All Saints Day at the highlands

Light a fire for the souls

I noticed since I was young, Halloween here in the Philippines has been greatly influenced by the American culture. Adorned in many houses especially in subdivisions, are numerous decorations from pumpkins, spiders, cobwebs and the usual monsters we grew up liking to fear like Dracula, Frankenstein, witches and the local mix of Aswangs, tikbalan, manananggal and white ladies. Those talk of ghost and other supernatural phenomenon that seems to populate our TV screens and print media whenever Halloween approaches have waned my interest recently. I used to like them growing up.

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Ancient town of Hoi An

So there we were, riding on a back of a motorcycle on a 4 hour journey towards Hoi An from Hue. It was an exciting ride speeding through the hi-ways of Vietnam. I felt I was the young Che Guevarra (hoping to look as well :P) of Motorcycle Diaries who traveled from Argentina to Chile. But the problem was I was really feeling sleepy during the trip, which is kind of dangerous when you’re on the back of the bike. Good thing our “Easy Rider” guide gave me a bubble gum to chew on to fight the sleepiness.

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Hue | Chao Mung Festival 2006

Lost in Lanterns

We had no idea there would a festival in Hué at this time of the year. The Guide Books nor the internet doesn’t have any information on this, so we felt fortunate to have witnessed their celebration of the Chao Mung Festival 2006 in Hué. We were also worried at first since we don’t have any reservations in any hotel there. Thanks to Lee Tien, one of the Easy Riders, a group of Motorcyclist we met in Da Nang, he managed to book us a Hotel in Hué since there was an influx of tourists who are also attending the festival, most popular lodgings are taken. They booked us a double bed room in Ngoc Mai hotel, a bit distant from the central city but manageable enough and the rooms are elegant and cheap for $12 USD per night.

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Firedancers

Bora Firedance

Just got back again from a quick trip to Bora to take some pics at Asian Spirit’s 10th Anniversary Celebration in Boracay, one of the slew of events you’ll be hearing and seeing in the coming days. The events are all covered by the media so you should also be seeing a lot of these in some segments of our local TV networks and prints.

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SideTrip: Bontoc, the Mountain Province connection

The town of Bontoc

I’ve finanlly got a chance to drop by and explore this little town called Bontoc. Most of the time, it’s just one of those areas you only pass by either going to Sagada or Banaue. But it would seem that Bontoc is also an ideal point to jump off any trip going to the different parts of Mountain Province. If you are coming from Manila, you can ride on the new Cable Bus located in Trinity College and they head straight to Bontoc. From there,many jeeps plying to different directions like Banaue, Sagada and Besao can be found. Since Bontoc is in the middle, travel time is reduced.

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