Snaps from Port Barton, San Vincente, Palawan, Philippines !
01 August 2010
29 November 2009
09 October 2009
around Luzon - Zambales
Snaps from Zambales - the land of the black sand beaches !
08 October 2009
around Luzon - Alaminos (hundred islands)
Snaps from Alaminos, the gateway to the beautiful hundred islands !
03 October 2009
around Luzon - Baguio
Snaps from Baguio, the highlands of Philippines
16 March 2009
Lupang Hinirang
I'am very tired today, but I'am obliged to keep my word to write about Philippines. So, I will post a video on Lupang Hinirang, which is the National Anthem of Philippines.
The video was produced by PAGASA, and directed by Mae Paner with cinematography by Boy Yniguez and sung by the Loboc Choir.
The english translation of the anthem, courtesy of Answers Corporation goes as follows :
Land of the morning Land dear and holy, Ever within thy skies and through thy clouds Thy banner dear to all hearts Beautiful land of love, oh land of light,
Child of the sun returning
With fervor burning
Thee do our souls adore.
Cradle of noble heroes,
Ne'er shall invaders
Trample thy sacred shores.
And o'er thy hills and seas;
Do we behold thy radiance, feel the throb
Of glorious liberty.
Its sun and stars alright,
Oh, never shall its shining fields
Be dimmed by tyrants might.
In thine embrace 'tis rapture to lie;
But it is glory ever when thou art wronged
For us thy sons to suffer and die.
National Anthem. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation
15 March 2009
The Philippines - More Than The Usual !
It's coming to a year since I relocated to The Philippines, so it is time to write about my host country. In the next posts, I will write more about Visayas, in particular Central Visayas and Cebu, which is where I'am based and this is the place I know best. The map shown below shows the geographical distribution of the various islands that form The Philippines. Well, there are roughly 7,107 islands and you cannot see it all in the map. The various islands are classified into 3 main administrative regions - Luzon (including Manila), Visayas (including Palawan) and Mindanao (including Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao). The Philippines has China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia & Indonesia as neighboring countries, but it is mainly surrounded by the sea. 
© Owl & Mouse 2007
History says, or rather Insight Guides - Philippines (Page 21, History) says the islands that form Philippines was born of fire and water. More precicely, the archipelago was born out of earthshaking movements in a process called subduction giving rise to colossal volcanic eruptions numbered over 200 across the archipelago. However, the most popular myth on the formation of the country has nothing to do with geography. It goes that there was a violent battle between the sea and sky, which was started by a cunning bird in the hope of opening up dry land. The sea hurled huge walls of water at the sky and the sky retaliated by throwing down island and rocks and apparantly the sea admitted defeat and the archipelago was born. Well, nice story, but the essence of this is that Philippines is blessed with natural beauty - the sea, the islands and the flora and fauna. View this introductory video from the guys at WOW Philippines.
Source : bestdestination
© 2009 Travelindex
The Philippines was previously a colony of Spain and United States of America. Three centuries of Spanish rule and half a century of American rule, you won't be surprised to find the Filipino's more western than any other Asian race. Their culture is preserved, with strong Spanish influence alongside Chinese, Indian and Arabic elements, possibly these guys passed through the archipelago while discovering the South East Asian regions.
The country went through several stages of nation building, a delight and fascination to any history buff. The nationalist movement dates back to 1872, initiated by clergymen and students. paniards went to war with Americans over Cuba and eventually, Amercians drove the Spanish out of Philippines and ruled for 48 years. Then came World War 2 and the Japanese landed in the archipelago and stayed on for 3 years before defeated by returning Americans in 1994 and eventually gave independence to the country in 1946. Since then, the history of the country is colorful and very interesting to anyone. Politics, military influence, dictatorship, coups, political assasinations and finally a people's revolution, before the country could start fresh again. But the wounds of dictatorship and dirty politics took a long time to heal and the country still have a long way to go in uplifting its economy and the lives of its citizens. Unemployment rate is a serious issue and this lead to many Filipino's migrating overseas seeking employment.
One thing that always amazed me is the importance the Filipino's give to family, religion and education. Families are closely knit, friends are treated like family. Almost every other person is an University graduate, and everyone speaks English. This has now proven to be a big advantage, with call centres and BPO's sprouting all across the country and many youngsters having a well paid job and living happy lives instead of going abroad seeking a livelihood. Tourism also plays a big role in improving the lives of many who live in the provincial regions. Sadly, the country has yet to take advantage of the natural beauty God has showered on the archipelago. Tourism infrastructure is still at an infancy stage and largely catered to domestic tourism rather than the international tourist. I think I will write about this in another post.
More to follow in the coming posts! I will be focusing more on the touristic angle, to tell you more about the things that will attract you to come and visit Philippines. If you have been to Phuket or Bali and think they are the best place to spend your vacation in South East Asia, you have not visited Philippines yet.
12 October 2008
around Visayas - Bohol (Tagbilaran City)
Bohol is an island which is part of the Visayas region of islands of Philippines. Bohol is surrounded by Cebu, Leyte and Mindanao across the Bohol sea.
Image source Wikipedia
The locals call it Republic of Bohol or the Majestic Bohol and even God's Little Paradise, reasons unknown to me. It is a major touristic attraction with its beaches, historical monuments and other attractions. The most popular among these will be the Chocolate Hills and the Philippine Tarsier. Besides these, diving seems to be the main crowd puller to this island. I do not dive, so I cannot vouch for that.
