Book V ~ Chapter 9 ~ Davao Downtime

21-Jul-2022 - 27-Jul-2022

Table of Contents

• The Place
• Straying Shopping
• The Food
• People's Park Parcouring
• The Flair
• An Abreeza Adventure
• The Retrospective
• Nightly Light Park Japan Dining
• The Road Ahead

After another tip around the world I have now arrived in...

So, once again, I am in a new country, and once again it is an island country of the Pacific ring of fire. It is a highly archipelagic country, featuring a total of 7,107 islands, surpassing even Japan's already impressive 6,852 islands (and both of them easily besting New Zealand, which features only around 700 islands). Unlike Japan, however, it features a lot more medium-sized islands. The Philippines also clearly win the prize for the funkiest island shapes.

In terms of size (300,000 km²), the Philippines are roughly as large as Italy, while it's population (109,035,343) is somewhere between Egypt and Ethiopia. Add that together, and you get a population density (336/km²) that is almost exactly the same as that of Belgium. Within this country, I am now located on the island of Mindanao, the southeasternmost of the Philippine's bigger islands, and also the second-biggest island in the Philippines. Mindanao is the 19th-largest island in the world, and is almost as large as South Korea. It is also the 7th-most-populous island in the world, housing almost as many people as Cameroon.

And on Mindanao, I am once again located more or less to the southeast, in the city of Davao, located in the region of Davao del Sur and at the shore of the Davao Gulf. The name of this entire landscape goes back to the indigenous name of Davah/Dawaw/Dabo, meaning "A place beyond the high grounds". Davao is the largest city in the Philippines in terms of size, and the third-most-populous.

Within Davao, the place I'm staying at is located pretty much in the centre of the city. About 1km away from the seashore and the Davao River (yes, everything around here is called Davao), it seems like an ideal base for exploration.

Or at least it would, if there weren't a number of problems. The first one being the climate, which is, in one word, oppressive. Being located at 7°N, Davao has a tropical rainforest climate, meaning it's hot, humid, and more or less the same every day over the whole year, with scheduled rainfall every afternoon. The humidity rarely falls below 80%, and the temperature fluctuates between 25°C and 35°C, which may sound somewhat bearable, until you factor in that it feels about 10°C warmer if you're standing in the tropical sun here. For me, this is the first time staying in such a climate for a prolonged period, and I can already tell that this is not for me. The worst part is that this weather saps one of the strength and will to do anything, and prolonged exploration hikes are outright out of the question, even without any further complications that should yet emerge.

But one thing at a time. First, let me tell you a bit about...

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The Place

Elgen and I are staying in a somewhat unusual Airbnb place. It is actually just one apartment in a big double-tower complex known as the Avida Towers Davao, and we should not actually get to see our host even once.

The whole structure consists of a three-level parking garage atop a lobby floor, above which there are a total of 19 residential floors, each with 23 apartments. Assuming that tower 2 features the same floor plan as tower 1 - in which we are staying - and that all floors have the same floor plan, that would add up to a total of  874 apartments altogether. Notably, the towers don't have a 13th floor.

Hygiene is strict. For example, the elevators have their buttons covered in a plastic sheet which is changed regularly, and everyone has to wear masks while not inside their apartment.

Our apartment is on the 17th floor, which is de-facto the 20th floor (17 - 1 missing floor + 3 parking floors + 1 lobby floor), and the hallways there are austere, but clean.

In place of a key, the door features a key pad that only comes to life when touched (and is also covered with a replaceable foil, though that should remain there for the entire duration of our stay). This is the first time I'm using such a system, and while I do have some doubts, I also can't deny that it's quite handy not having to worry about forgetting your keys in the apartment, or keeping track of who currently has the key.

The apartment itself is a cozy little one-room place plus a small bathroom. No larger than 20m² altogether, the bed itself already takes up a large part of the space.

Directly across from the bed, there's the little washing-kitchen corner, featuring a washing machine, a sink, a fridge, a rice cooker, a water cooker, a microwave, and a single induction heating plate. I'd say "it's not much but it's everything I need", but unfortunately it is clearly missing one rather important thing, namely an oven! That means I can't bake pizza for Elgen while I'm here!

The bathroom follows suit: It has all the basics, and little more. The toilet is somewhat small, owing to the size of the average person here, but it's basically okay.

Meanwhile, what is definitely not basically okay is the shower. Featuring an electric flow heater plugged into a nearby outlet, it barely gets the water any warmer than the default cold setting. Fortunately, with the ambient temperatures being what they are, taking a cold shower is not quite as uncomfortable (but the option to get it a little bit warmer would still have been nice).

