I'm planning a trip around Asia. I'm not sure exactly how to go about it yet but all I know is that as soon as i get tired of my job (maybe in a year or two), I'm taking this trip around Asia.
I'm posting my planning efforts here and I'll post every so often to get productive comments from anyone about pretty much anything. You can suggest and comment about places to go, things to do, traveling tips, things to avoid, people to meet up with along the way, food to try, budget concerns, travel options etc.
I'm prone to massive digressions and poor spelling so bear with me.
Short background: I was supposed to do this after grad and my dad already agreed to it but then I got a job (and had my heart broken). But now I'm back on track. Originally, I thought, if I had it my way, I'd fly to Calcutta and do my best to make it to Vietnam by land. No itinerary, no companions. Of course, certain countries make it impossible not to plan because of the need for Visas. But looking on the bright side, planning also is something for me to look forward to everyday after work. And, I'm not stuck on the no companions idea anymore. You're free to join me on parts of my travels but on the whole, I'd rather not have to consult anyone in terms of plans and itineraries.
I have a Canadian passport so i think that means i have access to commonwealth countries without a visa and I will get my Philippine passport (soon I hope) so that means I'll have access to Southeast Asian countries.
Laslty, I don't have much money so this will be a budget trip. I'm paying for it myself. To keep it cheap, I don't plan on going to expensive countries like Singapore, Korea and Japan. I'll save that for another time.
Here's what I've come up with so far (Its not much but its just came to me before i had to go to work. I'm actually at work right now taking a short break.):
Nepal
How to get there:
Connecting flight through HK (That means I might as well go to HK! ...Holy crap, that's 50k already!)
Land trip through India.
I may turn my trip backwards and make my way from Vetnam to India then to Nepal and finally HK before coming home.
What to do:
Nature tripping. It's the home of Everest base camp (right?) but I'm not planning on buying alpine gear so I'll put that off for now. The mountains and landscape have got to be awesome.
India
Of course is inevitable. I guess I want to see the Taj Majal and the Ganges. I'm too inexperienced of a traveler not to be cliche about some things. In fact, travelling around the Philippines, I usually avoid tourist spots but maybe around Asia I'd want to meet more tourists.
that's all for now.
Standing budget: Way more than 50k
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Suspension of Disbelief
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
Contextually, Juliet was referring to Romeo’s name, his family name specifically. But let’s forget about the context for now.
I once fell in love with “…a Capulet in the balcony of [my] mind” (Semisonic – Singing in My Sleep). And, whether it was just my perception (my mind) or the actual girl who changed (or both), something definitely changed. I feel awkwardly attached to something that just plain blatantly doesn’t exist.
I say “something” and not “someone” because, as of this writing, I still can’t say if it’s Juliet or the idea of Juliet or even just the predicament that I miss.
It’s a bit like the feeling I get after reading or watching a favorite novel or a feature film. For all intents and purposes, be it based on true life or true fantasy, novels are, by nature, fictive. They’re lies, great lies but lies. They’re made up. So, no matter how badly I want to joust with Sir Elrich, befriend Leslie Burke or pick Howard Roark’s brain, I never will. I remember curling up into a ball eating chocolate while reading the third Harry Potter book for the second time and tearing up for no apparent reason when I realized the true power of suspension of disbelief.
And, after all, that’s what I’m doing now. Suspending my disbelief. Who is Juliet now that we each stop talking when one walks in on the other’s conversation? Who is she now that we no longer update each other with one another’s lives and talk about our dreams? Hearing her name used to make my face blush and my heart swell. Now, I imagine, it makes my face fall and my heart – fill in the blank.
The Juliet I knew is fiction now. She might as well have been made up too. The way that I talk about her, the way that I still insist on projecting her image onto the brains in the heads of unwitting shoulders, the way that I still catch myself thinking about her every day is little more than fiction now.
For what is in a name? It works both ways. You can call a daisy a rose but at the end of the day, you’re only fooling yourself.
Despite the logic, here I am.
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
Contextually, Juliet was referring to Romeo’s name, his family name specifically. But let’s forget about the context for now.
I once fell in love with “…a Capulet in the balcony of [my] mind” (Semisonic – Singing in My Sleep). And, whether it was just my perception (my mind) or the actual girl who changed (or both), something definitely changed. I feel awkwardly attached to something that just plain blatantly doesn’t exist.
I say “something” and not “someone” because, as of this writing, I still can’t say if it’s Juliet or the idea of Juliet or even just the predicament that I miss.
