The Philippines

Lovely people, lousy food and loads of churches

3rd November to 5th December

With Jenny as crew we left Halmahera (a big Indonesian island) for a four day sail to north Mindanao (yet another big island, this one in the Philippines).

Then followed a busy month that took us through about twenty different anchorages on a dozen of Philippines’ 7,000 odd islands. Just a taster of a giant country. (But then most of this voyage has been a series of tasters – a mere glimpse at a scattering of the world’s lesser travelled outposts.)

I knew nothing of the Philippines, and right now still know next to nothing, so take anything I say with heaps of salt. I did know that Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to visit. He was killed here too.

That was in 1521. The islands were named by a Spaniard a few years later in honour of King Philip II of Spain. Spain then retained it as part of its Empire for over 300 years, before selling it to America who kept it, apart from the troubled invasion of Japanese in WWII, till 1946.

There are now over 100 million Filipinos in the country, with some 19 accepted languages and ten ethnic groups, and at least 10 million more who live and work overseas (and provide a huge chunk of foreign earnings for the nation).

I found people to be universally delightful; laid-back yet quietly industrious, and compared to others in SE Asia, reserved, even shy – though not shy enough to cease some painfully discordant karaoke singing!

The selfie culture that’s become a plague elsewhere, seems absent in the Philippines. (Though keep in mind that I only saw a part of the country.)

Most of the islands seem unvisited by tourists. Tourists appeared, predominantly Korean and Chinese en masse on the little island of Boracay, where around 2 million visitors go each year, dwarfing the local population of 30,000; and there are also many foreigners who go to the big island of Palawan. Everywhere else seemed very traditional with small communities making a living with fishing, copra and small scale agriculture.

Boracay is a gem of an island (white sand, clear seas, hills), but was deemed so polluted in 2018, that the President had it closed for six months! Sewage systems were improved and plastic cleared up, and I’m happy to say it seemed spotless, safe and a delight – though anchorage decidedly exciting, rolly and deafening as tripper boats and sailing prahas and bangka roared and growled past.

If like me you are vegetarian or veggie-inclined the food is a disaster. Apart from a few pleasing exceptions in tourist places, it appears that pig, chicken, fish and cow plus lashings of oil and dollops of sugar are key ingredients of most dishes.

 

One consequence is a plethora of health clinics (diabetes a common ailment), beauty parlours, fitness and massage dives.

I could  go further and say, at risk of hurting American feelings, that the Philippines displays the worst of American culture (poor food, soulless shopping malls, donuts and fast food, rubbish telly, polluted city streets) without the privileges of American choice and wealth. 

And another thing that it shares with America: loads of churches, chapels, cathedrals, Adventist, Evangelist, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, plus some whacky ones….I don’t know what it all means but you can walk down a little street in Limasawa (a small island where the first Philippine Christian service was held nearly 500 years ago) and see at least half a dozen different places to pray, in less than a mile. The singing sounded beautiful – much better than any karaoke.

My sailing plan had been straightforward. I like things simple. I’d go north from Indonesia to the Philippines with last of the SE Monsoon, then south back back down to Borneo with the start of the NE Monsoon. That’s more-or-less what happened. It’s just that weather doesn’t follow a precise calendar, and round these parts there are typhoons that whistle in from the Pacific so you keep an eye on where they are. (A typhoon is the local name for hurricane and cyclone)

But overall, it has been good to have sails set most of the way…..and enough heavy rain showers to keep water tanks topped up.

Jenny joined another boat in the Philippines (thank you Jenny for sharing all those watches and some memorably delicious cooking). I sailed on single-handed again and arrived back in Kota Kinabalu, North Borneo, a couple of days ago (Last here in July). 

About 1,500 miles in the month and I’m weary as I work through that interminable list of boaty chores, and catch up with personal stuff. Christmas is never far away. (Nor another UK election – but I shan’t offer an opinion!)