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Islands, islands and more idyllic islands. There are over seven thousand islands in the Philippines. The most well known, and one of the most beautiful, is Boracay island, situated just off Panay, Visayas. Borocay is just seven km's long with a stretch of the finest white sand, the most crystal clear turquoise water I have ever seen and hundreds of tall, picturesque palm trees.

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Leeollie
2005-09-01 14:00:52

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The unique Philippino culture has developed from the malay, spanish, chinese and north american influences. With that came basketball mania, cockfighting, chicken adobo and jeepneys. The people are friendly and quite unaffected by tourism(so far). The population is 70 million with the growth rate rising at 2.3% a year. More than half of the total population is under 20 years old. They live by a policy of family 'planting' not planning. Young seventeen year olds were amazed to hear that we are 30 and have no children. They get married early, usually because catholicism is against sex before marriage. They get right on to the process of family planting almost immediately and often you will see young 20 year old or so couples with two plus kids. It is quite usual for families to have about six children.

Manila
We left London on a 19.00 flight and arrived in the hot, muggy city of Manila at 4.30pm local time. Flying over, the city is covered in a surreal layer of clouds(pollution?). Managed to fend off the touts and located a jeepney heading towards Malate/Ermita, which is the main area for accommodation. We worked our way through the muddy, potholed smelly streets and markets to Pension Natividad, our spot for the night. I think if we had never been to Asia before we might have turned back and checked into the five star hotel around the corner. The hotel was not a pretty sight at seven o' clock at night. It is set in front of some major skyscraper apartment blocks and I just remember wires and cables running everywhere overhead. Anyway, it turned out to be fine, the rooms clean and basic, with two single beds, a chair and a fan, and the bonus is the the outside space(London talk) where you can sit and have dinner in cooler surroundings. The next morning we woke at 3am with major jetlag and decided to get up and plan our trip, which ended up saving us an extra day in tropical paradise Manila. Mark had flu ...