Travel Footprints

We had dinner at The Atrium in Megamall last night and had the chance to see the Manila, City Beautiful photo exhibit. It basically showcased Burnham’s master plan of the urban development of Manila as a city – evoking mixed emotions of both marvel and grief at the what was and what could have been.

As Daniel Burnham once put it “Possessing the bay of Naples, the winding river of Paris, and the canals of Venice, Manila has before it an opportunity to create a unified city equal to the greatest of the Western World with the unparalleled and priceless addition of a tropical setting.” I dearly hope it’s not too late to still make this happen!

This exhibit reminded me of the recent e-mail I got from a friend romanticizing the Old Manila :

Pasig was very clean. The photographer must have taken this photo (below) October to December timeframe. But Pasig, during summer would have beautiful water lilies, tiny Quiapo’s floating amidst white, yellow and purple water lilies that I remember. Water from our rich and abundant rivers were emerald green and blue. Napakalinis and walang amoy.

Manila was just a beautiful place.

If you’d take an L5 plane or a Piper Cab and take pictures of Dewey Boulevard (now Roxas Boulevard) from above, you’d be so proud to say, that the place is much better than Cote’ d Azure. Environment was just so very clean, air was refreshing, and take a look at the sea….wasn’t that a gift given to us during those days?!

Manila, City Beautiful will be on display at the SM Megamall Atrium until June 9 and The Block at SM City North EDSA from June 10 to June 30.

More information at:
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/257990/city-beautiful-exhibit-sm-supermalls

With the unbearable summer heat upon us, most of the boys are getting lazy to get up to a sweltering morning (at 5am at that!) to ride under the even more unbearable sun. But we’re not about to retire for the season just yet. The solution? Ride at night what else?

I’ve done quite a few night rides already but mostly because it just so happens that we reach nightfall due to a rather long ride. And some 12hr or 24 hour races. But this is the first where instead of meeting up at 6am to ride, we actually met up at around 6pm.

La Mesa was the perfect venue for a night ride, primarily for several reasons –
- Safety: it’s a closed area, so minimal chance of encountering and ‘unwanted elements’
- Support: your entrance fee gets you a ranger to accompany you during the ride (1 for every 5 riders)
- More Support: aside from your guides, the La Mesa folks also have a pick-up traversing the fire road around the park. So if any emergency arises, you can be easily brought out of the park
- Smoooooth Trails: unlike our usual trails where we basically ride fire roads or foot paths, the La Mesa singletracks were built for mountain biking

For night rides, La Mesa requires a minimum number of riders. You need at least 30 bike addicts paying 200 each (or 20 paying 400 each, 10 at 600 . . .).

Ride starts with the usual gear check, with the additional work to prepare our night lights. For a night ride, you’d want at least 100 lumens shining the way. I was hoping to rely on my Princeton Tec Headlamp (at 70 lumens) which we had bought for our Nepal trip. Just to be sure I had borrowed another lamp (150 lumens) which I just duct taped to my helmet. LED lamps offer a broader coverage, but at a shorter range. This becomes pretty glaring when you lift your head up a bit, and the LED light just seems to dissolve in the darkness. Tilt a little bit down again and a couple of meters infront of your bike shines brightly again. LED doesn’t eat up a lot of power also, so you run less risk of losing your light in the middle of a 4-5 hour night ride.

I figure I also want other decorative lights on my next night ride (like blinking lights on my wheels, or those other stuff you see at rave parties . . . hey it’s a Saturday night anyway!)

I’ve ridden La Mesa several times already, but the rush was so much different at night. Riders usually look for that ‘Flow’ – that feeling that all conscious actions dissolve and you ride on pure instinct,one with the bike, one with the trail. Maybe it’s the tunnel vision of seeing just a couple of meters ahead, maybe it’s the encompassing darkness, maybe it’s the fear of being left all alone in the pitch darkness … but that Flow was definitely there.

