Stay out of the water.

Well there isnt a whole lot to write about this week, since I spent an obscene number of hours inside a bus.

From Sagada I took an 8 hour ride to Baguio. Baguio is a fairly large city and is considered the "summer capital of the Philippines". They have an SM supermall! I bought a $4 hawaiian shirt to add to my collection. The fact that I have to lug it around for another 3 weeks is a small price to pay. The streets of Baguio were really hopping since I was there during the "Flower Festival". A classic springtime festival...w/ tons of vendors selling food on the street and everyone and his brother walking around. It was ok, but from the looks I kept getting I thought I had two heads or something. I've also decided to answer shouts of "Hey Joe" with shouts of "Hey Phil!" And demands for pesos will be met with "How about you give ME a peso?"

From Baguio it was a 6 hour bus ride to Manila. B/c Manila is such a sketchy place I was determined to get out of there ASAP. I called Tourist Information and then some bus companies and within the hour I was at another terminal and on a 12 hour overnight bus to Legazpi. Ugh... that one hour flight sure was looking appealing to me at the midnight busstop where I got a semi-legitimate meal... chicken adobo and rice (its just not a meal w/o rice!).. instead of the junk food availabe at the majority of bus stops. In Legazpi.. I quickly got ripped off my a trike driver who took me from the bus station to the jeepney station. 200 Pesos for a 7 minute ride!? The exhausted white girl fresh of the night bus was easy pickings. I wasnt so out of it that I didnt object to that... he ended up lowering it to 120 pesos.. and I gave him a an extra 20, and he stole 20 so that turned out to be 160 pesos. Then I climbed onto a jeepney for the two hour ride to Donsol. In Donsol I took another trike.. and remembered the cardinal rule! Negotiate the price BEFORE you get in. This guy only charged me 20 pesos for a 15 minute ride out to the Tourist Center. From there I signed in and watched the "Buntanding (thats Whale Shark!) Interaction Video". I lucked out and two Brits had reservations for a boat later that day so instead of chartering my own boat I just hung out and had noodles and some funny pink rice balls for breakfast while I waited for them to show up.

When they showed up we piled into a small boat w/ our "Buntanding Interaction Officer" and a couple other guys. We were only sailing a few minutes when our B.I.O. said to "GET READY!" so we hurriedly pulled on our fins (you just can't look cool in flippers) and our masks and perched on the side of the boat until he said GO! Then we jumped in a kicked like crazy to catch up with the whale shark. When I first saw it my heart started racing... and not just b/c we were swimming so fast! And that first time I really only saw its tail. The thing was seriously HUGE! I had to keep reminding myself that they are peaceful and only eat plankton... We prolly saw about 5-6 more before retiring for lunch. Some dove or swam away really fast but we got to swim alongside a couple for quite some time. They were easily as wide as I am tall and maybe 30 feet long. GINORMOUS! After lunch we went back out on the water, but didnt see any more.

When we quit it was after 4pm... so I had missed the last jeepney back to Legazpi. I should have stayed in a bungalow near the Tourist Center, but NO! Being a moron, I took a trike to Pilar where I got a jeepney to Daraga.. and then finally another jeepney to Legazpi.

Let me briefly explain the jeepney.. I forget if I already have or not. Apparently the Americans left a lot of jeeps in the Philippines after WW2. The Philippinos found a use for these by putting 2 benches in the back, painting them as ostentatatiously as possible and turning them into mid-distance taxis. From that descriptrion it may not sound like it, but the jeepney is a MIRACLE of public transportation! This is b/c no matter how full it looks (or feels when you are packed inside it)... there is ALWAYS room for 1 more! So what if all the seats on the benches (and the front seat) are filled to capacity... you can sit on someone's lap. No lap space? try squatting in the aisle. Don't want to do that? Hang onto the back. Back full? Climb on the ROOF! I swear we had almost 30 people in that jeepney.

I burned a day in Legazpi. I had wanted to get a photo of Mount Mayon (one of the country's most active volcanoes which is reknowned for its almost perfectly conical shape) which overlooks the town but it was shrouded in cloud-cover. Instead I went to the movies... saw the double feature of The Rundown (THE ROCK!!) and Mona Lisa Smile, plus popcorn and soda for a whopping $1. After dinner I jeepnied it back to Daraga and the "bus stop" which was more like a shack on the side of the road and waited for the Ormoc bounc bus to pass by. I think the people made a mistake b/c I ended up getting put on a Taclobad bound bus. Fortunately both are on the island of Leyte... so I buckled myself in for the most brutal overnight bus ride yet. My knees did not fit so I moved into the front seat. There I was worried about being tossed into the windshield whenever we stopped short (which was often)... but fortunately there was a seat belt.. and it even fit. Even buckled in I was tossed around way too much to sleep. Plus we all ahad to file off the bus and onto the 1am ferry from Luzon to Samar. I watched the tail end of a poorly dubbed Jackie Chan movie before talking to a Philippino-American who has promised me a tour of San Francisco when I get there in 2.5 weeks.

In the morning I get to Taclobad, and get onto a minivan for Ormoc. I didnt do much that day, since I was bordering on exhaustion. I watched the sun set from the pier and had dinner at the nightly Ormoc BBQ. There were 50+ vendors selling the exact same chicken on a stick and only a few guys chopping up servings of "lechon"... whole roasted pork. I tried some of both then picked up a pineapple and wandered along the waterfront for a while. It was quite lively since there was a political rally of some kind going on.... I think perhaps one of the presidential candidates? I'm not sure he got to say much though, since the only thing I hear was the Tagalog version of "build me up buttercup" playing on loop.

Yesterday I thought about daytripping out to Lake Danao, but I just couldnt find the motivation, so I just kicked around Ormoc some more. I discovered the "fresh market" where you can buy chicken heads and more! Basically I just wandered from Mango Shake stand to Mango Shake stand. Though I was starting to get a headache I dragged myself to the gym!! I was kind of hurt that the folks in charge thought I needed a trainer to walk me through a workout... And thought I was quickly able to establish that I didnt need one, I console myself by thinking that I wouldnt want the new white tourist doing something stupid and getting hurt in my gym either.

Today I am getting on the 130 ferry to Cebu. Since I am sick of moving so fast I will idle there for a day or two before heading out the the beach to work on my tan and do a bit of diving... if my bank acount can take it. I'm excited that I dont have any more super long bus-rides left... I couldnt really take much more of that, but I think the whale sharks were worth the trouble.