Category: <span>Philippines</span>

Planning a trip to the Philippines began with the most unlikeliest of inspirations — an e-mail forward from my father. Not even a good official one, but one of those e-mails that had numerous ‘fwd: FW: Fwd:’ before the actual subject line of ‘can you believe Philippines has such beauty?!’ followed by numerous exclamation marks.

I usually disregard the images I find in such e-mails as they’re usually not from the country they claim to be but upon checking up some of the names of the places they showcased, I was quite surprised about how little I knew of their existence!

It dawned to me I knew very little about Philippines, this despite having grown up in the Middle East where (just like Indians) millions of them come to work. As a kid, all I knew about Filipinos is that a lot of them work in fast food joints or play in a band — and they don’t have the letter ‘F’ in their vocabulary. So I would often hear “500 pils” instead of “500 fils” when asked for change.

I learnt of Banaue and its famous rice terraces, the beautiful beaches of Boracay and Palawan, but the place that made me wish I was there was the remote island of Batanes. It was then, early 2010, I decided to consider making a trip to Philippines.

It was quite challenge really, because trying to study the geography of Philippines wasn’t easy.

Philippines country regions provinces map — (Image source: Wikipedia)

Philippines is an archipelago of 7,107 islands. Sure, many of those thousands are really tiny to even identify on a map but still, getting around the country isn’t easy. It requires some learning beforehand. Since it’s not a landlocked country like most of Thailand, you have to commute via road, ferry, and airlines just to get to certain places within the country.

I initially thought of clubbing Philippines & Thailand last year but it was proving to be quite expensive. So I decided to give Philippines it’s own time.

That time was early this year, when things weren’t looking too good at my workplace. We all knew what was coming our way with the fate of the office and so, instead of prepping up my resume and looking for another job, I researched more on Philippines instead 🙂 When things became official in March and we all knew we were going to be laid off, I booked my tickets!

I tried Air Asia first but at around INR19k, it wasn’t as cheap as I thought it would be. Plus the timings were inconvenient. I land late at night and my connecting flight would have been at 7am the next morning. No way I was going to spend that long at KL LCCT! So I checked all the usual Indian travel websites and got the best deal from Travelocity for a Malaysia Airlines flight at Rs. 26,153 ($584/€411) return. Yes, it was more than Air Asia, but it was going to be convenient, so I didn’t mind paying a bit extra for that. Also, I would get proper meals, land at KLIA and not the present ~~warehouse~~budget terminal. More importantly, the time I had to wait for my connecting flight was lesser.

Philippines Airlines had just launched their direct flight service to New Delhi (only), but it was quite expensive, so flying the Philippines national carrier was not a possibility.

Next came the visa. When I researched on the tourist visa, I was happy to find out Philippines offer a 21-day visa-on-arrival for a 147 nations! Great, I thought… until I scanned down the list and couldn’t find India one among those 147 countries -_-

So I ended up at the website of the Philippines embassy in New Delhi and found out I have to pay Rs. 2320 for a tourist visa (and for just 21 days). Since I couldn’t fly to Delhi just to get a visa, I had to get it done through an agent. Some agents wouldn’t even do it, and one moron even asked for Rs. 10,000 as service charges! But I walked into the nearby Thomas cook office in Koramangala (inside Raheja Arcade) and got my visa processed by paying their Rs. 1000 service charge. At Rs. 3320, this was the most I had spent on a South East Asian visa so far, and that too for a single entry visa. My multiple entry Singapore visa for 2 years cost just Rs. 1800 and my 1 year Malaysia visa cost just Rs. 1500. Thailand was free visa-on-arrival the two times I went.

My travel period was from 16th April to 4th May and I chose the dates keeping in mind the main focus of my trip was to photograph the Easter crucifixions in San Fernando. The rest of my itinerary would see me visit the largest American war cemetery outside of the United States, traverse throughout the Ifugao province for my fix of rice terrace farms, see coffins hung on hill sides, Cebu, see odd-shaped hills in Bohol and finally enjoy the natural beauty of Palawan island. I was looking for ‘interesting’ with this trip, so I ruled out Boracay — the nation’s most popular island destination, and the most touristy. Unfortunately, Batanes was out of this trip plan as well, simply because it was too expensive to even get there. No budget carrier (and Philippines has enough of them) flies to Batanes and even those that do only fly if they get enough passengers. Batanes is that remote an island.