Somehow I just kept my momentum all across from sudden drops to sudden ascents . . . it felt great, it felt fast . . . until the rational mind kicked and said, ’stop, your body is tired!’

At the middle of the ride, someone took a nasty spill. No major injuries fortunately, but she was quite shaken up, with a sore shoulder. Good thing the park rangers had a pick-up waiting at one of the rest stops. We loaded her and her bike on the pick-up to recover back at home base while the rest of us pushed on (reminiscent of those scenes from The Pacific).

Onward we went to the final stretch of single track going down to the lake. I didn’t want to miss this as I knew I could get a good shot down there. Nice and smooth ride down until a couple of loose branches caught my handlebar and my I face planted down on the ground, cursing in the darkness (not so much because of the pain, though it was painful, but because of my bruised ego – no I shouldn’t have crashed, I was a veteran rider). But crash I did and I think my helmet hit the ground pretty hard. Some scratches on my cheek, knees, shoulders, but otherwise I was fortunate that the ground was quite soft.

After a couple of pagmumuni-muni moments, we rode on back to homebase. We opted to ride mostly ride roads this time, since we’re all pretty tired. The line was pretty stretched this time, as all of us were simply thinking of getting back as fast as possible so we can finally rest easy. No more pitstops this time folks, just a final dash for home . . .

Where boxes of Shakeys Pizza was waiting for us! Yes, made sure to call Shakeys before our ride so that they’d deliver our pizza just in time. Was a bit of a challenge explaining to them where the La Mesa Nature Reserve was (not the Eco Park mind you), but hey, they got there! Kudos to Shakes customer service! Talagang kahit saan makaka-deliver. In since we had the Shakeys Pizzamatic card, that’s buy 1 take 1 folks! 8 boxes! And a couple of liters of Coke and Poweraide from our kind friend Toots.

Lots of the riders were wondering why we didn’t do night rides more often! Well, we got part 2 planned, and I’ve already bought some equipment to help me next time
- Rudy Project Yellow lens for my Zyon. Darkness and dust just doesn’t do well for my eyes.
- additional 200 lumens LED light

Now I just need to look for those neon whatever rave party accessories and we’re good to party again, La Mesa Coke Zero style!

Every year, the world celebrates International Biodiversity Day on May 22, if only to increase awareness on this amazing planet’s wonderful ecosystems and and more importantly, our big role as steward of the world’s biodiversity. Today’s celebration is actually just a huge milestone in an exciting year for the flora and fauna population of planet Earth – the United Nations declared 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity.

More information on International Year of Biodiversity is available here. We fully support these causes because discovering the world’s diverse resources make travelling much more exciting, don’t you think? Cue in ‘The World is Just Awesome’ music from Discovery Channel…

I love the mountains
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when great whites fly
I love the whole world
And all its sights and sounds
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love tornadoes
I love arachnids
I love hot magma
I love the giant squids
I love the whole world
It’s such a brilliant place…
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I’ll cap off this entry with a link to our last entry on bird-watching, a meaningful guided tour that truly celebrates the biodiversity of birds in the Philippines! Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada….

Went to R.O.X. to attend their Travel Talk Series last night! Topic for this week is Travel Blogging, with Dominic (www.dongisim.blogspot.com) as guest speaker.

The Travel Talk series is part of R.O.X.’s ‘Where Have You Been in the Philippines?’ campaign. You can also participate in their photo contest and win exciting prizes like a trip to Batanes for two and lots of travel items! Check out http://www.rox.com.ph/wherehaveyoubeen/ for more details

R.O.X. is the biggest outdoor sports and recreation hub in Southeast Asia located in Bonifacio High Street, Taguig City. With three levels of all outdoor sports recreation gears and equipment from Hiking, Climbing, Water Sports,Surfing, Adventure Travel, Wellness, Cycling and even Scuba Diving.

