to go or not to go

last thursday, dennis sent me a news link. apparently, the philippine government issued a travel advisory against traveling to bangkok at this time of the year. when i read the news, my first thought was perhaps it’s just like any other advisory issued against the philippines. though there are indeed hot zones, the rest of the country is generally peaceful. with this in mind, i sent an SMS to claire telling her the same thing and that whatever happens we’re still going to give it a go. that is, we fly to bangkok come midnight of april 13.

wanting to go prepared and informed of the areas in turmoil, i decided to search and read news about what’s happening in bangkok. now, i just learned that there had been deaths and a few injuries suffered by protesters and soldiers alike. sure, i’ve gotten some names of the streets but for the love of me, the street names do not ring a bell at all as i’m clueless whatsoever of the city’s road map. dang. in as much as i like traveling, i don’t want to do so when there are uncertainties in my head.

should i go and forego the expenses on airfare and hotel booking?

is it worth the risk?

should i postpone going to bangkok to some other time?

should i just convince claire and dennis to let go of the expenses and just head to other parts in the country, to banaue or batanes instead?

dang.

i hate this uncertainty.
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UPDATE: less than 24 hours ’til our flight to bangkok and the decision is final: WE’RE GOING. chin’s friends who are based in central bangkok assure her that it’s safe there now. that as always the media is focusing only the negatives making it appear as if the whole country is in turmoil when in fact only select areas are affected. life there is as normal as normal can get. claire also made phone calls to our hotel, incidentally, owned by filipinos and they assure the same thing. so yeah, WE’RE GOING. we’ll still take extra precautions though when get there. i guess, happy trip to us three!
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UPDATE! UPDATE! April 13, @ 12 noon while i was waiting for the food i ordered over at myjoy ayala, i received a text from clai telling me that she was open to the idea of canceling our bangkok trip and to just think of a plan B.

what? what has gotten into you was my reply.

we exchanged a few sms and it ended with her telling me that she’ll just keep on checking up for updates and she’ll just see…

by this time, i was irritated, angry, and at the same time scared and uncertain about whether the decision to go to bkk was truly wise. i ended up texting him-who’ll-never-be to shout out my frustrations and as always, he said something that’s comforting that takes the edginess away. was grateful, even though i was still a bit scared. i didnt tell dennis about clai and i’s sms exchanges as i didnt want the fear and uncertainty to be rubbed in on him.

3:00yish PM. i got an sms message from her: i’m on my way to the airport.

[first words that came out of my head]: way klaro!

“okay. see you in an hour..” me said.

davao: people’s park

here’s yet another late post. i’ll just call in my lame excuse to justify the lateness of this post: i blog to chronicle my own travel experience so i have something to look back to when the urge to reminisce comes. ergo, it really doesn’t matter when i blog about it, hehe… LAME, right?

anyway, october of last year, i and three other friends were invited by ram to his wedding. ram is based in davao and when we received his invite , we immediately got tickets to fly to his hometown. we thought that apart from seeing our friend again, we could do a little sightseeing while there. that was the plan. unfortunately, we didn’t get to do plenty of that as we flew to davao october 31 [day of the wedding] and the next day was all saint’s day. ergo, many of the establishments were closed. in fact, one of the places we managed to see that day was actually closed. yes, the park was closed but we were lucky to get inside it. we had being cebuanos, that is – “tourists”, to thank for as the park ranger/attendant allowed us entrance for the reason that we’re only in town visiting. yep, the park ranger was very proud of their beloved city’s people’s park. i must give it to him, the park was indeed beautiful. unfortunately, i only have a few snapshots as my cam’s battery went dead on me. well, without further ado – DAVAO’s PEOPLE’s PARK, folks!