Featured Rideout Polillio Island

Had a nice rideout to the island of Polillo for three days recently. Some 150 km East of Manila it takes a ride along the MaRiLaQue Highway (a.k.a. Marcos Highway) to get there - a perfect winding road leading away from congested Manila into the forest of Rizal province. Quite a decent road, too, and great to ride and do the twisties if you disregard the occasional stray dog crossing the street or the overland bus flying towards you at the speed of sound on your side of the road. Upon arrival in Ungos Port I caught a rather aged ferry to Polillo Island, which I reached after roughly three hours at sea and paying 15 Euros for the fare.

In Polillo itself it's such a lovely ride on small winding island roads. Almost no cars, almost no traffic, except from a few local bikers on their Kawasaki Barako 175 ccm, mostly with a sidecar to transport some stuff. Helmets are basically nonexistent, it's the perfect place to ride with nothing but flip flops, shorts and a t-shirt on the half paved half unpaved country roads. It's not the place for speeding, though, one might encounter a calabaw (water buffalo) on the street behind every second turn. Apart from the warmer temperatures it was like a ride through the European countryside must have felt a hundred years ago, reminding me of T.E. Lawrence's description of his rides through the English countryside.
On one occasion I parked my bike on the beach, took a dip while the bike was parked right beside the shore and carried on to the other side of the island (Burdeos village) through the rainforest which still covers 80 % of the island. Hard to believe that the Manila traffic congestion and chaos was just a three hours ride and a ferry ride away. It's still hard to get a beer on Polillo, even harder to get a cold one, as electricity is not available everywhere and the price of a beer is still a lot for many locals, as it's around 1 Euro per bottle. They have Lambanog, though, distilled coconut tree sap which tastes a bit like grappa and will render you unable to safely ride a bike.
Now I'm back in Manila, but it was definitely a great ride out!