‘Masi’

Netnet Camomot

EARLY-MORNING flights are giving me sleepless nights. Never again!

The worst part of travel is the packing and unpacking — no, that’s not pronounced with an F. It’s not facking, and besides that’s spelled wrong if your green mind is working at its optimum level.

I used to prepare a list of things to bring for a vacation, a kilometric list that could have traveled around the world if it were glued on a library globe. Nowadays, the minute brain has given up on that list. Instead, it merely counts the number of days away from home, and transfers as many clothes from the closet into the suitcase. And to check if everything is in there, including the piano, it imagines what the body needs from head to toe — shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc. — and compares that with the items already packed like sardines in the suitcase. And, yes, I wrote about this before. And, yes, I’ll write about this again in my next travel.

The senior-moment body also feels as if it’s packed like sardines while in transit inside a plane, car, boat, or train. Aches and pains never felt before are now having a contest in that body as they aim for the gold medal for aches and pains. Ouch!

The hilaw nga Cebuana — that’s me — at first thought she now prefers early-morning flights, to have more time for the vacation. Only to realize that only sleep can help the body recover after a sleepless night. So, the first day of vacation was spent in bed. Alone. Sleeping.

A vacation requires hours of travel if the tourist wants to discover new places. Take that as an opportunity to sleep in between tourist spots as you wonder, Are we there yet?

It takes longer to travel to an unfamiliar place than to go back home from there. It’s the unfamiliarity that makes travel time seems longer — with no landmarks, how to know if you’re almost there?

Not knowing the number of travel hours is better for the tourist who clamors for adventure. You won’t look forward to an eight-hour land trip if you knew it’s going to be eight hours. If the focus is on the destination instead of the travel time, you’ll be elated rather than deflated. Tell your friends they’ll all be going to Batanes, and they’ll say, Yay! Tell them how to reach the place, and that’s when they’ll say, Ayay.

It’s the journey, not the destination, as the saying goes. But most of the time, I sleep during those journeys, to avoid asking, Are we there yet?

Cebu has two choices for a journey — Round South and Round North. We had Round South years ago, and that’s what we return to in each visit since Dad’s hometown is in the southern part. We had Round North only in the last visit, and noticed, Hmmm, I’ve been there, done that after all when I was a little girl.

Cebuanos tend to prefer Round South so if you’re a first-time visitor, they’ll recommend that first. That’s where you’ll find Oslob and its whale sharks, Argao and its torta, Carcar and its chicharon and lechon, Sibonga and its Simala Shrine, etc.

“Masi” is short for masinahon a.k.a. jealous. There are lots of them in this world, people who are jealous of you and want to have your life, and some of them do end up having your life but they can never be you. In Cebu, however, masi is a yummy delicacy made of sticky rice with a peanut filling. Yum!

Cebu is also known for its singers, and if the band encourages the audience to join their jamming session, be warned — anyone who goes onstage is not a mere videoke wannabe but could be a professional singer on a night out with friends. On the two nights we managed to insert a nightlife into our itinerary, all the jammers had voices that  could have sent the band’s lead singer to Siberia. That is, if that lead singer were not as good or even better than the jammer.

My sis insists that Cagayan de Oro also has good singers and the reason why Cebu has more is because of migration, with singers leaving their hometowns to look for greener pastures in the Queen City of the South. Hmmm. She could be right.

For now, though, we’re back in CDO, the City of Golden Friendship, but that title doesn’t save the Cagayanon from masi friends. Oh, well.

At least, the room was pristine when we arrived home. But then, I was home. So, the mess returned soonest. Haha!