My Travel Adventures

I woke up to an extremely foggy morning. Despite my inn’s prime location at the top of Batad’s rice terraces, I only caught a few glimpses of the terraces below through occasional tears in the clouds. The night before, I had arranged a tour around the terraces for eight o’clock in the morning, but I began to doubt whether I should go through with it as the fog showed no signs of lifting. I considered staying at the inn all morning. It was a cozy place run by a young lady and her mother, and I found the set-up quite charming.

When I went to sleep at around one in the morning, I set my alarm to half past nine not believing that I could really sleep so late. I expected that even though I was tired, I would still end up waking up at around seven or eight because of my circadian rhythm. My first words upon waking to my alarm, therefore, were “oh my God!” It was not that I was upset but genuinely surprised that my body had finally asked for and given itself the amount of sleep it needed.

Today was so rainy that I only realised mid-afternoon that my sunglasses were useless. The surface had been destroyed by yesterday’s rain showers, which blurred the view by wearing down the polarised coating in uneven patches. Luckily, I found a big mall during my wanderings through the centre of Manila and bought new sunglasses there. Taking a gamble, I decided to pay for them in cash, as I am almost halfway through the trip and I have not spent anywhere close to half of the quantity I exchanged. Still, I do feel a bit nervous that I might run out of cash in the middle of nowhere at the most inconvenient time.