Unfortunately, we don’t have rental bike services in this city yet (PLEASE, somebody correct me, I’ll be the happiest guy to be wrong about this) so you have to own one.
But just like with cars, as they say, it’s cheaper to have friends than to buy one. So if you can borrow a motorcycle from a trusting friend, you’ll be fine.
It doesn’t have to be a monster torque machine, either. Despite the hilly-ness, you can get around and reach any place in the city on a 125cc—in fact, even on a 50cc moped.
If anything, lighter bikes have the advantage of maneuverability—they’re more agile in traffic. I cannot squeeze my big bike in narrower gaps that ‘underbone’ scooters weave in and out of all day.
But the real fun begins when you hit the looser roads outside of the central business district (CBD). And I mean riding through the suburbs, passing different barangays.
I don’t want to oversell the experience--when you’re riding through the barangays you ARE riding through populated communities. Don’t expect any “National Geographic moments.”
But if you broaden your paradigm about tourism, you’ll discover that PEOPLE AND THEIR CULTURE are what make a place wonderful, not just their place’s panoramic sights.
So soak yourself in the ‘social exposure.’ Stop at neighborhood cornerstreet “sari-sari” stores and buy your bottled mineral water from them. They usually stock up on junk food as well, so you won’t have a hard time finding those oversalty nacho corn chips your doctor told you to stay away from.
In many roadside carinderias, you can gorge on REAL home-cooked meals—literally cooked at HOME, because the owner’s home is just right above or behind the eatery.
It is in these places where you can find authentic “pinikpikan” (stewed chicken killed by cruel means), “dinakdakan” (meat jerky in bite sizes cut from non-lean parts, braised in pig’s brain matter), “dinardaraan” or “dinuguan” in Tagalog (porkcuts in blood sauce), and “sisig”—a kind of extremely-spicy dish probably first invented for use in fraternity initiation rites.
The pork lomi bits (earlobes) are cut as finely as the jalopiño red pepper mixed in with it, so you can’t tell them apart. I suspect it’s really served to perk up the sales of soda drinks, because when you take a biteful it feels like you just swallowed the sun.
So in between gasping for air and gagging on your words, you just barely managed to beg for a glass of water, or Coke, or Pepsi…or raw sewer—whatever—just anything liquid and FAST, please!
But darn it, these doggone dishes are so delicious you’ll keep coming back for more. You won’t likely find these entrées on the menus of your favorite “fine-dining” restaurants—with the possible exception of the “sisig” maybe.
It has attained some degree of commercial success, but the fine-dining version is never as delectable, or as satisfying as the one you ate from a greasy spoon in the carinderia.
You’ll never believe how inexpensive these meals are, too. No, but you have to carry cash. You can’t whip out your plastic cards to pay for anything out here.
When exploring with my motorcycle and stopping by new places like this, a favorite thing I do is ask, “Kumusta naman ho kayo rito? Ano-anong balita?”
We Filipinos are born “marites” people that after just a half hour of banter with “Manang” carinderia owner, I know enough about the neighbors lives to write a dozen blackmailing letters.
THAT’S people tourism—and the less cynical way to think of it is that Filipino communities are really super-extended families. Neighbors know each others’ lives because they TELL their lives to one another—their woes, hopes, dreams and aspirations that the community's combined lives are one big intervention.
No wonder if anyone gets into trouble and needs help, all the neighbors run to him to give aid BEFORE even being asked. This is really the unexplained dynamics of “bayanihan.”
Then you got back on your motorcycle and moved on to the next barangay along the road, having made a couple or more new friends before you left.*
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