Saturday, March 8

I feel like my body has been under a ten-ton press and then released. I mean that in a good way. Climbing out of sleep, my whole body felt heavy and slow. Even now over breakfast my arms feel like heavy unwieldy clubs. This is all because I got a good night’s sleep. I slept hard and deep. It feels like the first time in six months.

I didn’t even sleep that long. I was up until midnight putting the bicycle back together, and then I woke up at around seven-thirty. That’s a normal amount of sleep for most people, and for me if I actually DO sleep, it’s like an eternity.

The bicycle was something of a challenge. My main worry, and this was a real one, was the condition of the wheels. The last time I put a bicycle in a box, the wheels came out twisted and warped. The airline had obviously put the bicycle box at the bottom of a huge pile of suitcases, and the weight of the suitcases had simply bent the wheels out of shape.

This is a very big deal, because bicycle wheels are very precise things. They get their strength from the tension of the spokes, and for that strength to be any good, the wheel has to be perfectly straight. Bend it in the slightest and the whole thing will collapse, especially if you put a touring load on it. And once a wheel is bent, it isn’t that easy to get it straight again. You can’t simply bend it back. It doesn’t work that way. You have to loosen the spokes until there is no tension on the rim, and then you have to carefully and methodically start tightening the spokes according to a strict pattern and slowly bring the wheel back into shape. It’s more of an art form than a technical achievement, and people who do it well get the reputation of being master wheel builders. People like me just flail around like lunatics twisting and turning spokes and hoping they get it right. I was very lucky the last time it happened. I’d gotten a short lesson in wheel building just before I left, and some of it had stuck with me. I also had the right tools, of course, and I managed to get the wheels back into shape. I think I managed it partially because those were extremely heavy duty wheels. The thickness of the rim and the spokes lent the wheel a bit of strength and rigidity even without proper tension on the spokes. The wheels on the bike I brought from Taipei, are not special. They are just basic road bike wheels and I think they would be challenging to fix properly if they fail.

I was actually going to wait until today to put the bicycle back together. It seemed a good idea to wait until I was rested. However, I don’t think I could have slept without knowing about the wheels.

My room is quite large as I said, and I had lots of room to spread out. I opened the pannier bag first and spread out all the bike parts in a row and made sure they were all there and weren’t bent or damaged. Then I took my knife and slit open the bicycle box. At first, my heart sank, because the wheels looked completely warped. Then I realized that it could be the rubber of the tires. You can’t tell if an uninflated tire is warped. It’s the rim that’s important, not the tire.

I lifted the whole bike out and then took off all the straps I’d used to tie the wheels to the frame. I checked the rear wheel first since it is the most important one by far. I got out my valve adapter since the only tubes I could find in Taipei had Presta valves. Then I got out my new pump and started pumping. I’m SO glad I got this new pump. It’s a new design of mini-pump that can be used like a full-sized pump. This means it has a short tube that is attached to the valve. Normal mini-pumps attach directly to the valve. This is a problem because as you pump, it puts a lot of pressure on the valve. It’s easy to get caught up in the force you need for the pumping and you start bending the valve right over. This could easily damage it or even snap it. This new pump doesn’t work that way. The flexible rubber hose attaches to the valve, and the pump itself rests on the floor like a full-sized pump. This means that it takes almost no strength to pump up a tire. With regular mini-pumps it is a real workout. You hold the pump with one hand and then pump with the other. You’ve got one arm working against the other, AND you’re trying to keep the pump rock steady so you don’t damage the valve. It’s really tiring, and your arms really start to burn. By resting the pump on the floor you simply use your body weight to push down and the floor of course doesn’t move. There is no comparison. This new pump is a little bit bigger and heavier, but already I think it is well worth the extra weight.

I pumped up the rear wheel, and then I slowly picked it up by the hub and gave it a spin. To my relief, the rim was still true. I checked all the spokes and none of them were bent or broken that I can tell. The real test will be riding it on a rough road with a heavy load, but right now it looks like it survived. The hub did punch out the side of the box, so there was clearly weight on top of the box, but it wasn’t enough to damage the wheel. I checked the front wheel next and it was also still in good shape.

