Category: Travel
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Defying Darkness
I do not like the dark. It is always with sadness that I watch the fading afternoon light, the last rays clinging onto surfaces. In Culion, you have no choice but to face the darkness – after the din of primetime shows and evening news, everything goes quiet. Thankfully, this is when we discovered that…
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The Crowning Glory
“We actually didn’t want to bring you here first.” One of the boatmen has just jumped into the sparkling waters, a thick, blue cord in hand. Why not? I ask. “Because every other coral reef will seem ugly afterwards,” Guido shrugs. He points to the swimming boatman and explains we can’t drop anchor because the corals are shallow so he needs…
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Kids Being Awesome
I was on the breakwater, waiting for sunset, when they floated by on a Styrofoam raft. They were struggling to keep it balanced; every time one of them so much as tilted his head, the whole thing turned turtle. But they were laughing the whole time and I laughed with them. One of them decided he wanted to do a backflip. He scrambled to his…
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The Meaning of Kawil
For the most part, it means sitting at the edge of the boat and waiting – until a gentle, almost imperceptible, tug urges you to wind up the string. Slowly now, carefully. “You got one!” I jerk it upward, and at the last minute, it pulls free and swims away happily. I look at the empty hook somberly. My companions…
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Waking Up
The hangover woke me up. The night before we had the quickest round of shots (electricity in Culion runs out after midnight, so drink up unless you want to drink in the dark). Afterwards, we clambered to our room and stared out the window, searching for the Big Dipper. The sky seemed to have misplaced it, so we…
Trish in Transit 