My brother, Brat and I will be taking a road trip to our hometown. It's not such an easy task considering our hometown is not in the same island where we live in. In fact, the trip will take approximately 17 hours and that's assuming everything goes according to plan.
The trip can be divided into 4 segments. The first leg will be a 2 hour ferry ride, followed by a 3 hour drive, then a 4 hour ferry ride, and the last leg will be a leisurely(?) 5 hours drive to our parent's house. The remaining of the 17 hours are spent waiting for ferries to arrive and processing travel documents and necessary permits. We leave the initial port at 2:30pm and should arrive sometime in the morning the following day.
This type of trip will be the first time for me and I'm not exactly used to driving long distances. Naturally, I am feeling a bit apprehensive but I will be taking my other car to my mother so taking a plane is obviously out of the question and having the car shipped was a bit expensive. My brother was convincing me for the longest time to try this route and I reluctantly agreed that it is the best option available for us.
I have asked around of course. Some of my colleagues have tried parts of my route and it was a mixed set of feedbacks. While one said that he had taken this route 3 times now without encountering any problems, another would recount tales of missed ferries, waiting the following day to cross the next island, uncomfortable accommodations, dirty toilets and the like (my officemate spoke of the dirty toilets with such passion that I could only imagine what horrors she must have witnessed). Definitely not very reassuring. I consider myself to be a good planner and I suspect that most of their woes could have been prevented by careful planning. And besides, I don't mind filthy toilets... At least not that much.
So anyway, here I am now on my 3rd leg of my journey, writing in my PDA, impatiently waiting for the boat ride to end. It's 1 in the morning and I am feeling a little bit tired and yet I can't sleep like the people around me (how could anyone sleep with the ship's engine making all that noise). I have decided therefore to amuse myself by telling you what happened earlier. (to be continued)
Comments