After the high of swimming with the butanding, I was unceremoniously brought back to earth by the looming necessity of another extended bus ride back to Manila. This time it would prove to take some 14h, in a budget, non-AC bus, "cooled" by the dusty air from without. From the southeastern tip of Luzon back to the capital, this definitely was the longest bus ride that I'd taken in a while. Though duration-wise it still pales in comparison to the 20h+ one I took in Vietnam from Danang to Dalat, a large part of that one was in a relatively luxurious sleeper bus, so I approached this ride with some trepidation, with memories of the rather painful non-AC train ride in Myanmar last year from Mandalay to Katha
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