The (Bicol Express) train stops here once more (This one’s for you, Caloy Aureus: Scholar, Bikolano)
To wake up at 3 in the morning is to wake up for the gods. Or that’s how strong my faith was when I decided one day to take the train that once more moved between Naga the city in Camarines Sur and Legazpi City in Albay. I have to emphasize the provincial appellation of the first city, a site often belabored as an ancient city by cultural workers, because there is another Naga City in Cebu. Legazpi City (with a Z, as the poet Marne Kilates emphasizes), has always been the default tourism city by virtue of Mayon Volcano looming over everything in this peninsula, except, I hope, corruption that produces bad English on tarpaulin (oh, this is for another column).