Friday, April 28, 2006 Have TV show, will travel By Dennis Ladaw
FORMER news anchor Katkat de Castro and former Pinoy Big Brother resident Franzen Fajardo may seem like an odd pair. They also appear to be unlikely traveling companions, but the two ABS-CBN 2 talents have teamed up to host a new travel show, Trip na Trip.
The background of the hosts couldn’t be more diverse—de Castro is the demure, soft-spoken daughter of Vice President Noli de Castro. Fajardo was a former appliance sales clerk who became an overnight sensation when he became a tenant of Pinoy Big Brother. Yet look at them together and they seem to make a perfect pair who could host a travel show.
Trip na Trip is produced by de Castro’s production company. The show is her brainchild.
“I’m an avid traveler and I enjoy watching travel shows. What I noticed about these shows, however, is they tend to cater to the rich. It’s fun to see those destinations on TV but you wonder sif anyone could afford to visit those places,” she told Life & Times.
Thus, Trip na Trip was developed to show viewers they could visit the country’s famous tourist attractions with just a limited budget. “We hope to encourage the mass audience to get out and go by demonstrating that you don’t need to spend much money to enjoy a tourist destination like Palawan or Boracay.
“How do we do this? Well, Franzen and I never travel together. I travel in style while Franzen funds the cheapest way to get there!” she said.
De Castro’s travels will cater to the yuppies. As much as possible, she will travel by airplane and visit the trendiest spots of a certain destination and stay at the most comfortable hotel available.
In contrast, Fajardo is allocated a P2,500 budget which must be stretched for the entire weekend trip. For the show’s episode in Boracay, de Castro booked herself on a Dornier propjet. Fajardo took the ferryboat. Both hosts are accompanied by a cameraman and they may be tasked to interview fellow passengers. De Castro got herself a room in a swanky resort while Fajardo had to look for a low-cost room, or worse, pitch a tent on the beach. The two appear on camera together as they visit the various sites of the destination.
“Don’t worry, on our Father’s Day episode, Franzen and I will switch places. He’ll take first class and I’ll be given the P2,500 budget!” de Castro laughed.
The hour-long show will cover as much as everything there is to see in a destination. The hosts will interview local residents, tour guides and indigenous people. They will also get to explore the local life and delve into the legends and folklore of the place. “We’re not just tourists here, we also try to experience the way the local folk live,” de Castro assured.
This means partaking in the local delicacies in a segment titled “Food Trip.” Fajardo also gets to feel like he’s the dinner himself. “I came this close to a tiger in Subic and I think it really wanted to eat me. I held a baby crocodile in Palawan and a python in Subic,” he recalled in Pilipino.
As he has to travel by ferryboat or bus, Fajardo risks being mobbed by his fellow passengers. Yet he claimed so far this hasn’t happened. He explained he wears simple clothes and a cap. “I look like everyone else,” he noted.
“He’s also turned darker,” says de Castro. “He refuses to put on sun block, even when we’re on a beach!”
Besides “Food Trip,” the show also has a section called “Bad Trip.” De Castro said the segment takes note of the negative points of a destination. “It may sound painful, but we didn’t set out to do a whitewash show. We have to underscore the flaws so that things can be improved. We don’t want travelers to have a hard time. This way, they can avoid having a bad experience and the people involved can fix it,” she explained.
De Castro recalled having flown an airline that promised that its airplane could get her to her destination in 35 minutes, which is half the time other planes take. “But the short travel time was useless. We were delayed by hours. I could have just taken a slower plane and I would have been to the destination in an hour instead of being stuck at the Manila Domestic Airport. We intend to include that awful experience in ‘Bad Trip,’” she said.
De Castro and Fajardo agreed that hosting the show never feels like work. She says: “I’ve always loved traveling. In the show, I do the things I always do when I visit a place. Only this time it’s aired on TV. So you can imagine how everything in the show would be spontaneous.”
Fajardo also welcomes the chance to get away every weekend and be paid a salary for doing it. It’s a sharp contrast to being imprisoned in a house for an entire TV season. Like de Castro, he also claimed to be a seasoned traveler. “I travel from my house to my place of work in Cubao every day!” he boasted.
Trip na Trip airs on ABS-CBN 2 every Sunday at 11 p.m.
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