My Vacation from my Vacation

Journey: Papleket (Hasara Farm) – Kathmandu (by 2 busses and rickshaw) 3 hrs, Kathmandu – Kuala Lampur (flight) 5 hrs, K.L – Manila (flight) 4 hrs, Manila – Cebu (flight) 1 hr, Cebu – Sugar beach Negros (busses, ferries, tricycles, on foot, etc.) 48hrs, Sugar beach – White beach (busses, ferries, tricycles, on foot, etc.) 70 hrs, sugar beach – Manila (ferry, bus, tricycles) 4 hrs, Manila – Hong Kong – Kathmandu (flight) 6 hrs. Approx travel time: 141 hrs. Over the course of 3 weeks.

Sometimes travelling can become stressful and wearing on our bodies, minds and emotions. It sounds crazy, even to me, that travelling should be professed as a demanding endeavor, especially when compared with the 30-60 hours a week that most of us work in North America. But after the trekking fiasco, the pain of carting around my sadly wounded ankle, and the challenge of showering with cold water outside, in five degree weather, I was craving a break in the warm sun. As the Christmas season was fast approaching, without a sign of it in Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist Nepal, I was starting to question where I’d like to spend it and who I’d like to spend it with. After much contemplation, I decided to take a temporary hiatus from my project hopping in freezing Nepal, to meet my travel companion, Cam for a beach mission in the warm Philippines. The process of getting from Nepal to the Philippines, however, proved to be an arduous task in which my vacation was failing in its assignment to help me relax and heal my foot.

My Nepali family was hesitant to let me go but I taught them a new word, explaining that I’d return and left my warm clothes and winter gear at their house as collateral. They prepared a leaving ceremony for me in front of their house, and as my bus arrived, I was blessed with a Tikka on my forehead and showered with the necklace of fresh flowers they prepared for me. The lengthy story of how I came to behold a Nepali family, however, will be saved for another blog.

The joyful anticipation that I was feeling to travel to another country again, slowly faded as I arrived to the airport late at night, to a “flight cancelled” notification. The inclement weather in Hong Kong had prevented our plane from arriving in Nepal so we were stuck, without a plane, in the cold, five days before Christmas. There were some definite bonuses to my flight being cancelled, and one huge coincidence that turned out to work in my favour. I met a man from Boznia, working for the United Nations in Kathmandu who just so happened to be catching the same connecting flight to Cebu. Having two of us foreigners, and having him in business class, meant that the airline wanted to accommodate us in whatever way possible. As they sat searching for flights, all I was thinking was, please get me into your complimentary luxury hotel or business class so I can sleep. I happened to be assigned a seat in Economy class on a flight to Kuala Lampur, in which I didn’t have any passengers beside me, so I slept like a baby. The second flight, from Kuala Lampur to Manila, however, was a business class seat.

Now I gotta admit, I was a little reluctant to accept it, seeing as I don’t believe in class segregation, and the fact that my tattered and smelly clothes obviously screamed that I didn't belong, but just as I was about to exchange my seat to a willing economy class seat holder, I saw the buffet... Having scraped by on saw dust and toe nails for breakfast for the past 3 months, my mouth began to salivate at the sight of brie and baby bell cheese, fresh mango, freshly squeezed juice etc. and all for FREE!! K, I know I'm sounding a little small town girl steps into the big city for the first time, but hello, have YOU ever been to business class? Their lounge has free internet access, a collection of about 40 living rooms put together, friendly faces helping you without expecting anything in return, a golf putting room to practice your swing, a slide descending into a swimming pool, free one hour massage and bakini wax while sipping lattes, free camel rides... Okay I've gotten a little carried away... Now I understand why people sometimes pay twice the price, it's not to sit in a bigger seat, it's for the luxuries of the lounge. Next time I get "stuck" in business class, I'm coming 24 hours before my flight.

Cam met me at the airport in Cebu, where he’d been waiting for more than 2 days for me to arrive. We spent two and a half days shopping for a mini computer, which I was determined to find to encourage writing on my trip, and we spent the same amount of time journeying to our sandy destination. Travelling in the Philippines is a challenge to say the least. Every trip took double the amount of time and cost twice what we anticipated and attempts at shortcuts proved to be disastrous. On our final leg across the last remaining stretch of land, we decided to hire a motorbike tricycle to drive us for one hour instead of waiting thirty minutes more for the bus. We got about 15 minutes away when the bike failed to complete its mission of climbing the first hill. The driver seemed stressed but assured us that everything would be okay as he stuffed leaves into the bike’s body as a substitute for nuts and bolts. We started up the hill again and reached the top, only to soar down at speeds resembling that of the Mind Buster at Canada’s Wonderland. When I saw the look on Cam’s face, I knew we were in trouble. I asked him what was wrong and he replied “I can’t hear you,” certainly to save me from the burden of knowing that the brakes had failed and he wasn’t sure whether the driver knew how to gear down to prevent us from sailing over the side to a quick arrival on our beach. Fortunately motorcycle maintenance is something Filipino tricycle drivers have a handle on. When we reached the bottom of the hill safely, we asked the driver to stop, not willing to take any more chances. The bus that we didn’t want to wait for, arrived about five minutes later, and we arrived safely, but after dark, on Christmas eve.

I spent Christmas inflicted with a digestive ailment that redefined the term “the runs.” It was a non-eventful day which we spent watching movies on my lap top, in between my bathroom breaks. The remaining days on sugar beach proved to be tranquil but the weather unfortunately was not. The rain let up for a few hours on New Year’s Eve, just long enough for us to enjoy the giant bonfires on the beach, then extinguish them before they spread to our bamboo huts. We said a calm and non-sealant “Happy New Years” to each other and to the new friends surrounding us, then I threw off my clothes and hopped in the ocean to spend my first few moments of 2009 with the Phosphorescence of the sea.

This was my second trip to this country and it appeared that the Philippines which I was experiencing on this trip bore very little resemblance to the one I remember from years previous. I think this is simply because I visited my first time, in my pre-vegetarian days. The Filipinos LOVE their meat, which meant that some days my eating options were sugar filled pastries, instant noodles (beef, chicken or seafood flavor), or my own finger nails. Their idea of a vegetarian meal is anything with fish (a common misconception in South East Asia), or powdered asparagus soup, which I sadly discovered on my first night in Cebu. Cam was very patient with my temper tantrums expressing my longing for Nepal’s scrumptious vegetarian meals. Apparently I’d loved the dal bhat in Nepal a little too much, as a friendly Filipino woman made it playfully evident to me on the beach, by pointing to my belly and saying, “when is baby due?” Cam laughed and patted my tummy saying “it’s just a food baby” which I’m sure I lost by the end of my trip. I nearly jumped over the counter and hugged the manager of a vegetarian friendly Mexican restaurant, when we had our first meal in Manila.

My trip to the Philippines was challenging, as it tested my patience and revealed to me a lot of my shortcomings when it comes to accepting things as they are, not as I would like them to be. Cam and I said our goodbyes in Manila and I flew back to freezing but familiar Kathmandu. I’ve decided to spend a few days to myself with my new computer, writing, reading and eating as many veggie cheeseburgers as I can get my hands on. As I sit, overlooking the Himalayas on the balcony of a small café in the mountain town of Bandipar, I’m beginning to feel that 2009 is starting out to be a very good year indeed.

Check out some Nepali and Filipino pics at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/KusumaTiffany/AVacationAwayFromMyVacation?feat=directlink