Travelositive [old]

From Bacolod (where the closest airport is) its a bit more than 100km to the small port of Vito village. It is considered part of Sagay city, Negros Occidental province and serves as a gateway to my mothers island, Molocaboc. Vito port, our pump boat to the left. "Jean Cathline", my familys pump boat came to pick us up, together with a few more cousins and relatives. A pump boat  is an outrigger canoe  powered by a small gasoline or diesel engine.  They are a utility boat in the Philippines, used for nearly everything from inter-island transportation to fishing.  A kid was swimming on the edge of the port. Next to it was a busy pump boat with quite a few people on board and lots of laundry hanging on the ropes. My cousins and aunt getting themselves ready in the pump boat, everybody happy and excited!  Vito port and my two uncles on the left, getting ready to take us to the island. It was a beautiful day!  Looking around m...

Fatima and Keuza, our lovely hosts in Casablanca. At the roof of their house, hanging the laundry.  Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco and our arrival point. Panoramic view of Casablanca from our roof.  Rooftop passer by.  The beautiful Morrocan house.  View from our balcony, residential area of Casablanca.  During the morning time it was nice to sit in the balcony and watch people going on with their lives.  Arriving we were presented with two djellabas, gifts from our hosts! Djellaba is  is a long, loose-fitting unisex  outer  robe  with full sleeves which is traditionally worn in Morocco and throughout the region. And the first place they took us what the hammam! The hammam we went is "Le Pacha", one of the most luxurious in the city. It would be a good introduction to go to an expensive one for the start and then try everything else (we did). Arriving, two people direct the cars where to pa...

 "Let me take a photo of you!" told me one guy while I was admiring the Forbidden City from the top of the hill in Jingshan Park... in this way I got my tourist photo.  My video featuring Tiananmen area, Jingshan park and a bit of couchsurfing in Beijing. The whole area around the Forbidden City is amazing, too many places, beautiful parks and things to see. I've heard you can have a good view from Jingshan, the park north of the City so I headed that way. One of the corner towers while going around the moat surrounding the Forbidden City. Jingshan park has a mere entrance of  元2 (totally worth it), as soon as I got in my ears caught the sound of some traditional organ. This guy was busking, nice music and big smile.  Going up the artificial hill of the park named "Prospect Hill". Im expecting some nice views on the top.  View of the park facing towards Di'anmen inner street. Jingshan  is an imperial park covering 23 hectares...

While going around South East Asia I had subscribed to receive news from various airlines operating in the area just in case we get a good bargain on any flight. One night in Saigon (Vietnam) I received an email from AirAsia, a low cost carrier based in Malaysia. They were having a new line all the way to New Zealand, flying to Chistchurch. Return flight from Malaysia for... €300!!! I couldn't believe it. Put some thought into it since we were running pretty low on money and I knew New Zealand would be expensive but we were certain we would be able to get some job and earn some money there... so the next day it was click click and we were going to New Zealand soon enough, on Christmas day... the funny thing is that after we took the flight, they stopped flying to New Zealand... so we were some of the few people who flew back then with such a low cost. As I checked their website they have renewed flying to New Zealand from Malaysia since 2016, for the same ridiculous price... ...

That year went to the Philippines with my mother to visit family. June, rainy season. Arriving in Manila airport where we would take another inland flight to Bacolod, we were greeted with smiles by many relatives. My mother holding CJ, Tiny, auntie Olive, Cathline and Charizza.   People in the Philippines are in general always smiling and ready to help you. Many of them are also in low income, so they always expect a small tip in everything they do. Its not mandatory but its a good gesture. Two policemen helped us a bit in Manila airport=tip. Guy helped us with the luggage=tip (well you would tip this guy either way). But you need to be careful about that as well, for example you have your bags inside a local long distance bus and you arrive somewhere, you see many people running towards the bags, some of them just to take them out of the bus and ask for a tip, maybe some of them to take advantage of the commotion and snatch something. It happened to me and my uncle while tr...