Friday, March 26

Egdar and I had to make a last minute trip to the immigration office today to make sure our visas were renewed before heading out of town to the rice terraces. The immigration office is just chaos....and getting there took forever since it was Friday and something was happening somewhere with someone important so I ended up spending at least 2 hours in a taxi today before getting on a bus overnight. It was good to get it over with though.

I had to eat a pretty large slice of humble pie tonight once getting on the bus. In my mind/memory....I remember Leah handing me the bus tickets for everyone....all 9 people going on the trip...and when she gave them to me I immediately felt an insane amount of responsibility and tried to hand off the load of responsibility to the bus conductor man as soon as possible. I remember handing him the bus tickets.

When he came to the back of the bus where we were sitting and asked for the bus tickets, I firmly told him how I had already given him the bus tickets...which he didn't have. I was very adament, and Dior who had planned the trip for us and speaks Tagalog, stood up for me and told the man how we had already given him the tickets. Edgar looked through all the tickets he had, and ours were not there. I truly rememberered handing him these tickets. After a while, and feeling so frustrated, and potentially almost getting kicked off the bus, I lifted my pink backpack up off my lap to find all 9 tickets....in my lap. I'm not quite sure how to say "my b" in Tagalog, but it would have been a good time to know.

Later on in the middle of the night, one of our friends woke up desperately needing to use the bathroom. At first I willingly offered to go to the front to ask the man if the bus could stop for my friend, then realized how much he would probably hate me if I did so. Fortunately, the bus stopped soon after and I continued to gravel until I finally got a smile out of him. I think he forgave me.

The bus ride there was pretty entertaining. I'm not sure how to explain it if you weren't there, but I'll try. 2 people sat in lawn chairs in the middle of the isle because I guess they bought tickets at the last minute when the bus was full. Somehow, amazingly, they were able to sleep in these lawn chairs.

Some bathrooms we stopped at charged money...very small amounts...but for toilets that didn't flush or have any toilet paper.

The roads were super windy, so sleeping was pretty difficult since we were rocking back and forth all night long. Plus, since it's a 2 lane highway, the bus was passing people all night long which was terifying. I woke up several times hearing the horn honking and then seeing oncoming traffic. Don't worry mom and dad, I'm safe and sound at home now :)