The Philippines is one of my all-time favourite countries. It has amazing nature, super friendly people, English is widely spoken and it was, until relatively recently, unspoiled.
I have been to the Philippines twice – the first time for 3 weeks in 1994 and the second for 2 months in 2005. In the ’00s I was living in the UK and an old friend of mine, John from New Zealand, contacted me. He was living in Japan and had 2 weeks holiday and suggested we meet up in Asia somewhere. He was keen on either Indonesia or the Philippines – both good choices – but in end, we settled on the Philippines. We travelled together for 2 weeks, then John returned to Japan and I travelled on alone.
Palawan – the wild west of the Philippines
John wanted to check out Palawan, a large island in the west of of the Philippines. Back then, it was known as the wild west of the Philippines – rugged, wild and untouched by tourism.
We landed in Puerto Princesa, the capital, which has pretty much nothing to recommend it. We did a rafting tour of the Underground River, which was quite underwhelming, despite being later named one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. It turned out later, that repeat voting was allowed and the Philippines had launched a nationwide campaign to spam the competition.
El Nido
Our main goal was to get to the north of the island to check out El Nido. I’ve been to a few great natural wonders in time, but this place is the place closest to “paradise”. It is series of gorgeous bays and lagoons surrounded by spectacular limestone rocks and cliffs.
There was only a small village there with a couple of restaurants and cafes. Oh, and an exclusive luxury 5 star resort. We literally had the place to ourselves. You could hire a boat and go to a totally deserted island, eat fresh fish and go snorkeling. Or rent canoes and explore the lagoons (Big and Small lagoon, respectively). These days, the lagoons are packed with canoes and tourists. We could only hear the sounds of the birds, being the only people there. That was special.
North Philippines – Sagada and Banaue
We flew back to Manilla. John went home to Japan and I travelled on alone. I took a flight to Baguio, a pleasant mountain town. From there, I went by bus to Sagada, a small mountain village. It is known as being the hash capital of the Philippines. To be honest, I had no idea that the Philippines had hash until I turned up there and there were these hippies wandering around smoking big hash joints. It was cool in the evenings and we would all settle around the fire at night in the guesthouse and smoke joints.
Rice Terraces
The actual reason I wanted to go north was to visit the Rice Terraces of Banaue. I hooked up with a small group of travellers and we hired a guide. It was a 2 day hike to get there with an overnight stay in local village. The hiking was pretty easy until we were walking along a track cut into the side of a hill with a steep drop to the valley below. Suddenly, we came to a spot where the track had been washed away. My first instinct was to go back, but we decided to risk it, slowly inching our way round this section with our chests literally hugging the side of the hill. I couldn’t look down. Spoiler – I am still alive, so we did make it around the 30 meter gap, but it was a close one. One slip would have been certain death. The scariest thing was, this trail was used by locals and several were negotiating this treacherous route carry huge loads on their backs and heads!
Back to Borocay
I first visited Borocay during my first trip in 1994. At that time, it was completed empty and I needed a flashlight to walk along the beach at night between the single bar and the one restaurant. I was a bit hesitant to go back, as I had heard that in the interim, it had become over-touristed. I decided to go back with an open mind. This turned out to be a great decision.
This time, the whole beach had been developed, albeit with reasonably tasteful resorts. It was the shoulder season, which was the perfect time, as it was not too crowded, yet there were enough people for a couple of good parties every evening.
Learning to Scuba dive
I decided to take the plunge and get my PADI Open Water Scuba Diving certificate. I was never a good swimmer at school and had a general lack of confidence in the water. Scuba Diving opened up a whole new world to me and I instantly became addicted. I started to plan the rest of trip based on discovering the best dive sites and the Philippines has some of the best diving in the world. It is not only amazing to experience the incredible undersea world close up but also the feeling of weightlessness and extreme tranquility. Diving is dangerous and you have to make sure you choose a reputable dive shop with well maintained quality equipment. There is a lot of theory, but it is all worth it in the end. The basic rule of diving is, don’t forget to breathe! You have to learn to master your breathe to control your buoyancy and the amount of air you use. As you have to concentrate the whole time on your breathe, you can get into a very calm meditative state. A really good dive, where you see amazingly mind-blowing sealife and coral can give you a really euphoric feeling. Plus, a day out on the boat in the sea, getting exercise and doing pretty much healthy stuff all day while hanging out with other like-minded people can’t be a bad thing.
