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Boating and Biking to the Southern Hemisphere

Wednesday, December 28th, 2005

To return to my homepage please go to www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

Islands hopped: 10
Years lived: 29 !
Current Location: Vanimo, Papua New Guinea

“Now I remembered that the real world was wide and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils”
– Jane Eyre

“Papua is the Siberia of Indonesia”
-Javanese saying, Periplus Travel Guide to Indonesia

After all the researching, waiting, sailing and charity work, I was finally now ready to continue the long, complicated course to Australia via the strung out chains of the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

HK-PNG route.JPG

Riding the tropical, sweaty islands south from Manila was a slightly stressful experience. Firstly, it was noisy. I shared the road with impatient truck drivers who made good use of their horns whenever they performed outrageously dangerous maneuvers (virtually the whole time). Smog clouded the air, whilst traffic jams sometimes went on for several kilometers. Caught behind one particularly stationary jam, I got off and pushed my bike along the verge in an effort to progress. After walking at least 3 km, I eventually spied the cause of this great hold up – it was a badly parked police car which blocked a whole lane of traffic (I had seen the policemen further back trying to keep the traffic moving!).

The other bad experiences I had in the Philippines (to get them out of the way), were:
1. The pessimists who chilled my imagination with their warnings that I would most likely be robbed, kidnapped or murdered (or all three) if I ventured through the bad-press Muslim majority Island of Mindanao (needless to say, this island actually turned out to be very friendly in my experience).
2. The day I was ill and had to lie feverishly on the floor of a ferry terminal feeling decidedly sorry for myself. It is never nice being ill, but it is even more unpleasant when you are alone, far from home and you haven’t had shower for a few days (and your head is spinning nauseously with images of imminent robbers, kidnappers and murderers).
3. One night as I lay in bed in a hosts house, I awoke to find somebody in my room rummaging though my things. I greeted the suspicious intruder with a friendly hello, at which point he bolted from the room and dashed out of the front door… unfortunately taking my wallet with him, but at least leaving me unharmed.

But there are many, many great aspects to the Philippines. The palm tree lined coastal roads, the gentle beaches, the clear seas, the smiling people. As it was so crowded everywhere, it was a rare nightfall when I was not offered a bed and a meal in a local church, village hall, or home. In fact I only had to put up my tent once in the whole country. A TV station who followed my ride with regular updates of my progress ensured that many Filipinos knew what I was up to before I even arrived.

Eventually, after a couple of weeks riding and then a bit of a wait on the southern coast (during which Christine managed to escape from her hard-working law firm to visit for a few days of extremely pleasant hanging out), I was given some deck space on a cargo ship heading across the sea to Indonesia. The cargo consisted of hundreds of sacks of little carbon brushes (apparently for cleaning ore from the mines), half a dozen aspiring business men and their wives, and one rather disheveled English cyclist. The crew took good care of us with big meals of rice and fish…and as we passed underneath smoking volcanic islands they would periodically chant their Muslim prayers Mecca-wards, kneeling and bowing their faces into the boiling western sun as it slinked below the empty, shimmering seas.

From my entry-port in Indonesia, I caught a passenger ferry to skirt around the edge of the archipelagos to land me finally on the Island of New Guinea. Until recently I knew almost nothing about this part of the world, so I should just explain a couple of important things. The island of New Guinea (the second biggest island in the world after Greenland) is split exactly down the middle – the eastern half is now Papua New Guinea (an Independent country), whilst the western half was formerly a Dutch Colony but now it belongs to Indonesia (this part of the island is known simply as Papua). Please see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4163300.stm for an important recent BBC report about the Indonesian half of the island.

One other rather depressing issue which has inevitably come up a lot is corruption. I spent a pleasant few days with one particular police man who was generously hosting me whilst I awaited a ferry. We talked in depth about the issue of corruption and how much it hindered the development of Indonesia – with officials throughout the command structure being guilty. The President is apparently now pushing a campaign to reduce corruption, but it seems unlikely that a campaign alone will be enough. As my policeman friend said, perhaps officials need to be paid better so they don’t feel the need to take bribes? In theory, in any case, my friend agreed that corruption should be stopped… and then (with a twist of unintentional irony) a few minutes later he was merrily explaining to me how he knew a man who locally ran an illegal liqueur store and who would pay him a cut of the profits in order for him to keep his mouth shut. If a good, intelligent policeman like my friend, so easily accepted a bribe, what hope might there be for ever eventually stamping out corruption?!

