Where do you live

[Tommy T.]

6 minutes ago, graham59 said:

I have little respect for fat old blokes who use their dogs as some sort of extension of their worn out macho-man tattoos, to try to intimidate the rest of us mere mortals.   

Selfish, ignorant, ant-social, and stupid.  

Not impressed. 

Okay, Graham... Now tell us how you really feel?

Edited March 14, 2020 by Tommy T.

[Nickleback99]

On 3/2/2020 at 6:15 PM, Heeb said:

My mom once said to me "son you're bloody superman" ...and she wasn't referring to my physical prowess. I've been living here in Subic Freeport for almost 5 months now with my 90lbs of kryptonite, who I've been married to for 30 years. It's nice enough here but not like when I was stationed here in the 80's, no softball or basketball leagues, the baseball fields and bball gyms are all gone replaced with hotels and Korean storefronts, we moved here for the familiarity and the proximity to the ocean but it costs around 600p per head to go to the beach here, what used to be free, if it wasn't free though I imagine they would be trashed. I'm tired of lager beer, I drank the hell out of SM when I was young and was happy with it but my beer tastes have evolved with the beer scene in Washington so vast with choices, I like my hoppy ales or the occasional bourbon barrel aged stout if I feel like it, nothing but lagers here. 

I hear ya and second all of that.  Was at San Miguel and Subic 89-92, and went back few times in past 10 yrs, even by the old house up in Kalayaan...Nothing is same Nor nearly as nice and well kept as was back then.  They just discard the junk or construction debris on a vacant lot on the main base until someone ready to build on That space and so on.  All the remaining orig buildings are poorly kept for most part. Other than having maybe a little more peace and quiet of lease living on the "base", doesn't seem worth it over all.  Still loving my beers and wines here in WA (Bellingham), But we will be moving when the Covid thing eases, likely to Antipolo area...family is in Caloocan.   

[Heeb]

7 hours ago, Nickleback99 said:

I hear ya and second all of that.  Was at San Miguel and Subic 89-92, and went back few times in past 10 yrs, even by the old house up in Kalayaan...Nothing is same Nor nearly as nice and well kept as was back then.  They just discard the junk or construction debris on a vacant lot on the main base until someone ready to build on That space and so on.  All the remaining orig buildings are poorly kept for most part. Other than having maybe a little more peace and quiet of lease living on the "base", doesn't seem worth it over all.  Still loving my beers and wines here in WA (Bellingham), But we will be moving when the Covid thing eases, likely to Antipolo area...family is in Caloocan.   

One thing good about SBMA thought is I can ride my bicycle in areas without a lot of traffic, that said it’s still a little scary, there’s a lot of blind turns and you know Filipinos like to get in the other lane even when they don’t need to, they also get really close to me when there’s plenty of room to move over, especially if there’s a double yellow lane, I think they don’t understand it’s for no passing and think it’s a violation to cross it. I was thinking Clark might be an option, I’ve seen some paved bicycle paths on the old base and also some good restaurants and better beer choices, Antipola is nice also since you are able to go North or west without traffic thru Manila.

[sinsinbad]

For Heeb, I can't PM, but I wanted to comment about bicycle riding in the PI.

Whenever travel resumes, I plan to return to the PI to live full time.  I say return because I left in 2011 after spending over 5 years in places like SBMA, Dumaguete, and Angeles.

I enjoy bike riding--both motorcycle and bicycle, but the PI is dangerous for both, but more so for bicycles IMO.  I am undecided about where I will live when I return, but Angeles from everything I see on Youtube is becoming an up and coming first class city.  New terminal at airport, trains that will run between Angeles and Manila and also to Subic.  There is also a lot of new construction on Clark and in Angeles itself.

That said, Clark might be more safer to ride a bicycle.  I would like to bring mine, but not sure how hard or expensive it would be.

 

[Old55]

46 minutes ago, sinsinbad said:

For Heeb, I can't PM, but I wanted to comment about bicycle riding in the PI.

Whenever travel resumes, I plan to return to the PI to live full time.  I say return because I left in 2011 after spending over 5 years in places like SBMA, Dumaguete, and Angeles.

I enjoy bike riding--both motorcycle and bicycle, but the PI is dangerous for both, but more so for bicycles IMO.  I am undecided about where I will live when I return, but Angeles from everything I see on Youtube is becoming an up and coming first class city.  New terminal at airport, trains that will run between Angeles and Manila and also to Subic.  There is also a lot of new construction on Clark and in Angeles itself.

