The sentimental tourist

Winner, Lifestyle Journalism Awards 2006 sponsored by The Philippine Star, Stores Specialists, Inc. and HSBC

Cecile Lopez Lilles was grand prize winner in the Philippine STAR’s My Favorite Book contest in 2004 with her piece "Mothers, Daughters and White Oleander." Her published works include "Fighting Forty" (in My Fair Maladies, Essays and Poems on Ailments and Afflictions) and "Loose Vowels" (in When We Were Little Women) and essays in parenting mags. This entrepreneur and mother of six children never ceases studying. A BS Sociology graduate of Santa Clara University in California, she is currently a freshman in UP’s Creative Writing Master’s Degree Program.

All travel entails leaving behind and putting on hold arguably the most precious things in one’s life – relationships and responsibilities. The more intense the attachments and the more numerous the commitments one has, the higher the stakes.

Travel time, whether alone, with my husband, or with my children is essential and sacred; it is something I do not wish to compromise. I take pains to ensure that the time and distance traveled, the effort expended and the money invested are well worth the cost and the undertaking, hoping that the collected experiences long outlive the duration of the journey.

The planning and anticipation are as much a source of excitement as the trip itself. I personally plot out the itinerary with world map and calendar in hand, and after multiple visits to Expedia and weather websites, I make the flight bookings. I pore over all available sources to hunt for just the right accommodations. I take extreme pleasure in searching for hotels via reputable guidebooks, the Internet, word of mouth or on occasion, blind faith. I either base my choices on area of convenience or hotel quaintness factor. There are some establishments that I have frequented for many years – personal favorites: places with a hospitable staff with whom I have made alliances, adding yet another dimension of excitement to the trip. I then plan my days according to activities and meals. I look up museums and galleries, local festivals, plays and musicals. I look for interesting restaurants with the help of the Zagat and Guide Michelin for good food and Arthur Frommer’s travel guides for cheap eats. My family goes by the daily travel rule of "eat free breakfast at the hotel, eat lunch fit for a pauper, and dinner fit for a prince." Lunch is normally street food eaten on the run; dinner, a sit-down affair after a quick shower and change to revive tired bones. Flexibility is crucial. Schedules are mere guidelines to help navigate through a multitude of options and a shortage of time to be spent. They are spontaneously altered according to what is fun and what feels right at the moment.

Once travel documents are secured, bags are locked and loaded. I use the long hours on the outbound flight to get into travel mode. I welcome the change of pace and embrace the quiet: a luxury to most normal, able adults who have at least a semblance of life. I reconnect with myself, something that is mostly muddled, subjugated to the collective family, in the stress and static of day-to-day living. I try to cleanse my mind of residual worries intrinsic to adulthood and parenthood. I take a cool drink, recline my seat and let the journey begin.

I find that no matter where the destination, as long as I mindfully engage all my senses when I travel, the experiences become more meaningful and indelible. The places I visit come alive and become a part of my personal history. I come away each time with a memory cache filled with more details than what photographs can capture and more testimonies than what diary entries can hold immortal.

When I am able to attach a distinct sentiment to every image, environment or interaction I encounter, the memory is branded in my heart and mind with a searing permanence, enriching my sense of self, my sense of family and my sense of home.

When I look back on my past journeys and conjure a life’s worth of travel memories, these are the images I see, the emotions I feel, the sounds I hear, the flavors I taste, and the scents I smell.

The August sky in Santorini is unlike any other blue, lapis lazuli, a blue fit for royalty, where indeed the gods must still reside, threatening any minute to come down, charging in their chariots. It is enchanting, stark, cloudless, and opulent in the brilliance of high noon that looms above the Grecian sea. The sea, of the same enchanting blue is its mirror image, blown by a tentative breeze into shimmery ripples. Two separate entities, each a perfection in blue, interrupted by a stretch of land and life, threatening to fuse together into one at any moment. I close my eyes and I am there.

Dark descends upon Prague. It is the dawning of Glasnost. The sky is purple like a ripe eggplant strewn with pinpricks of stars. My shoes clomp on the cobblestones as I walk back from the Charles Bridge into town. I still hear the river gushing hurriedly under it. I keep to the footpath as it snakes along alleys bordered by the medieval stone facades of the shops. In the windows, Bohemian crystals, cut-glass figurines, vases and chandeliers scatter light into a million colorful prisms.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony wafts through the open door of a classical music store and trails me along shop windows: one filled with porcelain and bone-china images of the Infant Jesus; another of dinner plate-sized sunflowers poised by the alcove of a flower shop; another still, an occult shop of tarot cards, third eyes and dream catchers; and finally, leather-bound, first-edition books in a rare-books shop. The cathedral towers above, majestic. The clock chimes the hour in an ancient regal cadence.

I turn into Wenceslas Square. I am immediately assaulted by the merriment of an after-office crowd. A gentleman several paces ahead of me, in a camel overcoat, cashmere stole and a worn-leather attaché, is approached and propositioned by a prostitute oblivious to all the stares around her. Her face is a patchwork of colors but underneath the skin is taut: the hair profuse and sprayed in place. Her clothes are borrowed: pinned and gathered in several places to fit better and show more skin. Her voice is loud and unashamed.

