Philippines – The Thrifty Traveller

Gore-Tex Noselift

When I think of Gore-Tex I think of hiking boots and waterproof jackets. Until my recent trip to the Philippines I was unaware that the brand is also associated with implants used in rhinoplasty and other cosmetic surgery procedures.

There are a lot of good looking people in the Philippines but some feel dissatisfied with their cute, God-given flat noses, wishing instead to have long, pointed noses. For this reason, plastic surgeons seem to be doing a good business in Manila although lagging far behind Thailand and even further behind South Korea, said to be the plastic surgery capital of the world.

According to Dr. Shimmian’s website, a primary Gore-Tex noselift with septal cartilage graft will cost you Peso 100,000, or around US$2,000. That’s quite a lot of money in a country where the average family income is only Peso 22,000 per month*. It seems a Gore-Tex nose is only affordable to the better off. Perhaps I could sell a bit of my nose, which seems to get longer every year!

*2015 figures: Philippines Statistics Authority

Enrique, Magellan & Lapu Lapu

While in Cebu recently I took the opportunity to visit the Mactan Shrine, the spot where the explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in 1521 during a skirmish with the local chieftain, Lapu Lapu.

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There are two monuments at this site. The oldest is the Magellan Monument which was erected by the Spaniards in 1866 to commemorate their hero.

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The newer one, erected after the Philippines achieved independence, is a bronze statue of Lapu Lapu, who is regarded as a national hero for resisting Spanish aggression.

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Lapu Lapu may have won the battle but he lost the war because the Spanish were soon back in force heralding over 300 years of Spanish colonisation and spreading Christianity to much of the archipelago.

Ferdinand-Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan (or Fernao de Magalhaes in his native Portuguese) is often thought of as the first person to sail around the world and he was leading that circumnavigation expedition at the time of his death. He had earlier made another journey eastwards as far as Sabah, Borneo so it could be argued that he had been around the world, apart from the relatively small gap between Cebu and Borneo.

However another person can be credited with being the first to achieve a full circumnavigation and that was Magellan’s servant/slave and interpreter, known as Enrique.

According to Antonio Pigafetta, who chronicled Magellan’s voyage, Enrique was a Malay slave, originally from Sumatra, who was acquired by Magellan during the conquest of Malacca in 1511. Perhaps he was one of the slaves from the Sultan of Melaka’s household. Magellan had him baptised with the name Enrique and he was taken back to Portugal and accompanied Magellan on all his subsequent trips and took part in the Mactan battle where Magellan met his fate.

Three days after Magellan’s death, Enrique went ashore as interpreter with a party of Spaniards to meet another chieftain but they were attacked and only one survivor made it back to ship, witnessing that all were killed except the interpreter. Some have claimed that Enrique helped plan this attack as he was bitter that the Spaniards were not going to grant him his liberty as Magellan had intended and specified in his will. It is not known what happened to Enrique after the attack but, if he did survive, it is quite possible that he made it back to Malacca, or even Sumatra, thus completing his circumnavigation, and that this took place long before Magellan’s surviving crew made it back to Spain.

I have a light-hearted children’s book at home called First Around the Globe – The Story of Enrique, which claims that Enrique was in fact a Filipino from Cebu and that the reason he was found by Magellan in Malacca was because he was kidnapped by a band of pirates while out fishing. They took him to Jolo where he was sold to the slave trade in Malacca. The authors argue that Enrique could speak Cebuano which is how he was able to interpret for Magellan when he reached Cebu. Filipinos add that it is appropriate that the first person to have been around the world should have been Filipino because modern day balikbayan are such great travellers.

Malaysians and Indonesians however would argue that Enrique was a Malay from Sumatra as evidenced by Pigafetta and he was able to communicate with the Cebu chiefs because Malay was the lingua franca among the ruling classes in the Visayas at that time. And Malays are famed for their seamanship skills.

Well, I don’t think I want to take sides in that argument but the possibility that this former Malaccan slave might have been the first person ever to sail around the world is certainly intriguing but I guess we will never know for sure.

Temple of Leah, Cebu

I was in Cebu, Philippines last week for a short family holiday (yes, even travel bloggers need holidays).

One of the more recent tourist attractions on the island is The Temple of Leah located in the cool, green hills of Busay overlooking Cebu City.

This extraordinary building in classical Greco-Roman style looks totally out of place in tropical Philippines but that is what makes it unique.

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Like the Taj Mahal, this temple is one man’s extravagant expression of love for his late wife. The owner is wealthy businessman Mr. Teodorico Soriano Adarna and he explains his reason for building the temple as follows:

“Constructed as a symbol of my undying love for and ceaseless devotion to Leah Villa Albino-Adarna, my wife of 53 years. All her lifetime collections are showcased in the 24 chambers of the Temple.”

According to the roman numerals, construction started in 2011 but it is still a work in progress and the 24 chambers are not yet finished and visitors are confined to the marbled entrance lobby and the massive outdoor terrace enjoying fine views of the city.

Though still a construction site, it is open to the public and the entrance fee of P 50 per person no doubt assists with defraying some of the ongoing building costs.

This place may not be to everyone’s taste but it is worth going for the view alone and to experience the cooler mountain air.

With a thunderstorm approaching we adjourned to the nearby Lantaw Native Restaurant for some tasty dishes while waiting for the rain to ease. It was a good trip.

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Back to Boracay

We’ve just returned from a beach holiday in Boracay in the Philippines. For me and my wife it was our second visit, the first time having been way back in 1986.

In those days Boracay was still undeveloped and not well known outside of the Philippines. We were curious to see how things have changed over the past three decades.

