I am a B- Traveler

My Lakbayan grade is B-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

I was happy and disappointed at the same time with the result. At least I have been to more than half of the 79 provinces in the country, but then I realized I haven't been to both of my parents' hometowns in Masbate and Sorsogon. But this inspired me to travel more often next year. Below are the five provinces/ place I will target to visit next year:

(1) My Nanay's hometown - Palanas in Masbate
(2) My Tatay's hometwon - Casiguran in Sorsogon
(3) Camiguin Island
(4) Sarangani Province (it has great dive sites & the second cleanest river in the country, san ka pa?!)
(5) Coron in Palawan

I am only targeting five new provinces to visit (although there are still 32 provinces I haven't set foot on) because I am intending to revisit these great places.

(1) Batanes
(2) El Nido, Palawan
(3) Sagada, Mountain Province

Wish me luck and Bon Voyage!

Why I travel

I saw the first paragraph of the essay below more than a decade ago, posted in a friend's office desk. Needless to say, this essay inspired me to explore the world. By posting this, I hope you too will see the great benefits of travel. Thank you Kent Nurburn for writing this.

"This is the magic of travel. Any travel. You leave your home secure in your own knowledge and identity. But as you travel, the world in all its richness intervenes. You meet people you could not invent; you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in time and space.

Slowly the memories of the familiar recede from your mind and you find yourself adrift in the experience of the world around you. Your thoughts and concerns change. Your emotions focus on new people and events. The world makes its claim on your heart and mind, and you are free, at least momentarily, from the concerns of your everyday life.

…When you move on, you will have grown. You will realize that the possibilities of life in this world are endless, and that beneath our differences of language and culture we all share the dream of love and being loved, of having a life with more joy than sorrow.

And when you have tragedies or great changes in your life, how else will you truly understand that there are a thousand, a million ways to live, and that your life will go on to something new and different and every bit as worth as the life you are leaving behind. These lessons and more will have etched a new element in your character. You will know the cutting moments of life, where fear meets exhilaration...

…because I have traveled, I can see other universes in the eyes of strangers. Because I have traveled, I know what parts of me I cannot deny and what parts of me are simply choices that I make. I know the blessings of my own table and the warmth of my own bed. I know how much of life is pure chance, and how great a gift I have been given simply to be who I am.

…..That is why we need to travel. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams to protect our days."

- From the book Letters To My Son by Kent Nurburn

Travel Notes: Angkor Wat

Why I wanted to visit Angkor Wat – I first saw the temples of Angkor Wat in the film “In the Mood for Love” (starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung). In the last three minutes of the movie, Tony Leung was in Angkor Wat “unburdening” his secret to one of its holes – “I have heard in the old days, when people want to unburden a secret, they go into the mountain and dig a hole to bury their secret there.”

I went there to unburden me of my secret. Naks, madrama.

Where we stayed: Angkor Voyage Guesthouse – It had clean, presentable twin-sharing room with air-con and TV (na may Knowledge Channel, mabuhay ang Pinoy!). It was near the Old Market of Siem Reap and the Night Market. Rate was USD 16 per night. Not bad, not bad at all.

Where we ate: There were lots of food stalls around the temples, but not to be missed were Viroth’s Restaurant and Khmer Kitchen Restaurant. We made it a point to order dishes that had “Khmer” or “Cambodia” in its name or any dish that we had no idea what was on it. Masarap naman lahat at hindi naman sumakit tyan namin.

Top 5 highlights of our Siem Reap Tour:

1. Going around the temples – Siem Reap has 290 temples and we were able to visit seven temples in one day, and that was enough to become fully amazed of the Khmer Civilisation, one of the greatest in the world.

1. Angkor Wat – the largest of all temples, not to be missed of course. 
2. Ta Phrom – the temple being eaten by the jungle, featured in Tomb Raider. 
3. Ta Keo- a temple  built out of sandstone.
4. Bayon Temple – marvel at how the 261 giant faces around the temple were carved.
5. Baphuon
6. Preah Khan –a very quiet temple because it receives very little visitors, worth dropping by if you want to get away from all those tourists.  
7. Phom Bakheng – a hill temple overlooking the whole Siem Reap including a nicer view of Tonlesap Lake.

2. Tasting Cambodian dishes – We ordered dishes that have “Khmer” or “Cambodia” in their name. And we weren’t disappointed at all and no stomachache either. We tasted a Cambodian soup, which is like a combination of Tom Yum and sinigang.  Don’t miss the amok fish dish being served at Viroth’s Restaurant.  

