Travelling to Iligan City by Night

I never thought I might be travelling to Iligan City by night time so unexpectedly. Okay, here's my recount of our unexpected trip to Iligan City:

Me and one of my bands were given a slot to play at Iligan City's National High School which organized a gig to be held inside the campus. This was probably also in celebration of the city's fiesta the following day. The group traveled at the eve of the city's fiesta. This would fall at Monday, September 28, 2009. To get there, we took a bus at Bulua Terminal here in Cagayan de Oro City. There were a lot of people at the bus terminal during this time. That was to be expected because of the upcoming fiesta happening the following day. Because of that, we have to fall in line which stretched all the way to the bus terminal entrance. But it didn't take us too long. The line moved constantly because each bus took around 15 minutes or less to alternate. Finally, passed 6pm, the group was able to hop in to one of the buses. They have nice buses, by the way. For a non-stop trip to Iligan City, you only get to pay only Php50.00. And this bus is already air-conditioned.

The trip took around 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was already dark, so all we could see are shadows of trees and lights from the houses by the street. I could see a hint of development from the municipalities we happened to pass by. One of these is El Salvador. For most of the trip, we enjoyed watching the movie that was played in the bus. We then arrived at Iligan's bus terminal at around 8pm.

Outside the bus station, there are already taxi's and public utility vehicles waiting to fetch passengers. Of course, because the group were in such a short notice and were not able to prepare more than enough money for the trip, we took the public utility vehicle called multicab in the local term. The fare costs Php5.00 for students and senior citizens. After 5 minutes or so, we were able to take the first glimpse of the city's vibe. For a fiesta, I thought that the streets were a bit quiet below the usual atmosphere found on a fiesta. It was still the eve, one of my friends said, so probably, the crowd wouldn't be until tomorrow.

Our guide (our guitarist's friend) took us at a stop and lead us to walk at some few turns which eventually lead us to the venue where we're going to play for that night. We were well accommodated. With the help of another friend, we were lead inside the venue without any hassle. Reaching the gym where there was a band already playing, we were given dinner by the organizers and was informed of our slot. After our performance, which was already around 10:30pm or so, it was time for us to go home.

We arrived at the bus station a few minutes before 12pm. The next bus is to be scheduled at 1am. I sipped coffee while waiting, while my friend ate. Aired on the TV was the news about the devastation inflicted by the typhoon Ondoy in the Luzon area. During this time, my friend and I were discussing about this issue.

At around 12:30am or so, the bus arrived earlier than we expected. There were a number of passengers during that time. So what happened was some of the passengers including our group have to either join the trip but stand, or wait for the next bus which is scheduled to arrive at 3am. We decided to go on. For the first half of the trip, I was standing while my friends were already able to find seats. Eventually, I was able to find one while a few more passengers started getting off. We reached Cagayan de Oro City at around 2am plus. At around this time, taxis are available. But if you guys are short of money, you can always take a motorela towards the city. For 5 persons, we were able to negotiate a rela for only Php70.00. But they usually charge at around Php90.00 to Php100.00. But I think that is too much.

The whole trip to Iligan City was satisfactory. The streets were quite peaceful. And there were not too much hassle; except for the part where we were forced to stand inside the bus on our way home. But other than that, everything was fine. No heat--atmosphere was cool. And with the right person, we were unlikely to get lost on our way.