BORA!

So the LLDD and L decided to treat themselves this year to a little end-of-summer cum birthday party at Boracay (Visayan translation: bora – meaning “the beautiful people”, and cay – meaning “don’t talk to me here, either”)

This was the LLDD’s first trip to Bora since 1992 when he was still a LLS (lame law student) travelling with his blockmates. That trip was memorable because: (1) it was during an air-traffic controllers’ strike which grounded commercial flights, so we had to ride a rickety private six-seater propeller plane; (2) we were able to get a picture of a bronze Tetchie Agbayani; and (3) a pervert kept on chatting us up.

14 years later, some thoughts:

Excuse me for being pro-indoor plumbing – some people have complained about Boracay’s “overdevelopment”. I’m not one of them yet. Sure, there are a lot more resorts and restaurants and shops, but prices have gone down (relatively), choices have gone way up, and I always think of running water as a good thing. Bora ’92 didn’t have many amenities, and we can’t all be extreme/adventure tourists, can we?

Props – Large-screen open-air World Cup viewing; centralized ferry dock (in ’92, you couldn’t walk the beach without being blocked by boats and ropes every 10 feet); bars that set up on the sand at night; the south side of the island (where you still can have long stretches of beach all to yourself); braiding and tattooing; shops and restos run by cool expats; any beach sport; open-air "malling"; the general feel-good party vibe of the strip.

Booooooo. Booooooo – sailboats with cellphone logos; peddlers who go up to you in the water; lack of public restrooms along the length of the strip; motorcycle noise; overcrowding at the beach center (spread out, people! it's a long beach!)

I still don’t get it – banana boats; bars that hire cover bands; that ferris wheel at d’ mall (for that matter, what kind of lame name is “d’ mall”?)

Ou est la topless? - In ’92, there were topless foreigners EVERYWHERE; this time, I didn’t spot a single one (um, not that I was looking, LLDDL). Did I just come at a bad time? Was a law passed or something? Another thing that's changed: previously conservative Pinays have apparently ditched their maong shorts and one-piece suits and are now very secure and comfortable wearing daring two-piece bikinis (um, not that I was looking, LLDDL).

The LLDDL makes a mean birthday cake

The LLDD thinks the LLDDL would make a great spokesperson for Boracay

When in Bora, the LLDDL chooses to stay at Boracay Tropics Resort Hotel

The LLDDL heroically tries to hide the LLDD's ... um ... ab

Caaaaaa-nnonnnn-baaaaallllllll!!!!!

The LLDD has been known to stalk the LLDDL

mmm...midnight moonlight margaritas

IT'S MONDAY, I MUST BE IN KUWAIT

MY FIRST trip using my Diplomatic Passport. Membership really does have its privileges. Without doing anything, I got picked out of the long check-in line and sent to the First Class counter. I walk with a mixture and pride and embarrassment past the sad stares of those who had arrived earlier. I want to adopt them all.

After a rather crowded and uncomfortable flight, I arrive in Kuwait City. As you step out of the airport, there’s a digital clock that shows the outdoor temperature. It reads 35°. It’s 6:00 a.m. Talk about a warm welcome (ba-da-bing!)

As friends of the LLDD will tell you, I’m a safe, defensive, wussy driver. Imagine then my sheer terror as I get on MY FIRST official high-speed motorcade. I know the drivers are professional, and all the cars are top-of-the-line, but do they have to tailgate so close to each other? At 120+ kph? On city streets? I was so nervous I nearly choked the stuffing out of my armrests.

(saving grace: it is tres cool to travel in a car with your national flag flapping on the hood. Flap, flag, FLAP!)

PLACE KINDA REMINDS ME OF: Because of the wide spacing of structures and sparse number of pedestrians, parts of Kuwait City remind me of the Manila Bay reclamation area (just replace the cogon/weeds in the vacant lots with light brown sand). And there’s this place at the back of my hotel that’s a popular hang-out for Filipinos that’s a dead ringer for Shoppesville in Greenhills, complete with modest atrium, old escalators, bargain stores and bilyaran. All that was missing were LaSalistas cutting class.

Kuwait Towers. Must be their central landmark (otherwise, i'd have missed the point hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.......i kill myself sometimes)

High up and inside the Kuwait Towers. Cool slow revolving floor. A Pinay mans (womans?) the souvenir shop. I ask if she has any “Katas ng Kuwait” mudflaps. Silence.

Sitting at the grown-ups table. For the official photo and write-up, click here (you can tell how important i am by the way my own office gets my name wrong)

Working lunch. See the queasy look on my face? It’s not because the food was bad (the food was great). I just made the ROOKIE MISTAKE of not reading the menu before chowing down. I get stuffed after just my first plate, not realizing there were five more courses to follow. By the third course I had the meat sweats.