Geting there is easy. If you are in Cebu, take a ride on one of the many ferry services. I took Weesam Express and it costs only about Peso 300 for a one-way trip and Peso 500 for the same trip in an airconditioned cabin. The journey takes less than 2 hours. If you take the fastcraft ferry, it takes about 1 hour. The journey itself is an experience, the water is so blue and refreshing. Even on a very hot day, sitting on the deck of the ferry, the breeze coold you off and you dont sweat a bit. But carry lots of water with you.
Once the ferry docks at Tagbilaran terminal, it is Bohol already. Take a local rental car service which costs about Peso 2000 including fuel and driver to bring you to the various attractions. You can go everywhere within the day.
Our first stop was the Luboc river. You can have buffet lunch on board one of those river boats for 300 peso. A 3 member band entertains you with songs throughout the entire trip. The trip takes you along the backwaters, which is quite an experience. They have done it quite well and the boats coordinate with each other so as not to cause any congestion in the river. The entire ride takes slightly above 1 hour. Along the banks, the boat will stop at a point where the locals will sing and dance to local folksongs and entertain the tourists. You can give them some donation or buy some local products like wild honey or handicraft products. Once the boat hits the waterfall, it turns back and the trip is over. 
Next head for Chocolate Hills. The Chocolate Hills is a limestone formation of thousands of small hills covered with lush greenery. The driver told us that the legend behind the hills is that some giants were playing marbles and fell asleep. The marbles were left there and trees grew on them. So funny, wonder what happened to the giants ! 
You can climb about 500 steps up to the view point where you can take pictures with the hills as background. Or you can engage the services of some professional photographers who can take pictures wonderful pictures of you. For example, they give you a broomstick and ask you to jump a little high. They capture it on camera from a certain angle and the photo comes out perfectly as if you are flying on a broomstick over the hills. But it is certainly a danger waiting to happen. The photoshoot location is filled with gravel, so if you are wearing that slipper or a shoe with worn out soles, you are gonna slip and roll over the hills. I curiously asked the photographer if any one fell down. His reply "none this year Sir"! That says all ! They should have some kind of protective fence or netting there. I also saw the adventurous tourists step over the viewpoint barrier over to the hilly areas to get that perfect shot. Again, do it at own risk.
After Chocolate Hills, on the way back, stop at the Tarsier Sanctuary. If you hold your Luboc river boatride ticket, the entrance is free. Or you can pay a few peso's to watch the tarsiers. There are only about 20 tarsiers in this smaller sanctuary. I was told you can go to a bigger sanctuary, but quite far away from the City. The tarsiers are an endangered species and they are nocturnal animals, so they sleep in the day and get active in the night. They are so small in size, but with very big eyes, that remain open even during sleep. Well, it is cute and really a sight to see.
From the Chocolate Hills, we went to the second oldest church in Philippines, The Baclayon Church. The folktales go that the native laborers took the stone from the sea and stacked it on top of each other to build the church. Apparantly there was no cement, so they took the white of a million eggs to cement the stones together. I went inside the Church, oh so peaceful. There is no eggy smell, it was a beautiful sight, the altar is so simple but with many beautiful statues. Any architecture buff will fall in love with the Church.
After Baclayon Church, we headed to the Blood Compact Monument, which is the location where the local Chieftain Datu Sikatuna and the Spanish Legazpi signed a so-called peace agreement to end hostility. You can take pictures at the memorial posing with the Boholano king and the Spanish entourage.
After this, we are more of less done with the attractions. Actually there are many more attractions, but we were tired. So we decided to head to the Panglao Beach, which has many beach front resorts. I was quite dissapointed when I reached there and was actually thinking of heading back to Cebu that evening. They claim Panglao beach is the best beach in Bohol, but I was totally disspointed, there is no proper road to the beach front resorts. You have to lug your luggage to the resorts. The term resort should not be used, they are more like a backpacker's inn. Since the rate I got was cheap, we decided to stay on for the night. I wonder why they call it a beach, because this beach does not have a shore. Anyway I wandered around the whole stretch of the "beach" trying to find a decent place to eat or have a drink. I soon realized there is no disco, club or even a karoeke place. The only place I could find some music was at one of the resort restaurant blaring loud pop music. There are some snooker bars, that was the only entertainment I could see there. There was not a single bar in sight, and the tourists bought beer or alcohol from the shops and sit by the beach and drink all night, playing games and chit chatting. Major dissapointment, what is a beach holiday without a place to hang out or enjoying a live band or geting to know someone (u know what I mean!).
The next day I woke up and found the pleace deserted, except for some shops trying their luck to sign us up on island hopping trips. Apparantly all the tourists are here for the diving and they leave very early in the morning to the sea. Ah well, I don't dive, we just lazed around for a while, had a nice breakfast, cleared some emails and headed for the ferry. We declined the resort owner's offer to send us to the ferry terminal in her car and instead took the local version of Thailand's tuk-tuk. It is a motorcycle fitted with a small cabin that can fit 2 person with much difficulty. Ahh, 50 minutes later after braving through all the dust and noise, we reached the terminal. Another enjoyable ferry ride and 2 hours later we are in Cebu.
For more information on Bohol, visit the page at Wikipedia. This website of Bohol also gives a lot of useful information on the island. Another useful site is the official website of the local government.