As days passed by, I felt a bit nervous and kept having second thoughts about spending a lot of money during uncertain times. Sure, the Philippines currency value was the same as the Indian rupee, so that really helped! But still, here I was, going on vacation when all my colleagues were busy job hunting. Plus, I was going to be visiting a new country, one that like Thailand (to the eyes of the ignorant) has a sketchy reputation. I knew what I was going to see, and I was looking forward to see if they live up to the hype, but still…

One ray of hope that eased me up a bit came my way two weeks before my departure date when one of my readers left me a comment telling me how much she appreciated my website and that I “should visit the Philippines sometime!”

🙂

That blessing of a reader couldn’t have come at a better time and after we got in touch, she would be of great help to me, even helping me out with some bookings. I felt much better knowing I had a local contact, which always helps!

Leaving Bangalore airport Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur — Now I was ready to fly!

Malaysia Airlines seafood meal Bangalore flight — I had pre-booked a seafood meal for a change and while the tuna and veggies were good, I couldn’t help but envy my co-passengers with their ‘regular’ meals enjoying their creamy desserts and chocolates when all I got was cold fruits. It’s as though Malaysia gimped on the rest of the meal given how much fish costs. Sucks

Kuala Lumpur international airport tower Malaysia — Selamat pagi* Malaysia! (*Good morning)

Kuala Lumpur International Airport KLIA gates — I landed on time and took this around 7:45am

Kuala Lumpur International airport duty free liqour Malaysia — This was my first time in Kuala Lumpur International airport as last year I flew Air Asia

Kuala Lumpur airport KLIA Harrods store Malaysia — There’s a mini-Harrods (Impressed with how sharp this photo came out)

Kuala Lumpur International Airport Cadbury store Malaysia — They have an exclusive Cadbury store here too

Kuala Lumpur International airport duty free Malaysia — I loitered around the Duty Free for a while

Post loitering, I found my gate and sat in front of it. I tried to catch some sleep but ended up going online to kill time for the next 4 hours.

KLIA grey skies Malaysia morning — It was grey skies even until noon in Sepang

I boarded my second Malaysia Airlines flight for this trip in the afternoon and I was now en route to Philippines.

Sepang city Malaysia flight aerial view takeoff — Selamat tinggal Malaysia!

Leaving Malaysian shores aerial view flight — Leaving Malaysian shores…

South China sea spotted clouds blue water — … and flew over the South China Sea for the first time

South China sea cloud over islands — Which was a welcome pleasant change of scene for me

I took a break from staring outside my window to eat some peanuts.

Malaysia Airlines salted peanuts allergy information — Well… duh 🙂

South China sea small hilly island aerial — Back to staring out into the blue

South China sea islands aerial photograph — Beautiful

South China sea huge cloud over islands aerial photography — Awesome

Malaysia Airlines meal packaging Manila flight — Okay, break time. Lunch had arrived!

Malaysia Airlines seafood meal Manila flight — Seafood meal again. Tuna steak and veggies again. ‘Regular’ meals came with Cadbury chocolates besides pudding for dessert. I got dried raisins. Seriously -_-

South China sea line clouds aerial view island — Meal done, back to blue

South China sea oval island aerial photograph — Submerged?

South China Sea boomerang island submerged aerial photograph — Needless to say, I really enjoyed this flight

South China sea moon afternoon aerial photograph — Hello moon…

It got cloudy after this, so I lowered the shades and caught up on some sleep.

South China sea mountains above clouds aerial photograph — Woke up an hour later to the announcement we were approaching Manila

Entering mainland Philippines shores aerial photograph — Hello Philippines

Philippines Manila aerial photography — Manila city

Manila port Philippines aerial photography — Manila port

Manila city evening aerial photograph — Metro Manila is the 8th most populous metro in Asia

Manila sunset from plane Philippines — It was nearing 5pm in Philippines

Manila Taguig city building construction Philippines — The flight was a bit early… which is never a bad thing (as long as the traffic control clears it)

About to land manila international airport — About to land

Landed Ninoy Aquino International Airport Manila Philippines — Ninoy Aquino International Airport

So after nearly a total of 8 hours of flying, I was finally in Philippines. Phew, long journey!

