I am in a burger bar, a few meters away from the Ohayami Bus Station, where I will be boarding Bus No. 3 and I will be seated Chair No. 37. The bus will leave at 10:00 P.M. and I am heading off to Banaue.
This will be a long nine-hour bus ride.
When I was a really young girl — an elementary pupil at Libas Elementary School — I looked at Banaue as a magnificent destination that can only be found in my Social Studies books. We had a class project — a scrapbook of the Philippines’ top tourist spots — and my Mom would buy postcards of Nayong Pilipino, Chocolate Hills, Burnham Park, Ma. Cristina Falls, and the Banaue Rice Terraces.
In school, we were told that these tourist spots are frequented by foreign travelers hailing from different parts of the world. There was no mention of Filipinos traveling to these places.
It must be expensive to get there, the little girl thought.
But here I am facing bacon-wrapped burger waiting for night to fall.
The final destination is really NOT Banaue or its rice terraces. My plan is to travel all the way up to Sagada to eat passionately, breathe all that oxygen, and if I feel like it, go on a day tour to see the Hanging Coffins and experience Echo Valley.
I have no intention to go spelunking or caving.
I just want to sit down in a café, a restaurant, or a carinderia to savour every bite of the food served right infront of me. I mean to eat and pause, pause and eat, eat and pause; not just eat because I am very hungry.
I will eat because I want to.
Because I want to experience my food.
Most importantly, I want to eavesdrop on conversations (if I would be lucky enough to have “neighbors” from other tables). You won’t believe how interesting conversations are or the directions they take when they are done in cafés. There is so much personality even when two people are not communicating using words. In the many years I have spent jn this eavesdropping profession, I yet have to encounter a boring topic being discussed in a restaurant, in a table filled with food.
Back to where I am now, this burger bar, I had to tell the waiter to wrap this bacon burger. I haven’t had any oily food or white bread in the last 14 days after attending a Mindful Eating Workshop. I meant to reward myself with something sinful. But this burger, the type I used to wolf down with much gusto, was barely touched. I should probably give this to someone. I do not want to throw away 139 pesos.
The waiter obliged and said he will come back in a few (minutes).
He is not that friendly but he is not snobbish.
He works like he’s not happy with his job, but not the type who wants to leave it either.
He is stuck in between.
It is 6:08 in the evening.
Four hours to go and it is goodbye Manila and hello Banaue!
This entry was written on September 11, 2016 (Sunday), 5:54 P.M. at Jacko’s Burger Bar in Sampaloc, Manila.