Getting There

In 1986 we landed on Caticlan airport’s grass runway in a small propeller aircraft. In those laid-back days departing passengers could relax on the runway while waiting for their flight to board. The check-in/baggage hall was just a small nipa hut. A tricycle transported us to a nearby beach from where we hired a motorised banca to ferry us across to Boracay Island. We were dropped off on the beach directly in front of our hotel room.

These days international flights land at Kalibo Airport which is a couple of hours’ drive away from Caticlan. Kalibo is better equipped to handle large aircraft but they need to employ more Immigration officials to check the passports of the high volume of passengers.

Hotels

In 1986 there were only a handful of places to stay on the island. We stayed at Fridays which is still operating today and is located at the best end of Boracay’s magnificent White Beach. Our room was directly facing the ocean but was fairly basic with no air-conditioning or fan, in fact there was no electricity at all on the island at that time. They also ran out of drinking water and the only liquids available were San Miguel Beer and Fanta, neither of which was great for breakfast.

Today Boracay has 289 resorts with 7907 rooms (source of statistics: Boracay Sun Community Newspaper). They all have electricity and some are very smart indeed.

Population

All these hotels and restaurants require a small army of workers to man them. Boracay’s population has mushroomed from around 3,000 inhabitants in 1986 to over 30,000 today. A tarmac road runs down the spine of the island with various lanes running off it lined with some fairly scruffy buildings where lower income employees and their families live and shop. I don’t remember any vehicles or tarmac roads in 1986 but now there are 2195 motorbikes, 660 motor tricycles, 419 vans and 84 trucks vying for space on the main road.

Positive Changes

While all the above changes might seem negative, it is not all bad news and in some ways Boracay has improved over the years. Shopping for example. There were no shops at all in 1986 apart from a basic food market. Now there are pedestrianized precincts like D’Mall which are lined with shops selling everything that a visitor might need such as food, souvenirs, clothing, pharmacies, designer fashions and so on.

There are also 260 restaurants to choose from with cuisines ranging from Filipino to Italian to Korean. (There are hordes of Korean tourists on the island by the way with Taiwanese probably being the next most numerous). Boracay has 70 spas so there is no excuse for feeling stressed (we didn’t try any). Nightlife is active with lots of live singing going on in bars and restaurants but they seem to have avoided most of the sleazy type of nightlife found in some other Asian beach resorts.

Things To Do

In 1986 there was little to do on Boracay apart from relaxing on the beach with a good book but that was its charm. Nowadays they have all kinds of water activities imaginable, such as parasailing, jet skiing, helmet dive, banana boat, wake boarding, kite boarding, mermaid lessons, sailing, island hopping and glass bottom boat. On land there is quad biking, horseback riding, go-karting, zorbing, zip lining, mountain biking and trekking.

Paradise Lost?

Boracay might not be the pristine, unspoilt paradise it once was but the authorities and local residents have done a good job at least in maintaining White Beach as beautiful as ever and it continues to be rated as one of the world’s best beaches.

To avoid putting more strain on the island’s stretched infrastructure, they should cap future developments and concentrate instead on upgrading what they already have. There are plenty of other beautiful islands in the Philippines still to be exploited for tourism and resources should be diverted there.

Bohol

Last time I was in the Philippines I returned to Bohol where my wife’s family have a home. Bohol is probably my favourite island in the Philippines – not that I am an authority on the matter, having so far only stepped foot on a handful of the country’s 7,000 or so islands.

Bohol has a lot going for it. It is a fairly big island of over 4,000 sq.km. and a population of around 1.5 million. The bulk of the population is engaged in agriculture (rice, bananas, copra, mangos, pigs and cattle), fishing (prawns, fish, squid etc.) light industry, handicrafts and service industries. Bohol’s people are reckoned to be hardworking, conservative and perhaps more reserved than most Filipinos.

Bohol has a number of attractions for the tourist. Beautiful Panglao has some excellent sandy beaches and one or two first class beach resorts such as Bohol Beach Club. It is a popular destination for divers, dolphin and whale watchers.

The Chocolate Hills are the most famous landmark on the island, a series of 1,200 rounded hills of between 40 – 120 meters high, which turn brown in the dry season, hence the name. There are various theories as to how these unusual formations came about. My own theory, which has no scientific basis, is that these hills are the weathered remains of gigantic lumps of earth which were hurled into the sky when one of the Philippines’ super volcanoes blew its top millions of years ago.

Bohol is also home to the tiny Philippine tarsier, one of the cutest primates around, with huge bulging eyes which give it amazing night vision. Sadly they are an endangered species. Although Bohol is still a very green island with verdant rice paddies, the tarsiers’ natural forest environment has virtually disappeared and their numbers are restricted to a couple of small reserves and tourist enclosures.

Loboc River is a lovely spot. Here you can rent boats or dine on a restaurant raft.

On our dinner cruise we paused alongside two floating bands of talented singers and musicians who were serenading passing boats in return for a modest tip. They like their music in this country!

Bohol can also boast a number of heritage sites and Loboc church, located near the dining raft jetty, is said to be the oldest church in Asia having been established by the Spanish in 1600.

My wife’s family have a home in a sleepy village on a stretch of mangrove coastline. My wife’s father built this rustic payag to enjoy the cool sea breezes and splendid view.

To get to the payag you have to negotiate a 100 meter long rickety bamboo bridge or wade through the squishy mangrove swamp.

At high tide the kids enjoyed swimming, paddling in the banca and looking for fish and crabs. We saw a couple of striped sea-snakes (harmless unless you stick your little toe in their mouth – in which case they are lethal).

Nice view from the payag!

Meanwhile yours truly was in intense training for my current job.

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