Arrival Ninoy Aquino International Airport Manila Philippines — How’s the airport? Quite old and in much need for an upgrade. Well, at least Terminal I was in.

I got my passport stamped, got my bags rather quickly, converted some dollars and I was out in around 15 minutes. The first thing I wanted to do was get a local SIM and fortunately Globe was handing out free SIMs (though they were mostly for OFWs*).

I hired a pre-paid yellow taxi (which would later turn out to be a mistake) and asked him to take me to Kabayan Hotel in Pasay, which was close to the airport. I chose Kabayan as it was a popular recommendation online. Plus, I didn’t want to spend too much time in traffic just to get to touristy Makati.

But despite how close the hotel looked on the map from the airport, getting there still took nearly 45 minutes in evening traffic. It cost 250 pesos ($5/€4) which is far more than what I thought it would cost. Anyway, I went to the hotel reception, booked a single room for myself and checked in.

Kabayan Hotel single room Manila Philippines — My A/C single room, PHP950 per night ($22/€15)

Kabayan is pretty cool. They have rooms ranging from dorms all the way up to deluxe rooms and from prices starting as low PHP610, they are very popular. And get this, you get complimentary breakfast and lunch! They also have free wi-fi among other great amenities.

Kabayan hotel rooms Manila Philippines — The toilets and shower rooms are down the hall and in between (clean and well kept)

Oh by the way, they don’t use the word toilets much in Philippines, instead it’s ‘Comfort Rooms’ or ‘CR’ 🙂

I stepped out again because I needed to buy some credit for the Globe SIM so that I could inform my family of my safe arrival. Since I was out, I decided to grab dinner early. It soon struck me just how much fast food Filipinos eat. Mc Donalds and homegrown Jollibee was everywhere — and they both had multiple branches within meters of each other — and all of them were doing brisk buisness! As the fast food chains are too chicken to sell beef burgers here in India (due to religious politics), a good ol’ cheeseburger was what I was craving. I picked up a burger from Jollibee, a doughnut from 7-11 and some water.

The area I was in was quite a busy part of town as it was a major hub for transportation, so you get everything you need as far as convenience stores, supermarkets and eateries go. It’s also a very noisy area, mostly because of the jeepneys.

But Kabayan does a good job of cutting out the noise once you’re inside the hotel. I took a nice warm bath and then had my dinner. I called my aforementioned reader (whose name is Aimee) and we spoke for a while. She told me the pre-paid yellow taxi at the airport are priced way more than the usual taxis I could have gotten had I just walked a bit further out. Also, there were frequent airport buses that drop people to Pasay and back. Oh well, rookie mistake.

Kabayan hotel single pad LCD tv Manila Philippines — Unlike many hotels in this price range, Kabayan has a good selection of channels which even included Zee TV (the only Indian channel though)

Given that I hadn’t slept properly in nearly 24 hours, I called it an early night.

I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to begin!

——–

Please note: In this series of posts, I won’t be mentioning conversion rates for Indian rupees as both Philippines Peso (PHP/₱) and the Indian Rupee are more or less on a 1:1 value ratio. So Rs. 100 is like PHP98. Therefore only US dollar and Euro conversion rates will be mentioned.