It’s a bit like the feeling I get after reading or watching a favorite novel or a feature film. For all intents and purposes, be it based on true life or true fantasy, novels are, by nature, fictive. They’re lies, great lies but lies. They’re made up. So, no matter how badly I want to joust with Sir Elrich, befriend Leslie Burke or pick Howard Roark’s brain, I never will. I remember curling up into a ball eating chocolate while reading the third Harry Potter book for the second time and tearing up for no apparent reason when I realized the true power of suspension of disbelief.
And, after all, that’s what I’m doing now. Suspending my disbelief. Who is Juliet now that we each stop talking when one walks in on the other’s conversation? Who is she now that we no longer update each other with one another’s lives and talk about our dreams? Hearing her name used to make my face blush and my heart swell. Now, I imagine, it makes my face fall and my heart – fill in the blank.
The Juliet I knew is fiction now. She might as well have been made up too. The way that I talk about her, the way that I still insist on projecting her image onto the brains in the heads of unwitting shoulders, the way that I still catch myself thinking about her every day is little more than fiction now.
For what is in a name? It works both ways. You can call a daisy a rose but at the end of the day, you’re only fooling yourself.
Despite the logic, here I am.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Return of Another Comeback Again (Short Version)
(Medyo sabog ang pagkasulat)
The other day, I asked Dennis when he started climbing. I had a follow up question in mind, “How do you keep going?” Unfortunately, I never got to ask my follow up question. That’s because Dennis said that he’s been climbing just as long as I have. He started in 1998 with me and Aldwin.
Dennis is one of the pillars of the Rock Climbing community in the Philippines having owned his own boulder gym and organized national bouldering events among other things. He’s climbed and competed all around the world and had his “Sharma Experience” early on. All this made me think that he’s been around for so long; that he must have experienced this almost mythical “Glory Day” period of Philippine climbing that I’ve always heard of.
When I told him about what my follow up question was supposed to be, Dennis had no answers for me.
There was a time when the question was inverse. “How could you stop!?” I would always scream inside whenever I saw that a climber had turned into a shadow of their former selves. In my 11 years of climbing, I saw this much more than I’d have liked to. I saw it happen to climbers I looked up to, girlfriends, best friends and champions alike. It especially hurt with my peers.
The name Tagoy Ledesma comes to mind first. Tagoy was my first real “rival” in climbing. His cousin Pipoy was a talented climber who could beat us seemingly without trying but I always felt that Tagoy and I both had more heart than the others. It’s not just that we outlasted our peers and stayed in the sport longer than they did but we were both underdogs by nature. We had a good four year run placing one right after the other in junior national competitions but one year, the Bacolod climber just didn’t show up. Later, I competed against him again in an open men’s competition in Bacolod but by that time, I felt almost like I’d lapped him. I finished second and he finished eighth for that leg.
Meanwhile, being an Atenean was taking its toll on me. I was struggling to pass high school. The year that I won the X-games, I had no close friends until after I’d actually won. It’s hard to make friends when you sleep between classes, during recess and lunch and you have training after school.
The next season (from summer to August or September of second year high school) happened to be the first year that I decided to move on to open competitions and let the junior competitions ride in the back seat. I did pretty well for my first year. I ended up 6th in the climbing circuit that year (just one place from being on the national team) but at a price. I’d failed Araling Panlipunan. Taking summer classes wasn’t just bad for my records, it took a toll on my training too. I was afraid to fail.
The next year was third year high school. It was the year that all the teachers said that colleges looked at. I was afraid to fail. Come end of climbing season in august, I got into the national team but after that, I made a decision to stop climbing. Around this time, I was also having trouble with my climber girlfriend. I wasn’t that enthusiastic to climb anymore anyway. I still failed math and had to take summer classes. Meanwhile, my brother and sister were both honor students. My parents sort of accepted me as the one who doesn’t try hard enough at school but they kept on my ass anyway.
In retrospect, this is the first time I gave up on climbing as my life’s calling. Trying to get into Ateneo for collage was like a wakeup call. It was time to stop living in my childish fantasies of climbing with Chris Sharma and Katie Brown and Yuji Hirayama and Francois LeGrand in a magical land where there was no such thing as paying the bills or building a career.
In retrospect, because I gave it up so easily (I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would), I realized that I’d never be as passionate about climbing as I once was.
Along the way, my parents built and closed down 2 climbing gyms, my sister had her own issues with climbing, Hugo called me a bum who just slept and ate (which was true), I made a comeback but I also had and lost another climber girlfriend, Hugo had a falling out with my parents, he told me that he had nothing left to teach me, that I’d surpassed him and stopped coaching me, climbing in the Philippines began to die and I got into Ateneo and I became a mountaineer.
