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,…
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…
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…
I’m always afraid to take a cab alone. I just don’t feel comfortable being alone with the driver and the hold-up stories that I have been reading online are not at all calming. But it cannot be helped sometimes. Whenever I do, I take the passenger seat and start small talks with the driver just…
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…
From the moment I laid eyes on him, I called him “the Stranger.” There I was, seated next to my mom at the pre-departure area of a flight to Singapore, and my eyes were glued — no, nailed — to the face of the Stranger. I didn’t know what it was about that man that…
The island club had closed for the night and I hit the beach with reckless abandon. As I lay on the beach, I did not care one bit about the sand that had completely covered the back of my shirt and my arms. There I was, dragging my drunken butt as my new friends watched…
The sun was baking the town when I hopped out of the bus. I just arrived in Batangas from Manila and waited for my ride in front of a 7-Eleven store. From where I sat I could see a woman walking towards the convenience store — little by little, step by step. She was agonizingly…