17/09/2026
From one end of Panay to the other, then across to Negros, this Visayas trip felt like one long ribbon of road between mountains, farms, coastlines and ports. We probably covered close to a thousand kilometers once all the side trips, crossings and back-and-forth travel were counted.
There were moments when the sea seemed to touch the sky, islands appearing on the horizon like they were floating, and long stretches of road that looked almost cinematic. From the outside, it probably looked like a glamorous road trip.
But behind those views were sleepless nights behind the wheel, driving while most people were already in bed, stopping wherever we could just to rest, eating wherever something was still open, waiting at ports, loading and unloading, and waking up not always sure what town we were already in.
Then there were the different dialects: Hiligaynon here, Kinaray-a there, Cebuano on the other side and somehow we still understood one another when the conversation turned to farming, bees and livelihood.
That is the part of traveling for this work that photographs rarely show.
The beautiful roads are real. The sunsets are real. The islands are beautiful. But so are the exhaustion, the long hours and the uncertainty.
And somehow, after all those kilometers, what stays with you is not really the distance.
It is the people you met along the way, the stories you heard, the communities you sat with, and the strange realization that a small insect can take you farther than you ever planned to go.
All of this… because of the bees.
