"It's all downhill from here." We heard that from a security guard where we ate breakfast before leaving Banaue. Every bike tourist has heard that a hundred times. I think maybe once it was right. This wasn't the time. In fact it was even more wrong than usual. After hearing about the downhill, we actually went uphill, almost continuously, for eight kilometers. Then we descended on yet another gorgeous road, this one well paved.

At the bottom we crossed a bridge over a river with lots of big gravel bars that jeepneys go for car washes. A bunch of boys swam under the bridge. We saw the same thing at other bridges.

This was the bottom of the long hill we had been descending for the last 30 km. We started climbing a long hill from there. A few sport cyclists in lycra gear and road bikes or glittering mountain bikes passed us going the other way. It's always a good sign to see local cyclists because it means the road is fun to ride. This really was a nice climb too -- well paved, shady, light traffic and scenic. Many of the hills we looked out on were bare of trees. They were covered by very green grass. It looked a lot like Scotland and New Zealand.

This area seemed a little short on jeepneys. People crammed all over every surface of each passing jeepney, covering the bumpers and roofs. Even the tricycles carried at least five people each. Some carried more.

After reaching the top of the hill we descended into a great valley. We had lost most of our altitude so the temperature was hot again. Fortunately the road was very flat. We had a nice conversation with a 60ish woman at her "sari-sari" (mom-n-pop stand). She told us that the area used to be covered with really big "first class" trees, excellent for building. Until the 1970s or so, it had been legal to just come and take what you wanted for free. Then the government banned logging in the area, but by then most of the trees were gone. Now the government is promoting replanting. We saw signs saying "Trees are our friends." The woman said after the Centennial parade, the town had held a tree planting ceremony.

The riding was easy for many miles up the valley. It was a relief after days of crawling through the rocky mountain roads at 11km/hour. The road followed a river upstream so the last 20km to the town of Santa Fe was gradual.

Santa Fe sits at the base of the last pass before Manila. We wanted to sleep there that night so we could tackle the pass early the next morning.

We checked into one of Santa Fe's two hotels. This was a fairly typical small town hotel experience. The hotel occupied the upstairs of a two-story building. downstairs was a Chinese restaurant. A young Filipino man showed me the room and bathrooms and told me they didn't allow alcohol. He asked us with some enthusiasm about where we had ridden and where we were going. He wanted me to play something on the horn but then decided he wanted us to pay first. After we paid he forgot about us. Despite his instructions I used the women's bathroom because it was cleaner and the shower worked.

In the hallway hung four posters of barely clothed women selling cigarettes. We got a corner room to get some cross breeze, and hung up our mosquito net. One window looked out across a balcony onto the street. In the evening women from the Chinese restaurant sat on the balcony with their children and talked in Chinese. (Joan: It was a birthday party and part of it involved teaching the kids to count in Chinese).

The food at the Chinese restaurant was pretty bad. Too greasy. We had walked around town a little earlier looking for a restaurant, but all we saw was roadside tables with raw meat baking in the heat. Joan was determined to avoid meat for dinner. Unfortunately the menu didn't have a vegetarian page. She asked for meatless chop suey and got lots of nods, and then got chop suey with lots of meat.

Here's how it happened.

J: (pointing at something on menu): I would like this with no meat.

Waitress: Meat. Yes.

J: (still pointing): NO meat, please.

Waitress: Meat. Yes.

J: I don't want any meat.

Waitress: Meat. Yes.

J: No NO NO Meat!

It was after that that the waitress nodded.

In the morning as we packed our bikes the young man who had checked us in the day before asked us all the same questions he had asked the day before.

The climb up the pass started about 100 yards from the hotel and continued on about a six percent grade for the next eight km. This is one of the best passes ever. The road was smooth and had a wide shoulder and lots of shade trees. As we had in the mountains the day before, we saw several sport cyclists. A few passed us on the way up.

At the top we saw some bicycles parked in front of a food stall. We stopped in for a cold drink. I tried to talk to the other cyclists. It seemed natural at the top of a mountain to have a little conversation with someone who'd just done the same ride. But they just stared back at me or at the ground, like four kids in front of the principal for having had a food fight. (I know; I've been in there). They seemed afraid or ashamed to talk to me and only grunted in response. Their response seemed cold and rude, despite our lack of a common language. They could have at least smiled.

This really disappointed me. In Indonesia we saw only one local person out riding a bike for fun (near Surabaya on Java) and he turned around and rode with us for several km. He didn't speak much English but he talked to us anyway. In contrast, the coldness of the Filipino cyclists made me feel unwelcome in the country.

From the top it was downhill almost all the way to San Jose. This side of the mountain was noticeably drier than the other side. The descent through a long ravine reminded me of the Sierras in California.

At San Jose we went to the bus station, hoping to get a bus from the 160km back to Manila. After lots of confusion and mixed signals over whether or not an AC bus could fit our bikes, we got on a non-AC bus mid-day. We ended up sitting in the back near a hip young guy in jeans, a nice shirt and a haircut that looked like it was fresh out of a picture from a beauty salon. He had that "bored with life" look and kept his headphones on the whole way. When he paid he pulled out a wad of money. He got off at a shopping mall.

Several people got on the bus at every town and rode for several blocks, trying to sell drinks, food and candy. I couldn't understand what they said. One guy kept repeating "dee-da-da-dee-dum" like the Imperial Probe droid in The Empire Strikes Back. I kept thinking, "This form of communication is not used by the Rebel Alliance."

The bus was held up by two funeral processions. While waiting for one we saw a sign for a Montessori elementary school that boasted four selling points: 1. New Paint Job. 2. Bathroom on premises. 3. Specially trained teachers. 4. 20kv generator. At the bottom it said, "NO BROWN OUTS." (Joan: I like how the teachers come after the bathrooms and the paint).

We crawled through horrible traffic into Manila in a downpour. All the other passengers got out before us. We had to go all the way to the terminal before they'd let us unload our bikes. The terminal wasn't even in Manila. It was in Quezon City, which was the star of the crime section of the newspaper. We figured no biggie, we'd take a cab. None would take us. We had to ride in the rain. It sucked. Especially since we had no idea where we were. We had two maps and Quezon City wasn't on either one.

With water dripping down our faces and off our noses, we asked everyone we could, "Which way to Ermita?" The jeepney drivers proved the most helpful,though one almost ran Joan over.

We got lucky. A Jeepney driver gave us great directions. All we had to do was make a few turns, get onto a main road and keep going. It worked. The rain stopped and we made it to our hotel within 30 minutes. The armed guards were a little reluctant about letting our muddy selves in. But they did.

The next day we ran lots of errands, including picking up our sleeping bags at Post Restante. We checked email, picked up a letter at Amex and waited in line for an hour to exchange our Philippines Airlines ticket for one on Thai Air. (PAL went on strike a week or so earlier and by the time we got back to Manila the airline had just about shut down international service. The morning after we swapped tickets we read that 40% of the PAL workers had been laid off the day before. I wondered if that included any of the people who changed our ticket). We're glad we switched. Thai Airways is excellent. Good food and plenty of free wine.

After a 10km urban ride, we found the usual mob at the airport. We almost couldn't afford our departure. The departure tax is 1,000 pesos. By scraping together all our money, including five US$1 bills and several one-peso coins, made it with about 20 pesos left to spare. Joan had wanted to keep a 500-peso note because those are dedicated to a journalist and have a picture of a typewriter. But we couldn't afford it. She'll have to buy one at an currency exchange office when we get back home.

Next: Bangkok, the sequel.

Philippine Main Page