I love long bus rides.
I especially love the ones which last for eight to 12 hours. The kind that involves only two rest stops. Those rides that makes your bum numb from seating for four hours straight.
I love the sound of the engine roaring as it makes love to the road for the very first time; hesitant, unsure but definitely romantic and full of passion.
Two old women to my right are eating junk food like it is the best dish in the world. They looked happier than two social climbing yuppies in a fancy, overpriced resto somewhere in New York City.
Their laughter refuses to send people to sleep but nobody dares to reprimand them, lest they be branded disrespectful of the old women’s pleasure.
An argument ensued between two foreign ladies and a taxi driver. The ladies refused to pay the driver stressing that the driver tried to fool them by bringing them to the wrong bus station.
The driver insisted he meant well and he is no criminal.
Conductor said it was time to leave.
Bus roared and I uttered my silent goodbye to the concrete jungle that is Manila.
Night fell and sweet music from the local radio station attempted to lull people to sleep. It tried to drown the women’s laughter again.
It failed.
Again.
In this part of the world, this bus gathered the member countries of the United Nations. I sit at No. 37. The Norwegians are on Nos. 35 and 36. The American is on No. 45 while the Korean and what appears to be his Filipino girlfriend are on seat numbers 5 and 6. The German couple on Nos. 11 and 12. No. 38 is French. No. 44 is Filipino American. The women, now my favorite characters, are natives of Banaue.
“Where are you going?” No. 38 asked me.
“Sagada,” I replied.
“Via Banaue huh?” Was the follow-up question.
“Yes.”
“Heartbroken?” he asked.
“No. Happily married with three children,” my polite reply.
“Then why travel?” No. 38 asked.
I paused.
Valid question.
Why travel indeed.
But why can’t I, a woman happily married to a wonderful man, travel to a place where people dubbed to be the destination for broken hearts?
I was asked similar questions in this trip.
Are you heartbroken?
Is your marriage falling apart?
Did your husband cheat?
Did you fall out of love?
So I formulated a standard answer: “I wanted to escape the headache brought about by the house expansion and construction.”
It was partly true.
But the truthful answer is: “I need my monthly me time.”
Sagada seemed to be the place for that this September.
I attended Louella “Tita Loy” Alix’s book launch in Quezon City and it made sense to just go up north and travel without an itinerary.
Just like old times.
My early years as a reporter for Cebu Daily News was characterized by random bus rides. The South Bus Terminal was my refuge as it gave me the option as to which bus to hop in and to take me to different towns down south.
My adventurous streak was on a hiatus in 2015 when I lived in the US and was mostly confined in the house to take care of the children.
But now, I am back in the Philippines.
I am soooo back.
Pardon me if I am not the type of traveler who shares her itinerary because honestly, I do not have any.
I am not a firm believer of itineraries anymore.
I grew tired of it. I have laid out the events of my life in my 20s that I felt that in my 30s, it would be too much to still practice this.
I still make to-do lists. It gets me through the demands of work and motherhood and wifehood.
But when I travel alone, I am not a mother.
I am a woman in a mission to find time for herself.
I would love to spend time marveling at the flaky texture of a lemon pie until I get bored and not because I was disrupted by the squeal of Twin A because he was bitten by Twin B.
At the Echo Valley with my tour guide, Marco, I called out Jeff and my voice bounced back. I heard my echo. To convert this into a hugot line perhaps I can say: “You will always come back to the one you love.”
Ha! Lame…?
I breathe in all the oxygen from the pine trees that surround me. I felt so small yet so privileged to be part of nature.
In China, where I used to live, the Echo Valley and Sagada’s clear blue skies are expensive sites.
People will pay to have this view.
At 4:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, I was seated in a makeshift kiosk eating champorado with freshly brewed coffee with my guide, Satur Segundo.
I remember the cold wind touching my face with my eyes closed and I felt calm, serene, happy.
Moments like this are my favorite.
Not the mandatory pose infront of a tourist spot.
