Across the National Sunka Highway
A crowded van (or vhire) from Allen in Northern Samar to Tacloban City in Leyte.
This is the 7th installment of the Luzon – Visayas – Luzon Loop series. Click the image on the right to check out the rest of the posts.
See the photo above? That’s me at the extreme left with only my left ear visible still taking this shot. If you noticed, thank you, the row I’m at is already full while I was given the kiddie seat just beside the sliding door of the van. It was small for my 5’10” frame. Really. To give me a semblance of comfort and spare me less of a sore butt, they had these wooden stool, around 4 inches in width propped up beside the kiddie seat that is removed whenever the door is opened as it might fall. I was seated there and used my 5 year old North Face jacket as a cushion. For 8 hours.
Now just think of how the Samar road network looks like. From San Isidro near Allen in Northern Samar to Calbiga in Western Samar, around 5 – 6 hours of countless potholes and craters, probably the worst national road system in the country. It might even be called as the National Sunka* Highway. With apologies to this once popular game.
That’s what you get when you don’t buy your tickets earlier than the usual. When you get to decide, come hell or high waters, you need to be in Ormoc City in time for the last boat bound for Cebu at 0000H that night.