The Circle Is Complete: Back in Chengdu

Well, seems like the holiday never happened. Here I am, back in Chengdu again, except this time it’s a bit colder.

Philippines was great. There, I was moaning about it being too hot! Now, it’s too cold! Last time I blogged, I was in the “province” (the bog, the sticks, the boomdocks). Saw volcanoes, beaches, paddy fields and other tropical stuff. Went swimming in the sea. It was nice and relaxing.


Mark decided that we would ride the 550 odd km from Sorsogon (where we stayed in the province) back to Manila on Mark’s 180cc motorbike. A daunting task, but one that we managed to pull off! We did it over 2 days, managing to soak ourselves the first day (we did 400km that day). For that we rewarded ourselves wit a few beers and a stay in Lucena’s poshest hotel. Wow, warm showers! The second day was shorter in distance but traffic slowed us down. Only half-soaked ourselves that day. The bike was enjoyable – can see a lot more than you would from a car since you are immersed in it. You also get the speed buzz, waaaa!


Returning to Manila’s gridlock, we chilled out for a few days before heading to Lake Taal and Tagaytay. Irish people usually like to go to hot countries like Spain for their holidays, cos of our miserable pissy-rainy weather in Ireland. On the contrary, Filipinos like to escape the intense heat and humidity so the lucky, monied ones head to places like Tagaytay, perched on a ridge 500m above Lake Taal. Lake Taal was pretty cool.


There is a lake (obviously) with a volcanic island in it. There is a lake in the crater of the volcano. I think there could be a little volcano inside the lake but I could have made that it up. We biked it down to Tall Lake from Manila. Only 70km but took ages cos of congested traffic and bad roads. The lake was really nice. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take a boat out to the volcano. Instead, we headed up to Tagaytay, the bike fairly straining on the steep climb!

Tagaytay is a very small town with a long strip of hotels, bars etc on the ridge with views of the Lake Taal. The climate is nice here – cooer than at sea level. The perfect getaway! We did manage to find some entertainment there, with the best Filipino band have seen so far. No disrespect to Filipino bands, but they all pretty much do the same thing – pop-R&B-esque music. They play well and sing well but they pretty much all sound the same. These guys, playing on the second floor of a Chinese restaurant did more of a guitar-based thing – more my style. Indeed I had a wee jam with them, which was great fun!



The next day was a bleary-eyed trip back to Manila and then on to Guangzhou, China back to the veritable deep-freeze!