Speaking of the temperature, one rather essential piece of equipment which this apartment fortunately has is an AC. With that, our stay place is a wonderful island of relative coolness in a country that is way too hot for my taste.

Finally, this place also has a reasonably laptop-friendly workspace where I can set up Liete. However, in place of even a single chair, all we have are wooden stools.

Also, one of the power outlets is broken, looking like this, and the upper one crackles menacingly when we try to plug in the induction heating plate.

So I message my host about this, and he promptly sends over a technician to repair it.

Unfortunately, as far as I understand him, he doesn't have the required parts, so he improvises something, which does look better, but still crackles menacingly whenever we plug in the plate.

Thus, I message my host once more, and the next time there's an entire troupe of repairmen trying to get the thing fixed at our doorstep.

And with this much manpower, they finally do get it repaired, so now we can use our external stove plate without fear.

Located in the hallway, across from the elevators, there's the garbage chute where we can dispose of our garbage. Here in the Philippines, Garbage is divided into four categories: Recyclable (white), "normal" garbage (yellow), special garbage (red) and food garbage (green).

Being located so far up, we do have a nice view out of our one window, though it is somewhat obstructed by the fact that our window looks out towards the other tower.

Meanwhile, in the hallway there's another window looking out towards the clam-shaped Metropolitan Cathedral of San Pedro, the Sangguniang Panlungsod city government office, and even the sea in the far distance.

At night, the city becomes an ocean of lights, though unfortunately not a quiet one. With nighttime peace being a foreign concept here, the noise of nearby construction work resounds through most of the night, and since the AC is literally sitting in a hole in the wall, you can hear any sound from the outside just fine inside.

The Avida Towers also have a pool on the top of the parking garage between the two towers, but since there's a registration process involved and neither Elgen or I ever feel the need to, we shouldn't end up using it.

So much for our stay place. Now, the first time walking in this new city for me should be by necessity when we go out...

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Straying Shopping

22-Jul-2022
Distance: 1.0km
Ascents: 1m
Duration: 0.5h (+Shopping)

This first stray should be rather short and functional. We basically just walk down the road for a kilometer or so. However, due to the prevailing circumstances, even that is already bad enough that we should happily take a taxi back home thereafter (that, and the bags would have been hard to carry all the way). Incidentally, the route that the taxi takes to get back is a bit more roundabout since a number of the streets here are one-way roads, so getting around by car is tricky in addition to dangerous and stressful.

For starters, we're just walking down the road - which probably sounds a lot less exciting than it actually is. On one hand, this is a completely new country for me, so I don't know what to watch out for, how safe the streets are, if I have to worry about pickpockets, and so on. And for another, the sidewalks here are... well... even "present" would at times be an overstatement. Basically, they are non-unified patchwork structures in various states of disrepair, looking different in front of every building, but more to that later.

Then there's the roads. While traffic lights occasionally do exist, most of the time you have to cross the road without such safety devices. And I mean, like, really really busy roads. Usually what happens is that a small crowd of pedestrians gathers at the side of the road, and then when there's a reasonably sized gap in traffic, they cross all at once, trusting that the drivers would rather brake rather than drive over half a dozen of people. On the plus side, cars rarely drive faster than 30 km/h, not because that's the speed limit, but because the traffic is so dense and treacherous that it's not sane to drive any faster. Curiously, despite the fact that this sounds like a recipe for disaster, I should not witness a single accident during my whole stay in the Philippines. Maybe the ever-present danger makes the people more cautious?

We also appear to be walking just out side of the gates of Chinatown. Quite literally, in fact, since we do pass two Chinese arches on our way.

Continuing past those, we reach one of aforementioned missing sidewalks, where we follow the single-file line of pedestrians at the side of the busy road...

...and then, we reach our destination, the Gaisano Mall. At the entrance, there's a security check, because this here is actually somewhat dangerous territory. Elgen tells me that terrorists did recently blow up a bus, as well as detonate a bomb on the nearby Roxas night market, so I suppose the extra security makes sense. However, the half-hearted way in which the guards do check our bags somehow fails to reassure me.

But anyway, one way or another, we are now in the Gaisano mall, which is car-free, clean and - most importantly - cool.

The first thing we do there is go for some lunch in one of the many little food shops here. I go for something called  Lengua Estofado simply for the reason that it sounds like some authentic local food. Turns out I'm right, because this is a type of ox tongue stew which happens to be a Filipino delicacy. It's not bad, although I still have to get used to the fact that Filipino portions are somewhat smaller than what I'm used to.

