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.