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Published: October 7th 2008
As with any couple expecting their first child, the excitement, anticipation, and the challenge of the learning curve were colossal. Unlike most couples expecting their first child, we were living a drifter’s lifestyle and had none of the traditional logistical groundwork laid, not even a particular country we could call home. Pragmatism was the new name of the game; our four months in Africa were scaled back to six weeks, our plane tickets to Turkey and Nepal were binned in pursuit of practical considerations like health insurance and jobs with flexible schedules. Our guidebooks were replaced by pregnancy manuals and our backpacks by a one-year apartment lease. In the race towards what for us was a completely off-the-beaten-path destination, our former travel days were usurped by the lifelong journey into parenthood.
Despite the tedium of hour-long commutes and a routine work schedule, we managed to keep those calendar pages flying right up to the last month mastering which soft cheeses to avoid, hunting down cloth diapers and researching all those choices on the birth plan checklist. With Christmas presents wrapped weeks in advance and the hospital bag already packed, the due date came and went, and it just so happened
that winter decided to bare its bitingly frigid teeth right at this time as well. Trapped in the apartment with nothing left to do but wait, I could literally hear the second hand on the clock ticking slower each hour. So when Jason came home announcing he had three weeks off at the end of February, we began flirting with the idea we’d been too busy to entertain up until now: Were these wet-behind-the-ears parents capable of backpacking with baby?
We decided to make a trial run in the Philippines. After 8 weeks of semi-hibernation/maternity leave, I had never been so excited at the idea of being 15 pounds overweight and beach-bound! We hadn’t even left the Manila airport yet when the plus side of traveling with Kiva first became apparent - the interaction and support from local people are absolutely amazing. He'd wet himself so I went to change and feed him and literally had 4 or 5 women surrounding him on the changing table...one helping to hold a pacifier in his mouth, another helping pull wriggly little arms and fingers out of one outfit and into another, another whisking away his dirty diaper to the bin and
someone else to soothingly pat and stroke his head. Then after feeding him my arms got a break when they reached out to hold him a while. I'd read that Filipinos love kids, but this level of fawning surprised me nonetheless.
Finally we were off on our short flight to Iloilo on the southern tip of Panay, descending through the clouds of neon pink and orange, racing to see whether the ascending sun or our descending plane would hit the tarmac first. Upon arrival at the port we were met by a pumpboat called the Orion, and we set out on a gloriously sunny morning for an hour long ride over clear green Visayan waters to Baras Beach Resort on Guimaras Island. Restricted for seven months to indistinguishable variants of gray in Seoul’s concrete labyrinth, the pervasive vegetation nearly blinded me. I euphorically flashed back to the collection in the 120-crayon big pack to find descriptors for all the verdant shades before me. Afraid that it would all disappear before I’d quenched this intense visual thirst for nature, my eyes were ravenously gulping in every detail. Every few hundred meters lay another golden crescent of sand, gently lapped by
waters that seemed to be stirred only by our boat's ripples, and above the coastline nothing but sweet unbroken green.
Were there a menu from which to piece together one’s perfect version of a beach paradise, I couldn’t have placed a better order. Nipa huts perched on the rocky outcroppings above the shore welcomed us to Baras, a very low-key 'resort' with plumeria, orchids, bougainvillea, and thorny-stemmed orange blossoms lining the paths. We sampled some of the famously sweet Guimaras mangoes and rounded our bellies with delicious and simple fish and veggie meals. Our days were interspersed with swimming and snorkeling offshore, a family boat outing with baby to a sea cave, and canoeing adventures into the untouched mangroves in the bay beyond. A couple of dazzling sunsets from the veranda of our hut, reading, and napping to the sounds of birds, geckos, and the wind sailing through the bamboo-slatted windows were the perfect way to unwind and start the holiday mindset.
After a few days our paltry supply of pesos (imposed by a closed airport bank upon arrival) forced our exodus from this haven. We took a local boat to the next major beach and then traveled
by tricycle through grove after grove of mango trees to the port town of Jordan. As we stopped briefly at a viewpoint overlooking the bays we'd come from, I marveled at how much solitude we’d had on such an incredibly gorgeous island. It's absolutely insane to think there aren't more tourists here…but I suppose the same could be said of thousands of the 7000+ islands that the Philippines have to offer.
A short ferry ride and another tricycle brought us to the lovely Pension del Carmen in Iloilo, down a drive lined with yellow hibiscus flowers the size of my face. We hopped in a Jeepney to one of Iloilo's 7 shopping malls to satisfy our foreign supermarket fetish before heading to a well-recommended restaurant on the water. The sea breezes we'd enjoyed in Guimaras seemed to have been swallowed up completely here, as if the apartment blocks and pavement of civilization had denied them entry into this other world. At any rate, the air was thick enough to pour, and I had to spend the whole meal nursing Kiva with a turbo fan blasting on us to soothe him. We ate snapper and blue marlin to our heart's
content -- and past our body's healthy mercury limit no doubt.
