Visit Philippines, tourism Philippines

Philippines

The second-largest archipelago in the world, with over 7000 tropical islands, the Philippines is one of the great treasures of Southeast Asia. Often overlooked by travellers because of its location on the ‘wrong’ side of the South China Sea, the Philippines rewards those who go the extra distance to reach it.

And because it’s off the beaten path, the Philippines is a great place to escape the hordes who descend on other parts of Southeast Asia. First and foremost, the Philippines is a place of natural wonders – a string of coral-fringed islands strewn across a vast expanse of the western Pacific. Below sea level, the Philippines boasts some of the world’s best diving and snorkelling, including wreck diving around Coron and swimming with the whale sharks off Donsol.

Mapa de Filipinas

Catedral de Manila, Filipinas

Manila

It's a pity that Manila is often disparaged, as there's much here to like. For one, all the adjectives often used to describe the Philippines - jovial, laid back, casual, corrupt, shambolic, earnest and more are on display here more than anywhere else in the country. It's a truly teeming metropolis that gets bigger each day, both in population, with people pouring in from the hinterlands, and size, as new developments in all directions swallow up villages and rice fields.

Manila can be a very discombobulated place, for it is really just a collection of towns with no definable centre. The walled Intramuros area was the traditional centre of Manila, but was mostly wiped out in WWII and has never recovered. Binondo, Quiapo, Ermita and Malate have never been more than a supporting cast for a star that doesn't exist. Still, you may well find lots of fun in Ermita and Malate, while Binondo and Quiapo have a certain raw energy and unique markets. And Intramuros is a good place to explore, just to find the bones of its past.

Other parts of town are more lively. At the centre of modern Manila is Makati, the commercial centre for the country. Here, in almost orderly surroundings, you can shop, eat and drink to your heart's content. It transcends the generic-mall syndrome by having its own unique vibe that comes from the hordes of locals who come here to work, relax and play. As many will tell you, 'this is the Manila we wish we had'.

Rather than seeing Manila as an amorphous mass, focus instead on enjoying its individual areas, and you will start to get a feel for the greater Manila, which really is a sum of its parts.

Coron

Coron Town is the main town on Busuanga Island and the commercial and population centre of the Calamian group. It is a convenient base for wreck divers, snorkellers, island-hoppers and other sun-worshipping explorers (the town itself has no beach). The best-value activity is to hire a pumpboat (around P1000 per day, holds a maximum of eight people) and snorkelling gear (about P250 per day) from the hotels or dive centres and inspect the nearby islands. Another activity that is often included in a pumpboat day trip is a soak in the Makinit Hot Springs just outside town.

Donsol

Until the 'discovery' of whale sharks off the coast here in 1998, Donsol, about 45km southwest of Legaspi, was an obscure, sleepy fishing village in one of Sorsogon's more remote areas. In 1998 a local diver shot a video of the whale sharks and a newspaper carried a story about Donsol's gentle butanding. Since then Donsol has become one of the Philippines' most popular tourist locations.

It's truly an exhilarating experience swimming along with these huge blue-grey, silver-spotted creatures. You need to be a decent snorkeller and in relatively good shape to keep up with the sharks. In the peak months of February to May, the question isn't whether you will see a shark, but how many you will see. On a good day you'll see 15. In some years the sharks migrate here as early as November and stay until late June. Call Salvador Achao at the Donsol Visitors Center(0927 233 0364; barangay Dancalan; 7.30am-5pm Jan-Jun, 7.30am-5pm Mon-Fri Jul-Dec) before you visit to make sure the sharks are around.

Only snorkelling equipment is allowed; scuba diving is prohibited. There is a limited supply of snorkelling equipment available for rent (P300 per session) at the visitors centre, so it's safer to bring your own.

Before heading out to see the sharks, stop in at the visitors centre, 1.5km north of the Donsol River bridge, and pay your registration fee (citizen/foreigner P150/500). The visitors centre can arrange a boat (good for seven people), a spotter and a Butanding Interaction Officer (BIO) if you have not done so in advance through a tour operator in Legaspi or Sorsogon. The boat and spotter costs P3500; the BIO costs P700. Most boats now leave from the beach in front of the visitors centre. Be sure to tip the crew, especially if you've had a good day. It's not a bad idea to call and reserve a boat in advance, especially around Easter.

