After nearly two years spent in South-East Asia and plenty of travels in the region, I consider I've been pretty spoiled with paradise islands, beautiful unspoiled nature, charming little remote villages, fancy jungle treks, you name it. However none of all those great landmarks can compete with Philippines!
Our trip started with an overnight layover in Metro Manila, where
Ines was kind enough to show us around and bring us to the very friendly and casual Penguin Bar in Malate, Remedios Circle area. We also had a chance to hang out in Intramuros, where we really appreciated the relatively quite atmosphere compared to the rest of the city. The Rizzal Memorial Park is a real green haven in an ocean of concrete and smoky
jeepneys... But we didn't stick too long in the capital since we felt the urge for nature.
Our next hop lead us to Palawan Island, aka The Last Frontier. Believe me, Palawan is totally worthy of this nickname. After few days visiting Puerto Princessa, the capital of the Island, and its surroundings like Honda Bay, or the
Subterranean River in Sabang, we headed up North to El Nido. El Nido is a place you got to deserve: we got there by bus from Puerto Princessa. It's only a 250 km journey, but it took more than 9 hours! Indeed, the only road that crosses the island is only paved about half-way, then it gets really rough. The bus was already full long before we reached the departure bus station, so the driver offered us to seat on the roof. After few seconds hesitating, we seized the
opportunity to benefit from a perfect view point all along the way. That's only once the bus left that we realized how stressful it is: many power lines or branches are just slightly higher than the roof of the bus, and passengers heads could have gotten chopped off several time. In order to prevent such thing from happening a bus attendant seats on the roof as well: he yells whenever he sees a wire or a branch approaching, in order to make sure everyone bends over... A couple of times, the powerlines were so low that the attendant actually made the driver stop the bus and go very slowly while the first row of roof's passengers grabbed the powerline above their heads and handed it over to the second row, etc... I decided not to imagine what could happened if the isolating coating was worn out. Security standards are not the same in the Philippines...
We eventually made it to El Nido totally exhausted, but with our heads still attached! And that's when we realized that it is totally worth the ride: think of beautiful limestones archipelago like Ha Long Bay in Vietnam or Krabi in Thailand, and remove all the pollution and the tourism infrastructure. Replace the muddy waters with crystal clear turquoise water and the resorts with fisherman stilts villages. That's El Nido. This is pure heaven.
One fun thing about El Nido is that there is not enough electricity for the whole village, so they round robin different streets of the village. One street can be "the place to be" one night, and be dark and gloomy the next night... Disorientating! We chilled out few days in El Nido, island hoping or motorbike riding. This is a really remote area, pretty much untouched and preserved from tourism industry. Believe it or not, Marie and I managed to find a 4 km long perfect beach just for us! Well, by just for us, I mean no
tourist at all, but we spend most of the afternoon playing with a group of young kids. One thing struck us is that they weren't begging for money: as a westerner tourist in Manila or any city in Philippines, you get used to being target number one for beggars, especially for children. But at no point those kids ever asked for money. They were first curious and shy to see foreigners, and then really, sincerely happy to play with us. They saw Marie collect some shells, so they mimicked her and brought her several fistful of it!! They built sand castles with Marie, they taught us some Tagalog words, we taught them some English, asked them about life in the village, school, what they wanna do later etc... A true meaningful exchange. And that shows how untouched Northern Palawan is from the tourism: because unfortunately one of the first things that tourism dollars create in a country like Philippines is beggars.
We met some westerns pioneers who settled in Palawan and live of a small business like boat services, motorbike rental, coffee place, guided tours, diving, etc... They really brought up some doubts in my mind... What kind of life am I really looking forward to?...
Anyway, all things come to an end and we left Palawan, en route to Bohol island, next to Cebu, South of the Visayas. Bohol is much less adventurous, but as friendly as Palawan. There are some really nice rice paddy landscapes to be seen on Bohol. We took the chance to have a look at the two landmarks of the island: the very touristy
Chocolate Hills and the
Tarsier. We met a very friendly Filipinos at a market, who happened to have spent some time in Kuala Lumpur. She invited us over at her place for some fruits and drinks, that was very thankful of her.
We planned to spend few days South of Bohol, at Alona beach. We came in at evening time, and ended up leaving the place the very next morning: we couldn't stand the atmosphere: this beach is packed with the eye hurting mixed couple of a thin, beautiful, shy young Filipinos lady with an old, fat, sunburned, drunk and rich Westerner. A German guy told us that you can "rent" a lady for 24h. She will do whatever you want. She can do your laundry, cook some food, massage you, or... And it will cost you only 1,500 P, he said. 20 Euros. That's what one day of their life is worth. Just plain horrible. Modern slavery. I hate that. To make things up, we heard many stories of such guys who got manipulated by their lady and end up being tricked into coughing up lots of money. It sounds bad, but somehow I figured it is fair enough. Come on, those repulsive guys can't take advantage of Filipinos beauties for nothing!
We were back in Manila just for new year's eve. Quite impressive: fire crackers all over the streets, lot of people celebrating. In a nutshell, a big mess! Before midnight we ran for our lives and came back in the guesthouse: outside was really too dangerous!
To wrap-up, this trip was one of the best I did in Asia! I was just amazed by he friendliness of the Filipinos. Every country has its own culture, but the Philippines have less in common with most countries of South-East Asia. That's probably due to the strong Spanish and then American influence. The Philippines is definitely the least Asian country of Asia.
As usual, a batch of my favorite pics:
I usually don’t make a blog entry every time I head somewhere for an extended weekend. But I really had a crush on Lake Toba and the Batak people.
Lake Toba (Danau Toba in Bahasa Indonesia) is located 4 hours drive from Medan, in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. The site is just incredible: the lake is inside a huge volcano crater, and is surrounded by pine-clothed mountains slopes. The lake is so large that you can’t see both edges at the same time. The scenery is just fantastic, and the little villages blend in perfectly in the landscape with their emblematic horn shape houses. The area is particularly wild and the atmosphere of peacefulness is a real relief after a terrible 4h drive from Medan on Easter weekend, when the regular small 2 lanes road turns into a heavily jammed 6 lanes “highway”…
rituals until the nineteenth century, when they became Protestants due to the Dutch influence. And they like their religion! What a good idea to visit Danau Toba during Easter weekend! All the villagers brought their “A game” to go to the church, and they just couldn’t greet us, visitors, with enough “Horas!!!” (i-e hello in Bahasa Batak).
After quite a few travels in South-East Asia, I will remember Indonesia as the most beautiful country, full of variety. Variety in the landscapes, ranging from desert black-sand volcano slopes to paradise blue water beaches or breathtaking rice paddies… but also variety in the cultures, traditions, and religions. IMHO, it is the most attractive country 
for travelers in South-East Asia.
