Who thinks it is a nine hour trip to Banaue, errs. It's maybe a 5 hour bus ride and another 4 hours of digging around. Every 1.5 hour our bus stops in some remote place. Food stalls are readily lined up to offer 3 in 1 “coffee”, cup noodles, chicheron, and chips. Toilet facilities get more and more simple and are eventually limited to the street side (good luck to us ladies). But anyway, I can't even drink so fast to need a pit stop every 90 minutes! After a while I wonder if I paid 400 Pesos for a bus ride or a parking ticket!
On top of the artificially prolonged trip, the temperature in the bus is nowhere near any normal human habitat (except for the North Pole, maybe). I’m wearing two pairs of socks, an outdoor jacket designed for heavy rains and winds over my t-shirt and sweater. Still, I’m close to losing limbs to frost bite.
It is so cold inside the bus that the water condensates on the outside and I can’t even appreciate the landscape rushing by. When we finally get off the bus in Banaue I can’t use my camera for another 40 minutes as the lens is fogged. All the while I thought I’m in the tropics!
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