We present the fourth in a series of interviews that were conducted by Tom Sykes as part of the research for his upcoming book The Years of Travelling Anxiously, available from Icon Books on March 26. In today’s instalment, academic and former defence analyst with the Armed Forces of the Philippines Ann Bajo relates some anxious travel experiences in a war zone and the challenges of integrating into other cultures.
Tom Sykes (TS): Are you an anxious traveller? Does anxiety hit you very often while you’re on the road?
Ann Bajo (AB): There are certain situations that are likely to make me feel scared or worried or anxious when travelling. I get anxious now about arriving as early as possible at the airport. This goes back to a trip in the Philipines I made to see my uncle for his birthday, an important event that I didn’t want to miss. I was travelling with my cousin and my aunt. At the airport we passed through check-in smoothly as we didn’t have any baggage to check and we sat and waited in the departure area. But we missed the boarding announcement. We were too casual because Philippine flights are always delayed, but this one was actually on time for once!
My aunt lost her temper with the staff, went ballistic actually. It was chaos at the airport and the police came to try to stop her. People were filming her tantrum on their phones because this was when YouTube was getting big in the Philippines.
TS: Is that quite ‘un-Filipino’ to lose your temper in public?
AB: We normally just accept a bad situation or get mildly pissed off. But my aunt was so emotional because this was a very special birthday for my uncle, her older brother. He was going to be sixty.
Two of the ground crew from Cebu Pacific Air were planning on filing a case against my aunt because she was just really angry. At the same time she’s typically not the kind of person who argues a lot. She’s normally very patient and very understanding. It was just at that moment that she lost her temper in a big way.
TS: Did you eventually get to the party?
AB: No, we never got the plane. We were escorted by the airport police.
TS: Did they charge your aunt with anything?
AB: The Cebu Pacific ground crew told her that she was being very disrespectful and have you seen the sign saying that you can’t talk to the staff like that? The guy from the airport police arbitrating between my aunt and the ground crew asked do you really want to go through this? She’s an old woman who’s upset and it’s not such a big deal. At the same time, my aunt was calling her lawyer which would have made everything more complicated.
Ever since I’ve had travel anxiety about needing to be at the airport three hours before the time I have to fly out. I don’t want to be rushing.
TS: Any other anxious moments while travelling in the Philippines?
AB: In the Philippines there’s massive traffic. It’s a big problem. I once was driving in Manila when I did a hit and run – not a person but a vehicle. To escape them I carried on driving on to a zone expressway, a major road that links two provinces. I realised I didn’t have enough gas for such a long journey without a service station on the way. My tank was almost empty.
TS: So in that situation do you start imagining the worst? What will happen to you if you’re stuck there with no gas in the tank?
AB: At the time I was pretty young, so I hadn’t thought about what might happen. I was worried that the motorist I hit would come after me. I was driving south to an area that I wasn’t familiar with at the time. I was anxious because I was losing gas and I didn’t have enough money to fill the tank. I couldn’t find the exit on the highway so I drove over a bridge where a car was parked. I went over to the car to ask where was the exit to take me back to Metro Manila. Inside the car it was a couple of guys but that situation made me uncomfortable as well! By then I just wanted to get home in my car!
TS: When you were travelling with the military, especially in the southern Philippines, presumably you had to take extra precautions?
AB: When I travelled with the military we were informed of all routes and logistics, and where we would be stopping. We would be told our expected time of departure, time of arrival and things like that. This is also standard operating procedure for international organisations like the UN, for whom I’ve worked too. Along the route are safehouses where we can stop if needed. I was travelling in Sulu with a battalion – tanks, trucks, cars, everything – when we were ambushed by terrorists. I felt safe because we have escorts and could hide.
TS: Where did you hide?
AB: In a vehicle behind the trucks that were being attacked. I couldn’t see where the insurgents were, I could just hear shooting. It was chaos.
TS: Was it scary?
AB: Yeah, of course it was scary, but you have heightened sensitivities in that situation. You suddenly know what you need to do to survive and you just do it. That was when my instincts came in. It would have been scary if I’d frozen, if I’d stopped. But I was like, think think think, what am I supposed to do? I found the courage to do what was needed.
TS: Because you were well-trained for eventualities like that?
AB: Yes. I was also present at the Ateneo de Manila University mass-shooting in 2022. I was with my aunt and sister. I wasn’t scared, I just had this feeling of, ‘I have to get on and do this. We have to survive.’
When I was working here in Portsmouth, in the dockyard, we did counterterrorism training and we had to watch a video that portrayed what happens in a terrorist attack. That triggered me not because it took me mentally back to my military experience but to what happened to me at the Ateneo shooting. It was a different ball game. I was having to think of family members and loved ones in a very dangerous place. This was different to being protected by a whole bunch of soldiers in a dangerous place. Being the protector of two people is much harder than being the protected one.
TS: When travelling outside of the Philippines, have you ever felt vulnerable due to your ethnic identity and/or being female?
AB: When I walk around Portsmouth or Liverpool, local guys will proposition me or make, let’s say, unsolicited comments. One time this man lifted his shirt up and yelled, ‘Do you want some of this, love?’
TS: That’s not a good look for Portsmouth or Liverpool. How did you feel about that afterwards?
AB: When I’m abroad I don’t always know how to manoeuvre myself because I don’t know the culture. In the Philippines, if something happens to me it’s easy for me to shout, ‘Hey, help me here.’ I feel more vulnerable here in the UK, as I don’t think people will come to my aid. People don’t really care about each other here, is my impression. One of my professors here at the uni told me that she was on a ferry and she saw a girl about to jump off it, and nobody did anything. It was down to my professor to approach the girl and ask her, ‘Are you okay?’
TS: Is that a cultural or behavioural difference to the Philippines?
AB: In the Philippines there would have been security guards who would have helped that girl. It’s unfriendly like that in Britain but not in America, in my experience. People care. For example, I was in New York carrying some big luggage and I bumped into someone on the street. They weren’t looking where they were going. She tripped over and people came over to help her. I went over to help her too. ‘I said, ‘Are you okay? I’m so sorry. Blah, blah.’
If the same thing happened here in the UK, the person would have to pick themselves up and nobody would assist. It’s like people are so individual and isolationist that they’ve forgotten that they belong to a community. It’s weird. I’m not saying that everyone has to be smiling all the time but there’s a lot of unfriendliness here, in London and in Liverpool.
TS: Since you’re such a resilient traveller who’s survived a lot of challenging situations, is there any advice you’d like to share?
AB: Always better to travel in a group. That’s the best way to avoid anxiety because you’ve got support. You’ve got someone to do something as simple as keep an eye on your bags while you use the toilet. When I travel alone, I have to figure out everything by myself. I notice that men hate to have to think about someone else when travelling, so they like to be alone. I used to be like that more but now I like to have somebody with me in case anything fucks up or shit happens and I don’t have to figure it out on my own. At least there’s someone with me. We’re just going to be fine together.
TS: And if you were on your own and shit happened, what would you do?
AB: The principle is be strong, don’t fight and run. Get out of there and run. There’s no point in fighting someone if that’s what they’re wanting. Another thing I learned from the incident with my aunt: don’t stray from the departure area seats while waiting for your flight!
The Years of Traveling Anxiously by Tom Sykes is out March 26!
