The first time is always the sweetest. When I saw Paris for the first time, I was filled with a sense of surreal wonderment. Maybe because I couldn’t believe that I was actually there. I felt like I was the luckiest girl on earth! It was 1999. I was single and ready to fall in love. The City of Lights offered all kinds of possibilities. It didn’t matter whether I was alone or with a lover (or was in fact with a production team, shooting a documentary). Paris opened up all my senses and just like that, I fell absolutely in love with her. Armed with my very basic Nikon…
-
-
In Which I Almost Froze to Death in Avila
Now, looking at my wrinkled hands, I marvelled at how totally unprepared I was for the cold…For someone from the tropics like me, that’s Cool Runnings cold. My fingers were getting numb. You would think that the long, uphill walk from the gates to the Convento de Santa Teresa would warm me up a bit but it just exhausted me instead. I was hungry. I was getting cranky. It was about five degrees celsius out in the open here, twenty degrees less than what I’m normally used to back home. The three layers of shirts under my overcoat didn’t help either. I was not prepared for this.…
-
KL’s Hop-On Hop-Off Experience
Some hard core travellers would tell you that hopping on a tourist bus is a waste of time and money. By ‘hard core’ I mean backpackers on their thirdorfourth round-the-world trip who consider such things as expensive tourist traps. Why not just go around the city on your own? they would say. Why spend money on something you can do for so much less? To some extent, this is true. But riding tourist buses has its own merits, too. For one, it allows a traveller to see major tourist attractions for the least amount of time. This is perfect for business or transit travellers. Aside from this, riding a tourist…
-
Atlantis to Eden: 5 fantasy islands that really exist (sort of) via CNN
Read this on CNN. Very interesting… An advanced city submerged under sea; an ancient garden paradise bearing a tree of knowledge; an island of bird-women seductresses — the stuff of pure fiction. Or perhaps not? Far-off, mysterious islands provide the setting for some of our favorite myths and folklore. But more often than not, they have their roots in real-life locations. From the Caribbean cove of Treasure Island to the sunken city of Atlantis, here’s a travel guide for those who fancy a sailing holiday with an allegorical twist. Treasure Island The definitive swash-buckling tale of one-legged pirates, treasure maps and talking parrots centers around a tiny island somewhere in…
-
Pinay Traveller Recommends #8
My theme for today is CONCEPT. Travelling can sometimes be tedious. Thank heavens for the many designers around who pour their time and energy into making travellers’ lives easier. Designing is a miss-and-hit affair but somewhere out there, I’m sure one or two of these concepts will find a future consumer. 1. THE LUNCHBOX. A lunchbox that flattens out to become a table? How transformer-y! I just love the idea of the SUNCH. I’m a bit skeptical, though, if all these can fit into such a tiny box. But you gotta love the bento feel. Designer: Soo Kang Lee 2. THE JACKET/TENT/BAG A many-in-one garment, the VESSEL satisfies both clothing…
-
Pinay Traveller 2010 in review
Got the following from WordPress. It’s so cool to see how Pinay Traveller has grown so much in two years. Here’s to a travel-filled 2011, everyone! The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 48,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it. In 2010, there were 63 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to…
