Tuesday September 16, 2014
6:45 a.m. San Juan, Siquijor
Room 2, Casa Miranda

Another beautiful day on the island paradise of Siquijor. Not sure what the day will bring, as I have no specific plans, but I doubt it will involve much cycling. I went for a ride around the entire island yesterday, and what with stopping off at several places to check them out and go swimming, it was a long day. According to my hand-dandy Cateye Cycle Computer, I rode 84.31 kilometers at an average speed of 14.4 km/hr, a maximum speed of 46.1 km/hr, and I did so in five hours and fifty minutes of cycling. This CatEye has a few other functions, though I don’t understand them. I think it says that I burned 980 calories. But that can’t be right. Surely, that amount of cycling up these long, long, hard climbs used up more than 980 calories. And there is a figure of 12.64 for Co2. Does that mean I saved the planet that much Co2 by cycling? I never did look at the manual when I bought the thing to figure out what these numbers meant. They never interested me.

I had a very slow start to the day, as I didn’t intend to ride around the island at all. Had that been my plan, I would have hit the road at the crack of dawn. As it was, I spent time drinking coffee. And then I rode into San Juan to have breakfast and get some water.

Negative Nelly has a couple of things to say about that. All around San Juan, I’ve seen people using and selling the large 5-gallon bottles of purified water. I’ve gone into a number of stores with these bottles of water on display and asked if I could somehow just fill my 10-liter water bag and other bottles. I mentioned that I got my water from a water refilling station in Siquijor, but it was far away. I hadn’t seen any water refilling stations in San Juan. This conversation occurred perhaps a dozen times, and I wasn’t able to get any water. Then, recently, I was riding around San Juan, and I took a turn down a narrow little area by the beach on the other side of the town stadium. To my surprise and delight, I found a water refilling station there. THAT’S where everyone was getting their water. This, of course, begs the question of why no one told me about the place. Again, it’s great that Filipinos are so friendly (and tell me all the time how friendly they are), but a bit more helpfulness and courtesy would go a long way, too. People tend NOT to go the extra mile – or even the extra step. Did THEY sell water by the liter? No, they didn’t. End of discussion. It occurred to no one tell me about the water refilling station in San Juan even when I asked them about one.

I have to give props to this water refilling station. It was on a Sunday that I found them, and they were closed. And they had a sign on the door giving their daily hours and saying that they were open Monday to Saturday and closed on Sunday. A rare touch of professionalism. They were also not frightened by my water bag and water bottles and were willing to fill them for me. Pricing was a bit of a problem. No water refilling station has yet been able to tell me their price per liter or per gallon or whatever. They do sell water to people who bring their own containers, but they seem to just make up the prices. In Siquijor, I filled up my water bag for 5 pesos and then my water bag plus water bottles for 7 pesos. At this place in San Juan, they gave me the exact same amount of water but charged me four times more at 28 pesos. I was glad to get the water, but I was a little annoyed at the price.

I rode around the island in a clockwise direction. At that time, I only intended to go as far as the largest town, Larena, or perhaps to a coastal area beyond Larena to check out the Kiwi Dive Resort – a popular place for travelers, I’d heard. I stopped off in Siquijor and went to the docks after I saw a barge-type boat approaching out in the ocean. It was clearly a RORO type of boat – Roll On, Roll Off – for vehicles. I rode to the dock and the security guard told me that it was an Aleson Shipping Lines boat. This surprised me because I had seen no ticketing outlets for Aleson or heard anyone talk about them when I asked about boats off the island. The guard pointed back behind me to where a small group of people stood around a shack and said that was the Aleson ticketing booth.

Negative Nelly chattered in my ear as I approached this shack. And it really was a shack. It looked like an abandoned slum dwelling. I don’t remember seeing even a sign for Aleson Shipping Lines anywhere. Surely, a large company like that could afford at least a tiny can of paint so someone could paint the name of the company on their shack. But apparently not.

