While I waited, I had the perfect vantage point to watch all the young street boys swarming over the boat and diving into the water to retrieve coins. On the first ferry I’d taken, the Penafranca, this hadn’t happened. I’d actuallly seen a sign inside the ferry saying this activity was not allowed. At the Matnog ferry terminal, it was still common, and it was great fun to watch them. Passengers lined up on the decks of the ferry and tossed one-peso coins into the water. The young boys would dive in doing back flips and front flips in large groups and race underwater to get the coins. Most had one homemade flipper attached to one foot to make it easier for them to swim. Some boys had goggles or facemasks. There was a lot of shouting back and forth between the boys and the passengers above. The boys wanted them to throw the coins closer to them and the passengers wanted to throw them further away to give them a bit of a challenge. The passengers also called out for certain acrobatic moves in exchange for their tossed coin. I was told later that the boys put the coins inside their mouths and stored them in their cheeks like squirrels tucking away a nut or two.

The boys also had a recyling racket going on. While I was standing there and watching them, a ferry arrived and docked. This ferry had come from Allen – the port town on the island of Samar, the same place where my ferry was going to. A group of the boys peeled away from my ferry and raced across to the other ferry. They waited until the ropes were thrown onto shore and as soon as they were secure, they raced up the ropes and climbed aboard. Then they went along all the decks of the ferry and rooted through the garbage cans looking for plastic bottles and any other containers that could be recycled. Rather than put the material inside a sack and carry it with them – this would be too slow – they quickly threw everything over the side of the boat and onto the docks below. They went through the garbage cans like a snowblower going threw deep snow and the plastic bottles and noodle containers flew through the air. Many of them would still have liquid in them, and they would hit the dock with a big splash sending leftover noodles and water flying in all directions. I assumed there was an honor system in place, as the boys down on the docks did not poach (or at least not very much) and they left the containers for the boys to eventually come down and retrieve. Meanwhile, passengers now got the idea that they should throw their plastic bottles to the boys, and they started throwing them into the water for the boys to retreive. Soon, there was a thick ring of garbage in the water around all the boats. The boys got some of the garbage but not all of it, and the water was soon a churning garbage dump.

I soon lost all track of time. I didn’t know what time I had boarded the ferry nor how much time had passed while I watched all the activity. I just knew it had been a long time, and people were still pouring onto the ferry. The decks above me got more and more crowded and still people boarded. The sun was burning into my brain, but with all the street boys swarming everywhere over the boat, I dared not leave my bicycle unwatched and I stood there. After what felt like an eternity, a fuel truck came on board and pumped fuel into the tanks. Then the long and slow process of boarding the buses and trucks began. The buses and trucks boarded in reverse this time, and the first bus’s attempt was met with a loud crunch. The ramp was too steep, and as the bus tried to back onto the ferry, the bottom of the bus hit the edge and the muffler pipe was completely flattened and effectively pinched shut. This had to be opened up and the ramp and the ferry repositioned. After a long delay, the buses finally started to get on board. Then what I had been dreading all along happened. A ferry employee came up to me and asked if that was my bicycle down there. I said that it was and he said that I had to move it. It was blocking one of the buses.

I was extremely annoyed, but there was nothing I could do. I could see that all the buses and trucks were not moving. The entire loading of the ferry had been stopped by my bicycle. Nothing could happen until my bicycle was moved. I followed the man down onto the loading area, fuming internally. When I got to the bike and saw just how much work it was going to be to untie my bike and move it, I turned to the man gave him a small piece of mind. I think I was due a bit of venting. I told him in no certain terms that I had talked to everyone on the ferry that I could possibly have spoken to and asked them about where I should put my bike. People had either ignored me or told me to put my bike exactly where it was. I had worked very hard to avoid this very situation. I had done everything I could and more to find out if it was okay to put my bicycle where it was.