My sister became this kick ass national climber who competed internationally. Once, after watching her on the x-games, my dad asked me, “When are you gonna climb again?” I know he didn’t mean it but I felt so betrayed. Giving up climbing was the hardest decision I ever had to make and the easiest at the same time. Climbing was my passion but passing school and getting into Ateneo, that was me trying to be responsible. That was me trying to make my parents proud. A four letter word screeched in my head so loud that I could have stopped trying then and there just to spite him. But I didn’t. And despite that, I never really came back to climbing.
When I was just starting out, I told Hugo that I wanted to be like Simon Sandoval in ten years. Three or four years later, he told me to aim higher because I’d already reach that goal. With all due respect, he was wrong. Hugo spoke too soon. I might have been on my way but life got in the way.
Here I am now. I’m turning 23 in May.
I should be at the peak of my career but instead I’m starting over for the Nth time. For the past five years or so, I’ve been in limbo. I’ve been stopping and starting every couple of months. I’d train to get good enough to do some problems that most people can’t and just when I gain confidence, I’d stop. On 6 months, off 4, on 2 months, off 5, on and off and off and on.
I’m turning 23 and I ask, “How do I keep going?”
I can hear a faint echo, “How can you not?!”
I’m honestly not sure how relevant that voice is anymore.
Is this really the return of another comeback again?
The other day, I asked Dennis when he started climbing. I had a follow up question in mind, “How do you keep going?” Unfortunately, I never got to ask my follow up question. That’s because Dennis said that he’s been climbing just as long as I have. He started in 1998 with me and Aldwin.
Dennis is one of the pillars of the Rock Climbing community in the Philippines having owned his own boulder gym and organized national bouldering events among other things. He’s climbed and competed all around the world and had his “Sharma Experience” early on. All this made me think that he’s been around for so long; that he must have experienced this almost mythical “Glory Day” period of Philippine climbing that I’ve always heard of.
When I told him about what my follow up question was supposed to be, Dennis had no answers for me.
There was a time when the question was inverse. “How could you stop!?” I would always scream inside whenever I saw that a climber had turned into a shadow of their former selves. In my 11 years of climbing, I saw this much more than I’d have liked to. I saw it happen to climbers I looked up to, girlfriends, best friends and champions alike. It especially hurt with my peers.
The name Tagoy Ledesma comes to mind first. Tagoy was my first real “rival” in climbing. His cousin Pipoy was a talented climber who could beat us seemingly without trying but I always felt that Tagoy and I both had more heart than the others. It’s not just that we outlasted our peers and stayed in the sport longer than they did but we were both underdogs by nature. We had a good four year run placing one right after the other in junior national competitions but one year, the Bacolod climber just didn’t show up. Later, I competed against him again in an open men’s competition in Bacolod but by that time, I felt almost like I’d lapped him. I finished second and he finished eighth for that leg.
Meanwhile, being an Atenean was taking its toll on me. I was struggling to pass high school. The year that I won the X-games, I had no close friends until after I’d actually won. It’s hard to make friends when you sleep between classes, during recess and lunch and you have training after school.
The next season (from summer to August or September of second year high school) happened to be the first year that I decided to move on to open competitions and let the junior competitions ride in the back seat. I did pretty well for my first year. I ended up 6th in the climbing circuit that year (just one place from being on the national team) but at a price. I’d failed Araling Panlipunan. Taking summer classes wasn’t just bad for my records, it took a toll on my training too. I was afraid to fail.
The next year was third year high school. It was the year that all the teachers said that colleges looked at. I was afraid to fail. Come end of climbing season in august, I got into the national team but after that, I made a decision to stop climbing. Around this time, I was also having trouble with my climber girlfriend. I wasn’t that enthusiastic to climb anymore anyway. I still failed math and had to take summer classes. Meanwhile, my brother and sister were both honor students. My parents sort of accepted me as the one who doesn’t try hard enough at school but they kept on my ass anyway.
In retrospect, this is the first time I gave up on climbing as my life’s calling. Trying to get into Ateneo for collage was like a wakeup call. It was time to stop living in my childish fantasies of climbing with Chris Sharma and Katie Brown and Yuji Hirayama and Francois LeGrand in a magical land where there was no such thing as paying the bills or building a career.
In retrospect, because I gave it up so easily (I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would), I realized that I’d never be as passionate about climbing as I once was.