The night was fitful - the manmade AC an ineffective climate controller in comparison with the natural ventilation of the nipa cottage. Our guidebook's listing for a bus terminal which has since shut down led us on a lengthy taxi ride to neighboring Jaro for the long journey to traverse the island of Panay. It was raining, the cause of the flooded fields and washed out roads, yet also the nurturing mother of the vibrant green rice plains, fruit trees, and flower-framed doorways.
As we drove through I remember thinking how I envied them, how lovely it would be to grow up on those pieces of earth, surrounded by such lush scenery. I thought of how my first encounters with poorer people in developing countries made me feel compassion, guilt, rage at injustices, pity, perhaps...But this was a first, a feeling of genuine envy at their closeness with nature. I'd always marveled at how many happy people there were in developing countries, content with few possessions because they were rich in time with family and friends. The unhappy ones only appeared to be so if they aspired
Lazy days!
Kiva and Daddy, Iloilotoo much to integrate into modern consumer culture and the lifestyle of industrialized society, with all its stresses, vices, and misplaced priorities.
I thought of how people in Korea work insane hours all year long, how they miss their kids growing up, have no hobbies, feel the constant pressure of competition, status, and the need to keep up outward appearances. And in return for their devoted role as a cog in a machine that finds them utterly dispensable, they might be able to splurge on one four-day/three-night holiday per year to a place like this....and it could really be had all year long, everyday, if only we'd be content to live without the Ipods, the plasma TVs, the fancy gadgetry that has been invented to distract us from the unhappiness of these material lifestyles, working jobs we don't like in artificial concrete boxes with plastic flowers on the desk, so far removed from a natural state of being.
Soon we arrived in Boracay being led from one place to another until we settled at La Isla Bonita for 1000 pesos/night. After freshening up we took an evening stroll along White Beach path, where practically every restaurant featured tables
Sunset from our hut in Guimaras
The mountains of Panay in the background on the beach under palm trees, some decoratively strung with mango-shaped or Christmas lights. We finally settled on a Mongolian BBQ buffet, and since the buffets here charge double if you don’t finish your plate, we dug our bare feet into the powder underneath and gave it our all, letting Kiva fall asleep in the sling while we attempted to stretch our stomachs to the size our eyes had miscalculated them to be. Aside from the large tour group at the restaurant next door, Boracay exuded a homey feel. For being the #1 beach holiday destination in the Philippines, it still manages to retain a small-scale charm -- no giant hotel chains or 5-story concrete blocks to mar the view or experience - though still chalk and cheese in comparison with Guimaras!
We succeeded in a beach outing with baby the next day -- it was very sticky when the sunscreen was factored in with the ultrafine white sand, but we did break in those swim trunks! (He was so skinny, though, that we had to use a pacifier clip to hold them up.) In contrast to the oppressive sun, the water was surprisingly cool, even for Mom and
Dad, but our little swimmer didn't seem to mind once he adjusted. After various improvisations holding up random pieces of clothing to safeguard Kiva on the shadeless beach, one of the nearby jewelry vendors brought her umbrella over so he wouldn't burn…and didn’t even try to pitch a sale for her wares! Traveling with a baby seemed to help break through that superficiality that is usually imposed by those people whose livelihood is your tourism dollar and that mistrust that tourists feel when they are constantly handled like potential transactions.
The next morning I woke with the sun and enjoyed a half hour of uninterrupted journal writing on the balcony. I wasn’t exactly sure of the date -- or day of the week, for that matter... apparently it hadn't taken me long to adjust to the traveling mentality despite this being just a one week holiday. Travelling with baby is a new and challenging experience, though not nearly as hard as I'd anticipated. And, quite frankly, it actually seems easier to travel with Kiva than to be at home alone with him all day. Perhaps that is because he really does fuss less when he is exposed to so
much stimulation as he is carried with us, or perhaps I'm just more relaxed, which has a calming effect on him as well. Or it could just be that the unending task of breastfeeding doesn't seem as arduous or time-sucking when I am being visually or mentally stimulated by the changing environment around me. Actually I'm quite sure it's a combo of all of these, plus the perks that all travelers glean… no meals to prepare, no dishes to wash, no rooms to clean.
Until December 21, 2007, I had always felt most alive on the road. But one moment holding our little bundle in my arms made all those memories pale and completely redefined the concept of happiness. It was as if I had gained an additional sense with which to relate to the world since becoming a mother. And now, with baby snuggled cheek-to-cheek, and backpack in tow, I felt exhilarated to experience travel on a whole new dimension.
So much so that we've both been talking about abandoning conventional wisdom and postponing our plans to retire our backpacks so soon. After all, we started our foray into parenthood with no fixed abode, and if it
ain’t broke….
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Marco
non-member comment
Fantastic!
What a blog! What a blog, indeed. I read your husband's blog a year ago on Mindanao and Palawan when he was single. Now, he's a proud husband and father. Congratulations on you both. And don't retire that backpack just yet, you have Kiva to train and follow your lead. And I see that he's starting early.