Holiday on a motorbike

We took a week off to explore a bit more of the Philippines. After all, up to now we hadn't seen more than Coron were we only explored the wrecks under water 6 months ago, Manila and Dauin.

Since we are already renting a bike anyway, a holiday on motorbike was an easy solution. We started on Negros, the island Dauin is on and drove 180 km up to San Carlos, explored the nearby hills and then took the ferry from San Carlos to Toledo, on the is land of Cebu. From Toledo we drove to Balamban were we crossed the mountains to Cebu City. From Cebu we drove down to the ferry in Lilo-an and back to Dauin again. We drove some 500 km and only had a flat tyre twice. With a gps on the phone it is pretty easy to plan your trips and see where you are in a big city. You can always stop your bike somewhere to check were you are. All the traffic stops randomly anyway.

It is nice to tour to the country side, we were the only foreign tourists during most of the route and some people were pretty surprised to see us passing by on a motorbike. The roads were well paved, except with part of our tour through the hills in San Carlos were we drove some 30 km off road or on roads that were once paved (a very long time ago).

We admired rice paddies, the 'small' Chocolate hills near San Carlos and some wonderful mountain views on three different day trips and the Tumalog waterfalls near Oslob, as well as the many villages and views along the road.

We planned to go to Bohol as well, but in the end we decided to do that some other time and rent a moped on Bohol instead of taking it with us on the ferry. There are several ferries were you can take your bike or car, but depending on the size of the ferry there is an interesting trajectory before you can put your bike on the boat. First, there is the normal charge for passengers and bike. Already the bike is twice as expensive as a passenger. Then some police checks your id. There a helpful guy was assigned to us who showed which offices we had to visit to pay some additional fees. Harbor fee, small bribe for some person, another fee in some office at the other side of the harbor, some more fee..., pay the helpful guy who made you pay all the fees, which adds up to more than three times the price of a passenger. Interestingly enough, the other ferry from Lilo-an was much easier. You just pay once and the fee includes one person.

Riding a bike was not that hard, except in Cebu city with all the jeepneys, tricycles, trucks and normal cars. On a motorbike you weave in and out of the waiting lines and try to maneuver to the front. By now Dolf is quite an experienced driver. Driving in Manila is still a bridge too far though.

It is no problem if something is wrong with your bike during the trip. Along the road there are vulcanizers, or mechanics every few kilometers. They have an interesting way of setting up their shop. It is usually a bamboo shed and most of their tools are self made from different truck or car parts. Everything will be reused, so they throw nothing away. The tire is fixed by putting some sticky rubber on the hole and then heat that part either with a self made ironer which they put on the aluminum foil of a packet of cigarettes or they lit some oil in a big sparking plug which belonged to a truck. Then they put the whole construction under a bench screw made from the shaft of a truck and let the whole contraption stay there until the rubber is firmly attached to the tire. And they ask the shocking amount of 30 pesos (75 euro cents) for the repair, which was probably still too high.

Cebu city is much nicer than Manila, because it is smaller (800.000 people) and it is surrounded by hills on three sites and the ocean on the other site. Downtown is a bit crappy, but we had a nice hotel in the northern part of the city close to the mountains. We visited a beautiful Taoist temple in the hills, the most important basilica (devotion of Filipinos has a complete other dimension if you compare them with catholic Dutch people; they kiss and touch all important statues when they walk by) and they Yap house, a wooden house in its original state from the 17 century from a Chinese merchant.

We also bought some electronical parts for Dolf. That was quite a challenge. We knew in what neighborhood we had to be, but walking in 35 degrees, with an overpowering sewage smell in your nose and honking cars everywhere make your senses a bit overstimulated. We did find what we were looking for, so I was happy that we could mingle ourselves in the traffic once more. The traffic looks extremely chaotic as you look to it from the side, but when you're right in the middle you actually discover some system where traffic lights and advice from police offers do not necessarily have to be followed.

We were back in Dauin after 6 days, so we could join in a dive trip to Aligay, a small island before the bigger island of Mindanao (there is no main land in the Philippines, so I always have to talk in islands). We did some nice dives on pristine reefs (divers hardly come here, because it is pretty remote). We spend the night on the island. The group was pretty big (20 people), so we din't have enough tents. That would not have been a problem because we slept on a grassy area, but the weather did not agree with us. In the middle of the night it started to rain big time. We scrambled into one of our tents, were two people were sleeping and we managers to sleep in the 2 person tent with 6 people, 3 in the inner tent and 3 in the outer tent. Fortunately it stopped raining after an hour and because we were lying so nice and cozy our sleeping bags actually dried overnight. If you look on the facebook page of Bongo Bongo divers, you will see a nice picture of a sleeping Dolf with his head sticking out from under the tent (6 people was a bit too much after all).

We saw pilot whales and dolphins near the boat both on our way to the island and back.

Now it is time to do something useful again, so I am sitting outside with 35 degrees and sweating behind my laptop while a big ventilator tries to get the temperature down. As long as you just sit quietly or drive on a motorbike the temperature is ok. In these 6 days our coloring improved amazingly, even with factor 45 sunscreen.

We already have some pictures of the trip on Dolfs facebook. We'll add some more and add them to the blog as well.