Road Construction

 We are proud to say that we drive some of the worst roads in the Philippines. Jack had the opportunity once to talk to a driver for the Philippine government who had driven on all the islands. He asked where the best roads were. "Mindanao", he was told, "the roads are smooth". "So, where are the worst roads in the Philippines?" "Catbalogan." We agree. We have driven all over our mission. By far the worst roads are in Catbalogan.  We see lots of construction.


For longer stretches, they have either electronic stops or people manning the booth with big stop and go signs. You can see the green Go side upside down. The stopped traffic sees the red Stop part.

They dig up the old road, smooth out the ground, pour new concrete and often tar it. The old road is ground up and reused. 


For short stretches, people just alternate getting around the construction.  Sometimes the back-up can take up to a half hour.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fjordlands

Image
 We spent the day cruising through Fjordland National Parks. It's a series of fjords accessible mainly by the sea. The scenery was gorgeous. They get a lot of rainful here and today was not an exception. It made the many waterfalls so much more impressive. We were outside on the deck for a bit, but it was chilly so we came inside to watch the scenery go by. We managed to see some penguins from the distance and an albatross up close. Didn't get pictures of any animals. Just to prove that it is us here, even with our colds.
Read more

Noumea, New Caledonia

Image
 This small group of islands in Micronesia were discovered by the French. It helped me realize how bad my French still is. I had a few short conversations with people, but between my deaf ear on the right side and my lack of memory, the conversations were very brief. The water here is beautiful blue. Approaching the island, there were some cool coral reefs that caused the water to do some weird beach waves in the middle of the ocean. It was pretty awesome to watch the water break and roll in over the water. The pictures don't do it justice.  The port was a protected cove with lots of hills. We walked uphill through the Plaza de Pais. From the viewpoint, we got a great view of the harbor and the area behind us. They also had a statue of a woman praising God at the viewpoint.  Jack had to do a Touchdown Jesus pose with the Hail Mary. We also visited the Catholic Church, or as Jack called it, the Church of Barry Manilow. The priest's picture did look amazingly like him. Love...
Read more

Auckland Temple

Image
 On our "shortcut" home, we are seeing many temples. The first stop on our temple trip is Auckland. Jack and I went Friday night to do some initiatory and catch a session. We then went Saturday night with former Tacloban Missionaries. Only Sister Nau made it. We had hoped to see former Elder Fruean, Sister Lolohea and Sister Fue, who had recently gotten married.
Read more