Yesterday, Boxing Day, I entered a new continent, Australasia. Riding east to the border, I passed out of the mountains and into the swampland where for the first time I caught sight of a man fishing using a bow and arrow. The road rolled on into the rainforests, where trees towered grand and throne-like above me. Branches and leaves littered the road and in my distracted state I came within a few centimeters of running over a one meter long black snake. Now across the border and in Papua New Guinea itself, I nervously set my face towards a 1500 km route of bumpy roads, unbridged rivers, tribal peoples and high mountain tracks which lie between me and the Capital city, Port Moresby.

A BIG WORD OF THANKS – AND A NEW TARGET:
I greatly appreciate all your emails, prayers and generous donations to Viva Network and their work with children at risk around the world throughout 2005. My initial fundraising target was ten thousand UK pounds, and I am most delighted to let you know that with all your help this target has now been passed (see www.justgiving.com/cyclinghomefromsiberia )… as my intended route has increased in length since I set this target, I have now increased my fundraising target to twenty thousand pounds. I will do my best to push through this with a combination of giving talks along my route, sending these emails, promoting my website and raising any other publicity I can muster. On one final practical note, as my internet access will be rather limited for the next couple of months, I apologize in advance if I do not reply to emails for some time.

Many thanks and best wishes and God bless you in 2006,

Rob

“It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it: but then the throb of fear disturbs it, and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.”
– Jane Eyre

“It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold that take the dignity out of a man and make him look mean.”-George Macdonald

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At the Indonesia border

The Street Children of Manila

Friday, December 2nd, 2005

To return to my homepage please go to www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

The following update is focused on the three weeks I spent in Manila visiting various Viva Network partner projects (mostly to do with Street Children).

“Tell me, I will forget.
Show me, I may remember.
Involve me, I will understand.”

– Chinese Proverb

“If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.

“When one child dies every 3 seconds just because they’re poor, you can’t stand by and let it happen”
– Make Poverty History campaigner, Berkhamsted, UK

Sunday morning in Manila: smog and noise rise from the vast elongated traffic jams which snake between glamour malls and horror slums in this hyper-congested mega-capital of The Philippines. I am struggling to push my way through a heaving mass of humans – heading for church and attempting to keep up with my Filipino pastor friend who walks ahead of me somewhere amidst the jumble. Crossing the main road on an overpass we are funneled down a one way staircase back to street level. Half way down the steps I notice a sad collection of children sitting against the wall amidst our fast moving feet. Dirty baby faces and unevenly shaven heads, aged between about
five and ten years old, their grubby hands hold up broken plastic cups for money and their big brown eyes (crusted with muck) plead, plead, plead. What is their world like?

One little boy hops to his feet as I pass and grabs hold of my trousers – he does not say anything, but he will not let go. His face is a little desperate scowl, his eyes implore at mine. “I cannot give you money little chap”, I justify to myself, “surely you are part of the begging syndicates which are well known in these parts – anything I give will be snatched away by the big man who sends you daily to the streets to beg for his hierarchy”. But the little boy keeps walking with me and now his little hand is pointing to the convenience store stacked with cheap food which we are passing… but I will not stop, I cannot lose my guides, we are already late. And then suddenly he leaves me with my excuses and goes back, still hungry, to his begging spot by the stairs. I go to church with swimming eyes.

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Shanty Town Kids

It would be very wrong to leave the impression that the good people with whom I am privileged to spend much time in Manila are inactive or unmoved by the horrendous inhumanity and desperation they see daily on their door steps. Firstly there are the various refuge centers and homes they run which will clothe, feed, educate and care for the children. One day I am taken on a tour of a cemetery where some of the street children live – a place which appears not so far from hell on earth – drugged up nine year olds sniff brain-frying glues, feverish dehydrated babies lie on concrete tombstones, adolescents sleep in the unused grave chambers. The reasons why children end up on the streets like this are varied, but very often they are running away from families where they are horrendously neglected, abused, or plain abandoned. I accompany one street children’s camp out of the city for a few days – it is hoped that by taking them straight off the street onto a camp such as this, enough trust can be built up with them that they might chose to leave their perilous street lives behind and join a refuge or home. Upon arrival the dishevelled children are given fresh clothes and a wash bag… within an hour they are transformed into clean, happy faces – playing basketball and messing around on swings and see-saws. There is laughter everywhere. This is all only possible because of the awesome dedication of the staff. However, persuading the children to leave their hazardous street lives and come to a charity for help is only the first step in a long difficult road to them becoming whole, healed, humans.

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There is a man swimming in the dirty water next to this slum

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Collecting rubbish to recycle from the river. Also notice the Piata Rubbish Dump behind where 30,000 people make a living looking for things they can recycle.

