I am making a complete list of my foreign travels from the beginning of the century. I am having a hard time reconstructing this valuable information.
This is part of the history of my life.
Dozens of immigration arrival and departure stamps are illegible most especially the departure and arrival stamps from our own Philippines. Immigration officers must make sure their stamps and or handwriting are clear. Plus the fact that I could no longer remember where I went to 30, 25, 20, 15 years ago or even my last year’s travels. This is more frustrating than I thought. I am also missing my very first passport.
The presidential state visits were harder to track down. Our passports were collected by representatives of the Department of Foreign Affairs as soon as we arrived at the Manila International Airport or NAIA. We would be hopping from one country to another promoting our country without any passport because we didn’t pass through the normal immigration counters inside the airports. We disembarked on the tarmac and straight to the vehicles. DFA took care of having our passports stamped at every port of entry.
Tracing each country we actually went to is almost impossible at this point. I have no clear recollection of my travels with the Philippine presidents, majority of which were done during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos. This was like 20 years ago. Ang tagal na. Our flight numbers were always PR 001. During the time of Pres. Joseph Estrada, If I am not mistaken, our flight numbers were always PR 2000.
Let’s look at some of the pages:
Old Czech Republic visa stamp
Old visa to enter Taiwan
See, I don’t even remember that I had a Lao visa. Have I been there? I don’t remember at all. Isip isip…… Teka eto ba yung when I was one of the representatives from the Philippines to the United Nations International Labor Organization (UN-ILO) Entrepreneurship Training course? Baka, pero hindi ako sure. Teka, hindi yata, that training program was held in the month of May kasi I still remember I left a few days earlier because I was traveling to the US. At saka sa Chiangmai nga pala yun. Hay naku saan ba ito?
Long time ago it was a lot easier and simpler to get visas from any country. I never submitted bank certifications, business registration or any proof of financial capacity whatsoever. No hotel bookings and airplane tickets either. No appointments necessary. I would just show up around 9 am and within that day I would get my passport with the visa.
Old visas to UK and France
Although now there’s a single visa that allows free travel to the member Schengen countries, nung araw okay rin naman to get a visa from each and every country I visited in Europe kasi nga a lot less requirements and I could get my visa renewed in one day. The process was less tedious.
Old visa to Italy
My first time in Italy was with Edmund. We flew to Rome from London, took the train to Venice, back to Rome, then Rome to Bangkok for a night. We paid the airline extra $50 for staying in Bangkok for one night. I bought a gold bracelet which I lost naman in HK.
The old Benelux visa allowed travel to Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg.
I’ve been to Germany a couple of times. The very first time was when I joined the International Furniture and Furnishings Fair in Cologne, Germany.
I took the PAL flight to Frankfurt with a one hour stop-over in Bangkok. About 4 hours waiting at the airport, then a short flight (about 50 minutes) from Frankfurt to Cologne.
One time my luggage was left behind in Frankfurt because the flight was delayed. I arrived in Cologne in jeans and a light sweater. It was the last week of January, the place was icy cold. I couldn’t shop for winter clothes because I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on jackets and all. Mauubos ang pocket money ko. But I had to, no choice. I shelled out some $200 for a peach colored coat, the least expensive I could find. I should have charged it to the airline company. My luggage arrived after two days, frozen na ako sa lamig.
There was a long trip we made with FVR. If my recollection is accurate we visited Moscow, Kuwait, London, Paris, Prague (Not in order). We landed in Moscow at 3 in the morning. It was freezing cold and I was wearing a micro mini. The Kremlin presidential guard was asking General Magno if I didn’t feel cold.
I was only in my 30s, malakas pa ang loob mag micro mini at malakas pa ang pulmon sa lamig. Ngayon hindi na pwede. Umambon lang giniginaw na ako.
Our last stop was in Vienna, then a short refueling in Bangkok. I always lost weight after every presidential travel. No time to sleep, eat and rest, especially during the time of FVR, sobra kaming go go go. Even when we were resting or sleeping, he would leave the first class cabin and wake us all up, tapos magku-kwento tungkol sa Vietnam war. #welovefvr #tripledoublejetlag #instantweightreduction
