Incoming

It rained real hard the night before and there were rumors of severe flooding in the city (Metro Manila, Philippines). The morning brought sunshine and by mid-day one would assume that the floods would have significantly subsided. So I commuted to the old part of Manila to do photo related errands (buy spare bulbs for my strobe, have a lens CLA'd and shoot with some friends in a museum). I took a bus--a fateful decision--instead of an "FX" (...a van posing as a taxi of sorts usually plying a fixed route taking up to a dozen passengers). The first half (in terms of distance) was uneventful but then things stopped to a standstill. The trip usually takes over 30 minutes and that second half of the trip would take over an hour and forty five minutes. Then I became aware of the reason--the road was still flooded from last night's rain. Most of the traffic crawled away from the flood except for trucks and buses which were high enough to negotiate the waters. That woke me up from my sleepy stupor (a bad thing when commuting with a backpack full of cameras) and ran to the front of the bus to catch the photo opportunity.

The residents were having fun in the flood with kids literally swimming alongside the buses and the big boys throwing water bombs at the vehicles passing by.