Not-so-tall traveler’s tales

Traveling often entails following certain categories with regard to accommodations — first class, business class and economy. But there’s a little known category represented by sundry relatives of mine — meaning when they travel, they’re in a class all their own. And depending on your sense of humor, amount of patience and threshold for embarrassment, their adventures can make for fond memories or the stuff that nightmares are made of.

During our first trip abroad, my sister and I traveled with our late maternal grandparents. We went to Hong Kong and Japan first before heading for the United States. Like many of her generation, Lola always tried to be prepared for any contingency, including the possibility of our getting hungry during the long flight to the US. Never mind everyone’s remonstrations that we would be served adequate meals throughout. True to her survivalist instincts born of wartime deprivation, the morning of our flight, she insisted on boiling a dozen eggs in the pot meant for brewing tea found in every hotel in Japan. She then placed the eggs in a huge plastic sack and stuffed everything into her cavernous handbag (which by the way carried everything but the kitchen sink and that was only because the sink wouldn’t fit).

Well, we arrived in Honolulu and went through customs. The officer who looked through Lola’s belongings was taken aback when he opened her bag and was greeted by a most unlikely aroma. Disbelievingly, he fished out Lola’s forgotten and thoroughly squashed plastic sack, its contents now reduced to egg salad, crushed shells included. It’s a wonder he let her past customs judging from the incredulous expression he wore.

A few days later, we set out for the mainland. As we prepared to leave for the airport to catch our morning flight, we discovered that Lola had placed three large apples in her carry-on shopping bag, right on top in plain sight. We told her that she could not bring fresh produce onboard the plane and that the apples would only be confiscated. But she insisted there were only three of them and would not be noticed. She was proved wrong when she tried to pass luggage inspection.

The guard firmly informed her that she could not take the apples onboard. We advised her to toss them into the nearest trash bin. But Lola was as frugal as she was emergency-ready and refused to waste three perfectly good apples. Without further ado, she forced one apple into my sister’s hand and ordered her to eat it — never mind that we’d all had a heavy breakfast and scarcely had any room for even a bite of anything else. Then holding an apple apiece in her hands, she proceeded to bite first from one then the other. She forced herself to eat those apples down to the core with that burly guard towering over her, looking on in astonishment.

And where was Lolo during these two incidents? A few steps away, trying to pretend he wasn’t related to her. He wasn’t the first husband in our clan to try and distance himself from his wife while abroad.

While on business in the US, one of my mother’s cousins and her husband took the subway in New York City at the height of rush hour and found themselves struggling with the throngs that besieged the trains at this time. Luckily, they managed to get seats. At one station, a very dusky man boarded and parked himself in front of them. My aunt began a running commentary regarding the color of his skin. In Tagalog, of course.

"Look at him, he’s so black, he looks just like a monkey!" she declared. When the train started, the man began to sway a little while hanging on to the overhead handrails. My irrepressible aunt insisted, "Talagang mukhang unggoy!" (He really looks like a monkey!)

The train stopped at the next station and more people poured in. An Asian man approached the object of my aunt’s derision. To my uncle’s and her consternation, he greeted him with: "Kumusta ka na?" (How are you?) And the man answered, still swaying a bit: "Eto, mukhang unggoy pa rin!" (Here, still looking like a monkey!)

My uncle fervently prayed the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Preferably without the company of his wife.

Then there’s my sister who had to dress my pre-teen niece as a boy because of a clerical error. Her husband took their eldest daughter on a trip to Cebu. Their travel agent, used to booking for my brother-in-law and his parents, gave his and his father’s names rather than his daughter’s to the airline ticket office. So my niece wound up listed as her grandfather’s son.

Since there was no time to have the mistake corrected — their departure was early the following morning — my sister desperately decked my niece out in a boy’s T-shirt and jeans, covered her short hair with a cap and ordered her to walk and talk like a boy throughout the flight. My poor niece had to go through the same charade on the return trip as well. It isn’t surprising that she’s not too keen on flying to Cebu again.

Now I’m sure we all know about people who yearn so much for Filipino fare when they go abroad that they go in search of it even in the most improbable places. But several of my kin who shall herein remain nameless actually dined on sinigang and bagoong in their hotel rooms while on an extensive European tour. Anticipating the dearth of Filipino cuisine in the continent, they had packed electric cooking kits in their suitcases. As soon as they were settled in their rooms, they headed for the nearest local grocery or supermarket. There they would buy salmon fillets, assorted vegetables and packaged rice. The sinigang mix and bagoong they brought with them, the latter tightly wrapped so as not to emit its singularly pungent aroma.

One night the hotel fire alarm went off and nearly caused a stampede of guests. One of the illicit chefs had carelessly cooked the evening meal directly under the smoke detector. The copious steam from the simmering broth set it off.

Remember the attempted coup of 1989? Quite a traumatic experience, particularly for those who lived in proximity to the actual confrontations between opposing camps. My mother carried recollections of cannonades and gunfire for several months after. The following summer, she and my father went on a tour of Europe and at one point wound up in quaint and lovely Copenhagen. Their hotel was right next door to the Tivoli Gardens, arguably Denmark’s most famous park.

Their first night there, my parents were preparing to go to bed when they suddenly heard what sounded like explosions right outside their window. Mom instinctively dove for the floor and Dad followed her in his surprise. She crept to the phone and dialed the front desk. As soon as one of the clerks answered, she blurted out, "Is that gunfire? Is there a coup?"

To Mom’s everlasting chagrin, the clerk ever so calmly answered: "But Madame, never in Denmark."

He went on to explain that the explosions were fireworks being set off in the Tivoli Gardens, a regular weekend occurrence. Mom quietly thanked him and wondered what he would make of Filipinos that they should assume a coup was in progress from the mere sound of exploding fireworks. I am sure Mom made as much an impression on him as he did on her even if they never spoke face-to-face.

Indeed, I think most of my relatives make an indelible impression on the people they meet in their travels, both good and otherwise. Witness an uncle who loudly and unceasingly complained his way through an international tour until his companions — several cousins, in-laws and three teenage nieces — feared they would be dropped from the group by their exasperated tour guide.

Almost 20 years later, one of those nieces bumped into that same guide. The fellow only vaguely remembered her but as soon as she mentioned our uncle’s first name, he not only recalled which tour group she belonged to but our uncle’s full name as well. Needless to say, it was one memory he would have gladly done without.