We – this dakilang tsuper ng bayan and his favorite and only roommate – had been planning this trip to Bicol and other nether parts of Luzon for a long time now.

We downloaded all information available on www.wowbicol.com and www.lakbay.net, scoured local travel magazines, and badgered all Bicolanos and Bicolanas we know for tips on how to motor south safely on a budget and still be talking to each other when we get back.

Road trips are known to destroy even the strongest relationships between man and woman. And the trouble usually begins over directions and destinations.

We had agreed in past road trips to a set of rules. We had also apportioned responsibility for trips. She points the way. The driver follows. She feeds the driver from time to time. The driver stops to let her answer whenever nature calls.

She will not critique the driver’s skills. The driver will not critique her choice of music. It is her responsibility to ask locals for directions when lost. It is the driver’s responsibility to admit fault for getting lost.

Never having gone past Sariaya, Quezon in past southern forays, we’ve always thought that the Bicol region was one long flatland. Pretty stupid considering it is home to Mt. Mayon and other active and dormant volcanoes. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

This is not going to be an accurate travelogue. Remember the aforementioned rules. The driver only drives where pointed and not to question the giver of directions except only to ask when and where food and drinks would be served. Although it must be said the driver never has to ask. She knows when feeding time is near by the driver’s growls.

Anyway the drive takes us past Sariaya and Lucena. While the giver of directions dozed, we just followed the signs that pointed to Legaspi.

Now something has to be said about the signs. They are usually small and placed where it is difficult to spot them. It is fortunate the Innova has good brakes as we frequently had to brake hard just as we got past the signs heading into main junctions. Sometimes the signs were well within the junction themselves. So there were a lot of doubling backs to get back on track.

After Lucena we head past the mountains towards Atimonan. We knew we were in Quezon and not Nueva Viscaya – Bitukang Manok and not Diade – because there was this large billboard announcing Isuzu’s Isulong and Kalikasan tree-planting project. We remember getting invited to that event.

By then we realized that driving south is just like driving north. You see the same kind of towns, the same kinds of roads in various levels of upkeep, the same tricycles or trimobiles as these pests are called in some parts in Bicol hampering traffic, the same buses driven by crazies coming at you head-on all heading to Cubao or Pasay.

It was well into the night when we got to Daet, flooded in parts by rain, where the giver of directions said we’d stop for the night.

We looked for Bagasbas beach where wowbicol said we could find decent lodgings. We found the beach lined with videoke bars but no decent inn or lodging. We settled for a room at the Mega Hotel in Daet which certainly was not for megastars but should do for a tired rheumatic driver and a slave driver.

The next morning we drove on to Naga and cut towards San Jose in search of Sabang beach, another www.wowbicol.com-recommended destination. What looks like a short drive on a map turned into another one-hour plus drive in the real world. We found Sabang beach all right. It was not quite as attractive as described on the website. But the locals were friendly and a store sold ice for our cooler.

Not giving up on the website, we next drove up to Lake Buhi described as "a crater lake where the world’s smallest edible fish, the tabios or sinarapan, can be found."

At a lakeside town, we asked around for Consocep Mountain Resort. A friendly police officer escorted us to the Lake Buhi Mountain Resort instead.

The resort had no sign but it had five-star amenities with two-star prices. And there the driver spent drinking most of the beer bought in Las Piñas and cooled by ice from San Jose, Camarines Sur.

No sinarapan was available though. It was off-season, said the friendliest resort staff we’ve ever encountered. Perhaps they were friendly because we were their only guests for the weekend.