Many of my walking adventures always began for no specific
reason. When walking to the Missouri
River (fifteen years ago now), I just wanted to see how far I could walk in one
day….which in that case was thirty miles.
In the issue of walking across Iowa, I just thought it would be an
exciting adventure with my son, Brad.
However, in the matter of the walk to Bacolod, it all began with the
price of onions at the new market.
I should probably clarify this a little. A while before
the market episode, I had commented to Julius and his wife Marianne that I was
thinking of walking from Himamaylan City to Binalbagan (a distance of about six
miles). Julius smiled as Marianne told
me how dangerous it was. She worried
that I would be robbed and killed with my lifeless body being dumped in the
sugar cane field to rot until harvest. I
want to emphasize that she was quite serious in her opinion. She had heard of this happening to others and
was concerned that it could easily happen to me. Now, I had driven that highway
several times and rarely did I see anyone walking that stretch of asphalt. Diana and the kids were along during our
visit and after hearing those remarks, she and I looked at each other in quiet disbelief. I still considered the short challenge
involved in the walk, but quickly let it pass as with most everything else in
my inactive life.
Returning back to the New Market episode on that fateful
day, we were doing our weekly shopping and were pricing onions. Being a foreigner, the vendors on Cebu as
well as Luzon, would increase the price of their produce due to my
presence. In fact, in Cebu, I would have
to go sit at the small park in Balamban with the kids while the shopping was
done by Diana and her mother. In the
issue of the new market in Himamaylan City, the vendors wanted forty pesos for
a kilo of onions. I had never questioned
the price of anything there, but on that day I commented to Diana in a low
voice we were being taken advantage of.
She tried to bargain down the price, but the vendors were adamant. Unfortunately, I was also equally obstinate
and told her to not buy those layered bulbs.
As we walked the two kilometers back to our house, I
expressed my displeasure to Diana at the vendors inflexibility just because I
was a foreigner. We had finally reached
the gate to our compound when I suggested we should walk to Binalbagan to see
if those onions could be had any cheaper.
Diana gave me that critical stare like I was missing a few gray cells
that morning, but she also knew my quirkiness in walking long distances. Still, she was not about to let me walk alone
in case of problems. So, after dropping
the market purchases off as well as making sure that the kids were taken care
of (they were in school at that time) we started walking north and toward the
highway.
 |
| Mt. Mabanban - San Antonio, Zambales - 2010 |
The sun was well into the morning sky as we reached the
National Highway. At that time of day,
you really cherished the shade, but being on the west side of the highway, it
didn’t provide much protection from the watchful eye of old sol. Almost forty years ago, I had decided to
climb (along with two co-workers) to the top of Mt. Mabanban which was located
just south of San Antonio, Zambales on the western side of Luzon. As we began to scale the rocky behemoth, the
shade was abundant until you climbed above the tree line, then the sun became
insufferable and the ascent became far
 | |
| A more youthful me in 1975 |
more difficult. Yet, I had learned one
valuable lesson with walking, climbing, or even working outside in the Philippines,
you had to start very early (at or just before sunrise) and complete your hike
or task before the sun rose too far into the morning sky. Unfortunately, for
me, it was not to be the case that day.
Rambling by the San Miguel Brewery warehouse, we happened
upon Diana’s brother, Julius, who was in search of perspective passengers for
his trike. Of course, he asked where we
were going and Diana said that we were walking to Binalbagan. His lips curled up into a wry smile and then
he peered up into the cloudless sky and said, “So far.” I showed him the lone bottle of water we had
purchased and replied that the walk would not take long.
The road to Binalbagan was for the most part straight with
a couple very shallow curves along the way.
Except for a rather busy intersection at Aguisan, the sides of the road
were bordered by stalks of sugar cane.
Occasionally there was a waiting shade for those who lived back behind
the fields, but you rarely saw anyone inhabiting them. In contrast to the states, there were no
shoulders along this stretch of highway, but thank goodness no ditches
either. However, since it was late July
and the harvesting of sugar cane would not begin for three more months, there
were places where the plants edged out toward the traveled portion of the road
and thus we were occasionally pricked by their pointy shoots.