Our next stop is the supermarket, which is hard to miss due to the fact that its check-out desks constitute pretty much the entire right side of the lower floor of the mall. In fact, the biggest challenge is finding a place where we can go in.

The supermarket itself is, like so often, alike to what I'm used to, but different. For example, there's the "Buy 1 Take 1" corner, which gives me pause for a moment until I realize that this is simply the local term for "2 at the price of 1". In fact, I should end up seeing that term quite a lot around here.

The trundlers are also cute. Sure, there's also "regular" sized ones for people who need to get a lot of shopping done, but most people in the store actually use these little mobile shopping basket pedestals instead.

However, there's a few things that are hard to find. Milk is one, and flour the other. More specifically, wheat flour. I mean, the aisle with the flour is quickly found, but whereas in Germany you'll find 50 shades of wheat flour in there, here there's mostly rice flour, supplemented by some coconut flour, corn flour, dark rye flour and even potato starch. There is wheat flour among these too, but it takes some time to find it.

The next fun thing is the "exotic food" department, where I am amused to find strange foreign delicacies such as "Knackwurst" and "Bratwurst" on the shelves.

Finally, there's the checkout. As mentioned before, there's several dozen counters, which cordon off the supermarket area at two of its four sides. All in all I think there's a total of three dozen counters, though only a small fraction of them are actually staffed.

The next thing I'm surprised to see is that quite a number of people are shopping as though the apocalypse has been scheduled for tomorrow morning, packing not only one but several regular-sized shopping carts full of non-perishable food. That, or they're abusing the supermarket as a wholesale store.

Finally, there's the counter itself, which is just that: A counter. Without a conveyor-belt, but with staff that packages everything you buy into plastic bags faster than you can say "I've brought my own bag". Also, did I mention that everyone here in Davao always wears masks while in public?

Afterwards, we take a taxi back home. Here in Davao, that actually seems to be one of the default modes of public transport, with a row of taxis waiting in a designated pick-up zone just outside of the mall. There's even attendants guiding us to the next free taxi, and I observe how the taxi driver pays the attendant a small fee as he departs, so it looks like the system is somewhat formalized. As for the fare, it's actually really cheap, amounting to only 81₱ (Philippine Pesos), the equivalent of 1.40€. By contrast, in Germany Elgen and I would have paid over 3€ together going that same distance by bus, and probably around 10€ for a taxi.

And with that, our first little adventure here is coming to an end. Naturally, that's not nearly enough for my taste, and we should still head out again later today, but before that, let's talk about...

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The Food

Unlike in most of the other places I've been to, mealtime is just mealtime here in the Philippines, without any big differences as to what is eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Whenever you're hungry, you just cook or get something, and that something usually involves rice. From what I gathered, it's also quite normal to just get some takeout food from one of the many, many roadside food stalls. A practice that is facilitated by the fact that the prices of that food are also really affordable. For example, on one occasion  Elgen goes out and brings us home a box of pork skewers with rice and soy sauce.

Another day, I cook up some steak. It turns into a bit of a juggling act since I elected to have pasta as a side dish, and with only a single plate to cook on that gets a bit tricky. As for the sauce, there's not much choice here, so I go with a simple tomato sauce.

Elgen takes the next turn cooking, coming up with the interesting combination of instant noodles and rice. Incidentally, I do learn that rice with nothing but soy sauce and lemon actually does not only taste nice, but is also really refreshing in this hot climate.

Speaking of which, this is what lemons do look like around here. No big yellow fruits, but rather little chestnut-sized green fruits sold by the dozen. I actually find them much more convenient than the big yellow variants since you can just squeeze a single of these small ones and have pretty much the perfect dose for a meal, or a cup of tea, or pretty much anything.

In the end, Elgen ends up taking care of most of the food preparation, which I suppose is for the best since she knows how things work around here. On one occasion, for example, she goes out and gets a bunch of chicken wings, then tops them up with freshly made rice and sunny-side-up egg.

And another day, she warms up a bunch of chilled chicken nuggets and serves them with - you guessed it - rice and soy-lemon sauce.

Now, I've mentioned a number of problems before, the second one of which comes to the one question any seasoned traveller will ask when going to a new place. The question in question is "Is the tap water drinkable?", to which the clear answer is:

Naturally, being a seasoned traveller myself, I checked that before and made sure to buy a big canister of bottled water right away. However, the problem is... turns out the bottled water is not necessarily safe to drink either, especially if you're from a foreign country and your intestinal flora is not used to the local... supplements. Long story made short, I end up with severe diarrhea, and after suffering through it for a few days change my "drink diet" from bottled water to soft drinks, fruit juice and tea (or simple boiled water). I should later also learn that apparently small bottles of water (which you can buy at literally every corner) are also safe.