3. Tour around the Tonlesap Lake – This is the largest lake in South East Asia. It’s different from all the lakes that I have visited because an entire village leaves on the lake. Everything here is on water – the houses, the hospital, schools, the talyer, grocery stores, restaurants and souvenir shops. I can’t imagine myself living here though, I’d get nauseous everyday.   

4. Watching the sunset from Phom Bakheng Temple – Phom Bakheng was the last stop of our one-day tour around the temples. Phom Bakheng was a hill temple so we had to walk for 15 minutes to reach it. It was also the last stop for the day of most tourists, so there were over 100 tourists who congregated in the hill temple to watch the sunset, a nice moment to end a wonderful day.

5. Riding the tuk-tuk to go around the temples. The temples of Siem Reap are surrounded by forest so going around the temples is a breezy and cool experience. Next time I visit, I will bike around the temple, masaya yun!  

How much we spent (in Siem Reap): Air fare: Less than USD300 for a round-trip ticket, Air Asia flights from Manila to KL and Siem Reap, and back to Manila. Food – we allotted USD 15 per day for food, nabusog naman kami. Lodging: USD16 per night, twin sharing room. There are of course higher end accommodations in Siem Reap pero di kaya ng bulsa namin yun, hehe. Tours: The tour around Tonlesap Lake costs USD15, one-day pass around the temples is USD20, and USD25 for a one-day tuk-tuk ride around the temples. Travel tax and terminal fee – PhP2,250 (Clark aiport) USD25 (Siem Reap airport). 

For more info, visit these sites: 

http://www.siemreapcambodia.org/ and http://www.lonelyplanet.com/cambodia

Enjoy your trip!  

Asthma, Introspection and Body Balance (repost)

Conrado de Quiros’ article last Tuesday entitled “Not a Small Triumph” was surprisingly different. It wasn’t about politics or justice or the war in the Middle East or some huge problem confronting the country. It was about a topic very close to my heart, or should I say, close to my lungs. The article was about surviving asthma. Mr. de Quiros had asthma when he was young and he had this to say about the “benefit” of this illness:

“Asthma drove me to introspection, compelling me to deal with the wonder and awe of that human phenomenon called breath”. 

 Asthma drove me to introspection as well. During the first week of 2006, I had a  serious asthma attack.  My year started with three visits to the hospital, one visit to a clinic, a nebulizer on my nose, and the inhaler as my best friend. Mr. de Quiros aptly described asthma attacks, “Asthma gives you the sensation of drowning…in dry land”. 

I was so afraid then, but in retrospect I think that asthma attack was a blessing. It made me rethink the way I live my life. You see, for the most part of 2005 I was so passive and sedentary. My good friend Aloy have always teased me “Eloy, wala kang kwentang tao.” Only during that asthma attack did I realize she may have a point. In 2005, I was just in the “waiting place”. 

“A Waiting Place for people just waiting…

waiting for the mail to come, or the rain to go,or the phone to ring, or the snow to snowor waiting around for a Yes or No”.

               –From Dr. Seuss’ Oh the Places you’ll Go

I was just waiting for things to happen to me. I was just waiting for projects to come, for people to send me to other places. While waiting for things to happen, I took naps and watched TV, these became my favorite activities. But the asthma attack made realize that anytime I could breathe my last breath. Thus, on the third night of struggling for breath, I prayed hard. I said to the Almighty, “Please make me well and I promise that this year I will change the way I live my life. I will explore the world you created, I will travel. I will meet the wonderful people on earth. I will take care of my body. I will live my life to the fullest.” The next day, I was breathing normally. So now, I’m keeping my side of the bargain.   

A few weeks after the asthma attack, I went to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. A few months later, I agreed to do a volunteer work in Masbate even though it entailed taking a nine-hour bus trip, a two-hour ferry ride and another two-hour small boat ride. I then went to El Nido in Palawan and Singapore, two places that I’ve been longing to go to for years but never really took the effort to pack and leave. 