*OFW = Overseas Filipino Workers; similar to NRI (Non-Resident Indian)

Other posts in this series:

Philippines 2011: Day 1 — Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Fort Bonifacio

Philippines 2011: Day 2 – Banaue rice terraces; trekking to Batad village

Philippines 2011: Day 3 – Banaue town; heading to Sagada via Bontoc

Philippines 2011: Day 3 – Sagada’s Lumiang burial cave, Sumaguing cave, Hanging Coffins of Echo valley

Philippines 2011: Leaving Sagada for Baguio, and arriving in Angeles city (Days 4 & 5)

Philippines 2011: Day 6 – Good Friday in San Fernando, San Pedro Cutud Lenten Rites

Philippines 2011: Day 7 – Leaving Angeles City for Manila, Mall of Asia

Philippines 2011: Day 8 – Manila tour: Rizal Park, Intramuros, Manila Cathedral, China Town

Philippines 2011: Day 9 – Cebu: Fort San Pedro, Basilica of Santo Niño, Taoist Temple

Philippines 2011: Day 10 – Bohol tour: Chocolate Hills, Loboc river cruise, Tarsiers, churches

Philippines 2011: Day 11 – Arriving in Puerto Princesa, Palawan

Philippines 2011: Day 12 – Puerto Princesa Underground River tour, Palawan

Philippines 2011: Day 13 – Puerto Princesa to El Nido by bus

Philippines 2011: Day 14 – El Nido island hopping tour A and sunset at Las Cabanas beach, Palawan

Philippines 2011: Back to Manila, shopping, and my final thoughts about the country (Final post)

This past April, I embarked on another journey. Given the circumstances at office (which I’ll explain later), I decided to go somewhere ‘interesting’. This time, a country which upon researching last year, I realized offered so much more than I thought. I’ll go into the details as to why I took the plunge to go as far as Philippines when I begin this series 2 months from now, but until then, here a few of the 5000-plus photos I took from this 2 & 1/2 week long trip.

South China sea islands from plane — Flew over the South China sea for the first time -- very pretty (Taken on my cellphone)

Manila American Cemetery and Memorial sparrow on grave Philippines — First day of sight-seeing: The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial

Manila American Cemetery and Memorial graves — Where 17,202 soldiers, Filipino and American, are buried

Manila American Cemetery and Memorial rainbow sprinkler — A rainbow caused by the sprinkler and sunlight

Aimee Marie Autobus station Manila — Met my reader (& now friend) Aimee who helped me a LOT in Manila

Banaue view from People's Lodge Philippines — Arrive in Banaue the next day

Banaue hanging house Ifugao Philippines — Go on a tour by trike through a region quite prone to landslides

Batad steps down trekking Banaue Philippines — Embark on what became the toughest trek I ever did

Batad villagers pigs trek Banaue Philippines — Seeing these villagers carry livestock and kilos of grain for nearly a 1km through terrain that I found *incredibly* tiring even with hiking boots on, made me want to never complain about corporate life ever again. Listening to pigs squeal (& the resulting echo in the valley) for more than half-an-hour also made me not want to have pork... (that day)

Batad village rice terraces Banaue Philippines — After nearly 1 1/2 of trekking, the view I get in Batad. A village with no access via road and one that only got electricity recently.

Batad hide and seek village children Banaue Philippines — And since these children don't see new faces often (least of all an Indian), played with them for a bit as well

Batad trek landslide path Banaue Philippines — After a break, trek all the way back through tracks destroyed by landslides... but this time, with a local I hired to carry my bags. My body just couldn't take the load a second time.

Banaue rice terraces panorama Philippines — End the day with a view of the grand daddy of them all, the Banaue Rice Terraces

Banaue rice terrace farmers Philippines — The sheer size of the Banaue rice terraces are a bit hard to capture on photograph

North Luzon fugao village rice terraces Philippines — The next day, take two jeepneys to get to the small town of Sagada

Sagada rice terraces Luzon Philippines — A small, but beautiful town!

Sagada limestone cave water Philippines — Sagada is also famed for its limestone caves

Sagada limestone caves Luzon Philippines — Which was an amazing 'first' experience for me

Sagada Hanging coffins Echo Valley Philippines — Sagada is also famous for this, Echo Valley. People laid to rest for years on the side of a cliff.

Ifugao province farm Luzon Philippines — Leave the next day and drive through beautiful terrains to get to Baguio

San Fernando Pampanga Good Friday celebrations crosses — Then, on Good Friday, arrive in the town of San Fernando in Pampanga district for the main reason I chose to fly to Philippines at this time of the year.

San Fernando Pampanga praying — Warning: The next few photos are going to be graphic in nature.