Apart from that, there's also food to be told about as part of my strays here in Davao. Speaking of which, let us now proceed with some...

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People's Park Parcouring

22-Jul-2022
Distance: 2.8km
Ascents: 4m
Duration: 1.5h
0/1 🎁︎

Later on my first full day in Davao, Elgen and I go out to see the nearby People's Park, and then go on beyond. It's pretty much just an extended loop around the block, but in this hot and humid weather, that's already challenging enough.

Along the way we pass one of the many 7-Elevens, of which there is also one on our block, with a second one presently being under construction on the ground floor of the Avida Towers. Once that one's finished, there'll be 3 7-Elevens within 333m of one another. Well, with so many tall buildings around, I suppose they have their customer base cut out for them, and Elgen and I also end up frequenting them occasionally if we need small things and don't want to go all the way to the Gaisano Mall, which holds the closest supermarket.

Shortly thereafter, we arrive at the People's Park. There's another security check at the entrance, and interestingly, there are separate lines for males and females. We do get through without any problems, though. I suppose for the people living here these are pretty routine.

The first thing that I notice is the large, durian-shaped dome dominating one corner of the park, owing to the fact that Davao is also known as the Durian Capital of the Philippines since durians grow abundantly on the slopes of nearby mount Apo. But more on Durians in the next chapter.

Originally a sporting venue by the name of Palaruang Panlunsod ("City Playground"), the defining feature of the People's Park is still the oval race track defining its general structure. Building on that, there's lots of greenery around, as well as a sunroof over parts of the track.

Also, there's a score of stylized statues around depicting the indigenous people and traditional farming communities.

However, all in all, it's not a large areal (barely 10 acres big), and so taking a full circuit through it does not exactly take long. Elgen does tell me though that the People's Park has a nice display of lights at nighttime, so we make a note to come back at night one of these days. Afterwards, we take the scenic route back, along which we come past an artful, Green Shnolz conform mural.

Now, the problem with taking a walk like this is that Davao clearly is not a very pedestrian-friendly city. Most of its roads are geared towards car and motorbike traffic, and occasionally motorbikes even cut across the sidewalks. All in all, it doesn't end up being a very pleasant walk.

We do also come across a number of roadside stalls, which is not exactly a big accomplishment, since those are literally everywhere. The variety of goods carried by them is impressive, though, ranging over from food and drink over cell phone supplies up until niche markets such as key carving services.

And then, we're back again, both quite happy to be inside our nice, cool apartment. So much for my first day in Davao. Next up is a short part about...

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The Flair

And now, a bit about money. The Philippine Peso (₱) comes in both bills and coins. The colorful bills go from 1000₱ (~17€) to 20₱ (35¢), while coins go from the same 20₱ down to 5 Peso-Cents (0.09¢). Suffice it to say that things are a lot cheaper around here, though I still think it's kinda unnecessary breaking up the already rather granular ₱ into cents. I don't think I've ever seen anything cost less than 1₱. In fact, I am unsure about where I even got these Peso-Cent pieces from. Might have been as change from the supermarket or something.

Then, we've briefly covered the quality of sidewalks already, but here's more of that! Sometimes they're just eclectic, sometimes they have unexpected stumble-traps, sometimes there's knee-height steps just like that, sometimes there's pillars blocking half the sidewalk, and sometimes the sidewalk simply ends just like that. All in all, simply going down a sidewalk can be an adventure here, even without the threat of motorcyclists.

And if there's a proper sidewalk for once, there's always the chance that it might be full of bull.

But now to a more pleasant topic: Cats! Cats are always cute, but there especially cute here! For some reason, the cats on the Philippines are tiny! Even fully grown, they're only about half as big as the cats I've seen pretty much anywhere else. There's not a whole lot of them, but they do stray around rather carefree, looking for someone to throw them a morsel to eat.

Unfortunately, there's another problem. You may recall me mentioning that I caught a summer flu in the week before coming here. I thought I had gotten rid of it, but be it by the flight or the climate here (or possibly a combination of both), I now suffer a relapse. It starts getting bad on the second day of my stay, and the second and the third day are the worst. I am unable to go outside on those, so Elgen ends up getting me some medicine and vitamins, both for that and against aforementioned diarrhea. And even after that, I end up having a bad cough for weeks, the worst part of which is that the left side of my stomach starts hurting when I cough. That should yet have consequences.

