Tales of a Sedentary Traveler

They say to travel is to live, it gives the sense of existence the feeling of being alive, the undying and precious moment where one finds peace. The splash of cold wind against one’s face, the utterly beautiful scenery when you open your eyes, that one moment when you have escaped the prisons of the bustling city, traveling to marvelous heights and incomparable miles, to set foot on new land and culture. But alas, these all fades from my grasps when I wake as morning comes.

The emptiness of the room as the curtains are drawn, the morning breeze echoing and bouncing as I cruise the halls; cobwebs, dust bunnies, the same scenery over and over, oh what great it would be to travel not just only through a book but in hurtful and vivid reality. The aesthetic height of my house towers over such automobiles and public vehicles, the only sight I see until today. The familiar sounds of horns jumping against my skin, the howls, bawls and shouts of street vendors, people and children.

I have traveled the world. not in eighty days but within a few flicks of paper and the ruffling turns of pages, I have traveled within the solitude the house provides. Paris, the streets of Bourne, Lincolnshire, the alleyways of Derby and the bustling traffic in New York. Although there is one place I am akin to and it is where I wish to visit first when given a chance, the old city where time ceases to exist. Vigan City, Ilocos Sur.

The quiet flows of the river, the clacking of hooves against stone pavements, as if bustling bees people roam about and around, Vigan. The city located in the province of Ilocos Sur a city where culture is a top priority. People who travel out of the country often say that they travel because of the food, season, culture and tradition, it comes to mind that why travel so far when inside the country there are different cultures and traditions of our own?

Vigan is an island, which used to be detached from the mainland by three rivers - the great Abra River, the Mestizo River and the Govantes River. It is unique among the Philippine towns because it is the country’s most extensive and only surviving historic city that dates back to the 16th century Spanish colonial period. Vigan was an important coastal trading post in pre-colonial times. Long before the Spanish galleons, Chinese junks sailing from the South China Sea came to Isla de Bigan through the Mestizo River that surrounded the island. On board were sea-faring merchants that came to barter exotic goods from Asian kingdoms in exchange for gold, beeswax and other mountain products brought down by natives from the Cordilleras. Immigrants, mostly Chinese, settled in Vigan, intermarried with the natives and started the multi-cultural bloodline of the Bigueños.


The City has now become a tourist spot through the years, local and foreign tourist are welcomed and given the chance to ponder over the culture of Filipinos, the ruins of old heritage houses, the preservation of such buildings and the knowledge from museums and cultural heritage spots will bring you closer to the Filipino culture.

Although it has been such a tourist destination, the attractive surroundings aren’t the reasons for me to seek this town first. My Great Grandmother who passed away almost four months ago used to live there int he same town, the same ever busy streets, the same nature involved city, the same preserved town. Traveling is such a wonder, to be ale to see the real thing up close and personal is my dream, being cooped up and barred inside the stone walls of my house has kept me wishing, wondering, dreaming of the day to come.

They say to travel is to live, I say to travel is my dream. A dream I can never get like a star in the heavens seemingly so close yet so far away, the whispers of the wind calling me to look far, far beyond the walls of this house, to where I wish to be. To experience the splash of cold wind against my face, the beautiful scenery as I open my eyes, that one moment where I’m no longer inside the prison my so called house. To reach marvelous heights and incomparable miles, to set foot on new land and culture with no worries of waking up as if it was just a dream.