Lessons in Travelling 1

I will now start to share some lessons I have learned in traveling, mostly, in other countries but it can also be applied locally.

1. Make sure to check and recheck the time your bus leaves.
I have learned this lesson the hard way. This story happened when my whole family went to a country where only a handful of people can speak English. I was working in an NGO there. Language was really a problem. I was still learning the language but I was daring and I made a big mistake.

One time, my family and I were about to travel from the place we were staying to another city through bus. I bought our tickets a day earlier. My wife was already asking me a lot of times on when we will be leaving. I confidently answered her on the time I thought we were leaving. She told me to check for I might be mistaken due to language barrier. I might be misunderstood as what she kept on telling me. I checked the ticket and totally misunderstood what was written there.

2. Get the right information
Since the official bus stop is another area and we will only wait in a nearby road, the time written on the ticket mentioned only the time the bus will leave the official bus station. In other words, we were an hour behind. When we arrive at our waiting place, I asked the vendor there if the bus has passed and he said yes. I panicked and I checked the tickets and showed it to the vendor. He showed me my mistake.

That mistake costs me a lot of money. My wife got angry on me and my kids were very very tired on traveling back and forth to our house. I bought another set of tickets for the late noon trip and I made sure we were ahead of time as not to miss the bus.

For those who are reading, don't be so confident or shy when you learn a little of a new language but just try to make sure to keep on asking until you are assured even if it is annoying to the ticket vendor. Somehow, don't forget to smile afterwards and say thanks to smooth the wrinkles from their foreheads. They will be kind to understand that you are still learning the language. (Hope so...)

I am Back!

Hello to everyone! I am back. I was very busy on a lot of things that I didn't even try to update my blog. I am just touched by others who asked for updates. So, here I am again. I will try to give you as much update as I can about travels and my other adventures in other countries.