I am also taking care of my body now and will never allow it to be sedentary again. I enrolled in a gym and go there regularly, even though my friends call me a “gym rat” now. I enjoy attending a group exercise called Body Balance, a one-hour class that combines yoga, tai-chi and pilates. I especially love the last ten minutes of the class where we just focus on our breathing. I love the part where our class instructor James says soothing words as he guides us through our breathing exercise:

“Breathing is the most taken for granted task because it is always there. Now welcome your breath…embrace it. Let it fulfill you…let it flow freely. Breathe deeply… alternately feel empty and full. Feel your breath as it fills your whole body… and your whole being.” 

I love this breathing exercise because I have experienced “drowning in dry land”. I know how it feels to be deprived of air so now I treasure this phenomenon of air freely flowing in and out of my body everyday. 

I never had asthma attack since January and I wish it would never come back.

6D/5N in Ho Chi Minh City (part 2)

Six days, five nights in Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC); I saw and experienced different lives.

Life in war. Vietnam became known all over the world for the Vietnam War. So a trip to Ho Chi Minh City would not be complete without a visit to the “ War Remnants Museum”. The museum vividly presented the horrible life during the Vietnam war; it showed pictures of dead and injured American and Vietnamese soldiers, deformed bodies of babies as a result of the herbicide spraying of the Americans, and pictures of families fleeing away from their bombed villages including children crying in pain and fear. The warning in Lonely Planet Vietnam should not be taken lightly – it takes a strong stomach to look at these scenes of war and torture. However gruesome the exhibits maybe, the museum made me very grateful for the life in peace we are enjoying now.

Life underground. I signed up for a packaged tour that included trips to the usual tourist spots in and around Ho Chi Minh City: a Lacquerware factory, Ben Than Market, Notre Dame Cathedral, and Minh Long Ceramic Showroom. Since the tour was also an industry study trip we also visited factories and industrials parks, and attended forums on how to do business in Vietnam.

One very popular tourist spot in Vietnam is the Cu Chi Tunnel, where one can also learn a lot about war strategies (and if one thinks harder can also apply these strategies to business). The tunnel is located north of Ho Chi Minh City and was built by Viet Cong (VCs) over a period of 25 years as an “improvised response by poorly equipped peasant army to its enemy’s high tech weapons”. The VCs ate, slept and planned their attacks against their American enemies inside these tunnels. When I first saw this tunnel featured in a Philippine TV show, I said to myself that if ever I got the chance to go to Vietnam I would not enter the tunnels for fear of triggering my asthma. But when I was already there, I couldn’t pass up the chance of experiencing how it feels like to live underground. Batman made living in underground seem so glamorous, but certainly it is not!

Life on Water. On the bus trip to the Mekong Delta, our tour guide was telling many stories about the delta but I couldn’t quite follow him. I was so sleepy because I spent the night before talking to Filipino friends and finding out how they are living in HCMC. So I really don’t know the background of Mekong Delta or how historic it is, or how it shaped the life of the Vietnamese people. All I know is that trip was very relaxing, exactly what I needed in order to reflect on my life. Hien, my Vietnamese friend who accompanied me to that one-day Mekong Delta tour, described it as a “silent trip”. The people in that tour were talking so softly as if they were afraid to disturb the calmness of the delta; there were no boisterous laughter, just awe for the calmness and beauty of the delta. Even the two-hour bus ride from and to the city was calming. For me it wasn’t just a “silent tour”, it was a “soul tour”.

Life with friends and families. I was fortunate to have witnessed how Vietnamese people celebrate life as I was able to witness the few days before the Tet Festival, Vietnam’s most important holiday. The atmosphere in the city was characterized by holiday shopping, friends’ getting together, city people going back to their families in the provinces. It was like experiencing Christmas all over again after only one month of celebrating it in the Philippines (minus the Christmas carols, of course).

I was also happy to have seen the temporary park made especially for the Tet Festival. The park creators temporarily closed two center lanes of the six-lane Nguyen Hue Boulevard (parang Ayala Avenue sa atin) and elaborately decorated the road with extraordinary jars, arch-shaped ‘monkey bridges’ over man-made lakes, and other displays such as carts, paintings, old-style houses that illustrate the life of Vietnamese people.

There were also different kinds of flowers from Mekong Delta; it was like attending the Flower Festival in Baguio with a warmer and friendlier weather.I especially love seeing families and friends enjoy each other’s company as they take leisurely walk around the park. Children were dressed in their Vietnam national costume (ao dai) and they happily posed in front of every display. Vietnamese teenagers were creating big scenes with their lively laughter, and families were simply enjoying their time together.

Ah, the holiday spirit!

