road trip 20070611 part III

after the unlikely castle, we went on. still the same twisty road, but after a while, it began to straighten out. it was at this point in time that i noticed that together with a seeming lack of habitation on both sides of the road, there was also a singular lack of gasoline stations on this particular road. so: good road for daytime driving - not good for running out of gas or night driving (or running out of gas while driving there at night).

the night driving bit? there's something about the aiming mechanism of the right-hand headlamp - the beam is aimed down; i'd had it adjusted, but the thing is busted because before long, the beam was back to its droop. so i'm not too confident about driving in non-illuminated countryside roads with half of the car's illumination capability devoted to a distance about a couple of car lengths in front of me.

at any rate, once the road straightened out, we got to a t-junction which offered the choice: left - lemery/taal, right - calaca.

left it was. and then the signs: shell, petron, caltex some distance ahead. and jollibee, too.

there was a time i was using petron to fuel the car (i'd tried shell, but my unscientific impression was that i either got bad mileage, or somehow the stuff evaporated too quickly in the tropical climes of this country). petron lasted longer by the same impression, but the car would run roughly, especially cold. then, vaguely intrigued by the promises of a tv commercial, i tried caltex at last. hmm. car runs better. then there was the tune up. car ran even better.

hmm. can anything be said about all this fuel tomfoolery? perhaps i'd have to run some sort of benchmarks, but that'll take some doing (and i'd have to stick to a repeatable schedule in terms of driving). some other time, perhaps...

so, caltex it was, and it was also the last station before the arch proclaiming entry into lemery. put in 500 pesos of gas, and decided to take a leak as well. hint to future travelers: if you happen to use this gas station's cr, either put on insect repelling lotion beforehand, or bring a can of bug spray and blast the place before entry. mosquitoes, huge, and lots of them. peeing while surrounded by whole bunches of those things is... ...interesting... ...to say the least.

lemery then. from the standpoint of the main road, its not much to look at. similar in effect to what i think of as "strip towns" that seem to build along a main (provincial) highway where most everything flanks said artery. not much by way of striking anything.

side note - asking for directions. we stopped at a hardware place and glenn asked how to get to taal (just to be sure). we were told that all we had to do was turn left after the bridge. seemed simple enough... no, we didn't get lost, but we did pass a bridge. and there was an unmarked road leading left. could that have been it? the uncertainty kept me driving forward. perhaps we'd see a sign... ...which we did, at the very end of the road, just past another bridge. the thing about instructions is that there always seem to be assumptions about familiarity with local landmarks - an assumption that are likely wrong, else why ask for directions in the first place?

at any rate, we took the left turn, and hit paydirt. it felt like a time warp, as the houses flanking the road displayed their ancestral origins: primarily bahay-na-bato architecture, stonework lower stories surmounted by a wooden upper floor, some windows of which were still what looked like capiz shells in gridwork wooden frames. they were also quite notably brightly painted ones...

...not sure if that was the practice way back when, but it certainly livened up the place.

streets, though, were thoroughly modern, if narrow. well paved concrete, two lanes; and no sidewalk to speak of.

i was itching to take pictures, but there was no visible place to park the car to do so.

one right, one left, and suddenly that was it. the old town had fallen away, and modern bungalows (with signs advertising balisongs for sale) on either side.

okay, u-turn, back. i stopped just before the final turn back out, next to a park. glenn got out to ask the tambays where we could get to the church... turns out i was parked just before the ramp to the basilica (i wasn't sure if it was an entry or exit - it wasn't clearly marked which). good thing the car has a fairly tight turning radius, and i lumbered up the ramp in 1st gear.

and there it was, the taal basilica.