What are your unforgettable experiences while traveling? Or should I say the “buwis buhay” or tragic/bad experiences kind of trip? It’s not all happy and enjoyable while traveling. Some things will turn out not the way you expect it to be. Not the smooth sailing kind of travel that you planned.
- Flight. There will always be that delayed flight. I am still grateful that I haven’t experienced a canceled flight from different airlines. I only experienced an almost 6 hours delayed flight, unlike my friends who had different experiences. There was one who was canceled for 1 day or 2 days because of the bad weather. He experienced it three flights consecutively – going back to Manila from Tuguegarao, Puerto Princesa and in Singapore. There was a friend whose plane made a U-Turn going back to NAIA 3 because the plane couldn’t land in Albay due to bad weather. She eventually made a flight in the afternoon and made it to Albay.
- Turbulence. There are the turbulences in the plane and the unsafe plane landing that you’d experience during a flight.
- Boat rides – I had experienced 3-4 meters of waves because of a low-pressure area in the Andaman Sea. The Andaman sea was where the Boxing Day tsunami happened in 2004. Locally, a low-pressure area going to Camiguin was seen during our flight. The waves were rough where the cargo boat swayed to the docks and banged the port area. I almost thought I couldn’t make it to our destination.
- Attacked by a Jelly Fish. Jellyfish season comes every hot temperature of the sea. Along the coast, in Borawan I was stung by a box jellyfish. I felt a blast of hot, itchy dotted ink on my legs while taking a swim. I got out of the water and found the back of my two legs swollen with blackened spots.
Look for the jellyfish 
I was treated in Puting Buhangin in Padre Burgos where the locals gave me vinegar and calamansi. Overnight, my left leg with the worst attack started to be very painful, I wasn’t able to walk properly. I also had a fever after. The blackened spots lightened but there were still visible on my legs even after 5 years that it happened. - Northwest monsoon or Habagat – The northwest monsoon before was not like the monsoon we experienced since 2009. It comes every year from July to September in the Philippines and makes the seaboards rough. Nowadays it also creates a “splash surge” and an enormous amount of rain. And because of the surge, my friends and I experienced a really near-death experience because of the roughness of the waves and lightning across the open sea in San Antonio, Zambales.
- There were other trips that were canceled. One was the trip to Oslob during the height of Typhoon Ruby.
- Some tourist destinations only have motorbikes for their island tour. After hitching a ride with a motorbike my legs slid to the hot “tambutso” and my skin got burned.
- Some tours that are not regulated by the local government would charge you with high island tour rates. Some would even make a ploy after agreeing with the cost, they will charge you high after the tour.
