You won’t find Paris on this list. No, you won’t; I have yet to set foot on Europe. You won’t find Rio, either; South America has to wait a couple more years. And Egypt and Jerusalem? They’re my dream destinations, but no, I still have a long, long way to go to get there. There…
If you had met me ten or even five years ago, you’d probably see me as someone who was not the traveling type. And you would be right. Now that I think about it, if my past self were to see me now, he would be totally shocked, repeatedly hurling judging questions at me such…
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,…
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…
There was a tired silence lingering inside the van as we pressed the side of our heads on the glass window. Silently we admired the view of the many breathtaking places in Mountain Province as we drove from Sagada to Banaue. The hills, the hillsides, and the terraced hillsides; the mountains, the mountaintops, and the…
