Define: walking

  

My current wallpaper, Calle Crisologo in Vigan, Ilocos Sur



The selling point of the Windows phones is networking. It makes it easy for you to log in to your Facebook, Windows Live, Linkedin and Google accounts. As soon as you load your contacts, the phone finds common names across your various accounts and links them all, and it does so intelligently. Once your Facebook is logged in, it even takes your Facebook albums and loads them into the phone. All of a sudden, your whole online life is connected through one small gadget. When it was still new, my Android tablet was left untouched for five, whole days, and I only actually logged onto my computer for work. All my other online needs, including games, went through the Windows phone. It is on this week that I rediscovered the old photo albums on my Facebook account, and for some time now, I've been interchanging my phone's wall paper to show my most favorite pictures of the few travels that I have done.

It's been a while now since I have explored a new place, the last time I did that was in Vigan in January of 2011. After that, my trips had been to places that I have gone to before, and mostly just to spend time with friends and relax from work. Next week, I embark once again on a trip to see something new, Siem Reap in Cambodia. It is a trip that my closest friends and I have been planning to make ever since we saw the first Lara Croft movie, there just never was an opportunity to go, or a cheap plane ticket to buy, until this year, when Cebupacific finally got approval to fly there straight from the Philippines.


Bah Kuh Teh, Noodles & Teh Tariks in KL


What I am most excited about is the food. Even as I write, I feel my mouth salivate a little at the thought of what street food I get to sample once we land. When Ken and I go on trips, food is always a major itinerary item, guided by a simple rule: no McDonald's. It was a rule we came up with on our trip to Malaysia in 2009, no taxi rides, no McDonald's.

Three years later, we still abide by this rule. As much as we can, when in a new place, we go around by local transportation, and eat local food. We steer away from taking the taxi because it robs us of the sweet time we can spend walking around and getting lost in the new environment. In a new place, is getting lost any different from knowing your way? It is with vigor and sunshiny enthusiasm that we weave through each town, armed with any map we can obtain from either the tourist centers, or from his iPhone, all mostly on foot, occasionally by train and bus. We stare curiously at food sold on the streets, oftentimes observing first how the passersby buy and eat them, before trying them out ourselves.

Murtabak with Teh-O-Pengs (Iced Tea)

One of my most memorable moments of getting lost and discovering great food is in the place I called home once, Singapore. Ken was there for a visit, and per his usual trip, we were out one afternoon, just walking around until we get somewhere. On that day, I couldn't really remember if we planned on going to Arab Street, but that's where we ended up. Looking for an afternoon snack, I brought Ken to a "murtabak" place. I can't remember now, but it might have been a place a Singaporean friend recommended. Murtabak is essentially a crepe with meat filling, served with curry. The place boasts to have been making murtabak for almost 70 years. We watched how the expert cook made murtabak by smoothing an elastic dough on a flat pan, and assembling the fillings. To this day, we always laugh at how he cracked an egg right into the middle of the dough and spread the gooey contents with his hand nonchalantly. Anywhere else, this would have been taken as wrong cooking practice, spoons are made for this task. There, it was a treat to see that your food is made by experts who don't care about cooking show techniques. They use tried and tested skill.

I have never been to Europe, have only been to the US once, and have never set foot in big theme parks like Universal Studios, or Disney. I have never done hard-core mountain climbing, nor have jetski-ed, bunjee jumped, scuba-dived, nor gone white-water rafting. My passport does not boast stamp after stamp of immigration offices from different cities. Yet when asked if I consider myself an experienced traveler, I always answer yes, even if the only stories I can tell are recycled and limited, all of the same places that a lot of people have already been to. I think what makes my stories special is that each experience is unique, in that not many would have tried getting lost the way we did. Not many would have ate the way we did. I am no Andrew Zimmern, eating exotic foods from different places, but I'm happy to share that my palate has now been trained to recognize flavors, texture and aroma, and categorize them according to the nearest type of cuisine they resemble. I'm happy to share that each time I'm in a new destination, I am able to walk to and fro places easily because I have somehow memorized my own landmarks for the place, enough to get lost with a mission. I consider myself an experienced traveler because that is what I do. I experience.
 

When you meet someone who can walk as briskly, and as endlessly as you can, stick with that one. You know he's never going to get tired, nor tiring.