The Last Post

The last post from the Philippines, just a few photos of some recent outings - then off to Indonesia for a few weeks. 

Rice Terraces of Banaue

I spent the easter weekend at Banaue, a small town up in the Cordillera of northern Luzon. The region is famous for its rice terraces, some of which were built around 4000 years ago. The farming methods being used haven't changed much since then either - most of the work is done by hand without the aid of tractors, artificial fertilizers or pesticides.

The town of Banaue, from the hotel terrace.

Banaue terraces, looking like a contour map of themselves.

The terraces in Batad are the most famous. The village, like many others in the area, is inaccesible by road, so everything is either grown locally or carried in by hand. This also means the farming methods being used haven't changed much since the terraces were built. But even in these remote places, electricity and radio masts are becoming common - stone age farming methods with mobile phones and Manchester United shirts.

Amphitheatre of terraces in Batad.

Mount Pinatubo

In 1991, Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, spewing 10 billion tons of ash into the atmosphere, producing debris flows that devastated nearby villages, and lowering global temperatures by 0.5C. It also produced this rather nice crater lake, which is now a major tourist attraction.  

Lahar deposits eroded into fantastic shapes.

Trekking up through the debris deposits.

And into the jungle.

We did it in 18 minutes.

And arrival at the lake.

Return journey by 4x4.

Nothing to do with rice terraces or volcanoes, but here's a picture of my colleague's dog and her new puppies. Aw, bless.

Half way

I'm halfway through my placement, and my! hasn't the time flown. This is of course assuming I manage to get my visa extended and don't get deported at the end of next week. Here's a collection of random images to celebrate. 

View over Laguna de Bay, to the east of Manila. This enormous lake is the remnant of a volcano crater.

Pagsanjan Falls. The final scenes of Apocalypse Now were filmed here.

Boatmen row, haul and drag tourist boats up the rapids.

Meet of the United Folding Bikers club. Stridas are very popular, Britain is known as the home of the Brompton.

Landslides on the road to Infanta.

Infanta - a narrow strip of habitable land between the mountains and the Pacific.

A visit to some badly eroded river bank protection.

This is what it should look like - the has only just been built, and has yet to see a wet season. The volcano in the background is Arayat National Park.

House abandoned after being hit by a debris flow following heavy rains two years ago.

Evening ride through Intramuros, the old heart of Manila. The horse was called Dave.

Manila Bay by night. Sinister squat building on waterfront is US Embassy.

Fieldwork

Rice fields, mountains

Last week was my first trip to the field: 2 days in Nueva Ecija and Pampanga provinces with a team planning to take river flow measurements at locations where water level sensors have been installed. This work is actually going to be quite important - we'll be using the measurements to improve the hydrological models which estimate flood flows in response to typhoon events.

Levels on lamp post by road bridge

Local resident cools off in the shade

Most of the time was spent driving to and from the mall for lunch; waiting around for other people to turn up; and, inexplicably, a trip to a buffalo milk processing plant. We did actually set up 3 GPS stations for static survey measurements (probably about 2 hours work all told); one of these blew over after 5 minutes, so we gave up on it.

GPS survey set up - this one remained upright

This is reminiscent of some of my experiences in Indonesia (see here for for a typical example), and brought with it a possible revelation. Some people not only don't mind the endless waiting around, faffing and generally being a bit disorganised - they actually enjoy it.

Not much water in the rivers

So in the end I didn't get to see any flow measurements being made - and this is something that I might have been able to help with. As it is, measuring flow at this time of year is a bit pointless anyway - it hasn't rained in 6 weeks and the rivers are almost dry. Hoping for better when I go to inspect a flood defence next week.

Popular tourist resort - especially with watersports enthusiasts

Corregidor Island

Downtown from Manila bay

Last weekend was time for some R+R - and what better than visiting Corregidor, WW2 battlefield and scene of Marcos era atrocities?
This was my first solo trip on the LRT (Light Rail Transit), Metro Manila's light rail system. The most recently built line 2 is fast, comfortable and can take you from one side of the city to the other in around half an hour. Line 1 was the first to be built - and even on a Sunday was packed (think London Underground on a weekday rush hour). Still, using the LRT (with a couple of motorbike/sidecar taxi trips thrown in) means I can get from home to the port in around 90 minutes - which counts as good for Manila.

