Davao Fun: “Rocky Road”

Digos City, Philippines, 28th September 2011 – After almost 2 hours out of Davao City, I was a bit tired having no sleep for 24 hours….from the plane trip that dawn, car trip that morning, bus trip after breakfast, the latest being a tricycle trip, and here we were in a van which was still sitting itself prettily in the dusty old terminal of city – waiting to be filled up with passengers.

Vendors kept shouting out their wares as they passed by.
My eyes were drooping at half-mast while my neck was canting slowly downwards.
I was in a light daze of meditation (or confusion?) when a male voice kept on repeating a phrase which penetrated the fuzzy fog in my brain.

I suddenly popped my eyes to their widest extent, jerked my head backwards and glanced alertly at the open door where there was man holding a plastic package of yellow-colored items.

+++++
Cat: WHAT? Did you say you’re selling Rocky Road?  (I was referring to the ice cream flavor)

Vendor (staring): ha?  (And you can almost hear his mind click tick-tock)

Cat: Rocky road, right?

Vendor (waves the plastic pack): Fish crackers ma’am.

*silence lasting for 5 seconds while Cat and the vendor stare at each other*

Cat (vehement): But…but! I swear I heard “rocky road” being said a couple of times!

Mommy Arlene (sitting by my side, poked me gently):  He said “CRACKER OW!”

Cat (small voice): Oh! …..ehehe…*sheepish*

I guess when one is half-asleep…and you consider some slang differences in dialects..maybe the “cracker” sounded like “rocker” and the “ow” was like “rowd”…

*grasping at straws*

MWAHAHA!

– Sep 30, ’11 9:03 PM

Travel Toinks (Davao): Plenty of Load

Davao City, Philippines, 24th September 2011 – The well-used dusty bus seemed ready to roll off in a few seconds into the wild unknown….but this time it was off to Digos City.

Che belatedly recalled she had to load her mobile as it was very important for us to have communication with the people we were to contact in our road trip.

Her boyfriend Loo might also be wondering what happened to her on the adventure.

She hopped off the bus to one of the many stalls below where there were loading services for prepaid SIM cards.

The bus was ready to depart….I was anxiously craning my neck to and fro like a bewildered giraffe, she came back to the bus and sat back down into her seat. Thank goodness!

We calmly settled ourselves for an hour’s ride to Digos, where we jumped from the parked bus and rode a tricycle from the new terminal to the old bus terminal.  I was more familiar with in my previous trips from Gen. Santos to Davao itself.

In the old bus terminal, we found a van which was waiting to be filled up for passengers to Kapatagan, a somewhat remote area where the Camp Sabros was located – perfect for zipline newbies and experienced zippies.

After draping ourselves as comfortably as possible among the creaky seats of the van,  we wanted to double check on the internet about our route and check how well we were doing.

Lucky that we had our cellphones and she had her load!

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Che (flicking open her phone and scrolling rapidly): Oh I got plenty of load…I think its even Php 400!

Cat (happy): Whoa!….that is a lot!

Che (nodding):  Yeah, ‘coz I also texted my officemate and asked her to load my phone. 

Cat (excited): Great! We can surf longer or even the whole day!

 

*silence for long moments while Che busily pushes buttons on her mobile phone*

Cat ( di na makatiis or in other words, excited na): ok …so..what does it say?

Che: Uhmm…hehe…I can’t surf….na low-batt ang cellphone.

 

*blips out?*

Well at least…ehem..plenty of load…hehehe…

 

– Sep 30, ’11 8:34 PM