BAD TRIP 9: Hot Air

Strange how a mere six hours can push the price up by two thousand pesos. I was booking round-trip tickets for the wifey and the little princess at cebupacificair.com and I couldn’t figure out the significance of that six hours. If they take the 3pm flight, it’ll cost me Php 7,000 but if they take the 9am flight on the same day, then I’ll have to pay Php9,000! What the…!!?

Another thing I hate about it is the way they price one-way seats at Php 99 (yipeee!!!) but demand Php2,000++ to include surcharges and taxes. Why not say the price is really Php 2,000 outright?

But still I am thankful to Cebu Pacific for making air travel affordable even if I have to endure silly inflight games (bring me whatever!) and agonizing check-in procedures (long lines stretch forever!).

BAD TRIP 8: From a Weary Window I Wept...

The last tricycle passed five minutes ago. Nothing else has passed since then…

Time passes ever so slowly in places like Eastern Samar, where the ticking of the clock is almost obscene. People are never in a hurry to do anything, seemingly content to go through life on all fours, crawling along at a snail’s pace.

It pains me to see so much poverty in one place… so widespread it slaps you in the face. And this is happening amidst so much bounty – seas teeming with marine life and fertile lands begging to be tilled. Yet most of the people are dirt-poor… living in dilapidated nipa huts, sitting about on the front porch all day, idly watching life pass them by.

Perhaps that is why they prefer to just grow coconuts – they just wait to harvest the nuts, allowing plenty of time to sit on the front porch.

(Sigh)