Nothing Fancy
When I told my parents I’d be going to Vigan to do data-gathering for my thesis, they were hardly fazed. “Take your vitamins, and don’t forget to wear Off lotion” were their parting words. I had long ago stopped being surprised by the fact that they had taken my comings and goings all in stride. I suppose they had accepted that their daughter was not one to stay put.
I like describing my location as “here but not really.” I have always dreamed of traveling; in my head I’d do cinematic renditions of watching the cherry blossoms in Japan, pondering life’s mysteries in the English countryside, or falling in love in the City of Lights.
So it was that my vision of Vigan was perfect: calesas, cobblestone streets, and old Spanish houses. I’d been looking forward to stroll down the streets of history, and a picture-perfect UNESCO heritage site was just the destination for a thesis about travel journalism.
Expectations, however, did not align with reality—Typhoon Mina was sweeping across northern Luzon, and my thesis mates and I were diving into the thick of it. For the next three days our itinerary was full of if/then scenarios. With everything going wrong, I went on business mode. I talked to locals for our thesis like it was a job interview, and I became frustrated when their answers were not what I had expected to hear.
None of this was part of the plan. Only on our last evening did I see the irony of it all.
We were doing a thesis about how travel journalism pieces put so much premium on the destination that they forget to talk about the people. Locals are often ignored; they exist in the background, supporting characters in the travel writer’s experiences.
In my anxiety to keep up with the thesis master plan, I had almost forgotten that I was there to learn about Vigan from the locals themselves. I was hardly paying attention to the people anymore.
It was the thought of going home that made me realize I didn’t have a lot of stories to tell. When one thinks of travel, one often thinks only of the destination, but ultimately, what makes the experience worthwhile are the people you meet and the narrative you weave as you intersperse your life with theirs.
To travel is always to take a chance outside of oneself. It never is a lonely experience; you connect, with one or the other or sometimes just yourself. To travel is to participate in that overarching web of experiences that tie all of us together. Maybe tourist cameras are trained to hone in on the statues and the temples, but nothing encapsulates the beauty of traveling more than the flurry of human activity that tells you, this is the world.
Perhaps the thrill of it is the chance to see the different ways people live their lives. The fun of it too is in meeting another traveler along the way, and recognizing that he is just as lost and just as in search of answers as you probably are.
I think back and remember the Middle Eastern man who gave me bird feed for the pigeons in Dam Square, Amsterdam. I remember the vendor girl in Calle Crisologo who asked me where I was from. I wish I knew their names.
People are both stories and storytellers. They deserve to be heard.