Props to them in that there was a piece of paper posted on the shack listing the departure times for this boat. There was just one boat a day going back and forth between Dumaguette and Siquijor. It left Siquijor at 11 a.m. according to the sign. I knew I would be a fool to trust the sign, so I tried to ask the woman inside the ticket booth about the official departure time as well as the cost and possibility of taking a bicycle on board. This is where things broke down in typical fashion – the clerk pretty much ignored me. The problem was that I was not rude enough or loud enough. People kept rushing up from behind and beside me and shouting at this woman. They just pushed me aside and began shouting their questions and filling out the boarding sheet and paying for their tickets. That I was ahead of them and standing right in front of the (tiny) screened window made no difference. The clerk was largely at fault for encouraging this behavior. Rather than serving me – the next person at the window – and answering my quick question, she responded to whoever was screaming the loudest. This situation was made worse because she had two ticket windows to choose from and sort of wandered around inside the shack from window to window, so no one knew exactly where to go to be served. On top of that, she had all kinds of paperwork to do in there and was happily stamping the date on some books of tickets and ignoring the customers – who then had to scream louder to get her attention. I think the physical design of these ticket shacks is equally to blame. From inside the shack, the clerk gets only the tiniest view of the outside world. She sees it through the narrow screened crack – like the little door that prisoners get served trays of food through – so she can sit in there and be unaffected by the chaos outside, and we customers are forced to bend over and put our mouths next to that crack to speak with her. She just ignores us all.

I did eventually get an answer of sorts to my question, though I got four different answers from her. She kept telling me different things. At first, bicycles were not allowed on the boat. Then it cost 200 pesos for the bicycle and 100 pesos for the “driver”. I assumed she meant a motorcycle, since bicycles don’t have drivers. I pressed her on this (after a long delay with the other people pushing and shoving behind and around me), and I got the different answer that a bicycle cost 200 pesos and that included one driver. This was confusing, too, because I’m pretty sure that they don’t just issue a ticket for a bicycle and nothing else. There’s no way a passenger (driver) would be included on the bicycle’s ticket. I finally had to try to break it down for her and ask her if she meant this or if she meant that or if she meant something else. This is always a mistake because the person will just say yes to whatever you suggest just to get rid of you. (Yay for customer service in the Philippines.) Anyway, I walked away from the window with the vague understanding that it would cost 200 pesos in total – 100 pesos for me and 100 pesos for my bicycle. I still think this is wrong, but I had some kind of answer. And I also confirmed in a roundabout sort of way that the boat left at 11 a.m. This, at least, I could sort of confirm with my own senses, since the boat had just arrived from Dumaguete and it was 10 a.m. An hour to unload and then load up for the return trip seemed reasonable. I noticed also, that the sign-up sheet was filling up fast. It appeared that you had to arrive early in order to get a spot on this boat. I mentioned the lack of signs, but there were many signs saying that you could not buy a ticket in advance or reserve a seat in any way. No, that would make too much sense. They prefer it to have a big crowd of panicked customers descend on their shack every morning and push and shove and compete for tickets an hour before the boat was scheduled to leave. That’s life on paradise island.

I was more than a little annoyed when I fought my way out of the crowd with my unsatisfying answers. As always, I was angry, but I had no one to blame. My reaction is to just blame everyone – all Filipinos. I turned around and looked at the surging crowd and gave it my best look of disgust and disapproval. This was for the benefit of a young man sitting on a motorcycle and watching me. I shook my head at him and said something about these stupid, rude people and the unfriendly and unhelpful ticket-seller. I’m sure it was wasted effort on my part. Aleson Shipping Lines has been selling tickets like this for decades, I’m sure, and my shaking my head in disapproval and getting all upset was not going to change anything.

My mood was not improved as I rode through Siquijor looking for a way out. I spotted a little shop with a coffee vending machine and, against my better judgement, decided to get a coffee. I love those little coffee machines and the sugary concoction they produce for five pesos. They bring back memories from my time in South Korea. In fact, I’m pretty sure these machines in the Philippines are made and managed by a South Korean company. I say that stopping to get a coffee went against my better judgement because my mood had already been totally soured by the ticket booth scenario. I’d set off for a lovely and enjoyable day of cycling, and my first actual encounter with day-to-day life in the Philippines had put me in such a bad mood I just wanted to go back to the guest house. In this case, I tried to minimize any bad experiences by asking first if their coffee machine worked. Most of the time, they don’t work. They said that it did, and, of course, my five-peso coin refused to drop into the machine. The problem is that these machines have to be level in order to work properly, and they are generally just perched on any old table. I looked, and I saw that this one was way off level, and that’s why my coin hadn’t dropped through. The owner of the store saw my problem, and she came over and slammed the machine with her fist to force the coin through. The coin then dropped, a paper cup emerged, and a stream of plain hot water poured into the cup. There was no coffee in it. This happens all the time, too. The coffee powder in the plastic dispenser gets damp and sticky and if it isn’t refreshed often and the container cleaned, the coffee powder won’t come out. So now my little urge to have a cup of coffee turned into a three-ring circus as they had to find the key to the machine, open it up, grab the container and jiggle it and shake it and put it back in and try it over and over again. As I often do, I just rode away. I didn’t want a cup of coffee so badly that I wanted to invest twenty minutes in the effort. To the store owner’s credit, they popped open the coin box and returned my five-peso coin as I left.

