Beyond the Photo: Distress Call

Once... we were in the middle of a punishing six-hour trek up the Singnapan Valley and through the Matalingajan mountain range when my mobile phone started ringing wildly - it was so alien amidst the gentle sounds of the rainforest.

Anna taking an overseas call in the heart of the rainforest

For four days we were staying with a Tau't Bato family and the ten days prior we were with a Palaw'an community on the other coast of Southern Palawan up Mount Gantung. The areas were so remote we had minimal access to the modern world, until that moment.

I answered the call, and a lady with a thick aussie accent anxiously inquired if I was Raffy Vicente, and asked to talk to Anna immediately. It was Anna's MOM!! We found it so amusing at first, your mum calls out of the blue while trekking in the heart of the rainforest.

Turns out she was in a semi-panic and wanted to check our condition because a typhoon was about to hit the Philippines and was on a direct collision course with Southern Palawan. Anna assured her that we were okay, it was sunny in fact with great blue skies and I told them that we get typhoons all the time and staying safe wouldn't be problem. So we carried on, reached Rizal  town after several more hours, spent the night by the beach and rode off to Puerto Princesa before sunrise the next day.

In Puerto, we ambled to a convenience store to get supplies and our jaws dropped when we saw the newspaper headlines: TYPHOON SENDONG. Hundreds dead - in just one night as mammoth flash floods washed away towns in Northern Mindanao. Barely a week before Christmas, it brought unprecedented devastation that affected hundreds of thousands of  families.

We were unbelievably lucky. Turns out Anna's mum was not overreacting at all.

*Beyond The Photo will be a series of travel snapshots and the personal stories behind it. We all get a flood of memories surrounding that moment captured in a photo - and that's what I want to share.