From http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/178466/bangkok-in-shambles

I can’t believe the riots in Bangkok elevated to this intensity already! We were in Bangkok last April 10 for our flight back to Manila from Kathmandu and the security checkpoints along the highway from the airport was enough to scare us off and stay as far away from the city (and closest to the Suvarnabhumi airport). And, good thing too, because it was during that time that a large crackdown on those anti-government protesters occurred leaving at least 15 people dead and almost a hundred more injured. Now, the so-called Red Shirt protesters are torching the city! Tsk.

My distinct memories of Central World were shopping for shoes at Nine West about a year ago (the great Thailand sale!) and meeting a friend for coffee at the main lobby of Offices at Central World. I’m sure they’re gonna find a way to rebuild the mall somehow. I just hope the situation in Bangkok settles down peacefully in the next days.

If you don’t see the video, click here!

Thank you Nuffnang!

You guys do have impeccable taste! lol Kidding aside, we are immensely delighted to be chosen as the featured blog for the month of May especially since we are newbies in the wonderful world of blogging! We are giddy and ecstastic and definitely honored to have been selected!

Keep up the great work and more power to all of you! You guys rock

There is something clearly special and enchanting about the Himalayas and we consider ourselves fortunate for experiencing it first-hand!

The crisp fresh air, clouds embracing the mountains, Tibetan flags flapping in the ruthless winds, frozen lakes of Khumbu – the whole place and the locals noticeably radiates sacredness – you can almost touch it! Here’s a list of the blog entry that chronicles our divine trek to Gokyo Ri for the year 2010 :

Day 1: Kathmandu (1,327m) to Lukla (2,840m)

Lukla, Gateway to the Himalayas

Lukla (2,840m) to Phakding (2,910m)

Day 2: Phakding (2,910m) to Namche Bazar (3,440m)

Day 3: Namche Bazar (3,440m) to Khumjung (3,790m)

Day 4: Namche Bazar (3,440m) to Tengboche (3,860m)

Day 5: Tengboche (3,860m) to Phortse (3,810m)

Day 6: Phortse (3,810m) to Machhermo (4,410m)

A Typical Trekker’s Dinner

Day 7: Machhermo (4,410m) to Gokyo Valley (4,790m)

Day 8: Gokyo Valley (4,790m) to Gokyo Ri (5,350m)

Easter Sunday Celebration in Gokyo Ri (5,360m)

Day 9-11: Descending the Himalayas

Day 12: En route to Kathmandu

The Dream Team

How Much?

We’ve all heard this line before: ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’. Yes, it’s one best-selling book on men-women relationships highlighting the profound gender differences. It’s also a convenient way one can explain the infinite battle between the sexes. ‘Defending the Caveman’, a one-man act comedy written by American comedian Rob Becker, takes a stab in bridging this gap between males and females under the premise of human evolution and this is being staged in Manila right now!

Photo taken from the Facebook Fan Page of Defending the Caveman Philippines

This smash one-man comedy dissecting the languages of men (‘hunters’) and women (‘gatherers’) is performed by Joel Trinidad (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Avenue Q). We had the chance to witness Joel’s marriage proposal to his then girlfriend during a show last December (Spelling Bee) and it is amusing to be given another chance to glimpse their life as a married couple through this play (Defending the Caveman). In a word, the whole play was HILARIOUS! Mr. Rono and I couldn’t help but throw elbow jabs at each other everytime Joel Trinidad illustrates typical ‘languages’ for a man or a woman in certain situations because it is just so freaking true! The insightful truths about the relationships between ‘hunters’ and ‘gatherers’ makes for interesting conversations with friends way after the play ended!

Mrs. Rono and friends with talented actor and star of Defending the Caveman, Joel Trinidad

‘Defending the Caveman’ is touted as the longest running one-man comedy show in Broadway history, and winner of the 2001 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. It has been staged in over 40 countries to date and translated into 16 different languages. You can still catch the remaining show dates for Defending the Caveman on May 15 and 16, 8 p.m., at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, Podium 4, RCBC Plaza, Ayala Avenue, cor. Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., Makati City.

