Nestor “Nono” Felix worked in various capacities for an international NGO for more than 25 years before retiring in 2011. From 1997 to 2010, he was the corporate planning and M&E (monitoring and evaluation) manager covering Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, the Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam.

As a Filipino national with a keen observant eye, his perspective is firmly rooted in his culture and heritage, but profoundly enriched by the myriad experiences across continents. He is never at a loss for words to make an incisive commentary about the day’s moments. From savoring fish and chips in London, making friends with workshop attendees from Israel and Palestine in Ottawa, joining a safari in Kenya, surviving a 24-hour flight from Thailand to Bolivia, to experiencing racial discrimination in Minnesota, and many more, each destination has left an indelible mark on this traveler from Bicol.

The header collage features, from left: the Cristo Rei of Dili statue in Timor-Leste (credit: Timor-Leste Tourism Center), top right, Kathmandu-Nepal World Heritage site (credit: Authentic Indian Tours), and bottom right, traditional boats made of reed in Lake Titicaca of Bolivia (credit: Getty Images/ BBC)

Bolivia

My flights to and from Bolivia were memorable, if only for my unique experience at the Los Angeles and Miami airports. An airport security personnel was detailed to monitor all my movements while in transit. The comfort room was not a breather. I was never left alone until I was seated inside the departing plane for the connecting flight. I learned it was SOP for foreign travelers transiting without a visa in the USA during that time.

At the airport in La Paz, Bolivia, the highest capital city on the planet, at 3,640 meters above sea level (Baguio, l,400 meters), colleagues from other countries who boarded the same plane in Miami looked at me in amazement. The temperature was below zero, and there was only my ubiquitous Samsonite cabin bag. All of them came with winter clothes in oversized suitcases.

An intercontinental flight twice over, it was an understatement Thailand to Bolivia was exhausting. It took almost 24 hours, inclusive of layovers in Los Angeles and Miami. And my return trip was worse. I flew nonstop from Bolivia to the Philippines (La Paz-Miami-Los Angeles-Bangkok-Manila), and a bus trip to Bicol for over ten hours shortly after arrival at NAIA. But the bus trip was amusing. There were three boisterous passengers in business suits and with trendy traveling bags. They were overly excited about their week-long stay in Baguio in the North of the Philippines and the six-hour van ride to Manila. At the bus terminal in Naga City, moments after disembarkation, a common friend whom I met earlier told them where I came from. They turned around in a breeze and contracted a trike to the city center.

During a visit to a distant village called Altiplano, a solidarity lending group was meeting to assess the week’s transactions. The leader was ecstatic about the consistently high repayment rate. I thought of the time I was in a Grameen meeting in a remote village in Bangladesh. The leader was congratulating the members for the same feat with a clenched fist, punching the air. It was understandable to raise a clenched fist in Bolivia where Che Guevara waged a worldwide revolution, and executed with the help of the CIA. But it struck me that the same gesture of triumph was also done in faraway Bangladesh.

There was the much-awaited boat cruise on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,800 meters above sea level. But I told the organizers I was not going because where I came from in the Philippines, the lakes were no less than magical. Colleagues from other countries were surprised that all the while I was not looking forward to a rare life experience. It was supposed to be a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity for us visitors from other continents. But to me it seemed like navigating Lake Buhi or Bato in Camarines Sur on a motor launch in the late 1970s to conduct a USA-designed multipurpose survey (education, health and nutrition, livelihood, levels of living, quality of life, etc.) in lakeshore villages. And where Tilapia cooked in coconut milk, garlic, onions, ginger, tomatoes, chillies, and pechay (Chinese cabbage) was a much sought after Bicolano delicacy rivaling Bicol Express.

Xanana

Timor Leste, formerly East Timor, was a Portuguese colony with a population of less than one million until the mid 70s. The impoverished country became a part of Indonesia until late 1990s after it was invaded in the mid-1970s.

The Timorese led by the world renown leader with the most catchy name (Xanana Gusmao) battled the Indonesian militia for years during which thousands of Timorese were killed. Dili, the capital, was a no man’s land after the rampage of the Indonesian militia before finally giving it up for good. Almost all government buildings , business establishments, and residences were razed to the ground. The remaining ones were structurally weakened by fire. But the quaint “one-lane” international airport with a nondescript one-story building was among those spared.

Dili looked like a typical coastal town in the Philippines, and it reminded me of Tinambac in Camarines Sur. The first time I was in Dili I stayed at an improvised hotel with four rooms. It was actually a reconfigured bungalow. There was no problem with the accommodation. The rooms were air-conditioned and with cable TV. Somebody told me Australia would never leave Timor Leste come hell or high water because of the oil-rich Timor Sea.

