Humorous First Day

It’s our first day exploring the Philippines, a neighbouring country that many of us, I assume, know so little about. The day started of with disappointment when one of our fellow comrades, Claudia could not join us but the sadness was swallowed up by some funny incidents. One might wonder, what would take place when a bunch of Monash Commies came under the care of Dr Yeoh and Melissa, our two chaperons? Lots of laughter, naturally.

Incident number one, Jojo (Jasmine Yeoh) had mistakenly lost her passport after going through the baggage check. A big no-no would be to lose one’s passport because no passport means no identity, means no Jasmine on the trip, means no fun…you get the equation. Everyone was in a frenzy searching in the rubbish bins for signs of her little red book while Erica dig frantically in Jasmine’s backpack but to no avail. I’d say Jasmine looked like she was going to have a heart attack while she fluttered around asking the security guards for help. The near death experience (yes, it was very dramatic) was remedied when Erica realized the precious passport to be in her pouch. Apparently, Jasmine had absent-mindedly handed her passport into Erica’s care for a while and Erica’s natural instinct was to automatically keep important documents into her pouch. It ended up with everyone having a good laugh and heaving a sigh of relief. That was just the beginning, and as promised there were more funny bits to come.

Incident number two, and again poor Jojo was caught in another false alarm as everyone had collected their luggage from the carousel while Jasmine was still searching and waiting eagerly for her backpack to arrive. After all the wait and worrying of a possible lost luggage and another potential heart attack (yes, again it was very dramatic), she realized that some comrades of ours had picked it up and her red backpack was snugly lying in the trolley without her knowledge. The good thing to know was that after all the chaos, everyone was cool and laugh it off like nothing happened.


After the miscommunication at the airport, we finally got onto the bus and it remains to be one of the most torturous rides of our lives. The bus is driving on the wrong side of the road (Philippines drivers drive on the right side of the road) which made many of us uncomfortable as incoming vehicles zoomed pass us, giving the illusion of a head-on collision. The bus ride was a long six hours with only two stops, Susan said “I can’t feel my ass” and Erica felt like she’d “been on the bus for two years”. Although the seats were slightly more comfortable than the claustrophobic Air Asia, the winding and bumpy roads did not help the situation.

I had several cultural shocks myself, looking out from the bus was pretty fun, you get to observe the beautiful scenery of Clark and Baguio, the paddy fields, the cows and cute-looking jeepneys and of course, the people. I was practically left with my mouth gaping when I saw a local man relieving himself on a wall in public, in wide-open-public! I could hardly believe my eyes; a few other men who saw me with my eyes nearly popping out were chuckling away, probably thinking “She ain’t seeing nothing yet!” Indeed, that was very true when I spotted a man who casually scooped up water with his bottle from a puddle on the street and guzzle it in. I was dumbstruck. He must have had a really strong stomach to survive the bacteria laden liquid. The toilet was another funny experience that cannot be left out. The first toilet we visited was pretty comely, the low door sort of made me feel exposed and uncomfortable, however in terms of cleanliness, it was better than many other public toilet in Malaysia.

Nevertheless the whole idea of being exposed, gave us the the biggest shock when we got to the next toilet stop and realize that there were no doors, NO DOORS! Nonetheless, the sheer desperation of needing to relieve our bursting bladders made us shrug of the embarrassment and continue with our business.

I guess after all the chaos and culture shock, it only make us more eager to explore Baguio and Sagada and crawl out of our comfort zone and embrace this new cultural experience with a big smile and a great sense of humour!

by Eunice

For more photos from Day 1, head over here.