DAY FIVE: Laoag City, Vigan City, San Fernando, Labrador - More Tired Buns...

I'm doing this through my wife in Singapore as there's no Internet access here.

Woke up this morning to exciting news: we were at the fringe of Typhoon Shanshan that's apparently threatening Taiwan and Hong Kong. The warning was at Signal 1, the lowest typhoon warning. Thank goodness we were heading in the opposite direction from where the typhoon was heading. From where we were, it just seemed like a heavy monsoon downpour. We were in no danger at any one point. The students were thrilled at finding out that it was a typhoon and not an ordinary downpour.

We left Laoag at 0800 and arrived in Vigan City at 1100hrs.

We were invited to the Governor's holiday home, which incidentally, is also a private zoo. This display of financial largess drew lots of thoughts from our students who have seen the vast tracts of poverty amongst his people.



Unfortunately, the heavy rain prevented us from enjoying the traditional tourist activity: riding on the city's horse-drawn carriages.





After lunch, we had to change bus because we were being overcharged on the first ride from Laoag to Vigan. We had to go onto a non-air conditioned bus and the students all accepted the challenge bravely, when I explained to them that this is a good way to experience what some foreign domestic workers have to go through to get home.

The bus journey was supposed to last about five hours but instead, it stretched to over seven hours. We are all safety encamped at Villa Jireh now. Please SMS us before calling as we can only take calls at the front desk. The hotel's number is (63-75)549 5261 to 63.

Tomorrow will be another long day that will stretch from 0700 to 2200hrs. The students will be interviewing some 30 families of returnees and current foreign domestic workers. May or may not update post tomorrow, depending on whether I talk to my wife.