Along the way, my parents built and closed down 2 climbing gyms, my sister had her own issues with climbing, Hugo called me a bum who just slept and ate (which was true), I made a comeback but I also had and lost another climber girlfriend, Hugo had a falling out with my parents, he told me that he had nothing left to teach me, that I’d surpassed him and stopped coaching me, climbing in the Philippines began to die and I got into Ateneo and I became a mountaineer.
My sister became this kick ass national climber who competed internationally. Once, after watching her on the x-games, my dad asked me, “When are you gonna climb again?” I know he didn’t mean it but I felt so betrayed. Giving up climbing was the hardest decision I ever had to make and the easiest at the same time. Climbing was my passion but passing school and getting into Ateneo, that was me trying to be responsible. That was me trying to make my parents proud. A four letter word screeched in my head so loud that I could have stopped trying then and there just to spite him. But I didn’t. And despite that, I never really came back to climbing.
When I was just starting out, I told Hugo that I wanted to be like Simon Sandoval in ten years. Three or four years later, he told me to aim higher because I’d already reach that goal. With all due respect, he was wrong. Hugo spoke too soon. I might have been on my way but life got in the way.
Here I am now. I’m turning 23 in May.
I should be at the peak of my career but instead I’m starting over for the Nth time. For the past five years or so, I’ve been in limbo. I’ve been stopping and starting every couple of months. I’d train to get good enough to do some problems that most people can’t and just when I gain confidence, I’d stop. On 6 months, off 4, on 2 months, off 5, on and off and off and on.
I’m turning 23 and I ask, “How do I keep going?”
I can hear a faint echo, “How can you not?!”
I’m honestly not sure how relevant that voice is anymore.
Is this really the return of another comeback again?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Not Much Time Has Passed but Too Much
About a year ago, I met a beautiful kid. I met him at Samal, Bataan when I went to live with fisherfolk for a weekend as part of a school immersion project.
About a year ago, I met this kid. His eyes were wise and happy but there was also a sadness about him. When other kids scampered around and screamed for our attention, Marlon contented with walking along side of us. Sometimes, he contented with walking along side of me. And, I became contented as well.
If Samal were a classroom, Marlon definitely wasn’t the class clown. He wasn’t the most popular kid but he wasn’t a loser either. Maybe he wouldn’t be elected for class president but I like to see him as the one that teachers secretly loved. The one they knew to have character, workmanship and loyalty. But, Marlon stopped going to school. There was no point.
For those of you who know Marlon, I won’t go on with the second half of the story as it was told to us. Just remember that it’s been about a year.
About a year ago, Marlon was etched into my thoughts. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when but I was going to save him.
I never did.
Though, lately and until now, I’ve been seeing him in every wanting face attached to a cupped hand, sleeping on every scrap of derelict cargo box in the middle of a busy sidewalk. The people pass him I hear him rap on my car window.
Not much time had passed but much too much of it. This isn’t a call to action. I’m not planning anything this time. I wish him well but I just can’t. I don’t know how.
It’s sad. Right now it’s sad.
I’ll get over it.
It’s sad.
About a year ago, I met this kid. His eyes were wise and happy but there was also a sadness about him. When other kids scampered around and screamed for our attention, Marlon contented with walking along side of us. Sometimes, he contented with walking along side of me. And, I became contented as well.
If Samal were a classroom, Marlon definitely wasn’t the class clown. He wasn’t the most popular kid but he wasn’t a loser either. Maybe he wouldn’t be elected for class president but I like to see him as the one that teachers secretly loved. The one they knew to have character, workmanship and loyalty. But, Marlon stopped going to school. There was no point.
For those of you who know Marlon, I won’t go on with the second half of the story as it was told to us. Just remember that it’s been about a year.
About a year ago, Marlon was etched into my thoughts. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when but I was going to save him.
I never did.
Though, lately and until now, I’ve been seeing him in every wanting face attached to a cupped hand, sleeping on every scrap of derelict cargo box in the middle of a busy sidewalk. The people pass him I hear him rap on my car window.
Not much time had passed but much too much of it. This isn’t a call to action. I’m not planning anything this time. I wish him well but I just can’t. I don’t know how.
It’s sad. Right now it’s sad.
I’ll get over it.
It’s sad.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Mental Pictures of Pulag Induction Climb batch 19
We were in a hurry at Jaja’s because the bus arrived two hours late so I forgot my camera in Baguio. If I hadn’t, these are the things I would have wanted to take pictures of:
Ail falling asleep on my back on the jeep to DENR and Rico and I both kinda catching each other’s eyes thinking, what do we do?! Wait, did he see me looking at him? Awkward…
Sleeping on the DENR mono block chairs just like in high school.