There was little about the stretch between Siquijor and Larena to improve my mood. These are the two largest towns on the island and they contain the island’s two major ports. Therefore, a good 80% of the traffic on the island goes back and forth between these two towns. It wasn’t like a traffic jam or a major highway, but the traffic was steady and there was little in the way of nice scenery.

Larena seemed like a pleasant little town. I didn’t spend much time there exploring, though. I rode down to the dock to check it out, but that was about it. I was impressed to see that the dock there had an actual series of large ticket windows at the dock itself selling tickets for the various shipping lines. And even though there were no boats currently at the dock, there were clerks behind each window waiting for customers. I don’t know how buying a ticket would have gone, but it looked a much more approachable and efficient place. Around the corner, I spotted a little coffee machine and a water dispenser right beside the main security shack. I decided to take a chance and I popped in a five-peso coin. The machine whirred and buzzed, and a cup of sugary coffee emerged. I was delighted with this, and to share my delight, I offered the cup to the security guard. He was happy to accept, and I got a second cup for myself. The guard reciprocated my gesture by giving me a tiny plastic stool to sit on while I enjoyed my coffee. It was a nice little moment, marred only by my attempt to get some water from the other dispenser. I knew I shouldn’t have pushed my luck, but I only had my three bicycle water bottles for this trip, and I wanted to refill them whenever I had the chance. I popped in a one-peso coin, and no water came out. Oh, well. At least I had my cup of coffee and nice moment with the security guard.

The scenery after Larena improved dramatically. It became lush and green and more agricultural. There was next to no traffic, and I was often cycling underneath some shade trees lining the road. Unfortunately, the road never really got close to the coast, so only rarely did I get a glimpse of the ocean, but it was nice nonetheless.

I found a weatherbeaten sign for the Kiwi Dive Resort and followed the rough road a kilometer or so to the resort itself. I was pleased to note that at every point where there might be confusion as to which road to take, there was another Kiwi Dive Resort sign pointing the way. It seemed like something a Kiwi would make sure to do. It did surprise me, though, how old and worn out the signs were. They could have used a lick of paint about ten years ago. I wondered if the signs were left that way to give the resort an air of affordability. If the signs were brand new and shiny and modern, perhaps people would think the resort was too nice and too expensive for their budget. As it was, when I saw the signs, I had the feeling I was heading towards a very inexpensive budget place for backpackers. The reality was quite a bit different. The resort wasn’t a luxury resort like Coco Grove, but it was far from a dive. The entrance area was nicely landscaped. There were nicely graveled trails leading here and there, and they had built a wire structure over the trail and let vines grow on the wire so you walked through a cool and shady tunnel to the steps leading down to the beach and the reception area and restaurant. I was hoping to run into a happy throng of backpackers exchanging travel stories, but, as has been my experience in general, there was no one there. Not a soul to be seen whether guest or employee. I had locked up my bicycle up above, and I went for a longish walk along the beach, snapping pictures as I went. There were other beach resorts along the coast here and I passed nice cottages for Islander’s Paradise and Casa de la Playa among others. Casa de la Playa had a southern European feel to it. It was painted a happy mixture of blue and white and was mimicking the décor of a hotel along the Mediterranean cost.