So, all in all, not a good start into my stay here. I end up spending a lot more time indoors and sleeping than I would have preferred, but at the very least I have Elgen at my side who takes good care of me. It could be so much worse. In the end, we do spend time together doing plenty of little nothings, and I suppose that is what I came here for.

By the fourth day, I have recovered enough that I feel comfortable going outside again. Itching to get some fresh air and see more of the city, Elgen and I set out on...

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An Abreeza Adventure

25-Jul-2022
Distance: 4.4km
Ascents: 40m
Duration: 1.5h (+Shopping)
1/2 🎁︎

Setting out in the morning when it's still relatively cool outside (read: around 25°C), I have two goals on this stry, both of them Geocache-inspired. The first is the botanical garden of Davao, which I figure might also be a nice enough place to check out, and the second is the Abreeza Mall, which I figure will be great for getting lunch and some shopping done. Regrettably, this should already be the longest stray that we should go on during my entire stay in the Philippines.

On Elgen's insistence I leave my Geocaching tails back at the apartment this time around. She is convinced that my sickness came from people cursing me with their "poisonous mouth" when I wore them on our stray to the People's Park. I don't agree, but since she did take such good care of me, I do her the favor, even if it does make me a bit unhappy.

And thus, we embark onto our longest stray, first walking along some roofed sidewalks, which are particularly handy during the afternoon-ly rain showers.

That one is also one of the easier sidewalks, because naturally we also have to complete some "obstacle courses" on our way.

Along the way, we also pass by the Ritche Marketing House of Chainsaw, which is somewhat disturbing on a whole range of different layers.

And now: Trikes. Those are a kind of vehicle that is ubiquitous here in the Philippines, and yet, I've never seen one of them on my travels thus far. Basically, a bike with an extended sidecar, they fill they gap between bus and taxi. Cheaper than a taxi yet more flexible than a bus, they are a popular option among many people here, and we actually have to wave off a number of trikes intent on picking us up during our stray, because surely no obvious tourist such as myself would want to walk, right?

Apart from the passenger trikes, there's also cargo trikes...

...as well as the somewhat less common stall trike.

I know the roads here are generally not in good shape, but this is getting extreme!

However, after that final obstacle, we do arrive at the botanical garden, which is quite pretty, even if it is yet smaller than the People's Park, measuring only about 2.5 acres in size.

That colorful central patch pretty much already constitutes the majority of the botanical garden. However, around that there's also a blissfully shady and cool little palm tree grove...

...as well as a selection of bushes and shrubberies.

After not-finding the Geocache here, we head out towards the Abreeza mall by means of a side road. The sidewalk situation is as usual here, but at least there's not quite as much traffic to compete with. Also, there's quite interesting improvised speed bumps made of cut-open tires.

On our way, we also come across more trikes. Seems like here in the "outskirts" of town, those are the preferential form of public transport.

As we continue, we amazingly come across a stretch where the sidewalk is basically okay and uninterrupted for a relatively long distance...

...but before long, this is replaced with a more typical specimen. This time, the issue is that the sidewalk is barely wide enough for a single person, and if there's a person coming from the other direction, one has to dodge onto the green side strip (where possible), or the street. Also, this means that Elgen and I have to walk in file.

On the plus side, the sidewalk eventually becomes roofed... which would be significantly more helpful if the sun came from directly overhead. But alas, it's still morning, and yet it's already pretty hot.

By chance, we also come across and interesting place that I've been wanting to check out: The Davao Chinese Cemetery. I noticed that on our way from the airport when the taxi passed right by it, and have been wanting to take a look. Turns out there isn't really all that much to see, however, and since there's little shade in sight, we do not stay here for long.

We end up buying some water at a roadside stall along the way, and shortly thereafter also pass this curiously named stall selling Korean Fired Chicken.

By now, we've already made it most of the way to the Abreeza Mall. However, naturally the way there is still a dance across challenging sidewalks. Sometimes they are all blocked up too, and we have to switch sides. We do try to stay on the shady side, though, so we're out of the sun. Did I mention I put on heaps of sunscreen?

And then, we finally reach the Abreeza Mall. This big structure is notably also home to the Avida Towers Abreeza. A shame there's no portal between here and the Avida Towers Davao.

We quickly make it through the obligatory security check (which consists of a guard opening our bags and poking around inside them with a stick for two seconds before letting us in), and then we're inside. The mall is clean, modern, and - most importantly - cool.

