PATHLESS TRAVELS

2020-03-152020-04-04

Pandemic journals, Week 2

Note: These are my Covid-19 Pandemic Journals, started on 1 March 2020 (offline) and my daily entries summarized every Sunday. They contain my personal observations, opinions and musings, which would otherwise remain buried in the sheer avalanche of news and analysis in these past three months of 2020. These have been trimmed down in some places and expounded in other places so I can post them here for public consumption. This are my entries for 8-14 March, Week 2.

2016-03-072019-09-22

Boat builders we must remain

I have this lifetime obsession with boats.

I secretly spend a huge amount of time reading and writing about watercraft of all types. I enthusiastically ride them every chance I get—from the rakit (pontoon barge) of many Abra River crossings in my childhood and youth, to the modern inter-island passenger ships that ply the southern islands from the Port of Manila, which I’d usually choose over airplane rides.

Continue reading “Boat builders we must remain”

2015-02-202015-04-24

At the bottom of a ravine

I will put the choices very simply for you.

You’re riding a bus from Baguio to Sagada. You notice that the driver is a brash young boy, most probably inexperienced, perhaps even a college brat out for kicks. The bus already had a few heart-stopping near-accidents just out of Sayangan, then in Buguias, then again in Sinto and after Mt. Data–all because of the amateurish driver’s carelessness.

IRAIA thoughts

Then, as the bus negotiates the steep trail to Sabangan, it happens. The driver goes into a hairpin turn, barely manages it, finds out the brakes are no longer working, careens inches away from a ravine, and is finally stopped–only through sheer luck–by a short upslope road grade.

The driver insists that the bus can still make it to Sagada, or at least to the Dantay junction. But most passengers want to get down, catch their breaths, hopefully flag down the next bus, perhaps even walk to the next junction where they can hire a jeepney instead. Continue reading “At the bottom of a ravine”