Vaginal Realm

Baguio has lost its appeal to me over the years that I was growing up. That it has become polluted and too crowded as a tourist destination, and with nothing new to offer aside from the cool weather, a trip to the valley does not a spark excitement in my belly. But lately, the company of very good friends (and more :D) makes me all gilly to look forward to pack my warm clothes and savor the taste of strawberries as we traverse the 6-hour long climb to the destination that is known as the City of Pines.

Ascend to Heaven
Travelling on a 6-hour bus trip when you haven't had sleep for almost 48 hours is never comfy. Migraine starts to escalate when I haven't even packed yet, totally impairing my judgement on what to bring and how to fit everything in my luggage. Being a woman, I have the implied right to overpack and exaggerate my wardrobe *teehee*. We planned to board the 2pm bus trip, but due to unforeseen circumstances (other word for OVERTIME), I finished packing and stealing a 30-minute nap at past 4pm. So we arrived at the terminal shortly before 5pm, and we were informed that the next comfy seats are available at the 6pm trip. So we snatched ourselves to a quickie at timezone G4 for an hour before we boarded the bus. About 3 hours later we were having dinner at Tarlac. 2 hours after that and our ears were starting to pop as we put on our jackets and endure the cool air seeping into our skin. An hour more and we set our foot on the valley of Baguio.

Day 1: Sights and Sounds of Everlasting Sustenance
We went straight to the DENR cottage to spend the night as it was too late a time to hunt for lodging when we arrived. Penha wanted accomodations where we can cook, and we were supposed to stay at another DENR cottage. However, surprise surprise, the cottage did not look appealing and be infested with ghosts and other supernatural creatures God knows what, so we spent the whole morning hunting for an inn with a kitchen after we had our breakfast at Session Road. We found one along the tip of Marcos Highway just outside the skirt of Baguio City town proper for P1,650 per night for two days. Not bad. We don't need airconditioning at this part of the Philippines and at least there's hot water. Well, for a day we had hot water at least. Oh well, there's always a setback for every roadtrip. :)

We ate at a mongolian buffet at Hotel Veniz for lunch, and I had a strawberry milkshake that made my insides jiggle. 'twas sooooooo good! How come strawberries won't grow in abundance here in Manila? As I've said over and over again, life is not fair. *sob* Baguio was a bit crowded during this date since a holiday fell on a Monday making it a long weekend. Busy bees usually take this opportunity to escape from the hazards to the body and the sanity brought by the busy life in Manila, and they would take great lengths to leave it as far as possible. Baguio is the only commercialized cool tourist destination there is, thus they bring some of the pollution here from where they came. Pfffft.

We rushed to the botanical garden and mines view park after our late lunch. The usual stuff is there: the Igorot huts, the flowers, the vendors and their wares confusingly displayed in their shops, the rip-off Igorots that'll kill you with their spears if you don't hand over money for taking a picture with them, and of course...the food! Taho (which now comes in chocolate and strawberry flavors), grilled and boiled corn on the cob, grilled dried pusit, and more strawberries. It feels so nice to enjoy good food on a cool weather, so we were filling our bellies while enjoying the colors of Baguio's diverse fora. In a kikay collegiala voice, I'd say "me likey the sunflowers!" and tick off penha to the highest level. God, that sounded so gay didn't it?

After hoarding on pasalubongs of lengua de gato and chocolate flakes, we went straight to the wet market to do some shopping on food. I feel like I'm walking in fairland as I feast my eyes on the contrast of colors of trays and trays of fresh vegetables, fish, meat, and whatever it is you need. You will not find their wet and dry market wanting, and the cheap tags on the vegetables will make you want to live your dying days there to prolong your life even more. The plump cherry tomatoes and miniature versions of the pechay baguio and the green of brocollis and legumes and cabbages, ah my eyes popped out of their sockets!

Day 2: Cooler Loving
The food fest we had the night before went straight to our feet we couldn't step out of the room to do more sightseeing. Add to that the hefty breakfast of longganisa vigan, salted egg with cherry tomatoes, and fried rice that we had earlier in the day. We slept all day and woke up at 3 in the afternoon, afterwhich we rushed to Good Shepherd to buy fruit jams hoping that we'd get there on time because the store closes at 5pm. Good Shepherd Convent makes the most wicked fruit jams, preserves and chutneys famous not only in Baguio but all over the Philippines, and it sits on one of the highest peaks in Baguio. Thank God we made it, and we brought our loot back to the inn before heading to Camp John Hay to have a taste of everything nice's cassava cake. Too bad the bakery ran out of cassava cakes for the day, and we had to go all the way there only to find out that the main bakery was just sitting about half a kilometer away from the inn we were staying!

