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