6D/5N in Ho Chi Minh City (part 1)

Six days, five nights in Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC); I saw and experienced different lives.


Life away from friends and families. I spent one night talking to young Filipinos working in HCMC. The whole night kwentuhan was fun but there were instances when the tone of the conversation became serious. One of them sadly commented “Bakit ba tayo nandito at wala sa sarili nating bansa? Dahil ang gobyerno natin corrupt kaya walang trabaho sa atin! Di ba dapat nasa Pilipinas tayo kasi Pilipino tayo? Bakit tayo nandito?*” Maybe it’s really hate for our government or the effect of alcohol that made him say that.

Life in the street. They say, “ Ho Chi Minh City is a city of millions of motorbikes”, and they were not exaggerating! My Filipino friend Brian who’s working in HCMC said that when he first got there akala niya may mga nagra-rally na nakamotorbike. He didn’t know then that motorbikes were the major mode of transportation in HCMC. Good thing my Vietnamese friend Hien had a motorbike so I got the chance to go around the city on a motorbike. The sights and experience were different from riding in a bus or a car. You wouldn’t believe how many people or how big a thing they could put on those motorbikes. A Filipino friend said he saw a refrigerator being carried at the back of a small motorbike. I saw a family of four members riding one motorbike including an infant and no one was wearing a helmet. While the motorbikes were on stop, people smiled and cheerfully greeted their fellow stranger-commuters. I even saw two people carrying a casual conversation and I could sense they were courting while going around the city on two separate bikes! It was such a lively scene.

Life in Silence and Slow Motion. “We had all become victims of speed”, Professor Randy David once wrote. My first four days in HCMC was hectic, that was the result of signing up for a packaged tour. Good thing, my friend Hien invited me to stay longer so I was able to experience less frantic days in HCMC. The Mekong Delta tour and just going around the city on my friend’s motorbike gave me a chance to reflect and collect my thoughts, to be silent and to slow down. Corny as it may sound, I was able to reflect on the way I’m living my life in the Philippines while being away from it. Ah, I love traveling!

Sunrise in Vientiane

“There is a popular saying in anthropology, ‘One must immerse in an unfamiliar world in order to understand one’s own.’” – From the movie “The Nanny Diaries”


One of the things my travel buddies and I agreed to do in Vientiane was to watch the sunrise along Mekong River. Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy on the two days that we woke up very early in the morning to accomplish this. On the second day when we again failed to see the sunrise, we decided to just walk around the city. We chanced upon a young monk sitting alone in the backyard of Inpeng Temple. His name was Khang Pian, a 22-year old monk. We first asked him if it was okay to take a photo of him and he said yes. When we sensed that he was open to have a chat with us, we immediately bombarded him with questions about Buddhism and monks.

Why did you decide to be a monk?
How long have you been a monk?
Do you have to be a monk forever?
What does a monk do, exactly?
What do you do when you wake up in the morning?
Do you have TV inside the temple?
Do you eat meat? (Yes, he does, not all monks are vegetarian pala.)
Is Buddha a girl or a guy? Do you pray to Buddha?
Do you study in a regular school or just inside the temple?
Do you wear your orange robe to school or do you wear ordinary clothes?
Why do you wear orange robe? Why not pink? (kidding, we did not ask this last question.)


These were questions that were asked of him (sometimes even simultaneously) and to which he sincerely and patiently answered. He did not get tired of answering our questions, no matter how stupid the queries were. Kami nga ata ang napagod at nagutom sa kakatanong sa kanya. We soon left him alone after our 40-minute chat, as he was about to get ready for school.

The answered questions only meant another set of questions needs to be asked. The answers led to more questions, ika nga. And now that I’m back in Manila with no more orange robe-clad monks roaming around the streets, I need to find the answers from someone or something else. No, I won’t be entering a Buddhist temple and be a Buddhist nun, neither will I be reading that Idiot’s Guide to Religion. But before I go search for the answers, I think I need to know from where the questions were coming, from where the curiosity about Buddhism and other religion lies.

I haven’t been to church in about ten years (hmm, parang narinig ko na ‘tong kantang to ah, guess the title and singer). I stopped participating in Catholic ceremonies a long long time ago. I once read, “Waiting is better than actions I do not believe in” (from Hope for the Flowers). So I waited patiently. I waited for some miraculous event to happen to my life that would explain to me this thing called religion and faith. The answer never came, as expected.