We left Camp John Hay and went to Burnham Park. We gobbled on isaw (grilled chicken intestines) before hopping on to a boat in the park's man-made lake. After that we rented a pair of bikes for an hour, and by the end of it we were starving so we rushed to this restaurant in Burnham which sadly is already closed by the time we got there (around 9pm). So we have to settle for a resto along Session Road and treated ourselves to a pot of Sinigang na Baboy (pork stew in tamarind broth).

On the way there we stumbled across vendors displaying their wares on the cold tiles of the street, laughing our asses out on the hideous toys they were selling. More ridiculing, and what do you know! We found treasures for P25 each! I got myself two tarepanda miniatures and he got a Domokun! Haha, we were having a hard time finding cheap versions of them here in Manila and we found them in Baguio. Chunky Farflung sells Domokuns for eight freaking hundred bucks each.

The following day was Penha's birthday, so as he was taking a bath that afternoon before going to Good Shepherd I snatched away to everything nice to buy him a surprise Sans Rival cake. When the clock striked 12mn I brought out the cake and lighted the candle to Penha's surprise. He made his wish, and we gobbled on a few slices before hitting the sack. :D

Descent to the Mortal World
We went home after dinner, got up the next morning for breakfast, and dressed up for our trip
back to Manila. About six and a half hours later, we were back in Makati. The dream is over, and we are back to endure the excruciating summer heat and pollution that is Manila. We ate an early dinner, and went to timezone (again) to cap the day.

Each episode of wanderlust with Penha keeps getting better and better. In Baguio we would just cuddle up beneath the sheets, enjoy the cold crisp air and feast on the sights and sounds of the valley, and moving around as if we are not bound by time...it's definitely one of my best Baguio trips ever. :)

See more of our cam-whoring here.

Labels: wanderlust

Travel time is estimated at 10 hours.

Good thing we were riding the most comfortable coach to Bicol, otherwise I would have whined and complained relentlessly the entire 400-500km stretch. The trip to Bicol was fine, just slept the entire trip. However, the trip home was not so comfy. More of that later on. :)

We arrived in Legazpi City at around 5am, 10 1/2 hours after we left Manila. The tricycle driver informed us that shuttle trips to Sorsogon are stationed in Daraga, about a few kilometers from the terminal. So we contracted his services, and about 15 minutes later as we arrived in Daraga, he charged us a whooping P100 for the fare! That rip-off. He should be condemned to hell.

There were no shuttle trips yet available at that early hour of the morning, so we decided to look for any store that sells Oral B toothbrushes as I left mine at home (what a girl scout I am!). No, they only have Springmaid, the brand that shows no mercy to your gums til they bleed like no tomorrow. During the hunt, we came across this young whino who seems to be more interested in getting a piece of me rather than finding something to fill his stomach with. He was maliciously reaching for me despite Sig's attempt to bribe him with food. God, he must've been only 10 or so. I pity that boy; imagine what he would be like 5 to 10 years from now. Tsk tsk tsk.

But I won't let that ruin our vacation, of course. After chatting with some of the shuttle drivers and evaluating whether we can endure a jeepney ride up to Sorsogon, one of them offered to drop us off at our destination, regardless if there will be other passengers boarding the same trip. So off we go, amidst the lush hills and forests with tamed clearings of rice fields, we reached Donsol.

Ah, Donsol...not so developed. Yet. In fact, half the road to the Whaleshark Activity Center is being rennovated to accomodate tourist inflow in the area, so as expected the traffic was hilariously present in that quiet town. Booking boat trips for diving was a mess...the coordinators lack coordination in themselves, and we had to wait for an hour or so to actually have a boat that will take us to the dive site. And...I DIDN'T SEE ANY WHALESHARKS GODDAMMIT!!! That was a waste of my P600, and I'll just have to take Penha's word for it at how marvelous the sight of a butanding is. Darn, better luck next year for me. :( Bought some souvenir shirts (which by the way are rip-offs as each shirt costs around 190 to 200 each. Same shirt quality are available in Galera or Boracay for P100). Then we had a late lunch at the site, which may be the culprit in upsets stomachs later in the afternoon as the food racks were infested with flies. Oh hell, as the saying goes, mas madumi mas masarap.

