Going back to my hometown requires a lot of strength for traveling.
Right after a three-hour ride by land, you have to endure another 2-hour of sitting in a boat.
I love these long road trips just looking at horizons. How landscapes change from rice fields to mountains, from clear Manila skies to the rainy clouds of the Sierra Madres.
Road trips are also a time where my dad and I come up with the most jokes and stories.
We've heard the same jokes for decades but we still laugh at it.
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After a day at the town proper of Polillo,
We headed for Burdeos, a neighbor municipality, to visit my lolo and lola's friends.
We rode a four-wheel-drive jeepney.
It rained a little in the morning, making the road rough and uneven.
Roads get bumpier as you progress.
It takes two hours of up and down to get to the main town.
After, we took another boat ride to get to the island of Palasan
Seven of us on a tiny boat!
Palasan Island, Burdeos
Is home to a few residents. It is almost uninhabited!
Whitish-grey sand and kilometers of mangrove forests.
We walked for about 15 minutes to get to our host's house and we passed by just two houses before that.
This is their humble home where we stayed. The bahay kubo
Talahib everywhere. (Also our bathroom)
If we were going to define simple life, this is it. They live without the "necessities" we have.
No electricity except for a solar-powered bulb. No internet, not even a radio.
They work on their backyard to feed themselves, if it isn't enough,
they go fishing or trade their goods for meat.
I can't live this way for long terms but I appreciate what they do.
It is an experience to live their life for once.