Now, I just realized that the curiosity lies in the assumption that if I try to understand other religions, their doctrines, creed, dogma or what have you, I will get to understand the Catholic religion more and be a better Catholic? …Or maybe not.

I guess as I continue to search for the answers, I will just remember Kahlil Gibran’s thoughts on religion and faith – and strive to make my daily life my temple, my religion, and my prayer.

Kahlil Gibran on Religion

Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?


Who can separate his faith from his actions,
or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying,
“This for God and this for myself;
This for my soul, and this other for my body?”

13-hour Journey into my Being

We reached Nongkhai Train Station in Thailand at pass five in the afternoon, after more than an hour queuing up at the Thailand immigration under the scorching heat of the sun. (Argh!! All those skin treatments put to waste!) The immigration people just wanted to take their time. They were insensitive enough to still groove to their favorite Thai pop songs while hundreds of people waited outside their air-conditioned office for their passports to be stamped.


When we boarded the train, our spirits lifted up again when we saw that train had a shower room. At least we can refreshed and get rid of all those bad vibes. We took a quick shower inside the train’s claustrophobic and flooded shower room and then hurriedly bought dinner from a nearby cafeteria before the train leaves at 6:20 PM. We had an early dinner. I had Pad Thai again, I think my fourth Pad Thai in a week. (When in Thailand, eat what the Thais eat, right?)

After a quick dinner and kwentuhan, we immediately said our ‘good nights’ at 7:30 in the evening and then slumped into our individual beds. After we turned off the lights, I hurriedly shoved my earphones into my ears and let those Rico Blanco songs permanently damage my hearing. I think it was an attempt to not hear myself think. For the past few weeks, I hardly got to think about anything else except work, which was good, I think. My inner conversations were very administrative, “Will our resource speakers get to the venue on time? How many metacards do we need for the workshops? What colour? Ano kaya gagawin namin para hindi kami tulugan ng participants?"

So for a minute there having this time alone almost scared the hell out of me. There was something that has been knocking at the back of my head for the past few weeks. But it was something that I refused to muse on because I know the answers to that long-standing uncertainty would only depress me... and it did.

I spent the next few hours just staring outside the window. Looking at the fleeting images, I wished my feelings towards a person would also pass rapidly and leave me by the time we reach Bangkok. The pain and confusion were unbearable, paralyzing even.

We reached Bangkok at around 7:30 in the morning the following day. After the 13-hour journey, my feelings were still as strong as the steel that brought us back to Thailand’s capital. But what to do with it is something that I still need to mull over.

I think I need to take another long ride. I'll buy me a ticket to Bicol when I get back to the Philippines.

Joke! Joke! Joke!

When I was in Batanes, I asked a new friend to tour me around Batan Island. We rode on her motorbike and she brought me to an abandoned Radar Station where we saw an unobstructed 360 degree view of Basco, the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.

On our way back to town, my friend lost control of the bike and we crashed against a hill. Fortunately, we didn’t sustain any injury but her left side mirror was reduced to rubble. She was afraid to go home with a broken sidemirror for her father would surely scold her. So when we got back to the town we went around looking for a sidemirror replacement. The only store which had an available sidemirror was closed at that time; so we had to wait for hours for the store owner to come back who was then in another barangay at nakikipamiyesta (in another village, attending a fiesta).

Finally, after waiting for more than two hours, my friend’s officemate who we called for help finally suggested to her--

“Eh kung umuwi ka na lang kaya at sabihin mo sa tatay mo na ninakaw yung side mirror mo.” (Why don’t you just go home and tell your father your side mirror was stolen.)

They looked each other in the eye and then they laughed so hard. They laughed so hard for around 30 seconds. And I was left wondering what was so funny about the suggestion. It took me several minutes to realize what the whole laughter was about. Batanes has zero crime rate; their provincial jail is empty (policemen in this island are so bored); no one locks their doors at night; and someone stealing a side mirror is unheard of!

It was a joke I didn’t get right away because I came from a place where sidemirrors were stolen everyday, sold to car accessories shops in Banaue and bought again by the same car owners from whom the side mirrors were stolen.

I wish someday I could tell that joke in Manila and people would also laugh hard.






Batanes Islands: Batanes, Ivatan People, Mavudis, Batan Island, Itbayat Island, Sabtang Island, Siayan Island

Batanes IslandsBatanes Islands