Two things I love to do when in an unfamiliar place: eat and walk around. Since we were in Vietnam for an event we organized, I couldn’t do a lot of walking around until after the event. And even during that we had a day of touring and two days of just shopping and visiting the sites.

At one point I was crossing a four-lane street to get to a restaurant but it still seemed like a great task. I was standing beside an old Vietnamese woman. She looked at me then suddenly held my arm and helped me cross the street. How embarrassing was it to be helped by an old woman rather than the other way around. Maybe I looked like a kid who doesn’t know how to cross the street. She uttered no word. She just looked at me and grabbed my arm to make me move forward. After crossing she just left still without a word.

I’ve never been out of the Philippines until last July 2, 2010. It was my first flight to another country and I was taking it alone. My colleagues took an earlier flight and I was left at the office due to my workload. So right before I headed to the airport that Friday night, one of our seniors briefed me on what I was supposed to do.

I was carrying three pieces of luggage and a tarpaulin. I had my suitcase, my carry-on bag and a laptop bag. I had to pay for excess baggage at the Cebu Pacific counter. They don’t accept dollars as payment. Our office gives out our per diem in dollars so luckily I brought some extra money in Pesos for the excess baggage.

I grabbed a coffee at the SBC branch inside the terminal while waiting for my flight. The flight to Vietnam from Philippines is just two hours and a half, the same length of my trip from the office to our house when there’s heavy traffic. I boarded around 9:30pm. I filled out my immigration form while inside the airplane to avoid having to struggle with my luggage and the form before lining up in the immigration counter. Our senior advised me to have my passport details ready and attached somewhere to avoid having to bring out the passport for the details. It lessens the risk of dropping your passport. Everyone knows your passport is like your life when travelling.