MANILA - SAGADA - BAGUIO - MANILA
(Part III)


"KISS THE RAIN"



Fog blanketing the Sagada sky.


Our surprising good luck with the weather ended today.

C. and i were planning to do a morning trek to the Bomod-ok ("Big") Waterfalls, and we expected to be back at our room at the Sagada Igorot Inn by early or middle afternoon.

Unfortunately, the strong, driving rains just kept on pouring and pouring, thereby cancelling the day's activities. There was literally nothing to do at all, except "play tong-its [a card game]" as the guy at the Tourist Information Center half-jokingly suggested.

This was fine with C., who has long mastered the art of taking long naps and generally doing nothing. On the other hand, i like to believe i remained non-plussed by the turn of events. C. would beg to disagree, as he noted i was already becoming fidgety after only ten minutes of enforced idleness.



Rain and fog make for a gloomy day.


To make matters worse, the streets were virtually deserted and most shops (including the few internet cafes) remained closed. The one and only newsstand in Sagada normally receives the daily newspapers from Manila around 2:00 PM; today, it was more like 3:30 PM.

To kill time, we decide to play a game: name all the songs you know with the word "rain" in the title.

Me : "Here Comes the Rain Again" by the Eurythmics
C : "Rain" by Madonna
Me : "Rhythm of the Rain" by the Cascades
C : "Ulan" by Rivermaya (well, sige na nga)
Me : "It's Raining Men" by Geri Halliwell
C : "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" by . . . .???
Me : "Kiss the Rain" by Billie Myers


But this took all of 46 seconds. . .arrgghhh, what else to do??!?!

Oh yeah, we did some walking around and checked out some of the other inns nearby. St. Joseph's Resthouse was the place where VIPs and showbiz people stayed in, but we felt it was overpriced at PHP1,200.00/night. George's Guesthouse is the new kid on the block; a double room goes for something like PHP400.00/night, PHP500.00/night if you want to have a TV in your room.



Walking past St. Mary's Episcopal Church.


We also availed of Igorot Inn's in-room massage service, and dropped by the coop canteen to order a carrot cake for C.'s friend. Aside from this, it was more aimless walking around for us.

I thought to myself, Sagada can be so quiet and too laid-back that i'd go crazy if we stay here for one more day.

But despite all my whining, i eventually felt that this day wasn't totally wasted. I realized that sometimes, when travelling, we get too preoccupied with the things to do, sights to see (and take photos of), restos to dine in, etc. that we forget to just savor the fact that we are somewhere new and different from our regular lives.

I have been guilty of this 'by-the-numbers' approach to travelling in the past, and i'm sure i will be guilty of it in the future.

I guess there is something about the relaxed, unhurried, "whatever happens, happens" pace of Sagada life that makes you accept that things can be unpredictable; and like it or not, you just have to go with the flow.

This realization made the slacker in me quite happy. Yey! :-D