Backpacking Pinoy Style!

One of the problems of having a backpacking website, is what do you write about when you’re not backpacking.  And seriously, I’ll probably be on the road only once a year, so what do I do in the meantime?  I geek out, of course.

I’ve been trawling the Internet for information and due to a tip from a friend found out about the ROX Backpacking Pinoy Style lecture series.  It’s an informal gathering of backpacking afficionados that they’ve held twice.

Here are eyewitness reports of people who were actually there

http://agam-agam.blogspot.com/2008/07/backpacking-pinoy-style.html

http://justwandering.org/index.php/2008/05/28/backpacking-pinoy-style/

or you could simply Google “Backpacking Pinoy Style” to find out more.

or just go to the ROX Multiply site

http://roxphilippines.multiply.com/photos/album/22/Backpacking_around_the_world_Pinoy_Style

http://roxphilippines.multiply.com/journal/item/19/How_do_we_help_create_a_Backpacking_community

Ask and you shall receive

As I was talking to Lynn, probably the only reader of this blog, yesterday, we begun to wonder what countries out there do not require Filipinos to get visas to visit their country.  And lo and behold (yes, a cheezy term, but I got mine from King’s Quest) my officemate presents to me the latest issue of Travellife magazine which lists just that.

Brunei

Brazil

Bolivia

Cambodia

Colombia

Ecuador

Guatemela

Indonesia

Iran

Israel

Nepal

Malaysia

Morocco

Nicaragua

Peru

Singapore

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Vietnam

do not require Filipinos to get visas to visit their country.  The friend us

And also, supposedly, Mongolia. 

Concentric circles outward

That’s the way I want to travel.

This new zest for travel is wholly inspired by Cebu Pacific.  Whenever they open a new route, there the Filipinos will be.  Like that last trip to Vietnam and back through Bangkok only cost 7000 pesos (before that 1600 or so airport tax) because of their new route promo.

And it makes sense that we see Southeast Asia first, because they don’t require us to have visas.  One of my friends just told me though that Mongolia doesn’t require visas for Filipinos either.  Ulan Bator here we come!  Hehehe.

There are even the islands lying East of us, from Palau up to, I dunno, the Solomon Islands?  Westwards there is Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan.  Beyond that Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the rest of the world.

Up through the rooftop of the world from Lhasa into Kathamandu.

Ivan even went to Kota Kinabalu and from there a quick trip into Brunei.

Down south we have Australia (Monkey Mile!  Adelaide!)  New Zealand and unto South America where we even have Easter Island and Galapagos.

Petropovlask, Kamchatka with it’s majestic volcanoes only accessible by helos.

The Trans-Siberian railway (which ironically, Lonely Planet has a guide book).

I want to drive down through South America.  Drive across the United States.  Eat Mexican food.

Maybe even go to Svalbard.  Trondheim.  Greenland.  Reykjavik, Iceland.

And then unto space, the Martian mountain.  Antarctica.

These are all dreams, but Why Not?

I also want to drive from Hong Kong all the way to London.  Heck, even just drive from Manila down to Gen San.  Madagascar.

Uzbek, Kazakh, Khyrgy, Turkmen.

Walk the Amalfi coast and Liesten something in Turkey.

Petra.  Timbuktu.  Machu Pichu.  Lake Titicaca.  The Caribbean Islands.  Zanzibar.

Cuba and North Korea.

There are 200 countries to chose from.

The point is, the more countries you go to, the more tripod legs you have to stand on.  You get a better grasp of the nature of man.  It makes you realize all things are possible.  And Why Not?  When you only live once.

 

 

(the West African republics, Morroco, Tunisia (Star Wars!), Jordan, Damascus, Syria, Bethlehem, the independent republic of Palestine which shares Jerusalem with the just as independent republic of Israel, Bhutan with it’s limited visas.  Western China and whoever it borders, following the route of Marco Polo.  Angel Falls in Venezuela.  Lions outside your window in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique?  The dark jungles of the Congo.  Great whites in South Africa.  Dubai!  Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, real deserts, the Persian Gulf with it’s 7-star hotels.  The raj’s of India.  The Dalai Lama and other yogi places.  Peshwar.  Shantaram.  Kashmir.  THE UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES!!!  Bold-faced, underlined, major font.  The Moon, weightless in space.  STAR CITY!  with salutes to Gagarin’s untouched office, the clocks left for the moment he died, before you lift-off (watch Primer).  Lonely Planet.  Our planet.  Backpacking in our own beloved country.  Converting Malate into a backpacker haven.  Converting the Vito Cruz area of Makati into the same.  There’s more.  But I’ll take a breather.)