Luckily, due to the fact that it was the shoulder season, I got a private lesson from a really great dive shop with brand new equipment for the same price as a group course, as I was the only student. My instructor was really cool. He let me cheat on a couple of things – somehow we skipped the 300m swim – and he even gave me a day off without charging me when I had to cancel following a big night out. Tip: don’t go diving with a hangover.
So I had a blast learning to dive and doing some partying. Borocay had become quite a bit more expensive in the meantime. To mitigate the costs, I would go to the local fish market and by some fresh fish directly from the fishermen. Then I would get the kitchen to cook the fish for me for a modest fee on their bbq. They would cook it with this lime salsa, which was a taste sensation.
Cebu
From the Borocay, I flew south to Cebu. Cebu is an island in the central Philippines. Cebu city is capital of Cebu and the third largest city in the Philippines. It’s a pleasant enough place, without much to offer travellers and is mainly used as a transit hub to other parts of the Philippines.
Malapascua Island
Malapascua is a tiny island off the northern tip of Cebu. This was a random tip I got from another traveller and it turned out to be one of highlights of my trip. The people there have strangely brown coloured hair. There are no motorized vehicles on the island. You get round by bicycle or on foot. There were only 2 or 3 restaurants on the island. It is famous for a shark dive. This was my first sighting of a shark, which was pretty cool. It was a thresher shark – a bizarre looking shark with a tail as long as its body. I had to get up a 5 in the morning for the dive, as the sharks only show themselves at that time apparently. I was still half asleep when we submerged. We waited for ages at the bottom (it wasn’t too deep). Suddenly from nowhere, the sharks swam passed! Surreal!
Bohol
Bohol is another really cool island in the Philippines worth visiting. It has some great scuba diving, but is most famous for the Chocolate Hills, a series of hills shaped like Hershey’s chocolate kisses.
Chocolate Hills meets Ms Earth
To get to the hills, I rented a scooter. I was hanging out on the viewing platform taking in the scenery when suddenly this gorgeous woman appeared. She was from Uruguay and was super outgoing and friendly. Well, I’m a friendly guy, so I duly obliged and granted her the pleasure of making my acquaintence. Just as I was getting used to her, another drop dead stunning woman appeared. Next thing I knew, there was a whole crew of them all competing for my attention. Suddenly I noticed something wierd about their attire – they were all wearing saches with the name of a country on them! Then the penny dropped – they were beauty contestants from the Ms Earth competition. Ms Earth, you know, third after Ms Universe and Ms World, dummy! How ignorant of me. I am just not up with beauty pagents these days.
These contests are super popular in the Philippines. It is common for local festivals to include a beauty pageant, for men and women. Many poor villages in the Philippines are very conservative and political correctness has not quite made it. Plus, there are very few economic opportunities and many see the possibility of using such a contest as a stepping stone to fame and fortune. In fact, many of the top female movie stars in the Philippines launched their careers by winning a prominent contest.
So, it was no wonder that this international pageant had found a home in the Philippines and I just happened to stumble upon their day trip. Of course, a lot of the friendliness was to score points for the judges, but hey I wasn’t complaining.
Hanging with the all female rock band
One night I was hanging out in this local bar which happened to be owned by a fellow New Zealander who had been living in the Philippines for some decades. An all-female rock band came on and started playing covers. Being the only foreigner (apart from the owner) there, the lead singer started to serenade me. She beckoned me to join her on the stage while she sang Bryan Adams especially for me. Brian Adams has a god-like following in the Phillipines. On my first trip in 1994, Bryan Adams had been at number one for over a year. On every single bus ride, they had him on rotation and every single girl would be mouthing the words and looking all melancholic.
So, I arranged a day date with this woman. The NZ guy warned me – expect her to turn up with a chaperone. They will take you to the local mall. You will buy them some nice jewellery as a present. They will later take the jewellery to a pawn shop. This is the system. Men have all the power and authority. So, the women have to take what they can get. And as a foreigner, you are automatically mega-rich and therefore ripe for the taking. And yes, his prediction turned out to be 100% correct and all of the above indeed happened. We also caught a nice movie in an air conditioned cinema. The thing is, some of these smaller provincial cities are pretty damn boring and the only nice place is the local mall. It has nice shops and restaurants, plus very importantly it’s clean and it has air conditioning. This makes it a nice place to have an excursion during the day to avoid the blistering heat outside.