Actually, this is the airport V.I.P. lounge in Qatar, right before I commit another ROOKIE MISTAKE: mis-timing a bathroom run. So there i am, lounging, when i decide to quickly pass by the men's room to freshen up . I'm thinking, there's more than 30 minutes 'til the plane is scheduled to leave, i have lots of time. I wash up, comb my hair, fix my tie, exit the room, go back to the lounge and find ... absolutely no one. The place is empty. Apparently, the airport people decided to board the plane early and ultra-efficiently got everyone and their luggage onto waiting limousines in something like 9.8 seconds. Meantime, I'm running around the V.I.P. lounge (it's a BIG lounge) like Macauley Culkin in Home Alone. I finally find the tarmac exit, where i spot the LAST limo having trouble closing its trunk, so i run after it and hop in (the limo, not the trunk) and get to catch the plane. I was literally THIS CLOSE to being stranded in Qatar with no money or luggage. Moral of the story: airplanes have bathrooms too. Use them.

SONYA'S GARDEN

Really gorgeous. The ambiance, the garden-grown food, the decor, the rooms, the landscaping, the flora, the fauna. Puts Martha Stewart to shame.

You can tell from the design and the attention-to-detail that a LOT of love, care and nurturing went into the place.

Way to go, Sonj

The LLDD had some trouble getting in

Fortunately, no bouncer on earth can say no to the LLDDL

Only the LLDD can turn something so beautiful into something so creepy

Ma! It's the creepy guy again!

the LLDDL gets some zzzzz

if...you...can...read...this...flower...

awww...

Ma-aaaa!!! Now the creepy guy's smelling the wedding veils!!!!

The LLDDL decides she's had enough nature. Heads to the Sta. Rosa outlet stores.

Ready for some close-ups? I swear, the place was so postcard pretty, it was impossible to take a bad close-up of anything.

well, maybe it is possible...

THE LLDDL

The LLDD can wax eloquent about the Lady enough to crash this blog's server, so he won't even bother. For your purposes, suffice to say she's wicked smart and smoking hot.

If you want to know more about the LLDDL, you can check out her Friendster page (just hope she accepts your invite; heck, even I'm not a sure thing).

In the meantime, here are a few pix I've taken of the LLDDL. I'd attach more, but nobody would pay any more attention to me on my own blog.


the LLDDL loves her her pan de sal

babae sa bintana

the LLDDL maintains poise in the face of harassment from other DD's

She'll welcome you anytime, anywhere . . .

...but will strike a forlorn pose whenever the LLDD is away on travel (like you wouldn't want to come back to that!)

And, at night, she glows =)

ROAD TO SAGADA

Sagada itself was nice, although the trip was so long over rough roads that people were a bit testy by the time we got there. Plus, we weren't able to go to the famous caves, and there didn't appear to be any shooting of Sex Trip 2. Barely avoided open revolt.

But those views on along the way. Oh, man. Are you kidding me? Jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

An incredibly gorgeous scene along the way. A quaint town on the side of mountain, terraces to its side, and a sparkling river in the green valley just below. I really should have asked for the name of the place.

A fellow DD adjusts the hanging coffins a wee bit.

Head in the clouds

If you think this is big, wait'll you see the car dashboard

Left: Tufts jacket. Right: Georgetown jacket. Can't imagine either school's that proud right now.

BANAWE RICE TERRACES

A lot of things went wrong on this trip: a six-hour landslide delay, unbelievably patronizing guest speakers, a bus break- down on the way home, a failed attempt to party with some foreign tourists, you name it.

On the other hand, the food at the hotel was great, wine tastes better in really cold weather, I got to climb down some real, non-tourist terraces and plant rice, and I never thought I'd ever go swimming in the Cordillera mountains (major shrinkage aside). And, of course, the sheer natural beauty of the place and the laid-back coolness of the locals made it all worthwhile.

Remember what I said about sheer natural beauty? Um, this aint it.

mmmm.....squishy mud between the toes.

The coolest woman on this planet. I love her

Weaving. Always fascinating.

The locals get jiggy

LLDD : "... and that's why i think the government should allocate more resources for the preservation of the region's heritage for future generations"
BS : "i love you, man"

DAY TRIPPERS

It was like I was back in grade school: field trips, museums, dioramas, teachers desperately trying to herd everyone onto buses, getting beat up by bigger kids. Good times.

Corregidor: so much history; so much emotion; so much rain

Ayala Museum: anytime you can be exposed to culture AND a nearby gonuts, i'm in.

Malacañang Press Room: "Yes, Ann Curry, I'll take your question .... and your phone number"

North Harbor: nice to finally see the site of so many bad action movies

Angono ancient cave drawings. I honestly did not expect to find them in the middle of a golf and residential development, but there they were.

Rizal artists' studio. The men's and ladies' room doors had paintings of a guy and a girl with the doorknobs where their . . . um . . . "knobs" should be. Classy.

Channel 4: "Seriously, baby. It's time to ditch Bert and Ernie, and be with a real man"