Ireland.

The Metro Manila Monsoon.

I wonder if all these journals we write online will remain in cyberspace for eternity.  Will researchers trawl through them hoping to find gems?  Seek secrets from the past.  What will they find?  What will my great grandchildren find.  These blogs are a taste of immortality.

Global Adviser

While I was looking at my Facebook (which is probably why I have this blog), I realized that most of us have our pins clustered in certain parts of the world.  Basically it’s Southeast Asia, Western Europe and East and Western United States.

I want a pin smack dab in the middle of some random place.  But is there any place truly exotic left in the world anyhow?

Late to the party

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I’ve been really late to this Backpack Blogging thing.  Or heck, to WordPress in general.  Anyway, I just wanted to link you to two websites I’ve been reading a lot recently.

www.ourawesomeplanet.com

www.ivanhenares.com

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know these websites have been around for awhile but I just started getting into them recently.  Anyway, that’s it.

Moody’s Travel Fiscal Year Rating: A+ Positive!

It has been one heck of a fiscal year.  It began with a trip to Cebu.  Followed by a trip to Hong Kong.  Then Xiamen, then the States.  I went to Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Amsterdam, too.  Finally wrapped it up with a trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

Where am I going next?  Laos?  Tibet?  Nepal?   Mongooolia?

I am now a firm believer in Lonely Planet and now grasp their philosophy.

On another front, I’d just like to write about the books that I’ve been reading.  The Post-American World, an article called Multipolar world by Richard Haas and The Case for Goliath.  They are all pointing to the same thing.  A properous world being oversawed by America.

I hate all these naysayers predicting the fall of America.  America will always be around for a long time.  And if they keep on refreshing their people, they will be around here forever.  But the point is, we are living in a time of peace and prosperity and thus we shouldn’t rock the boat.

Oh and the article talked about multipolarity.  So maybe America will always be around but it will start to take on a different form.  Maybe it will start merging with Canada and Mexico to become a super state.  It a multipolar world, each region and organization may end up taking turns being on top, whether formally or informally.

Not the best writing, but the best way to start is to start… anyway, the info might be helpful

I am not sure if any of you will ever come across this website.  But if you do I hope it helps.

We arrived in Saigon at around 2 in the morning and headed off to the backpacker’s district.  We stayed at a place called Yellow Hotel, or something like that.  It costs us only 19 dollars for a room that could fit four people!  It has an aircondition and private bath.

We booked a tour to the tunnels via Delta Tours.  What’s funny I think is that every tour leads to just one bus.  A great feat of organization by the Vietnamese which us Filipinos can learn from.  I think this tour cost us just 9 dollars.

We booked another tour the next day to a day trip down the mekong.  I think this cost us 12 dollars but it included lunch.  On the way back we spent around another 9 dollars to take the speedboat back to saigon.  This was worth it because we got to see life on the Mekong and their very friendly people.  Everybody would wave.  I like the Vietnamese.

We then booked a trip to Phnom Pehn.  I think it cost us another 12 dollars.  When we got there, we hired a tuktuk to take care of us.  He brought us to this really nice lodge that only cost around 20 dollars a night for us three.  He then brought us the next day to the Killling Fields and the school where they imprisoned people.  We paid our driver 25 dollars a day for all his service.  But the guidebooks said that was too much.  But we liked him, so that’s okay.

We then booked a bus to Siem Reap.  This costs us around another 12 dollars.  When we got there, we met another tuktuk driver who was coordinated to meet us by the original tuktuk driver.  We went to a place that cost us 25 dollars a night.  Still a bargain if you ask me.  He then drove us Siem Reap everyday to all the sites we wanted to see.  He also drove us to the river, where we saw people living on boats.  Even whole schools with a basketball court, floating on barges.  This was a bit pricey, but they said some of the money goes to the poor people.  We also went to a buffet with show place somewhere else.  It was around 12 dollars but it was worth it.

Our tuktuk driver then was able to book for us a taxi to the thai border.  This cost us 35 dollars for us three.  Which means it’s cheaper than a bus.  The taxi driver drove like a maniac but it was fun, fast and “safe”.

That’s it.  I guess I didn’t tell you much.  But I guess you get the idea of the prices.  The rest is up to you.