After some time of exploring the mall (and finding the Geocache, my first, only and last find here in the Philippines), we decide to have lunch. Wanting to let Elgen decide, we end up walking for quite some time before she makes her choice, and the place we end up going to is the Greenwich Pizza & Pasta place.

There, I order a classic-size pizza... which turns out to be a little bit wrong, because apparently the classic size here is quite small. However, it turns out that the pizza is quite tasty. Elgen meanwhile contends herself with a single slice. I've been noticing that she isn't eating a lot, and I am beginning to wonder if that should worry me.

After we finish eating up our enormous portion, we go looking for a supermarket. It is really well hidden, but eventually we find it and get our shopping done. As we do so, I also notice a bit of a labeling fail in one corner.

By now its just a little bit after noon, and as you probably can imagine neither of us feels like carrying our shopping supplies all the way back to out stay place, so once again we get a taxi, and once again I am impressed with how cheap that is around here.

Once again, more should still happen today, but before it does, let's quickly insert..

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The Retrospective

All in all, the Avida Towers were a nice enough place to stay in. We had a complete private apartment, though food was - as usual in Airbnbs - not included. Come to think of it, why is it called "Air, Bed and Breakfast" then? Anyway, the beds were comfy, and the staff was nice and helpful. The tight security put me a bit off, though, and it was quite noisy at night. We had a bathroom as part of the room, even though the toilet and shower were kinda crappy. However, we also had our own free washing machine, which is not something all places I've been to had. Infrastructure and shopping options around were good, but the area itself was not exactly pleasant for walking around and even without my sickness or the climate I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing a lot of walking around here. The free WiFi in the place worked, although it was slow at times, the kitchen was crude but functional, and the AC was a real life saver. Okay, so there were a few complications with the check-in, but in the end it all worked out. Also, the price-value ratio was fantastic. Of all the places I've stayed in, this one is slightly above average.

I also make use of my time locked inside to prepare the first piece of gift artwork I've done in a while. This one goes to Elgen for taking such good care of me.

So much for that. Now, let's continue with some...

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Nightly Light Park Japan Dining

25-Jul-2022
Distance: 1.5km
Ascents: 3m
Duration: 0.75h (+Dinner)

We leave our apartment shortly after the sun has set, which around here means just a bit after 18:00. Sunsets are short here in the tropics, lasting less than half an hour per phase. As such, by the time we get outside it's already nautical dusk, and though the humidity is still high, at least the temperatures are somewhat more tolerable once the sun is gone from the sky.

Walking towards People's Park once again with Elgen, I notice something that I haven't seen since Japan: Lights embedded in the middle of the road to mark the lanes. With all the shortcomings of this place, I am genuinely impressed to find something so modern here.

Along the way, we also come across a good number of food stalls, each with people around. Makes me wonder if getting dinner from such stalls rather than cooking it for yourself is common practice in the Philippines.

Arriving at People's Park once more (and getting through security again), I can see why Elgen wanted to show me this. At night, not only the entrance sign is illuminated in changing colors, but some of the floor tiles are too, turning on and off to create a mosaic of lights.

We also come across a model of Davao City as it looked in the past...

...as well as a fountain, which is unfortunately turned off. Elgen really wanted to show me this, saying that it looks really nice when it's on.

After our visit to the park, we go to a Japanese restaurant that already caught my eye the last time we were here. Conveniently, it is located right across from the park.

By Philippine standards, this is a luxurious place, even if by western standards this would only be a little above average. There's not many people in here, and those who are sure do enjoy ordering a lot of dishes, one after the other.

Naturally, I was hoping to find some tasty Kitsune Udon in here. Unfortunately, that's not on the menu though, and so I go with some Tenpura Udon instead, which is still quite tasty. To Elgen, meanwhile, I recommend the Oyakodon. It goes without saying that she barely finishes half of it, and I have to eat the (tasty) leftovers. We also share some tasty Sanpincha while we're here. All together, the cost of this meal amounts to 950₱, which while expensive for Philippine standards still only amounts to roughly 16€. Back at home, I'd pay more for a single meal at an average restaurant.

Once we finish with our meal, we head back to the Avida towers. Unfortunately, by now it has started raining. Fortunately, the rain is not very strong, though, and we can make use of covered walkways for some of the distance, so we manage to arrive back at our little apartment relatively dry.

And with that, the first part of our stay in Davao is already coming to an end. Time to talk about...

