Life As A Tumbleweed

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  • The Battle of Dien Bien Phu 2014

    The Battle of Dien Bien Phu 2014

    Six o’ clock PM. The fog hung low over the plaza at Sapa’s town center. My friends Nica, Bernice, and I stood across the Holy Rosary Church taking selfies as we waited for our sleeper bus to Dien Bien Phu, where we would cross the border to Laos. Here and there were small groups of…

  • Steps to Sapa

    Steps to Sapa

    I opened my eyes to rolling green rice fields. Our bus wove through the quilted landscape of terraced paddies as the sun’s pale yellow rays lightly kissed the mountain face. Inside the murmur of awakening softly buzzed, but was quickly blanketed by the quiet of the Sapa dawn.

  • Soppy Welcomes from Hanoi

    Soppy Welcomes from Hanoi

    It was a year in the making. It was the biggest undertaking of our lives thus far. I and two other friends, Nica and Bernice, would put our normal lives on hold for six weeks and travel through Indochina. Our first stop: Hanoi, Vietnam.

  • Malaya

    Malaya

    When my friend, Bernice, and I started talking about going up to Kalinga, she was still unsure of whether to get a tattoo. She wanted one but her parents were against it, and so she didn’t know if getting permanently inked was worth the trouble. As we went through the harrowing journey however, and finally…

  • Kalinga Making Marks

    Kalinga Making Marks

    In late January, my good friend, Bernice, and I traveled way up north of the Philippines to the mountains of Buscalan, Kalinga. Getting there took one night and one day, three different vehicles on countless cliffs, and so many miles on foot, all totaling 15 hours of travel from Manila. Buscalan, Kalinga made for an…