The rest of the bike was actually much more challenging and stressful to put together. I think the problems I had leaving Taipei meant that I didn’t really break down the bike that well or efficiently. I was also dealing with things that I didn’t really understand like the headset extension I had put on the bike in Taipei. Headsets are a complete mystery to me even after all these years. I just pray that they don’t loosen and parts don’t fall off inside. Maybe they are simpler now, but I remember in the old days that I had lots of problems with headsets and without special tools I couldn’t fix them.

My biggest mistake this time, though, was trying to attach the rear derailleur first. I wasn’t thinking clearly and I should have saved that for last. For one thing, the derailleur and chain are covered in oil and your hands get extremely dirty no matter what you do. For another, rear derailleurs are deceptively complex. Usually, when I take one off, I go through a process of wrapping it so that I know exactly how it goes back on. This time because I packed the bike twice, it got all out of whack, and when I unwrapped the derailleur and took it out of the bag I’d put it in, it was a complete mess. It was turned around a dozen different ways with the cable all wrapped up and the chain kinked in a few places. I guess it was because I was tired, but this completely defeated me. No matter what I did, I could not figure out how to untangle this mess and reattach it properly. To someone who has never done this, it probably makes no sense, but a rear derailleur is not that easy to figure out. The logic of how it works and how it attaches is not simple. It’s like a complex puzzle that requires clear three-dimensional thinking. And I don’t have that. I sat there for nearly an hour twisting and turning that thing and no matter what I did, I could not fight through my mental fog and see how it went on. It was frustrating because I knew it shouldn’t be that hard. It’s not like I haven’t done this before, and no matter how tricky it might be, there are only so many options. You’d think you could sit down and think it through logically, but I couldn’t.

I finally came to my senses and decided to go on to easier things. I thought it would even help to do other things first. The bike didn’t even look like a bike yet. It was just a jumble of steel tubes, and it was hard to picture the shape of the bike and how the derailleur related to the wheel.

So I washed my hands for the sixth time, and then started putting together the rest of the bike. I put in the seat tube and attached the seat. I put on the rear pannier rack. I reattached the pedals after carefully lubricating the threads. This is something you learn to do after a while. Pedals can really tighten up as you ride a bike, and it can be a serious problem getting them off later. Lubricating the threads and periodically loosening and tightening them as you ride can save you a world of trouble the next time you have to box the bike. After that, I started on the handlebar stem and headset. I had a bad moment there when after I was done, I found that there was a quarter inch of play in the front forks. This was not good. As I said, I don’t really understand headsets. I do know, however, that you don’t want any play at all. You might as well just take a sledgehammer to your bike right then and there. Riding it with that much play will probably lead to the bike just snapping into pieces. The real problem is that I don’t understand where play like that comes from. If you don’t understand where it comes from, you also don’t understand the steps you have to take to get rid of it. It was complicated by my handlebar stem extension kit, which I didn’t really understand either. However, I sat down, took a deep breath and thought through the logic. I hadn’t done anything special, so the various bolts that I had tightened and loosened must have produced this play. So I’d just have to figure out how to get rid of it. In the end it was ridiculously easy, but I’m still not entirely sure I did it right. The play was gone though and the forks and headset felt rock steady.

After that, I re-attached the handlebars and mirror. Then I flipped the bike over and put on the wheels. At least it looked like a bicycle again. I figured this had to help when it came to figuring out the derailleur. I did manage to get the derailleur back on properly, but I never did figure it out. I only got it on properly by simply going through all the possible positions one by one by one. Even then it wasn’t that easy. I just have to blame it on being tired…

I got out my digital camera and recorded the triumphant end. I even put all the pannier bags onto the bike and took another picture. It’s not like I don’t have pictures of this bike, but somehow these pictures felt different. The bike looked quite proud with its big handlebar bag sitting at a jaunty angle. It occurs to me now that the digital camera could be a very useful tool for things like this. I’ve never traveled with one before, so I hadn’t thought of it. I could have taken a close-up photograph of the derailleur when it was in place. Then I could have used that as a reference when I put it back together. I could have done the same for the headset and all the headset extension tubes.