I knew it was pointless. This guy knew nothing about anything. He wasn’t responsible. Venting at him would accomplish nothing, but what was the alternative? I found that I internalized so much stress and anger that I ran the risk of going up in a massive explosion – like the Hulk suddenly losing it. At some point, my internal tanks of repressed anger and frustration get too full and I have to let some of it out. The trick is to keep it under control. It’s like puncturing a metal container under pressure. You run the risk of the entire thing going up like a bomb. It takes a light touch to bleed off just some of the pressure without the entire thing rupturing. And in my case, I knew that if I got going, I could easily lose control. It’s like a chain reaction. Simply expressing a bit of anger can lead to everything coming out all at once and in a few seconds I’d be screaming and yelling and perhaps bouncing people off the metal walls of the ferry.

Untying my bike and then moving it took a long time. The entire time, I could feel all of the bus and truck people waiting impatiently for this dumb foreigner. The sweat poured off me in rivers as I undid my padlock and then secured it and then undid all the ropes – scrabbling at the knots with my slippery fingers. And I now had my own pannier bag – my survival kit – off the bike and I had to carry it with me as I did all this. I had been taking pictures and my camera had been out and I had to put all my camera gear away and make sure everything was secure. It was just a giant mess and the attempt by this guy to help me just made things worse. I told him to back off and just let me do it. With his help, the bike was going to crash to the ground and get damaged.

Finally, the bike was free, and I followed this guy across the ferry deck to the other side. He pointed me toward a doorway and said I should put my bike inside there. Of course, this was a ship, and all ships have tall ledges at the base of the doors to prevent water from sloshing over and to make a good seal when the door is closed. Plus, there were giant piles of lumber and other junk on the other side of the door. How was I going to wrestle my bike over that tall lip and then how was I going to secure my bike amongst all that loose lumber? I lost my temper a bit more at this point and I let the poor guy have a blast of angry words. I did it calmly, though, and explained again that I had done everything I possibly could to find out where I should put my bike and no one had given me the slightest bit of notice. In the future, etc. etc. All pointless and useless – the arrogant Westerner trying to impose his values on a local culture – but I had to speak. It was either that or repress it all and lose another year off my life because of internalized stress and probably high blood pressure.

In the end, I carefully lifted my bike over the ledge and through the door and then moved around all the lumber until I had a space for my bike. I found another opening in the metal wall and beams and secured my bike with rope. When it was done, I went looking for a more official representative of the ferry – preferably one of the men that had originally told me where to put my bike – but I gave up. I didn’t know who was who. There were just a bunch of guys lounging around and it was impossible to tell who was even a ferry employee. My experience on the Penafranca had been much more professional and organized. However, that also meant that they charged me for transporting the bike. On the Montenegro, I got no help or useful information, but they also did not charge me anything. In fact, I didn’t see any organization at all. There was no passenger manifest, for example. I would have been surprised if they had any idea how many people had boarded or how much weight the ferry was carring. If the ferry went down, they would have no idea who or what had been on board.

Now that the bike was secured in its new location and the ferry was about to leave, I could go up onto the decks. I got out my camera and took some pictures of the shoreline and the boys still diving for coins. For all I knew, there were now a dozen of those young boys swarming over my bike in the hold and taking everything they could get their hands on. But there was nothing I could do about that short of staying with the bike in the hold the entire time or removing all the luggage and carrying it up with me. When I left from Taiwan, my plan had been to do just that. I had brought along a duffle bag for that purpose. I planned to remove all the pannier bags and the tent and sleeping bag and put it all inside this duffle bag. Then I could carry that duffel bag to the deck and everything would be more or less secure. My taxi ride to the airport and then my flight from Taipei to Legazpi put paid to that idea. I had far too much luggage to reasonably carry around with me. It was simply too heavy and too complicated. The pannier bags work well when attached to a bicycle but are very awkward otherwise. Besides, I had too much gear with me and I decided to ship the duffle bag back to Canada along with a bunch of other stuff. It was better, I decided, and more reasonable to simply remove the one very valuable pannier bag, lock up the zippers of the rest, cover the pannier bags with the rain covers and cinch them tight and then hope for the best.

 

Tags: bike, Montenegro, pannier bags, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, West Coast of Samar