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I took the 11:15 bus from the Victory Liner terminal in Pasay. The ride is comfortable and safe, but the bus line doesn’t sell round-trip tickets and makes a very limited number of seats available online. Next time I will follow my friends’ recommendation and try the Genesis or Joy buses.

Once you leave Metro Manila the world opens up and you see sky and green. It’s amazing, our ability to live in cramped concrete boxes and subsist on gray air with trace amounts of oxygen.

Four and a half hours later, Baguio. The most tedious part of the ride was getting to the bus terminal. On weekends there is a tourist stampede to the mountains for cool air and strawberries (and ukay-ukay). I have some nerve complaining when I am one of those tourists.

I had booked a room at the Bed & View adjacent to the BenCab Museum 20 minutes by taxi from “downtown”. Here are the beds, and

Here is the view. I could write a whole novel on this balcony. In fact I think I will.

Raya was also in town for a break, so I have hung out with him every weekend since our Japan gig. (Gian was at film festivals in Amsterdam and Osaka.) On Friday I hopped into a jeep from the museum and met Raya and Abbie Lara at Hill Station. After our excellent dinner (the lechon kawali and laing is killer, and ask for the chocolate lemon tart even if it’s not in the vitrine), we went out looking for night life.

Oddly enough for a Friday, we couldn’t find any. We ended up at the old reliable Rumours. We were walking along Session Road when someone tapped Abbie on the shoulder and said she’d dropped her wallet. It was my wallet, containing my debit cards and stuff. I did not understand how it could’ve fallen out of my backpack (I had used a corporate giveaway backpack because who would steal it?).

When we were sitting in Rumours, I found out how it had happened: the backpack had fallen apart. The seam got ripped, probably because I had crammed it full earlier with laptop, notebooks, etc, and as we sat there all my things clattered to the floor. Luckily Abbie had a tote bag in her backpack so I could carry my stuff. (Lesson: Always carry a tote bag.)

Before midnight, Raya and Abbie put me in a taxi and gave the driver directions to the BenCab Museum. For many years I’ve told people that I have no sense of direction. I could cross the street where I live and somehow take the wrong way home…and I host a travel show. Anyway I settled sleepily into the back of the taxi as it barreled along Asin Road towards the museum.

My night vision is terrible—I really should eat more greens—and I could barely see where we were going. We had been driving for 40 minutes and I still hadn’t spotted the museum, but—remind me to tell you my Yokohama stories sometime. And then the driver said, “Nasa La Union na yata tayo.”

“Stop!” Good thing I had the number of the B&V guard. I dialed him and he gave the driver instructions. (Apparently the landmark is “the widening.” As in the section of road on top of the mountain that is being widened.) We turned around, and I was in my room in 15 minutes.

As I was emptying the borrowed tote bag I realized that my iPod was missing. Yes, I still use the big iPods, I am a museum of iPods. Dammit, did I drop it on the street? It occurred to me to look up the number of Rumours online. They had found my iPod and had been looking for Abbie’s number to let her know.

So. I lost my wallet and got it back. I got lost and made it home safely. I lost my iPod and got it back. My amazing luck! Of course it’s easier to be lucky if you’re among nice people. I like Baguio.

Next: The Boot Camp.