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IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE |
SAGADA, 1998
"Who knows what kind of mood I am in? All I know is that I want to be quiet, to walk long distances, to step far back from home so I could see the bigger picture. I'd come at an opportune time: the tail end of summer, and the beginning of the rains guaranteed plenty of space. I'd only ever been to Sagada alone, and it's become somewhat of a habit to seek it out for retreat." [READ THE STORY] |
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THIS WAY TO THE MUMMIFIED COUPLE |
BANAUE, 1998
"But it's hard to miss Barangay Hiwang: a large billboard on the highway announces the fork in the road that leads there, and well-lettered signs along the route will make sure that you don't lose your way. Not that you'd want to, either, knowing what lies at the end of the trip. Hiwang is home to a minor tourist attraction of the Cordilleras: mummies. No, really." [READ THE STORY] |
| CONICAL HATS AND COCA-COLA |
VIETNAM, 1997
"There should be something wrong with this picture, I thought: I was inside a cabin on the Reunification Train, freezing under three layers of clothes (my pocket thermometer pegged the temperature at 15 degrees Celsius, minus wind chill), and I was sharing a breakfast of bahn bao with a train guard who was trying to decipher the music of Tanya Donnelly from my Walkman. My train ticket warned, "passengers are prohibited to carry on board dangerous items such as explosives, inflammable, radioactive or dead body, nauseatingitems, live stock, or other commodities not alllowed to be transported by government regulations." We were drinking bottled water proudly branded "La Vile." Definitely not what I expected, but this was it: this was Vietnam." [READ THE STORY] |
| JACK KEROUACING |
USA, 1995
New York, Florida, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, etc. "It had been almost two months since I got off the plane in New York, stricken with a bad case of wanderlust, packing a small suitcase and a good pair of hiking boots. Since then, I'd dragged myself up and down the East Coast, and made little side trips to Chicago, Detroit and Ohio, before going on back to New York. I'd made a pact with myself not to stay in any one place for more than two weeks—one or two days, sometimes just a few hours, was enough before I went on to the next stop." [READ THE STORY] NOTE: After I graduated from university, I went to the US, and got acquainted with a whole lot of planes, trains, and some automobiles. This is a version of the story sanitized for the magazine where it was first published. The fuller version is much more interesting, but not the kind of thing that readers of fashion magazines (where this story saw print, go figure) might appreciate. |
