May 20, 2016
I remember it well: I was busy writing a travel assignment on my phone. Nassefh—a handsome poet from Mindanao and my guardian during my drunk nights in the 54th Silliman University National Writers Workshop, the most sought-after writer workshop in the Philippines—approached me and said that I was not enjoying […]
May 18, 2016
My name is Isa, I’m also from the Philippines. I discovered your blog through your recent travel essay on leaving everything behind to travel the world. Consider me a new follower of your blog; while I envy that you have seen as much of the world as you possibly can […]
May 17, 2016
Last month, I emptied my cabinet of clothes and realized I had a lot of second-hand dresses I haven’t worn yet. Sorting out the clothes—what must stay and what must be given away—was not as easy as I thought. I let my small garden at the back die. I moved […]
April 19, 2016
The past two weeks or so have been like an exciting jigsaw of days and ideas and trial and error plans that have often turned out to be the worst decisions, but at other times have pleasantly surprised us. It’s been a detailed board game of buses and hostels and […]
April 18, 2016
A calm five-minute walk from my seedy neighborhood is the posh Cebu Business Park, where Ayala Cebu is located. Under the scorching heat of Cebu noon, I went out from my small place and I have noticed that skyrises gradually swallow the horizon before me, that they become higher, sturdy, […]
March 28, 2016
I find it odd to write about this. Who am I to say that these are the characters that make a good traveler? After all, I am a flawed traveler myself, who bend rules once in a while—not wearing shoes when advised to wear one, for example. But with the […]
March 16, 2016
Much has been written about what it’s like to be young, wild, and free (there’s even a song about it). Like so many, I was infatuated with the idea that I was invincible. I used to believe that in this life, you had 2 choices: either you live life so […]
March 12, 2016
I have a river for a writing muse. Almost every month, I bused to southern Cebu, dropped off Matutinao (Badian), walked beside the rushing madness, skipped the crowded first falls, and trekked up to the lagoon, where my muse ends and where another river starts. I sometimes took a dip, […]
March 4, 2016
He stands out like a sore thumb. He is 6’6″. I am 5’5″ taller than most Filipinas, but I stand like a dwarf beside him. He is white. I’m a dark-skinned Filipina with small eyes. A very odd couple. I know. We were walking around Borobudur (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) last December, […]
February 24, 2016
Earlier last year, I was non-committed and happy with my single-blessedness. A day before Valentine’s Day, I bought a folding bike (from the unexpected teacher’s clothing allowance), rightfully named it Katorse, and biked two towns in southern Cebu on a sunny love day. Oh, yes, alone. READ: Twelve Months of […]
February 19, 2016
The eyes of the girl sitting beside me had tear marks. Before I entered the immigration office, I saw her through the glass window, answering the questions of the immigration officer. When I sat beside her to fill up the form, I heard her asking the immigration officer if the […]
February 11, 2016
Said the overly quoted Pico Iyer, “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, […]