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The Dreaded Bus Rides to and from Baguio

 

 

Recently, my family went to Baguio without me as I was tied up at work. At the last minute, I managed to get some free time and I decided to go to Baguio. To my utter dismay, I discovered that no airline flies to Baguio anymore. For some reason, I could not also get anyone to drive me up to Baguio. I had no choice but to take the bus. “What a nightmare!” was the first thought that came into my mind. Followed by doubts about whether I should travel to Baguio. Since I really wanted to go to Baguio, I decided to take the dreaded bus ride.

I dread bus rides to and from Baguio because, on 9 out of 10 times I take the bus, I get dizzy and throw up in Kennon Road or Naguilian.  The bus rides where I am sure to get dizzy and puke are on those buses with pine tree air-fresheners. The smell of those air-fresheners combined with the almost roller-coaster like movement of the bus means only one thing for me – VOMITSVILLE.

It has been more than ten years since I last rode a bus to Baguio.  The last time I rode the bus, the one-way fare on an air-conditioned bus was only PhP 175.00. Nowadays, the bus fare is PhP 430.00 for an air-conditioned bus, PhP 700.00 for the deluxe air-conditioned bus with a CR (comfort room) and PhP 650.00 for the deluxe air-conditioned bus without a CR.

Despite all my fears and reservations about the bus ride to Baguio, I must say that the trip was uneventful, i.e., I did not get dizzy and puke.  Someone must have also told the bus company that the pine tree air-fresheners were bad for business as they or their smell were nowhere to be found. Yahoo! The only inconvenience I experience was when the guy who sat beside me fell asleep and took up more space that he was allotted, and as a result, I was pushed to one side. Well, this problem was solved when I woke the guy up and politely asked him to move.

On this trip, I was at the bus station at 9:30 p.m. when I discovered that all the buses were full. My only option was to wait for a bus that would take me as a chance passenger. So, I waited in the bus stop for three hours until I was finally able to hop on a bus to Baguio.  I sat at the only available seat at the back of the bus.

As I was on the bus, I realized that bus rides to and from Baguio were a prominent part of my childhood.

Car rides to and from Baguio were a rare treat while I was growing up.  Most of the time, my family and I would take the bus. So, I must have taken over two hundred bus rides to and from Baguio under various circumstances.  I rode the bus in the morning, in the dead of night, alone, with my family, during the height of a storm, on fair weather days, when I was happy and when I was extremely depressed.

Each bus ride from Baguio would start out the same.  I would be worried and anxious about getting dizzy on the bus. After we pass Kennon Road or Naguilian, I would have either puked or survived the ordeal.  Then, I would feel better. The bus ride from Manila to Baguio would start with me being excited to go home.  I would enjoy the ride until right before Kennon Road and Naguilian where I would start worrying about getting dizzy and puking.

When I was not worrying about puking, I would spend the bus ride bonding with whoever I was with during the ride, looking out the window at seemingly never ending rice fields along the way or eating.  In those days, vendors would still come up on the bus to sell boiled bananas, boiled corn, tupig (smoked cassava cakes), boiled quail eggs and boiled peanuts.  On hindsight, it was during those bus rides where I would have deep and meaningful conversations with my parents or grandparents.  It was also during one of those bus rides that I made one of the greatest, if not the greatest, decisions of my life.

Although I dread taking the bus, I am glad I rode the bus to Baguio this time around as it reminded me of my childhood and of the people who had ridden the bus with me.

A postscript to my dreaded bus ride

I took the dreaded bus ride on Friday the 13th of February, which is a day before Valentine’s.  It dawned on me later that the reason why the buses were packed was because people were going up to Baguio to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  Gosh.  I am totally out of it.  The last time I celebrated Valentine’s Day, if you could call it celebrating, was in school when schoolmates would have gimmicks to make money on that day.

 

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under The Baguio I Remember. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.