Picnic to Olangapo City

Its been quite sometime that I had been planning of spending a quite weekend out of the busy city away from Manila’s madness, and this dream was fulfilled (even thou it wasn’t “a QUITE” weekend) when we decieded to go for a day picnic to Olongapo city, Situated at the Southern entry point of Zambales and the Northwestern interior of the Subic Bay area, Olongapo City approximately 127 kilometers North of Manila (about 3 hrs drive from Manila). Because of its peculiar geographic location - the Zambales mountains on its three sides, Bataan and Subic Bay at its base – this city has a unique charm and beauty to it. Subic Bay's strategically located, deep natural harbor once contained America's largest military installation overseas and a favorite rest and recreational center for the service men.

After a long day at work, I reached home at 4am, took a short nap for about 40 mins and had a quicke shower, when I left the house at around 0530 am, I was thinking that I was early and rest of the gang might still be gearing up, but I was wrong, the movement I stepped out of the house, Jayadeva was ready with this elf. It was all crowded and hence we decided that I should take my car as well. At first I was struggling with this thought, then I realized that we all (approx 25 ppl) could not possibly fit in one midsized vehicle. After reaching Subic, I was so happy that I took my car along, as the drive was too good to miss…..we left manila around 0530am, we hardly got any traffic on our way to the NLEX (national Luzon express way) expressway. The city’s hurricane traffic was still sleeping and managed to escape it well. From the time we hit the express way, it was another world, an awesome 8 lane express way. We instantly hit the gas and in no time we were all flying, it was testing the car to the extreme, and in the end we and the car did fare well. I also reached my second best driving speed, my first best speed is 200 kms/hr (which I achieved in my old Camry ) and this time we managed to reach at 180 kms/ph in Ford escape, given the bulky nature of the car, with 5 passengers and decent quantity of luggage 180 km/hr was a nice speed. It was a beautiful site to see the sun rising in the country side, the lust green fields, the fresh crispy air, wind moistened with morning due… it was an amazing ride. We did take a good 30 min break on the way. Around 0830 am we reached out destination and waited for Jayadeva and his gang, they took some time to reach as they got lost on thier way and top it up they had a flat tyre.

Once we reached olongapo, we were joined by the local devotees and then everyone went for harinaam kirtan and purified the city and its people with the most transcendental sound vibration of the Hare Krsna maha mantra. While the devotees where doing kirtan, I decided to catch some zzzz’s. In no time I was fast sleep and was able to get around 2 hrs of solid sleep. When everyone returned we headed towards a beach, and had our breakfast and in no time we were all swimming in the clean crystal blue waters for which olongapo is famous for. The sun was out and it was a nice bright and sunny day. Everyone had great fun at the beach, some were swimming, somewere Skim boarding, some were playing in the sand and somewere doing kirtan in our cottage. Everyone was having a grand time.
Around 0400 pm we left the beach and returned to Olongapo city for more Hari naam kirtan. Baladeva prabhu lead everyone to an ecstatic kirtan. All the devotees present poured out there hearts, and participated will all heart and soul. The locals were shocked and happy to see devotees performing kirtan on their streets. The rhythmic combination of mrindanga’s, kartals, woompers, djembes, trumpet, and the devotees sincere chanting created an aura which was attracting, purifying and satisfying. The onlookers who saw us doing kirtan, could not resist and captured us on there handy cam’s/ con coders / cell phones with camera… they used it all. We did kirtan in various streets of olongapo, and culminated at the city’s major shopping center (see the video below). The kirtan lasted for about 4 hours, after the kirtan almost everyone had lost their voice :)

Compared to the our morning drive, the drive back to Manila was even more adventurous and fun. We reached home around 1100 pm. All in all it was a day worth dying for, a day well spend in trying to glorify the names of my sweet lord. While going to bed, I couldn't help but marvel at the unique nature of devotional service
"May there be good fortune throughout the universe, and may all envious persons be pacified. May all living entities become calm by practicing bhakti-yoga, for by accepting devotional service they will think of each other's welfare. Therefore let us all engage in the service of the supreme transcendence, Lord Sri Krishna, and always remain absorbed in thought of Him."Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.9