For me, the walk so far was rather uneventful and we met
no pedestrians during the first segment which was six kilometers in
 | |
| Aguisan Intersection w/road to town to the right side of highway |
length and
ended at the Aguisan intersection. There
were a number of trikes parked in the shade alongside the highway awaiting passengers
who would dismount from the passing buses and/or jeepneys and then transport
them the one-half kilometer into the barangay center. The handful of drivers were huddled into a small
group smoking cigarettes and they certainly gave Diana and me a curious eye as
we sidled past. We continued walking a
couple hundred meters further north before settling at a waiting shade located
at the entrance to the Catholic Cemetery.
The graveyard was located just off the highway.
 | |
| Catholic Cemetery - Barangay Aguisan |
The grounds had no trees within but the
grounds were filled with raised concrete
tombs; all painted brilliantly white
with several having canopies atop their sarcophagi. We sat there in the shade sipping on the bottled
water while enduring the hot winds which were beginning to blow across the open
fields.
After a time, we proceeded up the road, watching the
endless traffic as we avoided the prickly branches which were intermittently
obstructing our path. Suddenly, we came
upon a road which had
 | |
| A rarely used Boulevard in the middle of the country |
once been a boulevard.
Two lanes ventured off to the west with a line of trees on each side of
the dirt and grass covered thoroughfare.
To the north of the lanes was a set of narrow gauge railroad tracks that
had been covered over by the roadway decades ago. It made me wonder where the boulevard led to,
but it was not the day to wander into the unknown on foot. Between Aguisan and
the river on the south edge of Binalbagan, again, we never encountered any pedestrians
on that five kilometer segment and,
 | |
| The old bridge on the right with new bridge on the left |
except for the boulevard which was bordered
by sugar cane, we did not come upon any trees along the highway until reaching
the river crossing. We crossed the waterway on an old concrete bridge which had
been replaced by a wider bridge built with metal trusses. The water beneath was a muddy brown from the
seasonal rains. A long abandoned railroad trestle could be seen twenty or so
meters up the narrow waterway. A hamlet
of bamboo and wooden structures bordered the river as we walked across the bridge,
while a smattering of pre-school children played outside their homes under the
watchful eye of their mothers.
The short trek into town was shaded with large trees
extending over the highway. A gravel
shoulder eased our walk as we observed a schoolyard full of teenagers at the
local high school situated on the other side of the highway. Still, we saw no one walking along the sides
of the roadway, however I must note there were plenty of trikes filled with one
or more passengers.
Reaching the street to the market, we quickly turned west
again and
 | |
| Central Market - Binalbagan, Negros Occidental |
followed the concrete covered as well as tree free route to the commercial
hub of the community. Being the wiser
foreigner, I stopped a half block from the market and savored the refreshing
taste of a chilled bottle of Pepsi at a Mr. Donut stand, while Diana walked
inside the sheltered structure to price the Onions. I waited for only a few minutes when Diana
returned with a sack of onions. I was
elated to think that she got them for the “non-kano” price they had not offered
us in Himamaylan City.
“Well?” I asked. “How much did they cost here?”
Diana looked at me with that smirky smile of hers, “Forty
pesos per kilo.”
I must confess, replies like that can just ruin a person’s
day.
On our bus ride back to Himamaylan City, I closed my eyes
and pondered the walk now completed. I
concluded that I had learned a valuable lesson about Himamaylan City. One was that the vendors/retail
establishments really didn’t care whether you were a foreigner or not, business
was business and prices did not vary because of where you were originally
from. Second, the vendors as well as the
people of that community were for the most part honest. Later I learned that I could still bargain
for a better price if I knew the right vendor or business establishment to
frequent.
Less than two weeks later, I would make a three hundred
peso wager with Diana’s younger brother that he could not walk from Himamaylan City
to Kabankalan City (about ten miles).
However, that was a different adventure altogether.
Daryl A. Cleveland . . . a.k.a. bounder
November 29, 2015Note: I did not have a camera on the day of this walk and thus most of the pictures were taken today.