San Fernando Pampanga Good Friday flagellation — I don't have to time explain what the rituals are about and why they celebrate it this way, but you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Pedro_Cutud_Lenten_Rites

San Fernando Pampanga Easter Child — Mind you, it was scorching hot that day

Filipino Roman soldier San Pedro Cutud — "You want photo? One bottle!"

San Pedro Cutud re-enactment Good Friday — The famed annual re-enactment ceremony of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ

San Pedro Cutud Pampanga Christ crucifixion — People volunteer to be actually nailed to the cross

Good Friday Pampanga nailed hand — And in case you don't believe me...

San Pedro Cutud crucifixion nail leg — Taken on my cellphone because of number of people jostling to get a close up view

San Pedro Cutud Rites Pampanga Philippines — (Also taken on my cellphone)

San Fernando street children smiling Philippines — Street child: "Hey! One photo mister!" (grabs baby sister) (I start to click) Street child: (Oh, he's *actually* taking my photo?) ~shy~

San Fernando night mass parade Philippines — The night mass with beautiful floats of... erm, Christian characters from the bible(?)

Manila Chinatown purple fire engine — Arrive back in Manila for a guided tour by Aimee. The Manila Chinatown was nothing special, but their fire engines were!

Manila Cathedral panorama — Manila Cathedral in Intramuros

Manila mobile phone chicken — I get everything... except the 'chicken' part. As seen in Robinson's mall in Manila.

Cebu Cathedral ceiling — Arrived in Cebu to kick off the second leg of my journey. This was the ceiling at the oldest church in Cebu.

Chocolate Hills Bohol Philippines — Take a ferry to Bohol, hire a trike and drive one hour to see this: the Chocolate Hills

Chocolate Hills panorama Bohol Philippines — 1,776 hills that make for a phenomenal geographical formation

Tarsier Bohol Philippines — See Bohol's Tarsiers. An animal I think, became the inspiration for Dobby's appearance (from the Harry Potter films)

Sambang underground river Palawan Mithun in Philippines — Arrive in Sambang in Palawan island to visit the Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park

Sambang Underground River boat going in — The underground river is a 8.2 kilometers long but tourists are only allowed 1.6kms in. The place is in contention for the 'New 7 Wonders of the World' contest.

Sambang Underground River caves — Another interesting and never-done-before experience for me! Also, quite a challenge holding the light *AND* clicking photos

Sambang underground river boat inside — Trust me, there's a LOT more photos from inside the cave but no time for me to work on all of them now.

Sambang beach coconut tree panorama — Once out, had lunch on Sambang beach.

Palawan dog stretching — Wake up early the next day, take the local bus to the Northern most town of El Nido

Sandwich bun ice cream Philippines — Have sandwich bun ice cream for breakfast (Rs. 15)

El Nido beach view Palawan Philippines — Arrive at my guesthouse in El Nido beach. Sit out, stare into what's right in front of me...and do little else. (Taken on my cellphone)

El Nido lagoon swimming Philippines — Go on an island-hopping tour the next day. Snorkel in a lagoon wearing a life jacket...

El Nido kayaking lagoon Philippines — ..and attempt kayaking for the first time. It was a lot easier than I thought! (Unfortunately no photos of me doing all this because I was afraid to get my valuable camera equipment wet. I've had previous bad experiences with salt water screwing up my equipment)

Palawan island spade-shaped rock — Stop on an island for lunch

BBQ lunch E Nido Philippines — Which was barbecued fish and pork

Coconut kid drinking Palawan — Kids on this island must be sick of drinking coconut water

Las Cabanas beach sunset Philippines — Watch the sunset on Las Cabanas beach

El Nido lobster dinner Philippines — Have a 'home-cooked' dinner of lobster soup, grilled lobsters, fried tuna and rice, all for Rs.250

Leaving El Nido dog on trike — Leave El Nido the next morning

Sunset Palawan flight Philippines — ... and leave the island of Palawan at sunset, thereby concluding my sightseeing around Philippines.

Needless to say, I have many more photos to share and plenty of experiences. This was without a doubt, the best trip I ever made in my life (so far)!

Read the entire series here:

Philippines 2011: Flying over South China Sea for the first time