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The Road Ahead

27-Jul-2022

Since Elgen's home is half the world away, it only makes sense for me to visit her home place and family while I'm here. As such, we've been planning to make a trip there as soon as I'm feeling better. Elgen's home would be roughly 75km away as the Crested Myna flies. However, due to the strategically placed central ridge of Mindanao featuring Mt. Apo - which at almost 3000m is also the highest mountain in the Philippines - the common route to get there is just a little bit zig-zaggey, and covers over twice that distance. The original plan is to take the bus to Kidapawan, then take a van from there to Tulunan, and then somehow get to Elgen's home village of Lampangang from there. However, in the end things should turn out to just a little bit more exciting than that.

First of all, however, we need to get to the Davao Ecoland Bus Terminal. Naturally, the way to go for that is by taxi, since the bus terminal is located on the far side of the Davao River, and thus out of walking distance, especially in this heat and with me carrying my whole luggage.

The taxi trip to the terminal takes ten minutes at most, leading us down the mostly vacant Roxas Ave at first, and then right onto the significantly more busy Quezon Boulevard, where we encounter plenty of motorcyclists daringly weaving their way through the dense traffic.

(Click here to view the video if the website fails to load it)

Shortly before we reach the bus terminal, we cross the Davao river, which turns out to be wide but shallow.

The taxi driver drops us off just outside the entrance...

...and after making our way through another obligatory security check, we are inside what I'd describe as a big market hall, only with buses inside.

Now, the way that public transport works here is a little bit different than what I'm used to. For one, there are no timetables, and the buses just leave whenever. As such, there's a need for station guides whom you can ask where the next bus to where you're going departs. It costs little more than a tip, and as a bonus he also carries my bag. I'm so lucky to have Elgen here to help me with all this, because without her I'd be totally lost in this culture. Also, while the majority of the people here can speak English, most of the oral communication happens in Filipino. And here I'm still busy trying to get my Japanese skills to a manageable level.

Anyway, thanks to aforementioned guide, we are quickly inside our bus and take a seat.

The bus is a weird mix of old and new. On the one hand, it has fancy screens and all (which is not something all travel buses in Germany have), but on the other hand, there's water dripping down from the cooling units above. Fortunately, it only drips on the windowsill. Maybe "modern but poorly maintained" is the right way to call it.

Reinforcing that hypothesis is the fact that I eventually notice a panel informing the passengers (for whatever reason) that the bus is equipped with a GPS system to monitor its speed. Wouldn't that be a great way of enforcing speed limits all around the globe? I imagine it could also be used to make sure truck drivers take their required breaks.

The route we take should take us southwards along the coast past Toril, Inawayan and Santa Cruz. At Digos, the bus makes a little detour to hit the terminal there, and then heads west towards the only mountain pass in the entire area. We should get as far as Bansalan before stuff happens.

Ride Duration: 2.5h
Approximate Distance: 77km
Average Speed: 31km/h

The ride itself should take us mostly through cities or villages built to hug the road, similar to what I've seen while flying over Malaysia on the way here. Every now and then, there are a few open stretches of greenery in between, but for the biggest part, the road is lined with scores of shops bearing sponsored signs. What is actually rare are fields, while plantations are much more common. As a result of that, glimpses of open land are rare, and most of the time we can only see until the next row of trees or buildings, but once in a while we do get a short glimpse of the mountains, including mighty Mt. Apo.

(Click here to view the video if the website fails to load it)

Tickets are sold along the way, with an attendant walking down the aisle of the bus, asking everyone where they're going and selling them them a ticket. Those are actually kinda funky, and while I can tell that the punches on the top half denote the price (which amounts to barely 500₱ for the two of us combined, roughly 8€), I have literally no idea what those on the bottom half are supposed to signify.

Further curiosities we encounter along the way include traffic lights with a countdown (another instance of surprising technological advancement)...

...as well as a man transporting a bike... on a bike.

And then, our bus breaks down. It somehow still manages to make it to the Bansalan bus terminal, but at this point all passengers have to disembark, and we are left to wait in the tropical midday heat. Good thing that I brought plenty of water to drink.

Again, there aren't any timetables or anything, so Elgen ends up just asking around. Eventually, we end up sitting down for about 20 minutes (though it does feel longer in this oppressive, humid heat), and then get on another bus headed for Kidapawan.

The route to Kidapawan leads over the mountain pass between Mt. Apo to the northeast and Mt. Gap to the southwest, with the saddle being located at 527m of altitude just north of New Bulutukan. Also, there aren't really any big towns along the way, with the biggest one being Makilala located on a significant crossroad just to the north of the mountain pass.