You can tell I am impressed by such efforts and achievements. But of course the scale of the problem is huge. There are estimated to be fifty to seventy thousand street kids in Metro-Manila alone (Reference: Action International Ministries) and of course there are also many more millions of children at risk around the world from starvation, preventable/deadly diseases, abuse, exploitation and war (without wanting to numb our brains with statistics, one horrifically vivid illustration is that the numerical equivalent of one jumbo jet packed with kids crashes killing all on board EVERY 15 MINUTES OF EVERY DAY… that is how many kids are dying of preventable causes as we sit at our computers…imagine how much coverage that would get in our papers if they were western kids in each plane).

On another note, from my brief glimpses of horror and grace in Manila, I am also now aware of just how difficult it must be for the workers who spend their lives trying to help street children. I have seen how tiring and emotionally draining it is for them – and they must often feel the strain is almost too much (I used to find teaching in a UK high-school tiring enough). The charity which I am endeavoring to help on this big bicycle ride, Viva Network, focuses on the huge problem of children at risk around the world – but rather than setting up new undertakings, their focus is much more on trying to support, network and encourage existing projects. Viva Network is a Christian charity which was founded upon the realization that there are already many well intentioned schemes around the world, trying in all sorts of ways to provide children with safety, healing and hope… however, many of these projects flounder and fail to achieve their potential due to lack of training, lack of support for staff, and the unfortunate inefficiency of not being connected with other similar projects in the same area. Viva Network has now set up 77 networks in 45 different countries and their effectiveness is such that in just a dozen years since they started they are now in Roster Consultative Status with the United Nations. On a large scale they help connect charities and so avoid wastage of resources – recently in Sri Lanka’s tsunami relief efforts SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds (UK) was saved when one charity, intending to spend this money on school packs for kids, was networked with another charity who had just such a surplus of kits – which it was happy to pass on, thus saving the money to be spent on something else. A more local level example in Bolivia involved several urban street children feeding projects who were brought together to meet each other for the first time. They quickly discovered that they were all operating their feeding projects on the same night of the week – meaning the children had plenty of choices for food on that one night of the week, but none at all on the other nights. Having met, they were hence able to co-ordinate their efforts across the week… with further collaboration, later on, they began to purchase their food together in bulk and thus saved money to cover every night of the week.

In Manila, most of the charities I met had close ties with Viva Network. They appreciated not only the training opportunities, but also the sheer encouragement and refreshment which they benefitted from as they met fellow-workers and went on occasional retreats. A burnt out worker is no good to anyone, however good their intentions be when they start. Viva Network, as I have tried to show here, plays a vital role in enhancing and encouraging thousands of tireless and compassionate projects around the world. This explanation is naturally very condensed, so please do find out more about Viva Network and their goal of “working together to bring more children better care” at www.viva.org .

I believe it is good for us to periodically re-stir our consciences… as the Make Poverty History Campaign insightfully pointed out, the travesty of our age is not so much that a child dies every three seconds from preventable causes, but rather that a child dies every three seconds and we (rich) could stop it if we really wanted to (though of course we must acknowledge that there are other causes for poverty besides lack of money). If it is true that (in the west) we often “buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like”, perhaps we should bravely test out this Christmas whether rather it might indeed be more blessed to give than to receive…?

Since Manila, I have cycled down the length of the Philippines to the southern island of Mindanao. I now nervously await the departure of a Muslim cargo ship bound for Indonesia sometime tomorrow. This update is already too long, and I apologize (a little) if it is a bit heavy. My next update will be all about life on the road in these Eastern Archipelagos as I make my way towards (apparently rather wild) Papua New Guinea.

Finally, on a much more cheerful note (and in case you do not already know), Al Humphreys (the guy who I cycled through Siberia with and who is in many ways responsible for getting me started on this whole variety show) has finally made it home to England and completed his 46,000 mile, 4 year, spectacular Round The World By Bike expedition ( www.roundtheworldbybike.com). This quote is dedicated to his stupendous achievement, from which we can all learn.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
– Teddy Roosevelt

As always, many thanks for your prayers, emails and kind donations to Viva
Network (please go to www.justgiving.com/cyclinghomefromsiberia if you would
like to support their work).

Rob
www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com
40,000 KM, 3 years, 30 countries
(so far involving… ice beards, frozen Siberian rivers, camping at minus forty, past Mount Fuji, through Shanghai, sailing out of Hong Kong to the Philippines, meeting the Street Children of Manila…)

To receive free monthly email updates about my progress/adventures please send a blank email to cyclinghomefromsiberia-subscribe@googlegroups.com

(if you feel like, why not leave a message on my blog comment board on this site…)

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Friendly people watching me eat!

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Tropical cyclist (quite hot!)