 

I’m still somewhat clueless about where I am. I can see this hotel and the street outside running by the hotel, but that is about it. However, I was glad to see that the hotel sold maps of Palawan. I bought one and was VERY glad to see that it is a great map. It has maps of just about every region and some cities and it relates them all together in a very efficient way so that you can get an amazing sense of the island and how it all fits together.

My hotel is actually on the map, so I know exactly where I am in Puerto. In fact, I’m practically right across from the airport. I think it would be better to be downtown by the waterfront, but with the bicycle I can pretty much go anywhere I want. Once I’m ready, I’ll head out on my bike and go cycling around Puerto. It looks like a great place. With my style I could probably spend a week here happily exploring like I did in Phnom Penh. I doubt I will, though. I’m thinking it might be better to get on the road as soon as possible and see what is out there. I don’t want to spend a week in a city and then later wish I had that week back to spend on the beach or in the mountains somewhere.

My room came with a complimentary breakfast, and I just had that. I was smarter this time and went for the bland option of toast and eggs and coffee. It was about what you’d expect, though the coffee was a disappointment. It was just hot water with a package of powdery Nescafe. Still, I’ve had two and might have a third if I can swing it.

I always end up very fond of these little hotels that I end up in overseas. This one is a little bit out of the ordinary for me, though. I usually, after much travail, find myself in some crazy little place run by some crazy little family. This place is much larger and more businesslike. Still, it has something of that atmosphere that I always find interesting. It has kind of a family atmosphere. There are what seem to be dozens of people working here. I feel like I’m the only guest, and yet right now I can count eight employees just within my field of view. They are all laughing and relaxing and doing bits of this and that. Then there are groups of older men and younger men sitting in the shade drinking and smoking. I don’t get the feeling that they are employees, but they are obviously part of the hotel family. Staying at these places I rarely feel that I am in a hotel, but more like I’ve moved into a big rambling family home.

And there are always interesting touches. I haven’t spotted it yet, but somewhere around there is a large bird of some kind. Someone taught it to wolf whistle, and I smile every time it does. There is a young man sitting outside the hotel selling jewelry and trinkets. I felt almost compelled to buy a wooden bracelet or something to establish that I am part of the Palawan beach life community rather than some refugee from crowded Taipei who hasn’t had sand between his toes for months. I felt naked without my bit of beach jewelry.

I honestly can’t wait to wheel my bike outside. There are tricycles and tricycle drivers everywhere. They are circling and waiting like sharks for me to emerge. I will be able to roll right past them and go exploring. Puerto seems really easy to figure out. This hotel is on Rizal Avenue and Rizal is the main road of Puerto. I just have to go outside the hotel, turn left, and cycle into the town and toward the water. It’s clear I’m going to need some clothes. I brought three t-shirts, but they are way too thick. I’m sweating to death in them. I’ve got to get some light and thin shirts. I’ve been watching the men to see how they dress, and it is casual dress all the way. You see a lot of long pants, but shorts are also quite common even for older Filipinos. And the majority are wearing t-shirts or tank tops.

The women also dress quite casually. For the most part they wear pants and shirts with collars. It’s easy to see the appeal of this place for the older Americans I’ve seen with young Filipinas. It must strike some of them like paradise. I think that is how it struck the vet that I met in the airport. He’d been traveling in a few different countries, so being overseas wasn’t new to him. But here he found that he got many of the advantages of places like this – it’s inexpensive compared to the States, for example – and yet there is no language barrier. Then he sees these young and sexy women everywhere who are friendly and don’t see any problem at all in hooking up with a man old enough to be their father.

 

1:00 p.m.

Before I left Taiwan, I read a book about a rescue mission that took place in the Philippines during World War II. A group of army Rangers liberated a group of P.O.W.s from a Japanese prisoner of war camp near Bataan. Most of the prisoners were survivors of the Bataan Death March. The Americans were concerned about these prisoners because as the war was going against the Japanese there was a concern that the Japanese, with their low opinion of prisoners of war, would simply kill all the prisoners. The book opened with the story of just such a massacre which occurred here in Puerto Princesa. I don’t remember all the specifics, but I believe around 142 prisoners were killed, and they were killed in the most brutal fashion. The Japanese guards staged a fake air raid which got all the prisoners into trench shelters. The Japanese then poured aviation fuel into the trenches and lit the men on fire. Any men who ran out of the trenches were shot down. Even so, a fair number of men got out of the trenches. Apparently some of them had stumbled across a kind of gully in the land that led out of the trenches and toward the cliffs and the harbor. The men followed this gully and scrambled down the cliffs and hid in the bush. The Japanese tracked down most of them and shot them one by one, but I believe fourteen men survived, most of those by swimming across the harbor. The book recounted the grueling story of one fellow who was in the water for 9 hours in order to make it to the other side.

