Philippines

Quickie: A Solo Female Traveler’s Weekend Guide to Bohol

text by:Prime Sarmiento photo by: Nina Sarmiento This is Part 2 of a two-part weekend guide for solo female travelers. Read part one of the female traveler's guide to Bohol here.       Art Tripping   1. Baclayon Church The province is home to some of the most beautiful and centuries old churches built...

Quickie: A Solo Female Traveler’s Weekend Guide to Bohol

text by: Prime Sarmiento Photos by:Nina Sarmiento (This is part 1 of a two-part guide to Bohol. You can read part two of the female traveler's guide to Bohol here) I wasn't exactly thrilled When my lil sis told me that we should go to Bohol. I went to this central Philippine province a decade...

The Albay Experience: Lessons on Climate Change Journalism

text and photos by Prime Sarmiento How can a disaster-prone province become one of the most liveable areas in the Philippines? How can a province renown as site of devastating floods and volcanic eruptions be a global model for climate change adaptation? I was asking myself these questions while in a press conference with Albay...

The Beautiful, historic churches of Ilocandia

posted by: Prime Sarmiento I love to travel around Southeast Asia if only because I'm on a temple tripping kick. The region after all has a rich Hindu-Buddhist tradition. The kind that produces the magnificent Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia. You can't see these structures in my country. We debated the reasons behind...

My (not so) secret writing place

REVIEW : Bliss Homestay in Baguio City Posted by Prime Sarmiento I went on a personal writing retreat early this month in Baguio and thanks to its cool weather and right vibe, I managed to finish a couple of blog posts, the first draft of my graduate thesis proposal, and an analysis piece that I...

Writing is about finding time and space

posted by Prime Sarmiento A colleague asked me if I needed to go to Baguio just to write a thesis proposal for my graduate degree in anthropology.  She can’t understand why I need to go all the way to Baguio, travel by bus by around six hours or more, for something that I could have...

I joined the Pahiyas festival and I got this kitschy souvenir photo

by Prime Sarmiento Thank goddess for entrepreneurs! In fact had not been for this photo booth that was set up by a group of twenty-something entrepreneurs, I won't have any souvenir photo of me enjoying this year's Pahiyas festival in Lucban,Quezon. I forgot to recharge both my digicam and video cam the night before and...

Ilocandia Diary Part 2: Nature tripping, Beach bumming

Posted by Prime Sarmiento The travel coordinator handed me a list of things to bring in this four-day tour of Ilocos region. The regulars in my travel pack are in there: bottled water, comfy shoes, prescription medicine. The list also advises us to have that spirit of adventure and a sense of humor (as, after...

Ilocandia Diary part 1: Beautiful, Green Power in Bangui

Text and Photos by Prime Sarmiento How can something which is primarily used to generate electricity entice travelers that they will go out of their way just to see it? Or to be more specific: who would have thought that the windmills of Ilocos Norte, which now supplies 40 percent of the electricity needs of...

Visita Iglesia 2010: A short tour of some of Manila’s historic churches

posted by: Prime Sarmiento Growing up in a devout Catholic family means spending a lot of time hearing mass in any place where there’s a Catholic church. And in a predominantly Catholic Philippines, that’s very easy as Filipinos don’t only go to church on Sundays- the traditional day of obligation. For people like my mother,...

Binondo Food Tripping (part 2): Food Wok Tour with Ivan Man Dy

posted by: Gypsygal Prime Note to self: I should really spend more time in the gym. I was thinking about this, out of guilt, or maybe out of vanity, as I munched on a spring roll (which, I have to remind all you foodies there, really goes well with a dollop of that sweet brown...

Binondo Food Tripping (part 1): Memories of Tikoy

posted by Gypsygal Prime (for my lil sis) Being more Pinoy than Chinese (I’m a fifth generation Filipino Chinese from my mother’s side), our family celebrate the Lunar New Year (or better known as Chinese New Year). We go to church, then have lunch at Binondo (Manila’s Chinatown district) , watch a lion dance in...

Quickie: 48 Hours In….Baguio City

Text and Photos by: Gypsygal Prime Better known as the summer capital of the Philippines, travellers usually flock to Baguio to escape the heat and dust of Manila. Located some 1,500 meters above sea level, nestled within the Cordillera in northern Philippines, temperature in Baguio is always below 30 degrees Celsius (this even at the...

This is not a travel post: Stop Killing Journalists

Text by: Gypsygal Prime Photos by Avi Olarte: Taken November 25 during the National Day of Indignation organized by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP). I need to deviate from my usual travel posts, as no working journalist can remain apathetic given such atrocity. The Maguindanao massacre – which involved the murder...

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