The Far Side of the World, Pt 12

May 1976. When we last heard from Tony Reavley, he'd arrived in the Philippines after a stop-over in Indonesia; his next destination is South Korea, but first he has to survive the perils of Filipino government troops, a plane about to catch fire, and a Quarantine Officer with a phobia of bananas. Worst of all, he doesn't even know where Wolves finished in the league.

15-05-76

Mogpo, South Korea

We left Banaue from where I last wrote and headed back to Bontoc. On the way back we tried our new gourmet's delight - dog soup! Dog is commonly eaten out here; a good bit of dog is hardly distinguishable from roast lamb. In the Philippines it's cheap but in Korea it's a delicacy and quite expensive - we usually stick to hard-boiled eggs. We arrived back in Manila on Saturday 3rd April and three days later left for what proved an epic journey down to the huge island of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines.

We followed the Pan-Philippine highway most of the way. Mostly a concrete road but also long stretches of rough unmade sections with large potholes almost big enough to swallow up the bus. At the end of the first day we reached Daet, still on the island of Luzon, and by the end of the second day had reached Matnog on the southern tip of the island. The following morning, a ferry across to Allen on the island of Samar. The sea was the clearest and bluest we've seen anywhere, dotted with small coral islands fringed with coconut palms and dazzling white sand. From Allen, we headed south down the west coast to Calbayog. We travelled in an outrigger canoe, the pilot hugging the rocky coastline. The twin outboard motors on these canoes are quite effective and much faster than the larger ferries.

We stopped in Calbayog for the night and the next morning took a second outrigger to Catbalogan. From here, a large ferry boat to Tacloban on the island of Leyte. Took a bus - still on the Pan-P Highway - and stopped in a tiny village, Albuyog, where hordes of people followed us everywhere. We were probably the first Westerners ever to stay there! Next morning, a bumpy ride in a beaten-up old jeepney to Baybay on the west coast and then another jeepney south to Maasin. We arrived at midday on Saturday, only four days after leaving Manila. Here we ground to an ignominious standstill and due to a series of mishaps, didn't get away on the ferry to Mindanao until Wednesday.

A boat was supposed to be leaving to Butuan City on Mindanao the following day but failed to put in an appearance - not unusual in this part of the world. The next boat was on Tuesday, 6am; I got up at 5am just to check it had arrived, and found out it was about to leave. Rushed back to the hotel, pulled Baz out of bed and found the boat fifty yards off the jetty when we returned ten minutes later. Killed another day in Maasin, and the next day I went down to the jetty again at 5am. The ship had arrived overnight and though scheduled to leave at 6.30, it was once again ready to go! Another lightning dash and this time we returned to the jetty and scrambled on just in time! Finally arrived in Butuan, Mindanao in the afternoon and then took a long, fast bus ride to Tagum just north of Davao City on the east coast.

Trekked out into the hills to see the Mansakar, a tribe of primitive Filipinos. They live in the jungle and are nomadic. They use bows and arrows to hunt with and are very colourful, interesting people. We managed to contact the chief who took us out into the hills, clambering up narrow, sandy paths through groves of coconuts until we reached the denser jungle. We waded across mountain streams and caught our first glimpse of Mansakar women fishing with nets for freshwater shrimp. Several children who were with them fled at our approach as they'd never seen white men before. We stopped in one of their stilted huts made from bamboo with palm thatching and had a drink of coconut and some magnificent pineapple.

From Tagum we continued south through Davao and then General Santos City, and headed across to Cotabato City. We found several roads closed due to rebel activity. There is a large Moslem secessionist movement in this area of Mindanao who are giving President Marcos and his one-party dictatorship quite a headache. Did you read about the recent Filipino plane which was hijacked? It happened in this area just before we got there and was hijacked by Moslems who took the plane to Libya, the longest hijack in history. Everywhere we went there were police and army roadblocks and checkpoints but no-one questioned us, although the area is very dangerous and guerrillas regularly shoot up buses and take hostages for ransom - especially Westerners.

We went to Cotabato City as it was the cheapest and quickest way to get back to Manila. We managed to find a hotel and found the city bristling with soldiers, police etc. Booked a flight out for the following evening and ran into serious trouble when we checked in for the flight. The airport had been taken over by the military, tanks rumbled around the perimeter, and helicopters continually buzzed overhead. Armed soldiers with machine-guns stood in strategic positions and occasional gunfire could be heard in the distant hills as government forces exchanged fire with the Moslem rebels. We got our baggage thoroughly searched by a soldier who then demanded to see our "permit to leave". No one had told us about this permit, and we were immediately marched off to see some colonel who asked us where we'd been in the last few days and how we'd managed to get into the city, which is a prohibited area to foreigners. We explained that no one had told us we weren't supposed to be there. The colonel phoned up Army Intelligence who rushed out to the airport in a jeep to interview us. The passport stamps showing we'd been in Sabah, a Moslem country, really excited them and we thought they were going to arrest us at one point; they grilled us, took fingerprints and generally made mountains out of molehills. Suddenly, as they were in the middle of inking my fingers for the umpteenth set of prints, they let us go! We got on the plane, and after all the fuss - during which our carving knife was confiscated as a dangerous weapon - the engines failed and the flight was delayed till the next morning.

Even the following day wasn't without incident. The plane took off around 8am and we were over the sea halfway to Manila when there was an ominous smell of leaking fuel; the pilot made an unscheduled stop on the island of Cebu, making an emergency landing with several fire engines waiting for us on the runway. We transferred to a second plane and finally reached Manila nearly 24 hours late. We left for Seoul, the Korean capital, on Sunday May 2nd by Korean Airlines. On arrival, I immediately clashed with the Quarantine Officer who, before my very eyes, destroyed my two large bunches of bananas.

We saw English papers at the Embassy in Seoul but still don't know who won the Cup or the League; I imagine Liverpool won or drew that final last game and the club is split in two at Tipton as Wolves & Albion changed places! I sincerely hope Wolves won and somehow stayed in Division One; not because I love Wolves but because it would be great to see unfashionable QPR as champs. Confirm my worst fears on this point in your next letter.

Best wishes

Tony

[Editor's note: Wolves did indeed lose their final match of the season 3-1 to Liverpool, consigning them to Division Two while Liverpool won the title at QPR's expense. Albion were promoted back to Division One with a memorable Tony Brown goal away at Oldham.]