We knew, even before we embarked on this journey, that our trip to the Himalayas would be AWESOME! But at what price? We have been asked by various acquaintances and friends to detail the cost of our trip so here goes!

Clothing and Gears

Months before we left Manila for Nepal, we have been following a strict training plan to prepare us with the physical demands of trekking in the Himalayas. For this, we made good use of our mountain bikes (I even had the bitter experience of crashing in one ride!) and at least, that is not costly! What proved to be VERY expensive were all the clothes and gears we had to buy for the trip between January and March, namely:

For Mr. Rono

Columbia Grizztooth Omni-Tech Shoes – Php 3,470.00 (bought on sale!)
Columbia Bugaboo Parka – Php 9,990.00
Columbia Bugaboo Interchange Glove – Php 2,990.00
High-Neck and Legging Thermal Wear (Marks & Spencer) – Php 4,000.00
Waterproof Pants (Columbia) – Php 1,970.00
Performance Shades, Zyon (Rudy Project) – bought a year ago

For Mrs. Rono

Columbia Pagora Shoes – Php 3,270.00 (bought on sale!)
Columbia Bugaboo Parka – Php 8,990.00
The North Face Montana Glove – Php 1,870.00
High-Neck and Legging Thermal Wear – Various (Marks & Spencer/Columbia) – Php 4,100.00
UV-resistant/Convertible/Lightweight Pants from R.O.X. (Aigle/Columbia – Php 5,980.00
Street Jacket/Turtlenecks (Columbia/Mango) – Php 3,160.00
Performance Shades, Zyon (Rudy Project) – Php 9,120.00 (with 20% discount during Glorietta’s Midnight Madness sale)

Gears

40L Mountaineering Pack from R.O.X. (Habagat) – Php 4,919.00
Headlamp from R.O.X. (P-Tech) – Php 2,890.00
Wool Socks from R.O.X. (The North Face/Keen) – Php 2,074.00
Pocket Towel from R.O.X. (Sea to Summit) – Php 1,250.00
Various medicines

More or less, our clothes and gears for the Himalayas racked up to a total of Php 70,000++ for what’s lacking in our current sportswear. Early on, we already decided we did not want go cheap on shoes (it’s a lot of trekking!) and good pair of lens (to avoid snow-blindness!). Plus, we knew we needed to have some reliable winter clothes with us. We opted to go for Columbia mainly because of their 6-month zero interest installment promo for regular-priced items Php3,000 and up.

In Nepal, we also spent about $200 more for some original UV-resistant Buff headwear (this is sadly not available in Manila!) and some cheap knock-offs of several The North Face products (mostly goose-down outfits) that we felt we needed for more insulation in the freezing, but enchanting, Himalayas.

Travel Expenses

Roundtrip airfare from Manila to Nepal via Thai Airways amounted to PHp 40,000.00 (we bought the ticket in February 2010) with a 12-hour transit in Bangkok.

The Bangkok Airport hotel was way too expensive at $197 for an 8-hour stay in a double room. Coming back from Nepal, we opted to make other hotel arrangements and found a sweet deal in the internet to stay at The Floral Shire, a hotel 10 minutes away from the airport, for just 1,000 THB/room/night.

Of course, the usual Php 750.00 NAIA terminal fee was in our budget. Plus, the airport tax in Bangkok (because it wasn’t included in our ticket somehow) amounting to THB700/person.

Visa fees in Nepal was $40/person.

We also secured travel insurance from Blue Cross amounting to $55/person. Better safe than sorry! At least, we will have this kind of insurance in case we needed to be rescued during the trek!

Tour Expenses

We availed of the package tour with the International Adventure Treks and Expedition for a price of USD1,200 per person which includes :

· Airport – hotel – airport transfer on arrival and departure by car or a van.
· 4 nights at Hotel Marshyangdi or similar in Kathmandu with breakfast & room on twin sharing basis.
· 3 meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) with Tea & coffee on trek with lodge accommodation.
· An experienced trekking guide, Sherpa (assistant guide) & porters (generally 1 porter for 2 trekkers), their daily wages, food, accommodation, insurance and needed equipment
· Airfare and tax for domestic flight Kathmandu – Lukla – Kathmandu including guide & assistant guide.
· National Park entry permit & TIMS.
· Necessary taxes and company service charge.