Free coffee at the stop over (Jonjon? Denden? Something like that).
Ploppy top load.
Giant earthworm!
Shao’s porter: girl porter.
Rico “eating” giant earthworm.
Tito Mart’s brown balls (kulubot sa loob!)
Enzo’s nuts.
The first time I got to use my new Jacket!
Ail dressed like a watermelon.
Enzo who didn’t have a jacket. Tigas!
49 LM
Des.
The 10 17’s
Some pictures involving a certain godess and her followers that I would have taken that night but might not have posted… hmm… leave it at that…
Elle night trekking Pulag in friggn short spandex!!!
A sunrise worthy of Superman.
White rainbow.
The usual peak pics.
The second worst mountain meal I’ve ever had (sorry Marmar).
Oreo pancakes part two.
Trek, trek, trek, jeep, jeep, jeep…
Transies (for Derek)
Viscos with Ail and Tammy… oh yeah, the others were there too…
Surprise visit from Mike, Enzo and Isa.
(Shet, dami nga natin nun…)
Camped out at Victory.
Wasak...
Ail falling asleep on my back on the jeep to DENR and Rico and I both kinda catching each other’s eyes thinking, what do we do?! Wait, did he see me looking at him? Awkward…
Sleeping on the DENR mono block chairs just like in high school.
Free coffee at the stop over (Jonjon? Denden? Something like that).
Ploppy top load.
Giant earthworm!
Shao’s porter: girl porter.
Rico “eating” giant earthworm.
Tito Mart’s brown balls (kulubot sa loob!)
Enzo’s nuts.
The first time I got to use my new Jacket!
Ail dressed like a watermelon.
Enzo who didn’t have a jacket. Tigas!
49 LM
Des.
The 10 17’s
Some pictures involving a certain godess and her followers that I would have taken that night but might not have posted… hmm… leave it at that…
Elle night trekking Pulag in friggn short spandex!!!
A sunrise worthy of Superman.
White rainbow.
The usual peak pics.
The second worst mountain meal I’ve ever had (sorry Marmar).
Oreo pancakes part two.
Trek, trek, trek, jeep, jeep, jeep…
Transies (for Derek)
Viscos with Ail and Tammy… oh yeah, the others were there too…
Surprise visit from Mike, Enzo and Isa.
(Shet, dami nga natin nun…)
Camped out at Victory.
Wasak...
Thursday, October 16, 2008
This Morning
This morning I left five minutes early. I know because I’m usually in a hurry. My lack of sleep made me overcompensate. So, I left the house five minutes early. I could have sat on the couch with my feet up and my eyes closed but I left five minutes early.
Walk, twenty Minutes.
Jeep, twenty Minutes.
At the Cubao MRT station, the line was the longest I’d ever seen it. Passengers in waiting inched forward towards a closed gate despite having nowhere to go. The gate, I reiterate, was closed. They etched an invisible snail-shell-shaped-line inch by futile inch into the solid ground.
Just like that, another twenty minutes of my life had come and gone. Gone. Up on the platform, was the ubiquitous fidgeting wall of commuters like sperm encroaching upon the egg (I’ve written about this before). I took my usual niche off to the side of a clump of people with one person in front of me so it doesn’t look like I cut in front of the clump.
A train came, no luck. Four minutes come and gone.
A train came, no luck. Four minutes come and gone.
A train came, no luck. Four minutes come and gone.
A large man had positioned himself behind me.
A train came, the large man pushed, the angry wall pushed back. I let the large man through. The large man got on the train. At least I was at the front of the clump now.
A train came rushing down the tracks, the wind slapping my face. My punishment for not heading useless cautionary signs (Do not step on the Yellow Line).
“Wala nang tutulak a! Palabasin muna natin sila.”
“Walang lumalabas!”
At the last second, a head an arm popped out of the egg followed by a head. The arm and head were attached to a thin man’s body. The other passengers in the train tried to fill the gap that he had left. Consequently, there was enough of a gap for me to slide my body into.
Success. Half an hour too late.
Arriving at Santolan-Anapolis Station… Ortigas Station… Edsa Central Station…
Slight = 7 minutes.
Come.
Gone.
Jeep, twenty Minutes.
Walk, less than one minute.
The biometric scanner tells me that I’ve used all thirty minutes of my grace period. No deductions but I’m going to have to make up for it tonight.
I’m making up for it.
I’m writing this.
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