|
Departing with a flag-off ceremony at 8:00 a.m., the PAN-ASEAN TOURING caravan made a stop at the MacArthur landing Memorial Park not far from the hotel. This is the place where U.S. General Douglas MacArther fulfilled his "I shall return" promise that he had made when forced to abandon the Philippines as the Japanese forces advanced in the early months of the Pacific theater of World War II. The scene of MacArthur's landing is recreated with seven bronze statues. After taking some souvenir pictures, we left the Park. From here, we left Leyte Island headed for the city of Catbalogan on the island of Samar.
The two islands of Leyte and Samar are connected by the San Juanico Bridge. The bridge is 2.6 kilometers in length, making it the longest in the Philippines. It forms a large "S" over the water. Cruising slowly over the bridge, our caravan reached Samar. The road we followed from there along the western shore of the island was a winding one with plenty of ups and downs and a pretty rough road surface that kept our pace slow. The concrete of the road was badly worn, with many cracks and large potholes. But, following the signals of Lester and Maico riding in the lead, all the riders were able to avoid the obstacles. Riding for three and a half hours from Tacloban in heat that easily exceeded 30 degrees C., we finally arrived in the town of Catbalogan. Here we were greeted by a group of "Miss Catbalogan" representatives who joined us for lunch.
The company of such a beautiful ladies and the coolness of the restaurant quickly revived the riders and soon we were ready to head north again along the coast toward Calbayog. The roads continued to be rough and after riding for two hours we arrived at the site outside of Calbayog where our first Green Campaign event of the Philippine round of the PAN-ASEAN TOURING was scheduled to be held. In this event, everyone joined in planting trees along a newly constructed highway as part of a program aimed at improving the local ecosystem. Shortly after we got back on the road again, we found ourselves approaching the city of Calbayog. As the support staff was refueling the bikes, the riders took a rest at the local JOLLIBEE fast food restaurant. JOLLIBEE is the largest fast food chain in the Philippines and our Malaysian and Indonesian riders wanted to check it out, because they don't have it in their countries. Our Philippine rider Maico told us "It has a lot of things on the menu and the taste is good. When we went inside and the customers recognized our rider-celebrity, Gary Jason Estrada, the typical "Gary fever" began. It wasn't Gary, however, who called over some women who had been trying to sneak close for a photo, but our Philippine press representative, Dino Ray V. Directo III, who has ridden the three legs of the PAN-ASEAN TOURING already.
The difficult roads continued to our day's final destination, the town of Allen, but in every town and village we passed through, many people came out to smile and wave as the ASEAN riders passed by. We arrived at our resort hotel on the beach at Allen ahead of schedule at 5:00 in the evening. Today's total touring distance was 259 km and most of it had been on the equivalent of dirt roads. "It was just like the rougher parts of our tour in Indonesia," laughed our Thai rider Chuchat Sohmanee, who has covered the whole course of the PAN-ASEAN TOURING so far. "It was rough riding, but the T135 covered it well for us. It's this model's good suspension." And as if to prove his point, all the riders looked fine when they finally got out of the saddle.
|
Tacloban∼Allen
In a village on the way to Allen. Wherever we went on Leyte and Samar islands smiling children came out to greet the ASEAN riders
Last night's rain filled the potholes in the road that the riders swerved to the left and right to avoid on the road to Catbalogan
The "Miss Catbalogan" ladies posed for photos with the ASEAN riders, who looked well recovered from their long hot ride
It was a magnificent view from the San Juanico Bridge that made the riders slow down naturally
|
