Ride a Bike. Print Memories

By: Maryan Leaving Kruuhay Antique The sun's up. It's refreshing to wake up knowing you overcome your fears and it's now over. Our mental power was so strong that it can make or break fears. Since I am young, my life decisions had some patterns. My choice is always opposite of what people think will be better for me based on my personality. When I failed accountancy, I took marketing as a course. It's the first major brave thing I remembered that I did on my entire life considering that this involves a lot of presentation and social interaction. Whenever I did class presentation, I worry not about the topic but more on how I am going to deliver it without sweating and trembling voice which usually almost made me cry. I could no longer remembered how I survived each class but all I know I never escaped or avoided any single presentation no matter hard it was. Still Big waves. After playing with waves, I went back to my accomodation for breakfast. I ate all the...

By: Maryan Brgy. Lindero, Lauan Antique Day 4: October 13, 2017 (Lauan-Bugasong-San Jose-Hamtic) Auntie Kekel cooked breakfast and insisted to eat before leaving. They asked about my itenerary and told me I can spend a night with our relative in Hamtic since I am heading to Anini-iy. No contact number, they gave the full name and some instructions how to find the house. Uncle also pick some guavas and bananas (backyard fruits) for me as "pabaon". The food was enough to be fed for 3days but of course I still need to eat rice for a balanced meal. We took photos for remembrance. First stop is Bugasong, I drop by and say Hi to their son whose store centrally located in the town but did not stay long since I am expecting a long day ride considering the weather. Auntie & Uncle I lost my tripod remote so not easy to take pictures. Yohann advised I can explore the use of timer so I slowly learned how to explore this settings. I am always holding the phone only f...

By: YOHANN FROM SAN JOSE TO BULALACAO I spent my morning with Cheryl and her family. I was happy to be able to stay because I was not much motivated to cycle… I was still feeling tired. We went to the taekwondo course attended by her kids. Young people were between 4 and 16 years old. The most experienced were helping the master and they were correcting kata done by beginners.   It was nice to see all these teenager, spending their energy on the dojo. It has also been the opportunity to discuss with one of the person who developed the taekwendo practice in Mindoro Occidental. The master explained me that he tried several martial art before focusing on taekwondo which is according to him the best balance between fight / self defense / self-control. He also told me that Filipino government push to make this sport popular and to identify young talent. Taekwondo is an Olympic game, so it could be a good exposure for Philippines if they managed to get some titles. Upon comple...

By: Yohann Date: I already had the chance to go three times to Philippines. The two first time was to visit my friend in Naujan – Mindoro and the third one was to visit the country jumping from a touristic place to another one. These experiences were very different but complementary as I had the opportunity to discover Filipino lifestyle but also some wonderful landscape. However, my first trip remains the most memorable because I spent 2 weeks inside a very nice local family sharing their daily life. I learnt a lot and re-discover some values which have not the same weight in the French society. That is why Mindoro is so special for me and it was obvious that my first cyclo touring trip out of Europe should be there. I have to admit it is not much challenging as it makes an average distance of 50 km a day. However, the challenge was to organize my time to close the island loop, to share some life slice with people met on the way and to visit the surroundings. To keep more ...

By: Maryan Overview of Taal Lake from Tagaytay       We cycled a total of 428 km; visited 4 provinces, 5 lakes and 1 waterfalls using my second  hand road bike. It took us 9 days, 44 hours on the bike and ended up with some painful butt, heat allergy, and sunburn which make me look exotic. I decided to write about my experience with the idea of documenting my cycling trips exploring Philippines 7,107 islands. It's a follow up cycling trips after my first cycling trip from Calapan to Puerto Galera. Originally planned to cycle Romblon, we changed our destination to South Luzon to maximize travel time, spent more days with family and avoid holiday traffic. FROM SM CALAMBA TO MENDEZ       Our target is to reach Mendez by 6p.m to attend a friend wedding but some issues came up that we ended up cycling very late around 11am. We took cycling route via Nuvali Rest and Recharge and we found out that this private property do not allow cyclist to...