Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Baler: Worth the Wait

My first trip to a local destination other than home, for this year reacquainted me with how crazy our bus terminals are. It made me realize how hopeless we are as a country in promoting tourism when we can't even follow a simple bus schedule and most of our bus terminals don't have decent queue systems.


Shing, Aileen and I got reserved tickets for 12mn bound for Aurora. We were at the bus terminal at 1045pm.

The queue system was chaotic to say the least. The passengers don't know where to wait since there is no designated waiting lounge. The system works like this, find a vacant space and wait there. The terminal was just one big parking space with buses coming from all directions. After numerous close brushes with huge buses and witnessing several outbursts from irate passengers, finally we got on the "Joy Bus" at 1am.

Well, as they say it is the journey not the destination. And this journey didn't start at a convenient note. So again, I invoked this adage, an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered. And Baler, Aurora is worth all those little inconveniences.

Looking back, despite how we as a nation manage to mangle our sorry excuse for a system, we manage to fall through. For me, the beauty of our countryside is the saving grace each time. As if telling each visitor, hey it doesn't matter how inconvenienced you were going here but aint I worth the hassle?

Though our dear country may be a pain in the butt to navigate through, but it is worth all that once you get to know it better and see it beyond its inefficiencies. After all, who is going to promote it other than us and in order to promote it, we need to explore it first.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Circle of Life

We watched Lion King back in high school. My dormmates and I trooped to the Allegro Theater along J. M. Basa St. (those were the days when theaters were not in malls). I remember we all teared up when Mufasa died. We all sang with Simba, Timon and Pumbaa in Hakuna Matata. We fell in love with "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" During our junior year, we (the Vanguards) sang Circle of Life in one contest. It was one of our more respectable finishes (3 of 4 I think).

So yes, Simba was a part of our high school. Lion King, along with Beauty and the Beast and Mulan are my top hand-drawn Disney movies. So when I learned that they were staging Lion King in Singapura. I've been wanting to go. But going there just to see it was impractical. So when an opportunity from my company, of a connecting flight presented itself via SG, I immediately took it.  I am so thankful for the opportunity to watch Lion King before its last roar on October 30. It is a wonderful blessing.  

The play's production design was astounding but the singing and dancing was not that impressive for me. Overall, it was a nice experience to relive a movie that reminds us of a problem-free philosophy. Hakuna Matata.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Bus Rides Gone Bad

Every time I go home I take a bus to my hometown of Ajuy, 87 kms from the city, a two-hour journey amidst verdant fields and stretches of hilly terrain overlooking the azure sea separating Panay from Negros island.


Steel and men.

I took my usual bus line home, Ceres. Yes, the goddess of agriculture. We were cruising along the national highway when the bus screeched. Our driver stepped on the brakes but not before the steel rods protruding from the truck in front us pierced our bus' windshield. Our bus windshield had cracks like the sun's rays. The conductor told the driver to chase after the truck driver. But I knew that our bus driver knew he was at fault. The truck with steel rods we was stationary when we hit it. The truck managed to get away.

But what ensued was three police stations visit in three different towns. What was usually a 1 hour and 45 min ride took 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Well, finally I made it home and once I am in the comforts of my home, I just managed a "nakabunggo ang ceres nga nasakyan ko, dugay dugay ang byahe"


Of drunk and unruly busmates

Going back to the city,fresh from my eventful ride two days before, I found myself on a packed bus with no conductor. The driver was also the conductor.

And for a seatmate, I got a drunk, rowdy guy who was talking #@a%$ the whole time saying if he was the conductor, things won't turn out this way. Add to that more passengers are getting on the already cramped bus. It was getting dark and the drunk guy's ramblings and endless taunts of the driver were getting on my nerves.

But a wake-upper in this story is when people started complaining about the bus' numerous stops to pick up passengers, the driver/conductor asked the complainants how would you feel if you were the one on the road trying to hail this "last trip" bus and it doesn't stop? At the point I had to agree with manong conductor, the best way to look at an incovenient situation is to see it from the perspective of the other party. So rather than bitch about it, I might as well just sit back and experience this misadventure.

As G. K. Chesterton said, an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. And an inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.