Back at the lodge, we actually had to wait 30 minutes for housekeeping to clean our room. Hmmm the room...not so worth the P1,500 they charge us for one freaking day. No hot water, the bathroom not so neat, not much privacy (the doors have grills at the bottom, the type you see in office bathrooms), no TV, and no ref. Other than whaleshark viewing, there's not much to do in Sorsogon as the beaches are not that pretty: imagine black sand with grass overgrows and pebbles and dirt. Good thing the resort served us nice tinolang manok and tortang alimango for dinner. This was the only consolation for me here, I guess. Btw, we stayed at Casa Bianca resort. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The next morning we headed back to Legazpi City for some city touring. We booked a hotel for P1,500, same charge as in Donsol but the amenities are waaaaaaaaaaaay better. There's hot water, clean bathroom, cable TV, and free breakfast (which sadly we had no time to consume the day after as we were scurrying to our trip back to Manila). However, the hotel had an eerie feel to me...eerie like Hotel California-ish. Who knows what happens in those other rooms? It is in this hotel that Penha first made me cry. Don't ask why. Basta.

Ok, now this is when I started to enjoy this trip. After paying for our way-home tickets, we went to the best mall the city has to offer. Took a light meal at McDo (wee I ate at McDonald's Legazpi!), scouted the stores for short/pants for me as I didn't bring enough clothes that will last me the entire vacation, and bought Penha's economics book that he seemed to have lost years ago. After that we took a jeepney ride to the Cagsawa Ruins and the famous view of the Mayon Volcano. Yeah yeah, the volcano looks majestic enough as expected (see related pic here). Brought chaos to the souvenir shops around the area, and i got myself a nifty abacca bag for P170 and sinamay fabrics for, er, I forgot. Entrance to the park is P5, which I think is fair enough for my share of groundskeeping as I left my tissues and ice cream wrappers in the nearest ledge coz there were no trash cans around. There were a lot of tourists viewing with us during that day probably because of the vacation that is Holy Week. I had an unforgettable moment here, I'll write about that later. :)

And of course, authentic Bicolano food. Our trip wouldn't have been complete without tasting the native delicacies the place has to offer. After Cagsawa we hopped another jeepney that will take us to Camalig, the place famed for selling the best pinangat and tinulmok. Pinangat is a bundle of dried taro leaves, coconut milk, siling labuyo, meat and shrimp, doppled with crab fat and steamed to perfection. Tinulmok, on the other hand, is coconut meat mixed with meat and wrapped in dried taro leaves, also steamed. This and a serving of bicol express, paired with rice, and I was having a disco party in my mouth. Yum yum! We actually had to buy frozen portions of these goodies to take back home.

The trip home was...forgettable. As in we'd rather forget about it. The space, the passengers seated beside us, the stop-overs, the traffic, all 14 gruesome hours of it...qui horror!

All in all, this trip is one of the best backpack trips I've ever had. Exploring unknown territory, utilizing public transportation and guts to get around, and having fond memories of your companion...priceless. :)

Labels: wanderlust

Yep! I was there! Hihihi. =)

I'll write about the trip some other time, when I'm not busy. Which is probably, uh, never. Nah, I'll take time off to at least enumerate the highlights of the trip. Definitely one of the best backpack trips I've ever had. ^_^

Labels: wanderlust

I would like more of this:

Undisturbed Nature + My Zen = Happy Me. =)

Spent a few hours alone along the beach of Luna, La Union. And I thought, "obviously, this is what I want. I want more of this, and I want them longer."

A paradox of sorts, I was in awe at the dusk of day that has been whilst celebrating the dawn of friendships that will be. What I thought would not spill out of an automated box is now overflowing with...with...something more. We have bonded. Or at least, I have bonded to/with them. Waiting for the sun to turn from yellow to orange to purple hazes and dark nights, ever serene and calming. Better, looking at it with a person who sees it in the same color. What seemed to be an endless palaver suddenly halted and the exquisite sight of the way nature heals itself as it slumbers into darkness. And then there were sighs.

Labels: random ramblings, wanderlust