"Please, mister," she tugs gently at his arm, "I am good for you, I am good for you…"

Behind the makeup, I see a young, pretty face, a tireless spirit, one of the spoils of political change, struggling to survive.

I walk on and labor to shake off both the absurdity and the stark reality of what I have just witnessed and somehow manage to see more of the beauty of Prague still waiting to be seen.

It is late fall and freezing inside the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Germany, where once stood the Berlin Wall, on no man’s land between East and West. Ingenious contraptions devised by desperate Easterners to cross over to the West successfully are showcased. Something catches my attention: two identical suitcases, worn and yellowed with rusty hinges. They appear glued together firmly at first sight but when opened, reveal no barrier between them. Exposed is a gaping hole through the inner partition, cut strategically to fit a crouched human being for transport in the back of a vehicle across the wall and into the West.

An affianced German couple, denied reunion for many years, fashioned the "escape suitcase." The woman hid inside them as a relative drove the car that transported her through Checkpoint Charlie, past platoons of SS guards with automatic weapons, bloodhounds and searchlights into the West and onto her waiting beloved.

I regard the suitcases and I feel the desperation of lovers separated by circumstance, their intense affection, the urgency for action and their total disregard for danger.

Above the suitcases are photos of the couple’s wedding and the fruits of their courageous mission: two beaming children.

I am roused from slumber by a haunting sound. I shake off sleep and find my bearings. I am in a hotel. I am in Istanbul, Turkey. My hand scrambles across the night table and finds the clock, 5:09 a.m. It is still dark outside. I make my way to the bathroom and open the double-glazed windows to let the sound in. It is a monotone, persisting, soulful, like a melody not of this world. I strain to make a clear discernment of its origin and realize that it comes from all directions, carried by the wind throughout the city.

The devout Turks, a holy, religious people, are chanting their pre-dawn prayer, while the rest of the world still slumbers.

I stick my head through the open window and look westward. I vaguely make out the Bosphorus Strait flickering under the beams of moon and starlight, its waves swaying in counter-rhythm to Istanbul in song.

It is harvest time in Bali and the Hindus, a gracious, grateful people, thank their gods in small, organized groups of common folk. There are pockets of thanksgiving processions all over town.

I chance upon two files of eight women by the roadside, undulating in small, languid steps to the music of two flutists at the head of the pack. They wear black and white checkered, long tapered skirts and spun-gold tops. They have flowers tucked in one ear and around their wrists and ankles. Some cup incense in their hands; others carry baskets of fruits and flowers.

I scamper behind the lines to mindlessly tail them wherever the pipers lead. Other tourists do the same; others mill along the sidelines taking photos.

I spot a makeshift fruit stall by the wayside. Sliced elongated wedges of orange-colored fruit lie beckoning across wooden trays perched atop crushed ice. Papayas! Bright orange, like a flaming, summer sunset. Ripe, moist, cold and plump with meat.

I fall out, allow myself to be sidetracked and head for the stall. After a quick exchange, I grab a slice from the vendor and dig my teeth into it. The flesh is firm with an initial crunch to the bite but soft closer to the center. I swirl the yielding meat around my tongue with ease and delight and swallow lumps of heaven. I pull away bite after bite of fruit and let its juices burst in my mouth as I watch the parade recede from sight, finally comprehending the Balinese need for elaborate gestures of thanking the gods for their bountiful harvests.

It is Sunday in the south of France. The weekend market in Antibes is a feast for the senses. Unsure of how to peruse dozens of stalls of equally tempting and curious wares, I follow my nose to where I am most irresistibly drawn.

An amiable madame is buried in bundles of fresh-cut lavender from her fields, piled high in neat rows along her feet, coming up stacked from the floor to her thighs. Her soaps, essential oils, scented candles and lotions give off a soothing, lingering scent of lavender that envelops like a morning fog. She senses my presence and hands over a fat bundle of fresh lavender.

"Bon jour! Pour Toi! Deux francs seulement!" She says.

I give her the coins and she prods me along with a gentle push.

"Allez!" She says and I hobble along, still heady with the scent.

I turn a corner and am seduced by the woodsy, exotic smells of fresh-ground spices. I come at close range to a table topped with mounds of earth-colored spices: nutmeg, paprika, cinnamon, turmeric and bundles of bouquet garni.

There are scents of brick-oven-baked baguettes, hand-churned butter and sharp farmer’s cheese. Some steps away wafts of caramelized sugar and roasted nuts fill the air. I bump into a jovial, hefty monsieur with a handle-bar moustache minding a huge vat of caramel and filling paper cones with pralines. I reach over, past the pot of bubbling caramel and grab myself a cone. I eat as I promenade around the market, watching other shoppers fall into the same smell-induced trance.

There is a lightness of mood and a bounce in gait in most everyone. There is no raucousness typical of other markets. No tempers are crossed, nobody wronged or gypped, business is brisk and everyone is happy as yet another Sunday morning comes to pass in this charming seaside town in the South of France.

When I travel, I come to see what I know is out there but cannot be bothered about when I am home. I take a step farther away from myself and then step back in, closer to what I have not yet come to know but am about to uncover. I discover my sense of place by first getting out of it and then falling back in to consider the larger picture. What I see and smell, hear, touch and feel come alive, take their place in my mental map, settle in my very soul and forever endure.