Overload

I rarely have an overload when travelling, almost never the feeling that it’s just too much. Today I have met my match. I miss the last non-stop night bus from Pagudpud for a good schnitzel. The competition catches up with the bus as far as Laoag. I rush through the city on a trike and jump on the night bus to Manila at the last minute.

Even before five o’clock in the morning, the traffic is absolutely crazy again. Taxi to the next bus two hours down to Batangas, up on the Speed Cat to Mindoro. In Calapan there are only minivans. The block attendant squeezes 18 passengers into mine, four on each bench and especially the last bench – mine – has ten centimetres of negative legroom.

My right knee is wedged between the front bench and the bodywork. It tingles at first. After a quarter of an hour, I can’t feel a thing. The old woman in front of me smells like dead fish. Her head keeps falling onto the laptop bag in my lap. The air conditioning fails. You can’t move a single centimetre for almost four hours. Not a single stop. The first painful cramp in your bum lasts half an hour, I can’t even reach it with my hands. The others pass more quickly.

Real travelling means moving like the inhabitants of your destination. But they’re all 40 cm shorter than me! I count down the seconds until I arrive for over two hours. I’ve now been on the road for 33 hours. It’s too much. I can’t take it anymore! The smell. The cramped conditions. The heat. The annoying noises from three mobile phone games of three travellers. Several times I’m on the verge of asking to be let out immediately in the middle of the country road. I say nothing. Until the end.

The strut of my Ozone bursts a second time, this time without any outside influence. After 50 almost problem-free flying hours, my drone crashes into the water from a height of 25 metres for no apparent reason. Presumably it wanted to go for a swim. RIP. Four pairs of glasses are scratched or donated to Neptune. My knee is in perma-yodelling mode.

Travelling means reduction, doing without and having a lot of fun with few things.
This trip is very successful.