The peculiar hotel was across the Catholic church, which could not accommodate Sunday church-goers. I came to know that almost 98% of the Timorese were Roman Catholics. But there was no information about it on the internet. The countries listed as predominantly Catholic included the Philippines (86%), Brazil (64%), etc. Sunday for me was like in the Philippines because there was a cockfight in the town center, and a bushfight, an illegal cockfight, in an adjoining town. The mass I heard one time was in Portuguese, but the gospel was in Tetun, the Timorese language.

Traveling to Dili from Bangkok or Manila with a stopover in Singapore and an overnight stay in Bali was truly exhilarating. An hour was enough to lounge at the mesmerizing Changi Airport with unique high-end amenities not found in other international airports. I stayed overnight in tantalizing Bali where the beach exhibited Caucasian pulchritude day and night. But I was always jittery flying from Bali to Dili, although not vice versa. There was the strange feeling that something would go wrong. And every time Murphy’s Law crossed my mind. The Indonesian Merpati plane would break up in the air or dive into the Timor Sea upon descent. A foreboding that resulted from my first trip to Dili from Bali. I was in dreamland not long after take-off, and woke up on the ground still in Bali. I was told the plane developed engine trouble and went back.

The last time I was in Dili, all kinds of shops, boutiques, bars and restaurants were mushrooming in its commercial district. They catered mostly to expatriates, particularly Australians. Many food items (chocolates, cookies, biscuits, fruits, juices, etc.) and alcoholic drinks were from Down Under. The seashore eateries nearby served chilled beer, and grilled fishes and king prawns fresh from the ocean.I noticed the Talakitok, Cods, Mackerel, and blue crabs were giant-sized compared to their counterparts in other countries.

Not long after the departure of the Indonesian militia, numerous foreign NGOs excited to help poor Timorese established offices in Dili. Every day at the airport, groups of Chinese, Korean and Japanese passengers became a common sight. They were in Timor Leste for what else, business.

It would be interesting to find out how the former Portuguese colony has progressed since the NGOs came. Retrogression in economic terms is remote with the infusion of nonstop development aid from all over the world through the years. Twenty years ago, Timor Leste was the world’s newest and poorest country, with the highest fertility rate, and the least touched by the hands of development. A straightforward comparison of baseline and endline data with an interval of at least five years will show whether there have been improvements in the lives of poor Timorese attributable to development aid. And a further study will find out whether they are inclusive and sustainable. Impressionistically, the Timorese, among the poorest people in the world, were headed for better times, which could not be said of other Asian countries like Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, etc. It was evident in the attractive Sunday clothes and dresses of Timorese men , women, and children.

Nepal

During my first visit to Nepal, I couldn’t help but notice the unpaved stretch of a busy road in the heart of Kathmandu. And the absence of towering high-rise buildings like in many other cities around the world. Urbanization had not encroached even on the capital city of the country. But it remained a renowned destination for mountaineers and trekkers because of Mount Everest.

On a subsequent trip, while returning to the country office from the field, we passed by a program location that had been phased out in the early 1980s. The driver recognized a group of women and men gathered along the road, who were former village leaders. We decided to stop and engage in conversation with them. Ever with the mind of an evaluator, I inquired about the projects they found most beneficial for their families. In my notes, their collective response was that all the projects were beneficial, but many benefits were short-lived. But the training of village health workers and the construction of the feeder road stood out. They took turns elaborating on the benefits. After receiving training, village health workers became more confident in handling health emergencies, including births. The overall health of both children and adults improved, resulting in fewer illnesses among the community. The construction of the feeder road was a game-changer, increasing earnings from mushroom cultivation because of improved transport. This encouraged more people to engage in mushroom farming, and older children were motivated to complete their secondary education.

During one memorable meeting, the country office technical staff were ecstatic about the decisions and agreements reached. To mark the occasion, we headed to a popular Nepali restaurant for dinner, and my experience there was amazing. The waiters exhibited incredible skill as they poured wine with precision from bottles held high above their heads. Despite the bustling crowd of diners waiting for refills, I noticed there was not a single miscue.

On another occasion, a colleague and I boarded a small plane to a town not far from the capital, Kathmandu, on the other side of the mountains.

The flight itself was only for 20 minutes, but the check-in process was amusing. When my colleague requested an aisle seat, we were told that the aircraft had only two rows. As the plane taxied down the runway and soared into the sky, the roar of the engine was deafening. We were glad cotton balls were provided to plug our ears before take off.

And there was my quickest international trip ever, and it did not involve air travel. On a rainy night in a Nepali village, it took me a matter of seconds to traverse the road that divided Nepal and India.