"Through the ring of fire...through the ring of ice...over the dog-doo stick!!!"

It was Christmas Day night and, believe it or not, I really wanted to get back to Manila. The prevous night I had spent in Besao, a small community north of Sagada. We stayed in Madonna's friend's brother's house for free, but being an ungrateful bastard with no Christmas spirit, I'm going to complain anyway. The place was small and comfortable, but in true bachelor style, it was completely filthy. The women started to cook a Christmas Eve supper of rice with anchovies in tomato sauce, fried dried fish things, and scrambled eggs. To be polite, and because I was starving, I ate everything I was given. Actually, the only real problem I had with any of the food was the discovery of a cockroach. Before water was added to cook the rice the women lifted the lid to find a huge cockroach tap-dancing all over the rice. "God" made dirt so dirt won't hurt... Well "God" made fecal coliforms too, and they fuck you up. Whatever.

We spent the day at the Melicong rice terraces outside of Bontoc. We had to bribe the jeepney driver to leave the village at 2:30 pm instead of the normal 4:00 pm in order to make it back to Bontoc for the 4:00 pm bus to Bagiuo that didn't exist. Faced with the prospect of waiting 13 hours for the next bus, and subsequently over-nighting in Bontoc, I decided to get a 2 hour jeepney to Banauae to get an 8 hour bus to Bagiuo. I said goodbye to my companions and boarded the jeepney, the only other passenger being an elderly lady. The road to Banauae was pant-shittingly scary. The dirt road snaked and weaved its way through the aptly named Mountain Province, on one side a nearly vertical wall of rock and vegetation, on the other a nearly vertical cliff. The drop had to be over 1000 feet. It was pouring rain and very misty/cloudy. Rivers were forming on the road and we were constantly passing huge mounds of rubble and vegetation that had come loose from the mountain and fallen into the road. This often reduced the road to a single lane. I remember we had to pass one gigantic mound of rock and soil with a huge tree sticking out of it. Looking out the back door of the jeepney I could see how close to the edge we had come. The tire tracks cut deep grooves in the muddy road less than a foot from the edge. Looking at it made me physically ill and only enforced the image of us plunging off the side of the mountain. The fact that the driver seemed completely unconcerned did little to ease my mind.

The lady and I had a conversation and we got to know each other a little. Her name was Gladys and she lived in Banauae but was also travelling to Bagiuo to attend a relatives funeral, so we would be rising the bus together. I would later find out on that bus ride that Gladys had been in an accident on that mountain road. The jeepney's steering column had stopped responding and instead of taking a left they had taken a down. Gladys ended up with a fractured jaw, a broken collar bone, a partially caved in skull, and broken arms and legs. She spent 3 months in the hospital. Other weren't so "lucky" and were killed. In addition to the injuries, I'm assuming Gladys also received a "Hard as Fuck" certificate from the Philippine government and a signed apology from Death. I'm just glad she told me this on the bus and not in the jeepney because I would have fainted and rolled out the back.

We finally get to Banauae around 5:30 pm. The next bus was to leave at 6:00 pm, so we had just enough time for a quick bite to eat. Gladys took me to a friend's restaurant (Vegas Eatery I think) and we ate some noodles. After paying, picking up some headache meds, and a water, we trotted back to the bus only to find it gone. For the first fucking time since I arrived in the Philippines something happened on time, leaving us in the dark and a torrential downpour. At this point I was physically exhausted from waking up at 6:00 am and trekking around rice terraces all day, and mentally exhausted from trying not to picture myself crawling out of a mangled jeepney on broken arms and legs, so I had resigned and started walking across the road to sleep in the ditch. Luckily for me, Gladys ain't goin' down like dat, and was all over the situation. She texted the bus terminal, hailed a tricycle, and ordered the driver to speed after the bus. She hopped in the passenger seat, I hopped on the back of the bike, and we fucking gunned it. We were weaving in and out of traffic in the pitch black on a rain slick road in the mountains at an unreasonable speed. It was like a scene from a bootleg knockoff version of "The French Connection". To my surprise and delight we actually caught up to the bus at which point the tricycle driver pulled some sweet suicycle Lance Murdock 180 skid to cut off the bus. I was impressed with the kid and gave him a nice tip.

So we spent the next 8 hours on the bus to Bagiuo, chatting about this and that, reading, sleeping, and being uncomfortable and bored. When we got to Bagiuo at 3:00 am I said goodbye to Gladys and got on yet another bus to Manila. I was one of the last passenger to board. There were 2 free seats in the back so I sat in the window seat and waited for the bus to leave. I'm beginning to think that I may be alone in the back when a dude sits next to me with a little boy on his lap.

"Great..."

About 20 minutes into the trip the kid starts making weird burping noises, and before I can process these familiar sounds, the kid fucking vomits all over me. It felt like gravy and smelled like poison. My leg, crotch, book bag, duffle bag, and foot are covered. Saturated. Earlier that day I had mis-stepped on a rice terrace and gone knee-deep in mud/moss/shit. As a result, I was wearing my shitty shower sandals, so I had the added pleasure of feeling the putrid liquid between my toes and under my heel.

The father says he's "So sorry sir" and gives me a half-assed pat-down with his shitty barf rag. He then goes back to tending to his kid and I go back to marinating. The kid looked like he was on Death's door, so that took most of the angry wind out of my sails. But, when the father made no attempt to do anything further I decided I couldn't sit in human effluent for 8 hours. I noticed him talking to a woman further up the bus so I tap him and said, "I'm switching places with your wife". I got up, dripping chunky shit-brown liquid and smelling like rotten McNuggets, slipping around in the aisle on the bus weaved through the mountains. It was fucking horrible.

I finally arrived back in Manila at 11:00 am where I was promptly ripped off by a cab driver. A fitting end to a ridiculous journey. Now, as I write this, my stomach is rolling and I'm chomping down the Pepto Bismol tabs.

I hate kids.