Philippine Travel Notes

I passed by this town just 6 days ago! I usually do a number of times in a month, like this afternoon again, but I never really had a good chance to see their town center. But today was an opportune time! I just came out of a meeting at VSU in Baybay City, going for another meeting at Baybayon ni Agalon. So, a real "hello Albuera let me see you now"! Like anywhere in this region (nowadays, that is), the roads here are fine... This one is not near though. While Baybay City and Albuera are next to each other, it still is a distant 20+km from VSU (which is even already outside, and north of Baybay City proper) to Albuera proper. It rained quite a bit last night until this morning, so I was not surprised to see this... What is this thing? A factory? A Bodega? Kawawa naman... baha! I did not have to tell my driver. He now knows what I like to see if we are in the center of any town. So in no time, we stopped here, the St. James Parish Church of Albuera, Leyte. Nice well-m...

Okay folks, moving on with my story, I reached Baybay City 7:19AM – that means it took the Villaquer Tours Bus from Hilongos exactly an hour and two minutes. Be that fast or slow, some of you can probably tell me! Looking around, I saw there were signs of damage here and there, but nothing that would make me call home about. Pretty or even petty normal, if I compare them to what I have seen on TV so far. Baybay was not in Yolanda’s direct path anyway. So, I silently said ‘good for them’! I walked towards where the vans for various destinations emanate from. Asking a manang as I bought a stick of Marlboro (RED, there are no Lights here), she said “ah, terminalan? didto pa”! New word “Terminalan” hehe! But as I walked so, a bus with few passengers came and it had a big sign that said “ORMOC”. I don’t know what came to me, I hopped on. And yes, just as I thought, it was too slow, even motorbikes and tricycles were overtaking us along the highway. When conductor came for my fare, I...