Those about to go to the provinces this Holy Week better be armed with lots of patience, and deep pockets. “Revenge travel”—as tourism pundits describe those first out-of-town tours after more than two years being holed up at home—is real, and it’s happening in droves as we speak. Popular tourist destinations around the country such as Baguio and Boracay are witnessing record numbers of hotel and resort bookings just for this Lenten break alone.
If you’re going on that long-overdue road trip with your family, then I trust you’ve performed your “pre-flight” procedures on your car, as enumerated in the “Blowbaga” safety and maintenance checklist. I also presume that you’ve planned out your routes and itineraries. Fuel has become a quite expensive commodity, so moving about as efficiently as possible will save you a few precious liters. Don’t forget to bring along a first-aid kit, including painkillers, anti-diarrhea and motion sickness medicines for you and your passengers. If you have impatient little tots along with you, be sure to keep them preoccupied with on-board kiddie entertainment fare running on your center consoles or in their tablets on hand.
If you’ll be on the road for more than 12 hours, it would be best if you alternate driving duties with a trusted adult companion or your spouse. If not, then make sure you stop at regular intervals (say, every three hours) so you can stretch out, have coffee, or take the needed power nap.
As for me, going on those road trips or embarking on revenge travel won’t be on my 2022 summer calendar. The start of the year isn’t the only time one can make resolutions (in fact, anytime is a good time to make one). I’ve resolved to stay put in my home and do some “alternative” traveling in my immediate vicinity instead.
Doing so works for me in many ways: I can keep close tabs on my octogenarian parents; I spend less, or even nothing, on fossil fuels, and; the COVID-19 virus is still out there, and keeping away from crowded areas keeps my risk of carrying the virus home to my parents down to a minimum.
I have my convenient e-bike which I can use to finally go on a “visita iglesia” (a practice I had to forego the past two years). The e-bike also serves me well for my short trips to the bank, grocery and drug stores. Augmenting my exercise on my e-bike would be my daily walking routines around my village.
In my own small way, I help society save up on fossil fuels so that the supply goes to the sectors that truly rely on transport to keep them functioning—health and emergency medical services, food transport, logistics, and deliveries, fuel for power plants to keep functioning, etc.
It has been part of my lifelong advocacy to minimize my own carbon footprint. I have been on the vegan lifestyle for nearly a decade, and a vegetarian for another decade prior. I became vegetarian/vegan when I couldn’t stomach anymore the cruelties inflicted on the 70 billion or so land animals slaughtered around the world every year just to provide culinary pleasure to us humans. My resolve to stay vegan was cemented when I also learned later on that the animal industry—pork, beef, poultry and even fishing—have been major contributors to air and water pollution and climate change. I have dozens upon dozens of scientific literature and studies to prove this, but that would take up too much space here.
You can conduct some light research on your own via the internet. Just google the link between meat production and climate change, and you’ll see a multitude of articles from reputable media and scientific organizations that explain this unmistakable link.
I call it the vegan lifestyle more than the vegan diet, because being vegan is much more than what we eat. But if food is the sole topic, I can say that I get my vegan food products from a lot of sources nowadays—a far cry from two decades ago when vegan and vegetarian food were especially hard to get. Here’s just a few of my go-to vegan brands: Bob’s Red Mill TVP (available in health food stores); Quorn meat substitutes made from mycoprotein (available in supermarkets); Veega meat substitutes (also from supermarkets); Jack’s Produce (jackfruit processed to taste like sardines, available in select health food stores); Shakey’s Good Burger and Burger King’s Plant-Based Whopper (my fast-food and quick delivery options).
Sometimes, I’d resort to preparing various yummy dishes with mushrooms and tofu, or my brother would just whip up some pasta dishes using olive oil and parsley. On special occasions, I’d call up my friend, Ananda Marga monk Valme Calzado who runs the Blissful Belly restaurant along Xavierville Avenue in Katipunan, Quezon City, and order her signature tofu sisig with vegan mayonnaise and her amazing kare-kare (of course, without animal ingredients). I’d also often order from Greenery Kitchen in Makati if I get cravings for their affordable vegan palabok, no-pork lechon kawali or no-pork liempo, or if I simply need to order frozen vegan goods. Vutcher Grocer, on the other hand, supplies me with my breakfast of “vacon” (crispy tofu skin made to look and taste like bacon), corned beef (without the beef), vegan empanada, and a lot more.
It isn’t hard at all to search for vegan food stores nowadays. Every food establishment already has an online/social media presence. All you have to do is type in your fave dish, and add the word “vegan” after it in the google search bar.
So, will I experience “FOMO” (fear of missing out) if I don’t go out on my own “revenge travel”? Not really. Those tourist spots aren’t going away. I’ll be going there at a time when it isn’t peak season, and I can have the place all for myself. As many denizens of this megalopolis would say, the best time to be traveling within Metro Manila would be during the Lenten Season, when everyone is in their own home towns.
May everyone have a meaningful, compassionate, and planet-friendly Holy Week break, wherever you may be.
