The Anthem Philatelist

In my younger days I detest tatoos. I thought, why would someone desecrate his own body (the temple of the Holy Spirit ) for art's sake . But upon reading the book Bantugang Sugbuanon , Pigafetta mentioned the early Cebuanos had tatooed bodies as an expression of their craft and status. So tattoo artist are technically creatives using the skin as the canvas, thus making the person a walking work of art! But this will be my first and last tatoo. So glad I decided to pursue this daunting trip. Proud of our IP 's, cultural minorities and their traditions❤️ Thank you Whang-od . Thank you Grace and  Sunstar for the feature! Encounter with Apo Whang-Od: The Last Mambabatok The frenzy surrounding the April 2023 cover of Vogue Philippine edition drew my attention to the story of this famous 106-year-old cover girl. As we were already planning a trip to the Rice Terraces in the Cordilleras, I conferred with our tour operator on how to go about visiting Buscalan after Banaue and b...

                              Our passports were checked as we left Dubrovnik and entered Bosnia-Herzogovina .  Asians these days are a welcomed travelers and passing through the checkpoints was a breeze.  It was a rainy day but our hearts were not dampened by the weather and we ventured into the Old city with our young guide who started the tour in the old Town.  We saw some remnants of the ravages of war like large holes through buildings and destroyed mosques but the town was completely rebuilt out of the original materials.  Even the cobblestone streets were patterned from its prewar appearance. An interesting place we visited was a mosque where traditionally one is allowed to wear shoes inside.  This is the only mosque in the whole world where this was once done.  It was a tanners mosque and being smelly and dirty, they were allowed to wash their bodies inside the prayer...

I first read of Sharjah in my early stamp collecting days when it featured the hard-to-obtain  Beethoven stamp which I collect until this day (There are more than 200 stamps of Beethoven and I have at least 150 of them). In the 70's when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was not yet rich as it is today, novelty stamps would be featured by that country to raise some extra revenues.   I got their novelty Beethoven stamp on gold and silver foil which was issued in 1970. This stamp cost around P500 today.  During those days, I memorized all the 7 emirates by heart never had I imagined that I would be visiting 4 of them someday.   Sharjah is a beautiful city less than an hour drive from Dubai .  I stayed at Hilton hotel at very cheap rates at Booking.com which I booked a month in advance. I have booked through this site in my previous travels to Paris, Yogyakarta and Siem Reap and they give "secret deals" to frequent "bookers".  I was lucky to have...

Tick encephalitis , Lyme disease , Hepatitis A , etc.- these are some of the diseases one might acquire when traveling to Siberia , As a doctor I was apprehensive about travelling to this side of the Earth.  The Lonely Planet guidebook which I read thoroughly gave these warnings.  Should I really go? I think I shouldn't.  But, this is a once in a lifetime experience.   Good that this book also mentioned a contact person- Petr Ishkin , a well-traveled Russian teacher who is proficient in English.  So I tried to email him, expecting he would never answer. He must receive hundreds of these requests, why would we bother to respond to mine?    I was requesting him to accompany and guide me through this Siberian rendezvous which brought me from island of Cebu , Philippines to Seoul , Korea , to Ulaanbaatar , Mongolia then to Ulan-ude , Siberia .  I was quite surprised  when he answered back the next day. After this, we were regula...