One of the reasons I’d stopped here was to decide if I wanted to move to the Kiwi Dive Resort and spend the remainder of my time on Siquijor living there and exploring the east coast. From what I’d read, the Kiwi Dive Resort was the place to be. I was wondering, actually, if I’d made a mistake in heading to San Juan and staying at the Casa Miranda. Perhaps a better time would have been had elsewhere. I was glad to see that – in a rare moment – I had chosen wisely in staying at Casa Miranda. The Kiwi Dive Resort was clearly a nice place and offered a lot, but for my purposes it was far too remote. It was the type of place you’d go to if you were with friends or family and wanted a self-contained holiday and a diving experience. There was nothing around it but other resorts. It was a long walk even back to the main road, and there was nothing on the main road either. You’d be stuck having to have all your meals at the resort’s restaurant unless you had your own vehicle to drive to Larena or Enrique Villanueva. The prices I saw listed were also quite a bit outside my budget – especially as I was on my own and didn’t have four or six people to fill up one of the beachside bungalows. I think there might have been some cottages up at the top of the stairs, and they would likely be cheaper, but I saw no information about them. I had it in my mind to hang out for a bit and have a cold drink and a chat with someone, but when I returned to the resort after my walk, there was still no one there. Not a soul to be seen. I took advantage of a water tap and soaked my head and body and then soaked my tank top to cool down, but I never did get my cold drink. I walked back up the steps and got on my bike and cycled off.

The Kiwi Dive Resort being my main goal, I could have turned around and gone back. However, at that point, I was getting close to half way around the island from San Juan. I figured that instead of doubling back, I might as well keep going and go all the way around. It would mean a bit longer in terms of cycling, and I would have to ride up the – by far – longest climb around the island between Lazi and San Juan, but I’d get to see the rest of Siqijuor and see the famous Salagdoong Beach.

There isn’t much to say about the coast I rode along. It was lightly populated and I saw one or two beach resort type places, but little else. The road went up and down gradually, but there was nothing challenging in the way of steep hills or long climbs. The highlight was clearly Salagdoong Beach. I thought it was an open beach like Kagusuan (where I was robbed), but it was entirely contained within a fancy beach resort. I had to pass a gate, and there was a notice about entrance fees, but there was no one at the gate and I just rode past. Inside the official resort grounds, I passed a large group of resort employees. I stopped beside them to give them a chance to charge me the entrance fee or tell me to go away or whatever they were going to do, but they ignored me and I rode the rest of the way in and found a place to lock up my bike.

The beach and the beach resort was a suitably bizarre place. The beach itself was beautiful. It was smaller than I expected, but it was the perfect combination of fine white sand and limestone outcroppings. In fact, it was the best swimming beach I’d seen. Most of the beaches – including Kagusuan – were not very good for swimming. The beaches would be sandy, but right offshore, the water was extremely shallow and the bottom was rocky and covered in seaweed and other things. At Salagdoong, the ground continued to be nice and sandy when you got into the water and it became deep enough for actual swimming within just a few feet. The one downside I saw to this was that it could pose a threat to a poor swimmer. It was a relatively calm day, yet the waves were quite strong and I could feel a strong current pushing me along the shore and even out to sea. I noticed that resort employees with radios were situated in a shaded vantage point where they could see both beach areas clearly. I guessed that they had had more than a few situations where guests got in trouble in the water and had to be rescued. I was the only person on the beach and in the water, and they kept their eyes glued on me the whole time. I could have reassured them that I wasn’t going very far. I had put my (locked!) pannier bag right on the sandy beach as close to the water’s edge as I dared and I stayed near it and watched it. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again and put it too close to the cliffs or treeline. I didn’t see anyone in the trees, but for all I knew there were a dozen thieves hiding there waiting for me to turn my back.