Ride Duration: 1h
Approximate Distance: 34km
Average Speed: 34km/h

This ride takes us through the remaining stretch of flatland, and then up into the mountains. However, on account of all the trees and houses flanking the sides of the road, we shouldn't actually notice much of that apart from the fact that the bus runs even slower uphill, to the point where it rarely ever reaches to 40km/h speed limit. On the other side, we continue through the obscuring rainforest, until all of a sudden we're in the middle of Kidapawan, surrounded by scores of trikes.

(Click here to view the video if the website fails to load it)

Along the way, however, we need to make our way through yet another security checkpoint, where all the people except for some (I don't get the logic, and Elgen can't explain it to me either) have to get off the bus and put their luggage through a scanner again, except for the luggage that is in the hold or which they left in the hold, because clearly that can't hold a bomb, right? Somehow, I am not convinced of this security concept...

On a more pleasant note, there's tiny cats commonly crouching on the curb of the road. The motorcycle makes it apparent just how small they are around here. And yes, that's their adult size.

Arriving in Kidapawan, we have to go through one more security checkpoint before we're allowed to access the terminal proper. This one is of curious design, with stalls of sorts offering services headed for many nearby destinations, and drivers loudly announcing their transportation services from within the shade of their stalls like merchants at a bazaar.

One thing that's typical for these stations is that there will be peddlers running around offering snacks and drinks they carry around on display rigs. They can at times become a bit obtrusive, but they're also more than happy to help you out with information in exchange for a small tip.

Elgen takes me to a stall labeled "Bound to Tulunan", where we board a van with a capacity of six passengers, and purchase a ride to Tulunan for as little as 200₱ (~3.50€).

The route we take to Tulunan should be... curious. At first, we are north of the Sanguing River, passing through the village of Kalaisan. Then, at one point we go straight where the main road takes a 45° turn to the right and cross the river by means of a very makeshift-looking and recently-made earth dam that does not appear on any map, and the next indication of where we are is when we pass through the village of New Esperanza, and shortly after we're back on the main road taking us straight to Bagontapay, and then south to Tulunan.

Ride Duration: 45min
Approximate Distance: 40km
Average Speed: 53km/h

One interesting curio in this area is the M'lang Rural Airport, which apparently gets so little traffic (either kind) that the local authorities have deemed it safe to have a tertiary road go right across the runway. German officials would likely scream in horror at the very thought.

This part of today's trip should now lead us a little further away from the towns hugging the main roads, and as such we get to see fewer buildings and more plantations (some also featuring cattle) on our way to Tulunan. Also, there's the occasional fields, some of which I can clearly identify as rice fields on account of the water. Come to think of it, though, most of the field crops they grow around here is probably some variety of rice, though.

(Click here to view the video if the website fails to load it)

We get out in a place which is like a roadside hub of shops and the likes, at the place where the main road runs closest to Tulunan. It looks a bit like a modern wild west city, with people riding motorbikes and trikes in place of horses and carts, houses built of sheet metal instead of wooden planks.

There, we take shelter from the blazing sun in a shelter occupied by several motorcyclists waiting for who know what. We for our part are waiting for one of Elgen's brothers to pick us up.

It takes him another 20 minutes or so to arrive, and when he does I recoil in horror as I see our intended transport.

It's a motorcycle.

A single motorcycle, for him, Elgen, me, Elgen's bag, my moderate-sized regular backpack, and my Trekking Backpack of Flames. And it's not even a big one! What in the name of Dragon are they thinking?

It's only Elgen's insistence and her brothers casualness that finally convince me to actually go along with their plan, and what little remained of my lunacy-meter after coming here is drained dry with that choice. Elgen's brother takes my Backpack of Flames between the handlebars and himself, with me riding behind, and Elgen holding on to my regular-sized backpack from behind. I pray to the Goddess as I mentally say goodbye to another one of my lives.

Solace comes in knowing that the route is relatively short, taking us up into the hills past the village of New Culasi, and then to our destination of Lampangang. The ride could not have taken longer than 10 minutes, and yet it felt like half an hour of horror to me.

Ride Duration: 10min
Approximate Distance: 8km
Average Speed: 48km/h

No pictures or video exist of this ride, for I was far too busy clinging on for dear life. Though I imagine it must have looked somewhat like this:

In the end, however, the confidence of Elgen and her brother turns out to be well-placed, for we do arrive safely at Elgen's family home in Lampangang.

It is here that I should spend the next few days with Elgen and her family. However, that is a story for a chapter of its own, and shall be told in the next chapter of the Travelling Fox Blog. Until then, be of great cheer!