Bohol

In most tourism brochures a bug-eyed tarsier clinging to a tree superimposed on a background of the Chocolate Hills is shorthand for the island of Bohol; it seems white sandy beaches are too common to warrant inclusion. While this distinctive pairing draws the domestic crowds, it's the lush jungle interior, rice terraces and offshore islands, most prominently Panglao Island and its great diving, which truly captures the imagination of travellers; a tour of the towns will reveal some of the country's best examples of colonial Spanish churches, many of which are made from coral stone. Bohol is also known for its ube or ubi (yams), the bright-purple sweet potatoes that give halu-halò.

Terrazas de arroz en Banaue, Filipinas

Banaue

Banaue is synonymous with Luzon’s most famous icon, the Unesco World Heritage–listed Ifugao rice terraces, etched out of the hillsides using primitive tools and an ingenious irrigation system over 2000 years ago. The Ifugao by no means had a monopoly on rice terraces in the Cordillera, but they were arguably the best sculptors, as the mesmerizing display overlooking Banaue suggests.

Banaue itself – a ragged collection of tin-roofed edifices along a ridge – often spoils things for those looking for a perfect first ooh-and-ahh moment. But you can’t argue with Banaue’s setting, and accommodation remains of stellar value compared with most tourist hot spots in the Philippines. Meanwhile, that perfect ooh-and-ahh is not far away, in Batad.

The Ifugao are almost as famous for carving wood as they are for carving earth into green, fuzzy, rice-bearing steps. You’ll find myriad locally made carvings and other crafts in the shops surrounding the main plaza. Two kilometres north of town you can ogle rice terraces to your heart’s content at the viewpoint; a tricycle there and back costs P200. If your heart’s still not content, there are similarly impressive specimens lurking in nearby Hapao and Kiangan, as well as around Bontoc and in Kalinga Province to the north.

Samar & Leyte

‘Rugged’ is usually the word you hear associated with these two eastern Visayan provinces, separated from each other by the narrowest of straits near Leyte’s capital, Tacloban. It’s an apt tag. The interior of both islands is consumed by virtually impenetrable forest. This naturally creates opportunities for adventure, although you either have to learn advanced backcountry navigation or scrounge up one of the region’s few qualified guides to take advantage of it.

The coastlines of both islands serve up a few gems of their own, most notably tourist-free whale shark viewing in southern Leyte. For fanatical surfers, the eastern seashore of Samar offers a coastline of unexplored breaks facing the onslaught of Pacific currents – getting there is the only problem. There’s history here too – in 1521 Magellan first stepped ashore on what would become Philippine soil on the island of Homonhon, off Samar. In October 1944, General MacArthur fulfilled his pledge to return to the Philippines on Red Beach south of Tacloban. And who can forget the notorious Balangiga Massacre?

Vigan

Spanish-era mansions, cobblestone streets and kalesa (horse-drawn carriages) are the hallmarks of historic Vigan. Miraculously spared bombing in WWII, the city is considered the finest surviving example of a Spanish colonial town in Asia. In 1999, Vigan was designated a Unesco World Heritage site.

Mindanao

Sprawling Mindanao, the world’s 19th-largest island, is known for dazzling scenery, primitive hill tribes and an almost complete lack of tourists because of political unrest and occasional fighting between the government and Muslim separatists. What most tourists don’t realise is that the lovely coastal stretch of northern Mindanao between Cagayan de Oro and Siargao Island is Catholic, Cebuano (Visayan) speaking – and quite safe. The area is known for first-rate surfing on Siargao and a peaceful island-life existence on Camiguin. Elsewhere, Mindanao offers up plenty of cherries for the intrepid traveller, including the Philippines’ highest mountain, Mt Apo (2954m), accessible from Davao in southern Mindanao. Exercise caution if you are heading south or west of Cagayan de Oro.

