super-friendly town, chock-full of cycle rickshaws, it really
came alive at night when stalls were set up like a mini-funfair
and everybody gambled on games based on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ (but
made to look like a cock race) and another game like roulette
but played with a beach ball. I would have to say that our
experience of Samar, limited to Guiuan, an afternoon around
Marabut and Catbalogan is one of the best in our trip through
the Philippines.
Another long bus ride, sat amidst scores of Filipinos heading to
Manila, perhaps with images of the promised land, took us to
Legaspi, a town within spitting distance of the erupting Mt
Mayon. Five minutes after we arrived we were gazing at the lava
spewing down the side of the volcano, not 20km away, from our
hotel rooftop. I have to say it was one of the most memorable
sights I have seen, and a little scary to see exactly how close
we could be to a violent eruption.
Despite the adverse weather we spent the next day circling the
volcano in jeepneys, one of which we got to ride on the roof of
in order for better views, and because it was full down below!
Late in the afternoon we were rewarded with crystal clear view
of the volcano, the ash and smoke plume visable above the clouds
and the sulphur in the air creating a sunset the colour of
orangeade. The views justified Mayon position as one of the
premier sights in Philippines tourism, definitely up there with
the chocolate hills and the rice terraces.
Mt Mayon
Over the next two days we travelled back to Manila, overnighting
first in Daet and then in Lucena. Daet was a fairly nondescript
town with a nice night food market. We had initially tried to
get to Lucena in one long day but after it took us over 4 hours
to make the 98km from Legaspi to Naga, we decided to make our
night halt in Daet. On the bus ride the next day from Daet to
Mucena we shared the back seat with an extended Bajo (sea gypsy)
family from Mindanao. Apart from the fact that they tried to
beg money for food from us despite having a big plate of food in
front of them, it was quite interesting to see how they behaved
and how the other Filipinos reacted to them, which was with a
mixture of faint distaste, friendliness and indifference,
perhaps the same way they would treat anybody, depending on the
person. On a different subject, these two days of journeys
revealed some strange road signs, on the first was simply
written “Long Distance” pointing to a small side road, on the
second “Urban Poor” at another sideroad and the third was at a
fork in the road and on it was written “Old Zigzag road to
Lucena” pointing to the left and “New diversion road” to the
right. Tell it like it is. In Lucena the only place we could
find to stay was definitely a brothel, our room had a mirror on
the ceiling and a pink, rubber matress! Luckily the walls were
thick enough to avoid hearing the goings-on from neighbouring
rooms!
Pagsanjan river
Just south of Manila are the falls of Pagsanjan. Hundred of
Korean tourists pay a lot of money, over 10 times the price I
paid, to experience riding under the falls everyday. My purpose
in going there was because it was one of the locations Coppola
used when filming Apocalyspe Now. Unfortunately I could not
spot any familiar places but the trip was pretty cool
nevertheless. The two boatmen navigate the bangka up the rapids
by spending most of the time outside of the boat, just holding
on with the hands and propelling themselves (and the boat)
upstream by pushing off of the rocks protruding from the
surface. There are a couple of “restaurants” along the river,
all trying to extract money from you for overpriced drinks for
you or your “thirsty” boatmen. I wanted to do the trip because
of the Apocalypse Now connection, in the end I virtually forgot
all about and enjoyed the struggle up the rapids and the faster,
easier, trip back through the rapids, letting the water do the
work.
All that remained was another slow bus trip, this time due to
the overspill of urban mess from Manila, subjected once again to
that Air Supply videoke DVD. Quite ironic when the only words
that you probably could not use to describe the crowded smog of
Manila is Air Supply.
Back in Manila we made our way south again to Paranaque and
spent a night waiting for our red-eye to Palawan.
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