Many of the travelers I have met on the road consider the Philippines as the most underrated country in Southeast Asia. It’s not difficult to see why. Geographically, we lie isolated on the “other” side of the West Philippine Sea. We are pretty much “out of the way,” given that Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia,…
Year 2012 has been action-packed! I quit my full-time job and visited eight countries and territories. Eight is still a small number and many of them are within the same time zone but I see it as a good foreshadowing of a ’round the world trip that I plan to do in 2015. This year,…
HA LONG BAY, Vietnam — “No stars tonight?” She put down her glass of pina colada and sat next to me on the bench on the top deck of the boat, floating softly in the middle of Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. “Not even one,” I painted a faux pout on my face while picking up…
My professor failed to show up in class, so I was left in between two choices on how I would spend the rest of the day. The left side of my brain was trying to persuade me to go to the mall and watch a movie. The right side, the lazy side, was convincing me…
VIENTIANE, Laos — The picky little guys on my tongue called tastebuds were singing Hallelujah in unison when they first soaked in the weird mixture of sour and spicy that came from a bowl served by a woman I had fondly called Mama Thai. It was the summer of 2004 and I was a college sophomore…
BANGKOK, Thailand — In utter disbelief, I stared at the receipt while I walked the length of the airport to the train station. I just arrived in Bangkok and the first thing I did after making it through the Immigration was exchange currencies. It was another obvious lesson for me: Convert only a little at…
MACAU — The only instances where I took any mode of transportation around Macau were the taxi ride from the airport to the Macau hotel and the bus ride from the hotel back to the airport. I simply walked the whole time no matter how far my next destination was. Haha. I just love walking…
MANILA, Philippines — I have no idea what had gotten into me. Maybe it was the rain or the slow ballads that I had been listening to the whole day. I was feeling a little down again, thinking about my childhood and the idea of talking to a shrink came up again but the idea…