Hinigugma.net


		Hinigugma – You don´t need to do any guesswork on our chosen team name. Hinigugma is a native word in the Bisayas language, which is also known as Cebuano and spoken in the southern Islands of the Philippines. It is one of 50 or more languages spoken in Melona’s country. When Frank met Melona almost 5 years ago, he inquired with locals what the proper term for “loved one” is. Hinigugma or Hinigugmaon, so was the most common reply. Since that time he addresses her as his Hinigugma and both feel there can’t be a better name for our team!

Melona is a Filipina (Pinay) from Southern Leyte, she graduated from High School, after which she worked in the field of Quality Control in manufacturing. When she teamed up with Frank, Melona ventured into journalistic photography and did the videotaping to support his field work anywhere, she has accomplished quite a lot of travel with her Partner. Nine countries have been visited together by Team HINIGUGMA. Their hundreds of trips, all over Southeast Asia, can be followed in numerous reports and albums on facebook and SIAMPEDIA. Frank was born and raised in Germany, but he spent his professional life mainly in North America. He drifted into freelance journalism right after he chose to spend his time in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand. His reports on Thai ethnic festivals, nature’s wonders and daily life have been featured since the Millennium internationally in print media and recently in online media as well. Frank produces their work bilingual in his native German and in English as well. Despite their age difference, they compliment each other in their travel and reporting tasks perfectly and enjoy a lasting, harmonic relation. Over 35.000 km on Thai roads alone are in their past, both on two and four wheels, many more are about to follow. Their appetite for Thai food and the desire to explore every corner of this great country, will keep them occupied surely for a few more years. The base to which they return after trips, is in Pathum Thani - the City of treasured lotus flowers, just below Ayutthaya on the map.

SIAMPEDIA on Facebook

Networking with friends, forum posts and the use of WEB 2.0 media is nothing strange to them. Frank is concentrating on the writing part, where Melona is mainly handling the visual documentation. Frank also authored a novel in 2007, titled “UNHEILBAR”. The first print run of 1600 copies, produced in Thailand, is considered sold out. A sequel and rerun of his first book are in the works. Melonas videocompilations achived the best possible viewers ratings (the only 5* video!) in TAT´s Amazing Experience Video 2008 contest. Several of her pictures were featured as titleshots on a variety of magazines and newspapers or to enhance Franks many written reports and stories in them.

We have started most of this project as a competing site in some contest, and dropped out. We will continue to inform our many friends globaly about the realities they'd have to face, when traveling here. Honest and independent, we will try to balance some glossy brochure lies and gross misinterpretations. Futhermore, we will give you a heap of information on how to beat those coordinated rip-offs, which may have tainted some unlucky tourist's experiences in the past. Too many commercial issues and genuine conflicts of interest do not necessarily generate a healthy infrastructure for unbiased information.

Pristine beaches, undestroyed nature, low crime rate places, unspoiled exotic holiday fun and our truly beloved native Thai Culture are still to be found there in abundance within the Kingdom and it's neighbours, but they are rarely to be found right next to the magnets of mass-tourism. We will strive, to give you some inside scoop on this, just for your information.

We strongly discourage from attending any of those so-called attractions, where the visiting tourist is being charged up to 10 times the regular prices. Special features on these issues will follow as well. Unfortunately tourists traveling to Thailand will be prone to double-pricing at many touristic destinations. There are, however, certain locations and attractions, which do not follow any visible schemes or practice double-pricing to foreigners. We will gladly promote those in our photoreports on the SIAMPEDIA site.

Always happy trails,

Melona & Frank