Balikan

I've been on many trips, most of them to various cities around the Philippines. Many of these trips are of the official kind meaning they are associated with my line of work. Being in the field of transportation engineering requires a lot of travel and that means I have to be "on the road" more often than I want to. Typical trips last 2 to 3 days including some foreign trips where the budget is not enough to attend a conference or symposium in full. It is alright if the travel time is reasonable enough. A flight to Visayan destinations usually takes somewhere between 45 (Puerto Princesa or Roxas) to 60 (Cebu or Bohol) minutes while Mindanao destinations range from 1.5 hours (Cagayan De Oro) to 2 hours (Davao and General Santos). Regional international flights typically take 3 to 4 hours and I have taken many of these non-stop between Manila and cities like Bangkok, Singapore and Tokyo.

I have also been on many road trips, mostly on the island of Luzon where I have had the experience of once doing something like city-hopping from Manila all the way to Vigan, Ilocos Sur in the northern Philippines. Among the cities I've visited by land are Tuguegarao, Baguio, Olongapo, Tarlac, Batangas, Calamba, Lucena and Naga. In my childhood days, I remember going on trips to Sorsogon, to the hometown of my mother. Along the way, we passed by Legazpi City, Albay and I have faint memories of seeing Mayon Volcano on both clear and cloudy days. Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to visit Mayon and take some photos at the ruins of Cagsawa.

These days, it seems that I am taking a lot of quick trips, balikan as they are termed in Filipino. Strictly speaking, balikan refers to a trip to and from another city of considerable distance from one's origin (e.g., Manila-Cebu-Manila or Manila-Subic-Manila) assuming this is possible because of the availability of flights or that the travel time via road transport is not considerably long (i.e., not exceeding 4 hours). This year alone, I have been to balikan trips to Cebu, Subic, Clark/Angeles, and tomorrow, General Santos. The more common arrangements are overnight trips. These at least allow me to relax a bit after a meeting or lecture and have a good night's sleep before returning to Manila the following day. Perhaps there will be more of the former and latter types of trips ahead for me as I continue juggling my schedule so that official trips don't get in the way of precious time I reserve for family.