I wanted to find the location of this massacre and I asked the receptionist of the hotel about it. She knew what I was talking about instantly. She called it the Plaza Cuartel and waved her hand in a vague direction. I understood that to mean it was quite near the hotel, though that didn’t make sense. I knew it had to be closer to the water. Our conversation drifted on to something else and I didn’t follow up on it.

In the morning, however, I was riding my bike around Puerto and quite by accident I found myself in front of a large stone gate with a sign on it that said Plaza Cuartel. Without even trying, I had found it.

The site of the massacre had plainly been turned into something of a tourist attraction, though by the amount of activity (none), not a very popular one. I sat outside for a while just trying to capture something of the atmosphere of what it must have been like all those years ago. Certainly, none of the buildings around me would have existed then. There was almost no information at the Plaza Cuartel, either, so I don’t even know whether the stone gates and the iron bars in the windows were there when it was a prisoner of war camp. I assumed they were, and I took lots of pictures of them from different angles. The gates were open and it looked like you could just walk inside and look around. There didn’t seem to be a ticket booth or guards at all. A group of boys were playing badminton inside the plaza and they shouted out to me that this was the “Plaza Cuartel.” And just to make sure I got it, they shouted, “Burn with fire, you know? You know?”

I rolled my bike inside and found very little of the atmosphere of a prisoner of war camp. Almost the entire area had been turned into a garden with fountains, flowers, bushes and walkways. There was a single small monument with a plaque. On the plaque was a short history of the massacre and then a list of the names of the survivors. That gave me pause. I wondered why the names of the men who were killed weren’t listed. Perhaps these names aren’t known? That seems odd, though.

There was a stone wall going around the plaza. I assumed this wall was new. It didn’t look old enough to be from World War II. And that begged the question of how large the prisoner of war camp was. The area included in the Plaza Cuartel didn’t seem quite large enough. Some of the boundaries did make sense, though, and they could have represented the actual limits of the camp. The back wall, for example, was right on the edge of a drop-off down to the water. At the time of the massacre, this was all wild land and the men could try and hide in the overgrowth. What I saw was quite different. From the very edge of the wall all the way down to the water stretched a large squatter camp. There were hundreds and perhaps thousands of little shacks covering every square inch of the land creating a maze of tiny paths, shacks, little shops, water pumps, and other things. I had actually seen this area from the plane and thought it looked interesting. It stretched far beyond the area near the Plaza Cuartel and continued a long way along the coast.

I walked over every square foot of the Plaza Cuartel looking for any indication of where the trenches might have been or where the gully was, but I didn’t see anything. The monument I read used the word “tunnel” instead of trench, but there was no marker showing where this tunnel was supposed to be. On the other side of the left wall, though, there was a sharp drop-off into what could easily have been the gully the men used to escape. It currently was a paved path leading down into the squatter shacks. It made sense to me that this area could have been like this for a long time and that it would have been a natural way for the men to make their way down the hillside and into the bush. I rolled my bike down this paved path and into the squatter area to get a better sense of the geography of the place. It was very steep, and steps had been built into the pavement. I had to pick up my bicycle and carry it down over many of these steps. At the bottom, I followed the paths as far as I could to see if I could reach the water, but the paths quickly became too narrow for my bicycle. I was going to pick up my bike and carry it back up the path, but a young man who had been watching my progress indicated that it would be easier to just go to the left and make my way out that way. I took his advice and rolled my bicycle through the squatter camp. I passed lots of people, but no one seemed to find my presence strange. It would have been a great place to take pictures, but I hesitated. I felt odd enough with my fancy bicycle and its strange bags. I would have felt odder still to be taking expensive camera gear out of the bags. It would have felt a bit too much like poverty tourism. I might go down there on foot and do some more exploring. There were lots of wooden boardwalks heading out to the water. It didn’t seem wise to take my bike down those as there were large gaps between the planks. And there wasn’t much room. I wonder what it’s like to live in a place like that. You certainly wouldn’t lack for a sense of community being that close to so many people. All the shacks were within inches of each other and piled one on top of the other. There wasn’t a lot of privacy.