That said, Clark might be more safer to ride a bicycle.  I would like to bring mine, but not sure how hard or expensive it would be.

 

We had a much liked member here with a wife and two young children. Hit and killed by a bus while riding his bicycle.

[robert k]

1 hour ago, sinsinbad said:

For Heeb, I can't PM, but I wanted to comment about bicycle riding in the PI.

Whenever travel resumes, I plan to return to the PI to live full time.  I say return because I left in 2011 after spending over 5 years in places like SBMA, Dumaguete, and Angeles.

I enjoy bike riding--both motorcycle and bicycle, but the PI is dangerous for both, but more so for bicycles IMO.  I am undecided about where I will live when I return, but Angeles from everything I see on Youtube is becoming an up and coming first class city.  New terminal at airport, trains that will run between Angeles and Manila and also to Subic.  There is also a lot of new construction on Clark and in Angeles itself.

That said, Clark might be more safer to ride a bicycle.  I would like to bring mine, but not sure how hard or expensive it would be.

 

I was thinking of mentioning what Old55 posted. I think maybe shipping the bicycle in parts would probably be the most practical way of moving a bike.

[manofthecoldland]

4 hours ago, Old55 said:

We had a much liked member here with a wife and two young children. Hit and killed by a bus while riding his bicycle.

IMO Riding a bicycle anywhere with fast traffic, speed inducing straight aways, heavily used two lane roads with large vehicles is an extremely high risk situation. 

I'm over the 70 mark, with an impaired eye, so I don't even think about riding anymore. But even when I did here in my mid-50's, I limited myself to the safety of the quiet and empty subdivision roads, where the only real threat was a occasional well fed house dog that would come out for territorial instinct reasons due to the stupidity or indifference of the owners leaving their gate open. I, and later an old Glasgow friend ( deceased now 3 years) that I gave my bike to when I moved out of that subdivision rental, always made it a practice to carry a bamboo rod across the handle bars to fend off the occassional dog harrassment. 

The street dogs were no problem, since they had neither the energy or instinct to give chase anymore. 

All that being said, I do have a 80+ yr. old Bavarian friend who still bicycles the low traffic, slow speed beach front road every day here for the last several years from his coastal rental to the cargo/ferry  port over several kms.  

You just have to select and appraise your cycling venues very carefully.... but no guarantees.

If you have the freedom to choose your city (many expats have limited choice due to the wife/GF wanting to live in home areas), you might consider the fact that the 17 regions of the Philippines contain 81 provinces and the capitals of most have airports, hospitals, malls etc. now. Some, like the west coasts of Mindoro and Panay are low traffic areas due to their semi-isolation, and may be better suited for cycling than more populated coastal areas, but in the end what matters is the exact areas and roads you choose to cycle on. 

Hope you end up on some low risk roads somewhere.

[Snowy79]

If you're into cycling as oppossed to motorcycling I know on Oriental Mindoro there were a fair few cyclists there that used to cycle up and down the road from Calapan to Puerto Galera. Personally having lived there for two years I'd not go back. Boracay although small has a lot of mountain bike clubs that you see out and about all the time. The road is good now and a deceny hilly loop to cycle around. 

As for motorcycle riding I do it daily but only to the shops and wouldn't enjoy long distance motorcycling due to the need to wear decent protective equipment and general poor health facilities. You could safely say if you required an ambulance after being in an accident you can forget it. It's not like in the West where someone will call an emergency number and 5 mins later an ambulance turns up. Here they'll take a video to upload on Facebook once they get in a signal area and I doubt anyone will have a hospital or even doctors number saved on their phone.

[OnMyWay]

On 8/4/2020 at 10:00 AM, Heeb said:

One thing good about SBMA thought is I can ride my bicycle in areas without a lot of traffic,

Here is a video of Heeb and his buddies, riding in SBMA last weekend! 

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by OnMyWay

[Heeb]

11 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Here is a video of Heeb and his buddies, riding in SBMA last weekend! 

 

That’s actually a sore subject for me, the SBMA administrator banned bicycles on that road because of this accident. That’s on my main route, she’s overreacted once  again. It was an unsanctioned race and she’s going after the participants as well. I don’t think the riders knew it wasn’t official, there were flyers posted. She should punish the organizers only, sadly this is how this country is run sometimes.