A very interesting if somewhat bizarre feature of Salagdoong Beach was the set of concrete diving platforms and water slides that had been built on a rocky limestone outcropping. This resort appeared to be a going concern (there were several large groups of Japanese and/or Korean tourists having lunch in the resort restaurant), but as was always the case in the Philippines, the maintenance budget was ignored. There always seems to be money to build things. In this case, there was a substantial budget to build these bizarre water slides and diving platforms. But once built, they were forgotten and abandoned. No money was put into maintenance and they fell to pieces. The water slides were in such rough shape that they were hysterically funny. One, at least, had a piece of wood across it saying that it was out of order. The other one had no such sign, but only a person with a death wish would set foot on it. The slide itself was made of thick concrete and it had shattered into pieces and fallen apart. Sharp concrete and steel edges protruded everywhere. Of course, the pump system that sent water down the slide had long since stopped working. In any event, there was no way to even access the slide. It had collapsed completely, and there was a four-foot gap between the top and the start of the slide itself. It ranks among the funnier sights I’ve seen in the Philippines – The Water Slide of Death. Despite this hazard to life and limb and the totally abandoned swimming pool and other buildings with “Out of Order” and “Closed” signs on them, the beach was well worth visiting. It was very beautiful. The water was crystal clear and there were lots of options for things to do. You could get a cold drink and food in the nice restaurant. You could lounge on beachside chairs with refreshing dips in a beach that was actually good for swimming. And you could take turns jumping and diving off the diving platforms. The cement in those platforms (unlike that in the water slides) was still holding up, and the water below them was deep and inviting. You could jump into the blue water and then climb back up via a convenient ladder. Were you to visit with friends, you could easily spend a good morning or afternoon relaxing and taking turns going off the platforms. I very much wanted to do some jumps of my own, but I was hampered by my pannier bag and other belongings. I couldn’t exactly leave them up on the rocks and jump into the ocean and expect them to still be there when I climbed back up the ladder. Anyway, it was a wonderful little spot and I enjoyed my visit there very much. I’m glad I made the effort to track it down.

From Salagdoong, it was a short ride to the town of Maria. The police who investigated my robbery had come from Maria and I stopped there to say hello and see if there had been any “developments in the case.” Unfortunately, none of the officers I had met earlier were present, and those I did meet were more confused by my visit than anything else. I spent most of my time talking to a young fellow (29 years old, he told me). I told him about the robbery and the investigation at length. He assured me that there was no more danger. They had caught the thief! I was surprised and pleased, but then I learned he was referring to “The Sniper”, the man that I already knew about – the infamous bag snatcher who had terrorized Kagusuan before my visit. I corrected this young man and told him that the Sniper was already in prison when my theft took place. So it was someone else. But this officer had trouble absorbing the details of this timeline. He kept reassuring me that Kagusuan was perfectly safe now. There had been NO incidents since the arrest of the Sniper. I corrected him and reminded him that there had been at least one incident – mine. I had been robbed there. He again told me that the man responsible had been arrested. I tried to disabuse him of that notion, but nothing I said seemed to be getting through, and I gave up. He did tell me that the Sniper was also a young man in his late twenties and that he had been arrested on possession of unlawful firearms as well as theft. That was good news, he said, because the theft charge wouldn’t amount to very much. But the firearms charge could lead to a sentence of between three and thirty years. The Sniper was currently in the provincial jail, and he wasn’t going to get out very soon.

I was starting to run out of steam by this point on my journey, but the scenery around Maria was also very nice. I stopped a few times to take pictures of rice fields. I’d have liked to explore the coastline around Maria, but I didn’t have time. At that point, I was focused on getting to Lazi, where I planned to have a late lunch or an early dinner. Then I had to face the long climb between there and San Juan. I had only cycled about 65 kilometers by the time I pulled into Lazi, but I had mixed in a lot of walking and swimming and exploring, and all that under a very hot sun had taken its toll. I was still in relatively good shape, though, and I powered up the five-kilometer climb without too much trouble. Then I had the pleasure of the long downhill on the other side, and I was back in familiar territory around San Juan. I stopped at the Black Belt Grill for a cold beer and to enjoy the setting sun. A group of three Spanish motorcyclists were at the next table over. I had seen them earlier as I was going up the long hill. They had passed me on motorcycles and honked a greeting and waved. They remembered me, and we chatted a bit. They had gone around the entire island that day, too, but had done so with the benefit of engines. Having been so long away from the backpacker/tourist crowd, it was interesting to see these three white people and chat with them. I’d have joined them, but I didn’t want to force them to switch to English just for my benefit. As it was, I enjoyed listening to their passionate discussion in Spanish and watching their elaborate hand and arm gestures – particularly since all three were smoking. I’ve noticed that the Spanish smoke a lot. Everything about their group was so different from the groups of Filipinos I’ve been around. Most Filipino social groups I’ve seen are gathered around a karaoke machine and listening or waiting their turn to sing. Or they are lounging and speaking occasionally in low tones. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the same kind of animated conversations take place as the ones I see when Westerners get together. I wonder if Filipinos have the same impression and if they notice that Westerners really like to talk. We can sit around a table and drink coffee or beer and talk for hours. It’s what we like to do.

Tags: Kiwi Dive Resort, Larena, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Salagdoong, San Juan, Siquijor