View across Manila bay

An hour's boat ride brings you to Corregidor Island, a former US Military base and the scene of fierce fighting between Philippine/US forces and the Japanese in WW2. Gen Douglas McArthur was based here, before leaving for Australia ahead of the advancing Japanese forces fighting their way down the Bataan peninsula, and making his famous "I shall return" speech.

Monument to the Philippine resistance

Japanese monument

Manila almost looks pretty from this far away

No ladies or gentlemen here

Big gun

Malinta tunnel

Now the island is a tourist attraction and monument. US barrack buildings are crumbling into the jungle among the cratered and shrapnel scarred gun emplacements. The Malinta tunnel, with 24 lateral tunnels running off the side, was used as an air-raid shelter, hospital and magazine.

US Army Barracks

Gallery includes depiction of Japanese atrocities

Staring down the barrel...

It's got to be a recommended visit for anyone staying in Manila who's interested in WW2 history.

Manila - first impressions

I've been in placement for a week now, long enough to get to know Manila and the university a little.

First week has been spent trying to work out how the public transport works (poorly), whether there's anything to do other than go to a shopping mall (not much), and finding a place to live. My new home, for now, is the guest room on the top floor of the National Institute of Geological Sciences - part of University of the Philippines Dilliman campus. This is one of the few places I've found that's actually nice to go walking in - as do hundreds of others on a Sunday morning, escaping the traffic noise and fumes of the rest of the city. The room also has the great advantage of being free (and there's a rumour that someone comes in to clean once in a while). On the other hand, the traffic noise at night is horrendous, with every truck with a poorly maintained exhaust using the street outside as a shortcut. 

Luxurious accommodation, with "borrowed" furniture

View from my front door

Metropolitan Manila is huge, and has been getting bigger - it's doubled in population to 12 million since 1980 (and see satellite images below). And given that the transport network is somewhat over capacity, the traffic is mental. It took my neighbours 3 hours to ride by taxi from downtown to the university - a distance of around 10km.

Growing in every direction - even into the sea. Red areas show vegetation - still quite a lot to be seen in 1972 (above). Less showing in 2009 (below) as the city has expanded.

The food is a mix of fast-food chains - McDonald's, KFC, and the home grown equivalent Jollibee - and more traditional pork, chicken and beef stew. All served with rice, 3 (or more) times a day. I had to go for beer and pizza last night, just for variety.

Going by the first week, I think I'll be OK living here for 3 months - but I can't say I've warmed to the place, yet.

I've also posted a work related piece - here - which talks about my first impressions of the flood mapping and forecasting work in the Philippines.

Flood mapping and forecasting in the Philippines - my first week

I've tried to arrive here with no preconceptions about what I'll be doing, and on reflection this has probably been the right thing to do. I've been amazed at the progress I've seen since i was first here around 18 months ago - there are large teams of keen graduates working on flood mapping and forecasting, who've already produced results for many river basins.

Merged LiDAR - sonar DTM for river in central Luzon

Some of the storm surge related forecasting is impressive too - they're not doing routine forecasts yet, but do run simulations for big events such as Haiyan, which produced such devastation in Tacloban in November 2013. Their model predicted a storm surge height very close to what was actually seen, and with a 6 hour lead time too. It's another story that this information wasn't acted upon until about 3 hours before the surge hit.

But scratch below the surface and there are still some big challenges - using the vast amount of data being collected is going to be hard, and will need some thinking about. The teams are under pressure from above to deliver products as quickly as possible, but without necessarily having the experience to balance the need for accuracy within the time available.

I guess the biggest problem for me is how to challenge the way things are being done, without seeming (overly) critical. They've had around 2 years of flood modelling experience, mine is closer to 20. So I'm seeing problems that other people won't pick up on, which could make a big difference to the quality of the final products. The sheer numbers of people killed and lives affected by big typhoon events over here means these are important decisions.

One of the desirable characteristics on the volunteer placement description was
"diplomatic" - which isn't me. I may have to wait for Al to arrive. He's worked a lot here before, so may be able to put things in a constructive way, which won't alienate the team here. 

Or perhaps we can do things the classic VSO way. Time to organise a workshop?