It was one of those waking moments when I thought I was still trapped in la-la land because the text message that woke me up read something like, “we are being invited to guest on a TV show. Get your ass online.” So I staggered in the middle of the night and checked our email. Lo and behold, it was true. But then as I scanned the message, the taping dates fell on the dates Ron and I will celebrate his birthday in God-knows-where. I contacted the researcher and our chance of making ourselves …

When I was in college, all I could think of when hearing the name Sri Lanka was the place where Ravana took Sita after abducting her away from Rama and Lakshman. In my professor’s version of Ramayana, Ravana took a big leap from India to get to Lanka. In other versions, Ravana shoved Sita inside his Pushpaka vimana, man-handled a giant peacock, and used it to fly back to his kingdom. What is regarded as a discovery of something which was not sought but was nevertheless found is perhaps what makes …

Previously, on Fliptravels:
We were both drifting fast to La-la land when I asked Monette…
Ron: We booked a round trip ticket right?
Monette: Yeah…
Ron: Is it (the return ticket) with you?
Monette: No…
Both: HOH CRAP!!!
And so we endured half of the five-hour trip to Mui Ne with shooting BPs as we don’t know how we can get hold of our return tickets. At the pit stop, I quickly took my caffeine fix; and with closed eyes, called our hotel that booked us the tour (Ron also had to call them to make sure …

9:13 AM
I stepped out of Tan Son Nhat International Airport arrival exit. I spotted Monette in the middle of the crowd of friends and families of arriving passengers. That particular moment felt like a halftone vignette in 30 degree-sephia, captured in slow motion. Slow-mo mainly because of our heavy backpacks but also because we missed each other so much after months of separation. We ran to hug each other right in the middle of a Vietnamese audience–Like a cheesy Bea and John Lloyd scene minus the romance.
I was overwhelmed with the fact …

Whenever we ask a waiter or a store attendant on what food they would recommend, ALL of them would say one, and only one dish… RICE AND CURRY. Be it an unassuming side street eatery or a hatted restaurant, like a busted pre recorded talking doll, press the button and they will utter–RICE AND CURRY! RICE AND CURRY! RICE AND CURRY!
We know that this dish will be omnipresent throughout this trip because we have been warned, so we tried straying away from it on our first day.
We found Theva and made it our …

I stepped out of Bandaranaike International Airport with all the soot and grime of Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and of course, Sri Lanka. Four airports, three plane rides, damning heat of the summer sun, one 1-hour bus ride, and one 4-hour bus ride in 24 hours should be enough to drive me to pick an axe and decapitate Ron, or anybody who crosses my way. But since that was our first out-of-South East Asia trip together, I restrained myself lest be banned from going out of the country.

The bittersweet journey started …

Sometime in 2007:
Monette: We will be “the” travel blog celebrities..
Ron:  … NO, internet sensation …
Monette: Or, travel correspondents…
Ron: Make that, Travel writers for guide books and travel magazines…
<brief silence>
Both: WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA <cough! cough!> AHAHAHAHAHA!

We never imagined in our wildest dreams that in this life time, we will see our own bylines on printed media… glossy magazine… internationally released. It was nothing but pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, we were on skype brainstorming for the next  trip and trying to organize …

When people ask us why we travel together, our answer is plain and simple. We travel together because we complement each other in a lot of ways.
We tell stories in our own styles, we crave different adventures stretching wide across the id-anal continuum; one has a hunger for exotic food adventure while the other is contented with a quaint quiet time on the dinner table; one gravitates toward extreme activities and the other will fall silent in a cozy corner with a good book at hand. It is a good …

“The brighter the sunlight, the deeper the shadows…” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The long and winding road did not lead me to the significant other’s door, but to the yard of Batik Painting Art Centre by Hery’s. It was the day I met my guide who led me to the inner streets without telling me where we were going. I was so ready to show my ninja moves if he was ever going to try something. But he didn’t, and my kunai stayed hidden under my clothes.

The place is a batik …

After immersing myself in the majestic Hindu culture, my guide and I hopped on the motorcycle and went directly to Borobudur to bathe under Buddhist awesomeness. I had to revert back to my old deaf character as soon as I entered the complex. Like the temple I saw earlier, Borobudur was towering among the clouds and was bathing in the afternoon sunlight.  
  
Yes, you read that right. Borobudur, the most impressive Buddhist monument and complex I’ve ever seen, predates the famous Angkor Wat of Cambodia by nearly 300 years. Unfortunately, a few …