Imagine your life without books… For some, it’s a sad reality. This backpacker mum is stoked to be part of an awesome team that will help bring an early Christmas to Rizal Elementary School in Gubat, Sorsogon this year. The Book Sharing Project, organized by local volunteers and a bunch of bloggers, aims to collect…
Author: Gay Mitra
Round-The-World Salon Sessions
It certainly ain’t on a backpacker’s itinerary… But hey, if you’re on some long term trip, it’s one of those unplanned stuff you just gotta do. Like, dental visits (though this could actually be on the to-do list if such job is cheaper overseas than in one’s home country). Quite exciting, I must say. Could…
St. Mary’s Cathedral, Madurai, India: That Eve We Lost An iPhone
It had been a long day. The hubby and I were dragging our feet, wandering aimlessly. Brainlessly. We just trudged three kilometers from Gandhi Museum (still couldn’t get over their resident dinosaur) back to Palace Road. Earlier we also visited Meenakshi Amman Temple, Thirumalai Nayakkar Mahal, and Vandiyur Mariamman Teppakulam which are as tiresome to…
Sigiriya, Sri Lanka: Lion’s Rock
Third day, and already we were heading to our fourth Sri Lanka World Heritage Site. The country has eight. While I want to be all braggy about that (and the public transport near-death experiences we survived on the way to these sites), I reckon another incident deserves a brighter spotlight. A relationship milestone between me…
Islands Insider Special Preview
On the 21st of May, I found myself snickering alongside fellow travel bloggers, tucked cozily in the back rows of Greenbelt 3’s Cinema 5. We were catching up on our recent adventures. Everyone was scrubbed, and polished. Heck I even substituted my usual shabby harlem pants with them skinny jeans, and I could barely remember…
Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay: Anniversary On The Rock
A little above ten degrees centigrade, and we were cowering inside the souvenir shop at Pier 33’s Hornblower Alcatraz Landing. The longer we stayed, the more unnecessary knick-knacks I purchased. We drove all the way from Santa Clara, California where we were shacking for one month, under the spell of our nifty GPS gadget sitting…
Tondol Beach, Anda, Pangasinan
Ratio of trike drivers to passengers, 13:3 ½. It was quarter to five in the afternoon and we just arrived at Anda’s sleepy terminal across the town market. Out of the 13 hopefuls, apparently there’s only one driver who could take us to our final destination. Or perhaps, the next one on queue, as the…
Photo Essay: Kasbah des Oudaïas And Le Tour Hassan, Rabat, Morocco
Crumpled and torn. Already battered, yet we were using it for the first time. Our toddler Luna prolly had too much fun playing with it. The map that Jahlil, our Couchsurfing host, doodled may not be Lonely Planet worthy but it served its purpose well. Which was to guide us through Rabat’s labyrinth-like walled medina…
Colonia Santa María la Ribera, Mexico City: Morisco Kiosk And Museo del Instituto de Geología de la UNAM
Almost every bench had a kissing couple, I felt like we were in the set of some Mexican telenovela. The backdrop consisted of trees gently swaying, soft sun rays dancing, and a multihued gazebo sitting pretty in the middle of the block. It was a peaceful early afternoon stroll in Colonia Santa María la Ribera’s…
Rio Carnival 2012: Party Tickets For Two And A Half
It was chaos around the brekkie buffet table at nine-ish in the morn. Fellow guests have awoken late as well and were zombie-walking their way out of the lift and into the restaurant. No alcohol was served but the room smelled like it. We thrashed our way through the befuddled crowd and heard murmurs of…