Mindanao & Camiguin Island
I wanted to check out this island and visit Mindanao. At that time, no tourists visited Mindanao. It was considered too dangerous due to kidnappings by “terrorist” groups. But these kidnappings actually happened in the Sulu archipelago, a chain of small islands off the south west tip of Mindanao, which is itself quite a large island. Stupid tourists were known to wander down that way from time to time to do some hard core diving, accompanied by armed guards. What appeared to be a rebel insurgency disguised the fact that the islands are geographically closer to Malaysia than Manila and the central government has never actually had any control there. So, the rest of Mindanoa is actually ok, if a bit wild west. This is where former President Duterte was the mayor of Davao City.
I flew to Cagayan de Oro, a large city with nothing to recommend it. But I just wanted to experience the different vibe there compared to other more touristy places like Borocay. I took a bus and a boat to get to the island. It is a really nice island – at the time almost totally untouched by tourism. I had a nice spot on the beach with sunset. One evening, I was chilling in the hammock with the sunset view and a fishing boat just happened to pull up on the beach. I went out to meet the boat and asked them if they would sell me a fish. I bought this super huge barracuda for like $5 or something. I then had my guesthouse grill it for me – always with the chillie and lime.
I decided to hike up a volcano. This was one of the hardest things I had ever done. It was only 1000m, so easily doable in a day. I hired a local guide and we left really early to take advantage of the cool temperatures. We took a packed lunch and water. My guide was some kind of superhuman. He was in his 60s, but super fit. He had these hugely bulging and veiny calf muscles from running up and down the volcano his entire life. He set a blistering pace and I struggled to keep up. The first section was under cover of vegetation and was quite steep – we had to walk up in a zig zag. Even when we stopped for a sip of water we could not rest very long before being attacked by vicious mosquitos! That turned out to be the easy part! It started to get steeper and at some points we had to rock climb! I hate fucking rock climbing. I am super scared of heights and would freak out. Then, we emerged from the foliage into open space. Now we had to traverse this series of precariously placed rocks. One false step and instant death! Ok, maybe not that severe, but still pretty intense. Finally we made it to the top and the views were spectacular out to sea. It was so serene and we ate our sandwiches from our packed lunches while thinking this had made it all worth while. My guide had told me we would take a different route down and I had visions of a nice gentle trail and us easing ourselves gently down the slopes. How wrong could I have been! My nightmare had only just begun!
We started going down through this dense thicket. It was straight down on a very steep path. On either side of the path, there was this kind of brush or thick grass with lots of nasty spikes. It didn’t seem this trail was regularly in use and the grass had grown over the top forming a kind of tunnel. Unfortunately the tunnel was not very high meaning we had to walk hunched over or even crawl at times. There was no opportunity, like say the odd clearing, to take a break anywhere and this rapidly fucked my knees. Finally we emerged from the dense bush into a clearing with grass and some cows grazing. Finally! We had reached the end of the hike and we were near the village. I should have been so lucky! This was just a plateau and we still had to negotiate a steep and treacherous path down the side of the mountain. At times, the steps were very steep and every step downward was causing more and more pain in my knees. Eventually we made it back and there was small shop at the bottom. I collapsed and immediately drank a whole large bottle of lemonade to myself, suffering from severe exhaustion.
Indeed, I suffered greatly on that day, but now I look back fondly on that experience. The feeling you get from achieving something hard and pushing yourself beyond your limits is a real buzz. This plus the physical exhaustion puts you in a state of great calm and you sleep very deeply.
A few days later, I was lucky enough to be there for the island’s annual festival. I knew nothing about it and had very low expectations. But I thought I would check it out. This festival exceeded all my expectations. It was a parade of musicians and dancers/performers down the main street of the local town. The costumes and sychronised dancing performances were very impressive.
Epilogue
Alas, my time in the Philippines had come to an end. It was and still is one of my greatest trips. I got to enjoy the Philippines for the second time when it was still relatively untouched by mass tourism. I saw a lot and met many lovely people. Filippinos are some of the friendliest people on earth despite being continously fucked up the arse by corrupt politicians and natural disasters.
Would I go back now? I am not so sure. I certainly would not have felt comfortable in a place where a maniac President went on a murderous rampage executing thousands of suspected drug dealers and users. Criminal gangs were encouraged to carry out the extra-judicial killings and used the opportunity to settle a score with rival gangs or eliminate their enemies. Not a happy place.
So now Duterte is gone, but it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire with the election of Bongbong Marcos, son of the former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. I can’t see a rosy future for the Philippino people.