Colinas de chocolate de Bohol, Filipinas

Sipalay

About 200km from both Bacolod and Dumaguete, the remote seaside town of Sipalay (si-pah-lie) is surrounded by spectacular white-sand beaches, secluded coves, scattered islets, dive reefs and waters teeming with marlin, trevally and tuna.

The premier attraction here has to be the slice of paradise called Sugar Beach (Langub to the locals) - though keen divers may prefer the dedicated dive resorts of Punta Ballo.

The diving around Sipalay is some of the best in Negros. It's particularly suited to inexperienced or learner divers. At last count there were well over 30 dive sites in the area, including three wrecks (one from WWII). The resorts in Sugar Beach and Punta Ballo either have on-site dive centres or can arrange trips through an affiliated dive centre. Prices are fairly standard: one dive is US$20, equipment rental starts from US$5, an open-water certificate is US$300.

Boats for exploring the marine idylls of nearby Maricalum Bay and Tinagong Dagat can be hired (around P500) through the Sipalay Tourist Information Centre (0926 433 7318; cnr Rodrigo G Chua Blvd & Alejano St; high season 8am-5pm daily, low season 8am-5pm Mon-Fri), just back from Poblacion Beach.

Regular buses run between Sipalay and Bacolod (P145, 4½ hours). On the rough road between Sipalay and Dumaguete, buses terminate at Hinoba-an (first transfer) then Bayawan (second transfer) before finally continuing on to Dumaguete (total trip P160, six to seven hours including transfers).

Boracay

Like an ambitious and beautiful pageant winner unwilling to relinquish her crown, Boracay primps and preens year after year, going through its own version of cosmetic surgery in the off-season in order to maintain its crown as the trophy beach of the Philippines. Despite oft-heard nostalgic laments ('In the '80s, the only sound was from the fruit juice shaker machines'), Boracay, little more than a speck off the northwestern tip of Panay, still satisfies the planeloads of holidaymakers looking for sun, sand and nonsobriety. Of course no place (including White Beach, where the action is and all that most people see of the island) can ever live up to the hyped up superlatives bandied about by tourism-department officials. Hotels, restaurants and shops are crowded along the beach like spice shops in a Middle Eastern bazaar, and vendors selling watches, sunglasses, jewellery and boat trips do pester you like flies on honey, and the colourful paraws are sometimes lined up on the beach as if it were a mall parking lot. But all this aside, Boracay, which is only about 9km long and only 1km wide at its narrow midriff, is an intoxicating mix of yes, sun, sand and nonsobriety.

The island really only started receiving visitors in the '70s, and since then more than 300 resorts and hotels have been built, and the outdoor pedestrian D'Mall expands every year, taking over more real estate and birthing more shops, bars and restaurants. None of this though seems to affect the regular rhythm of the typical day which includes tropical cocktails, fruit shakes, tanning, the occasional afternoon beach-volleyball game and, for the actively inclined, just about every imaginable water activity known to man.

The national government is trying to partner with the private sector in dealing with contentious issues such as land titling and waste; there's a growing amount of waste arising from poorly regulated development that threatens not only the island's ecological balance but its future as an economic cash cow for the tourism industry and locals alike. A January 2004 fire which razed the Talipapa Public Market and several hotels nearby was partly the result of cramped conditions due to overdevelopment. Shangri-La Hotels is planning a major new development on Punta Bunga, scheduled to open in mid-2007, and there are rumours that Hyatt, Hilton and Novotel are considering building on the island. The majority of visitors to Boracay are increasingly from Korea and other Asian countries, and resorts and restaurants are beginning to cater to their tastes.

You can escape the heavily touristed White Beach to Bulabog Beach to the east, which because it's wilder and windier is a favourite windsurfing spot, and to the long and quiet Puka Beach to the north. Mt Luho View Deck (admission P20) offers views both magnificent and decidedly trashy; its slopes are the site of Boracay's garbage dump (at the time of research there were alternative proposals for dealing with this growing problem).