And excludes:

· Lunch & dinner while staying at hotel in Kathmandu.
· Soft drinks, bottled water, beer and hard drinks during the trek and bar bills at hotel.
· Sleeping bag with liner and shower facilities for the trek.
· Comprehensive Insurance Policy to cover all travel needs including helicopter rescue incase needed.
· International flight cost and Nepal entry visa fee.
· Expenses of personal nature and emergency cost due to unavoidable situation such as landslide and strike.
· Tips to service staffs.

In summary, we spent about Php 120,000++/person to make this trip of our lifetime possible. But the experience is certainly priceless!

We spent our last night in Lukla with a big celebration! Passang Sherpa, the elderly innkeeper of the lodge near the Lukla airport, spent some time chatting with us over dinner and then brought out drinks on the house to toast to our successful climb. Not just any beer – he brought out pitchers of Chang, a local brew in this part of the Himalayas (think lambanog!) for our small party of trekkers, porters and guides.

Thankfully, the serious drinking spree the night before did not stop us from waking up early the next day. Simply because, early morning in Lukla sounded like a scene straight out of a World War 2 film with the buzz of all these tiny otter planes flying in and out of the Tenzing-Hillary Airport. This airport sure was one busy bee!

We took our breakfast of pancake and noodle soup while chatting with trekkers who just arrived in Lukla, then bid good-bye to the people we met – both locals and foreigners – as we made our way to the airport for the usual check-in procedure. As a parting gift, we gave a goodie bag of used gloves, scarf, wool sacks and shoes to our porters. We figured we would not be using those winter gears as much and it would be more useful for them living in the freezing Himalayas. They, of course, gratefully accepted. We will never forget these kind people who accompanied us throughout the trek!

The rest of Day 12 in the Himalayas was basically spent waiting in the Tenzing-Hillary airport. The general mood was chaotic but at least we have Ang Dawa Rai to sort out everything for us – from luggage check-in to securing our boarding pass. We witnessed at least 5 successful take-offs and landings in the short elevated runway and would always be amazed at how those pilots managed.

Ang Dawa Rai would give us updates every now and then on our flight status – airport in Kathmandu is crowded and our plane could not take off just yet, a plane that successfully took off from Kathmandu had to turn around becuase of low visibility, no planes can take off from Lukla because of the cloudy weather. By the time we were about to board our plane, we were even told to disembark again hence –

Frankly speaking, we don’t mind the wait. It’s just amusing how the passengers (us) were left right on the tarmac while the pilots wait for clearance to take off. At least, they are concerned about safety! We’ve seen enough take off and landing on this airport to conclude that it is not an easy feat. One small miscalculation might be fatal such as this crash incidence in Lukla airport –

If you don’t see the video, click here!

This plane crash landing in Lukla happened a few years back. They said the pilot must have thought they already reached the tip of the runway but missed it a couple of meters because it was too damn foggy. A local said there was only one survivor on that flight – the co-pilot – who was able to eject himself from his seat right before the crash and landed on the runway. So, we really did not mind the delay. When we did take off eventually after a few hours, I heard the pilot say (because I was seated so close to the cockpit!) that we had to fly 15,000 feet instead of the usual 10,000 feet just to get a clearer visibility.

It was a turbulent ride, I was really scared for our lives and prayed that this tin can of a plane would bring us safely back to Kathmandu. And thankfully God heard our prayers! After 1 hour and 5 minutes (instead of 35 minutes) of dizzying plane ride, we were being picked up by Harkaraj Pariyar in the Tribuvhan Airport. We arrived in Kathmandu in one piece! It was certainly an exciting way to cap off our Himalayan adventure