It took me a while to find my way out of there, but eventually I made it back onto some roads. I had no idea where I was, but it didn’t matter much. As long as you had a vague sense of orientation you could easily find your way back to Rizal, the main road. Puerto Princesa is sort of on a peninsula and you can’t go too far before hitting water. Go back and forth from water to water and you’re going to cross all the main roads. Besides, the map I have is very detailed, and the roads are somewhat marked so there is almost no chance of getting lost for long.

I had some trouble with the bike as I rode. I’ll have to work on it tonight. The problem was, of course, the rear derailleur. With all of my fumbling around last night, it is now out of alignment. I can’t access all the gears without the chain getting sucked in and jammed in between the chain rings and the derailleur wheels. When that happens, it is a huge mess and it could easily break something. I’ll have to make some adjustments.

 

My impressions of Puerto Princesa were something of a mixed bag. On the way in from my hotel, I was struck by the town’s tourism face. It seemed like a giant service town. Every second shop front seemed to be a travel agency of some kind. There were motorcycle rental shops and loads of pawn shops. The road was jammed with tricycles performing those freaky 180 degree turns they can do. They can just spin around on the spot and go in any direction they want.

Yet, it seemed a friendly and unpretentious place. Lots of people smiled at me and waved. The kids yelled out “Hey, Joe!” and admired my bicycle. The bicycle has certainly made an impression on people. Lots of children have come running up to touch it and run their hands over it. Most of the men I’ve met all want to get a closer look and talk about it.

After visiting the Plaza Cuartel, I rode my bike up and down many of the streets of downtown Puerto just checking out the place and seeing what’s here. I found my way down to the water on the other side and rode along a long park area. I stopped at one point and simply stared out over the water and watched the few children that were playing in the water. The main activity seemed to be whacking things with sticks.

I also rode by the docks area and saw what are probably the big ferries that go back and forth to Manila. I passed a number of hotels and pensions. I thought about seeking out a better place than the place I’m in, but I doubt I’ll bother. “Better” is such a relative concept. I rode my bike into the grounds of one place that looked quite nice. It had a well set-up outdoor reception area, nice outdoor seating, and a place where you can get information on tours. The building itself was a rambling wooden structure three stories high. It was quite attractive and every room had tables and chairs outside on the balcony. It was very nice, but when it came right down to it, I preferred my junky airport place. This pension was loaded with foreigners and staying there wouldn’t feel that special. People found their way there because, as this pension said proudly on their brochures, they were recommended by Lonely Planet. As I was there just looking around, a woman came in clutching her Lonely Planet and looking for a room. When I left, I saw a backpacker coming up the street with his Lonely Planet out, his finger stuck into the pages for Puerto. That’s certainly a great thing about having a bicycle. You really don’t need a guidebook. You can afford the time to just wander around and find the things you need. And Puerto has so much of everything that you don’t need much help. There are hotels everywhere for example. On foot it might be hard to find them, but on a bicycle it’s a breeze.

I have the sense that tourism is big business here, yet I can’t say that I’ve seen very many foreigners. This discrepancy might be explained by Filipino tourists. The hotel where I’m staying seems to have a number of Filipino tourists. I saw two groups of them this morning loading into vans to go off on a tour.

It was nearly one o’clock by the time I’d finished exploring Puerto’s streets. By then I was very thirsty and a bit hungry. I wasn’t sure what to do about food, but by chance I passed a place that looked promising. I locked up my bike outside and found a perfect place to not just eat and drink but to hang out. I was glad to find the place. It looked like a place that I could go back to again and again. They had a huge menu serving all kinds of great western food including lasagna. The drinks were cold, the coffee was hot and tasty, and the music was cool. On top of that, I met a production designer for a French film company. I was curious about this guy and I used asking about money changers as an excuse to go up to him and talk to him.

 

Tags: bike, Palawan Bike Trip, Plaza Cuartel, Taipei