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.

Day 1: Signing In

At first glance, it seems as if the countryside out of Clarke airport where we landed would be just as similar to the kampung lands of Malaysia. But I was oh so wrong to make such an assumption. As traveling through the region showed a lot of the land that made it typically Filipina.


Many of us came prepared for cool temperatures and we were disappointed to find the heat to be much worse than in KL. But only later in Baguio did we find the cooler mountainous temperature we were looking for, and it’s very similar to that of Cameron Highlands.

The bulk of the first day was mostly covered by traveling across the countryside and up towards the Cordillera region of Baguio. We saw lush greens, vendors selling their wares by the roadsides, narrow rivers, poorly kept houses, messy roads with all means of transportation littering the roads from jeepneys (remnant of the American occupation in the Philippines), to buses, cars and tricycles.


Vendors here have a daring bravado as they would stride onto buses with passengers to sell their wares and insist on selling, even when the passengers have already decline. Though most of us could see that making a living here is not an easy thing even though the cost of living doesn’t seem too high a price to pay.

The language barrier was frustrating at first as the people we were mostly in communication with, the vendors, would look blankly at us when we went ‘How much?’ or ‘What is this?’ But at the least, most of them spoke some basic English and we got by just fine.

Curving roads, misty air, purple sky and an orangey sunset would be the words I’d use to describe the road we finally took to go up the mountains after a 4 plus hour bus ride on normal roads. Not to mention the extremely audacious bus driver who drove the bend of the mountain like as if it was a road he could drive with his eyes blindfolded. Our bodies swayed and moved along with the dancing bus bringing us through a tango of sorts.

We ended the night with a fairly good meal at a pub with a live band. Though most of us were already tired beyond belief at the day long travel, many of us sat through the loud live music and enjoyed a decent meal to satisfy our tummies.


One thing of interest to note as we flew in is the lava-like design on the ground that could only be lava, remnant from a nearby volcano (I think). Definitely something for us to investigate as we travel around and ask, whether a living volcano still survives in this region of the Philippines?

Tomorrow seems to carry the promise of a new day, a day where we learn about the Cordillera Region, indigenous issues from the CPA and a feel of the Muslim religion here in Baguio would come into play.

Editor-in-chief
Shu Yi

For more photos from Day 1, head over here.