For about 16 years, I was a frequent bus traveler. My work took me out of the country, but I found myself in Manila for more than a week almost every month. This routine allowed me to go home to Bicol once or twice a month. If I were to do the math, it would show I spent over 8,000 hours on those buses. As for my carbon footprint, I have never attempted to calculate it.

In the beginning, it was fine with me riding ordinary and even rickety buses. But I soon realized that spending several hours in transit, lost in the world of dreams, was a rejuvenating and indulgent experience. That’s when I started opting for first-class buses, complete with single seats, air conditioning, reclining seats, TV, video, urinal, and more.

I was a privileged regular bus rider, and a bus company even reserved a preferred window seat (Seat F, but not for Felix) specifically for me. It wasn’t given to anyone without my approval, not even to dignitaries (although I’m certain they’d grant it to another frequent bus rider, like VP Leni, if she were already a congresswoman at the time). Along the way, drivers would wake me up at stopovers to join them for a complimentary meal. I would savor a can of pineapple juice and a stick of cigarette. Some of my fellow frequent travelers even suspected I was a co-owner of the bus company, but that wasn’t the case. Ironically, several of the bus companies I patronized eventually went bankrupt for various quirky reasons.

I was among the passengers on the inaugural fleet of night buses from Naga City that traversed the controversial Quirino Highway on the way to Manila. This diversion reduced travel time by two hours but had a negative impact on the local economy of the province (Camarines Norte) that was bypassed.

As I neared the end of my travels, I noticed that first- and business-class buses started stopping at fast food restaurants like Jollibee, Chowking, and MacDonald’s instead of the old roadside eateries. Unfortunately, this change meant that traditional native eateries along the route lost their longtime patrons. But, on the positive side, drivers became more courteous, and passengers displayed better manners. The amenities at new terminals were also more modern and comfortable. But there was a downside because fares had increased exponentially. I remember my first bus ride to Manila costing less than Php 150, while my last trip to Bicol, even with a discount, was about Php 1,000.

The following are some amusing and not-so-amusing episodes from my bus trips.

Once, I was rushing home after a devastating typhoon several days before the Penafrancia fiesta. The trip was filled with detours, washed-out bridges, and impassable stretches of the highway. I had to change buses several times and even walked for hours in the dead of night. It took me almost two days to reach home, and my pasalubong of Goldilocks puto, French bread, Toblerone, and more had vanished. All the passengers had consumed their pasalubong in the two days we spent together.

On another occasion, a balikbayan passenger was desperate to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral at 9 am. The driver repeatedly assured him that we would arrive before 7 am. But after enduring four flat tires, we finally reached Naga City at 11 am.

There was a memorable incident when several armed men boarded the bus as we traversed the Bicol National Park along the highway. These young and muscular individuals, one exceptionally good-looking, were surprisingly nonchalant. After a few minutes, they disembarked without causing any trouble. The most attractive among them even winked at a pretty lady seated in the front row causing her to faint. When she regained consciousness, she revealed that the charming man was her long-lost college boyfriend and the father of her daughter. She wanted to follow them, but it was too late as they had disappeared into the darkness. The driver later disclosed that they were familiar faces in the area. They were rebels from affluent families who had studied in elite Manila universities.

Passengers who were not accustomed to air conditioning often fiddled with the overhead regulators complaining about the cold. Many had not brought sweaters or jackets and felt that the bus company should provide blankets.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking beer inside the bus were common practices with passengers even offering each other a light. Smokers blowing acrid smoke inside buses didn’t seem to bother anyone. There were drivers who chain-smoked to ward off sleepiness.

In one memorable incident, a loudmouthed foreigner seated in a section of the bus with a leaking roof was given a toy umbrella by another annoyed foreigner. This seemingly innocent exchange escalated into a brawl resulting in one of them falling flat on the floor by the door.

Goto with egg, later known as Congee, was the all-time favorite meal at stopovers. It was often difficult to determine who had passed gas inside the bus.

On one occasion, a sleepy passenger was inadvertently left behind at a stopover. He had left his canvas bag on his seat, covered with a conspicuous airline blanket. The driver assumed he was asleep, but in reality, he had wandered into a nearby cogon area communing with nature.

During the days leading up to and following long holidays such as Christmas, the Peñafrancia fiesta, All Saints Day, school breaks, and more, bus aisles were occupied by passengers who had not made advanced bookings. They improvised by sitting on tin cans of Mysan biscuits or pieces of wood they had brought for this very purpose.

At one bus terminal, an embarrassing incident occurred involving a pretty lady who was disrespectful and motioned for a beautiful woman seated beside her boyfriend to move and give her space. Little did she know that the woman was her future mother-in-law.

Once, the driver and co-driver engaged in boisterous conversations about their escapades in the big city during the day. This irritated the passengers seated in the front. Suddenly, a furious and burly passenger rose from his seat and berated the drivers with a thunderous voice. He demanded that they leave the bus insisting that he could drive it on his own in silence all the way to Bicol. A quiet whisper circulated among the passengers that he was a battle-scarred army colonel, who was assigned to a faraway location in Mindanao. From that point on, the driver and co-driver communicated through body language until we reached the Naga terminal.

One night, the bus broke down after a heavy downpour with the Northeast monsoon in full swing. It was well past midnight. The driver was puzzled about the issue, and he anticipated a lengthy delay before we could continue our trip. I decided to go outside and walked toward the side of the highway, a short distance from the bus. It was then that I noticed the ground beneath my feet slowly giving way. In no time, I found myself sliding down a steep ravine into pitch darkness. I desperately grasped at anything I could find, and my hands could grab only mud and muck. After what felt like an eternity, I landed on a hard surface, a ledge just wide enough for me to move around. It felt as though some higher force had guided me to safety after I had repeatedly made the Sign of the Cross. I imagined the drivers and fellow passengers searching for me, but all I could hear was the haunting song of the wind. Eventually, I began to inch my way to the right, where I found clumps of thick grass and shrubbery. With painstaking effort, I managed to climb back up to the highway. When the drivers saw me, covered in mud and muck, they were startled. They noticed a streak of blood on my forehead and bruises on my forearms. They thought I might be a creature from another world. I then recounted the incident to them, and one of the drivers said that the ravine was more than one hundred meters deep with a rocky river below. I would not have survived a free fall.

Back at home, I emptied the contents of my still-wet wallet. It was then that I realized my small metal cross, which had been with me since my teenage years as I roamed the streets of Naga City, was missing. That cross had always made me feel invulnerable to evil forces and gave me the confidence to confront uncertainties and overcome challenges anywhere in the world. I contemplated returning to the exact spot where I had lost it, planning a day trip to do so. On one occasion, I shared the entire story, including the missing cross, with a deeply religious neighbor. The disappearance of my cross became a central topic of our conversation. He suddenly exclaimed that my missing cross was the mysterious ledge that had saved me from certain death. At that moment, I felt the hair on my forearms stand up like miniature crosses. My intuition told me that I would find a replacement soon. Indeed, several days later, on the night I was departing for Manila, my wife surprised me with a replica. She had purchased it from one stall near the Peñafrancia Basilica.

Featured headline image of DLTB Asiastar Greyhound Express buses bound for Sorsogon by Mavigator.