The Philippines is a set of islands that is very popular with people from just about everywhere in the world.  With its mix of cultures and food, this place is a gastronomic delight for all people. 

Unfortunately I showed up to the island of Palawan during a freak typhoon that pretty much lasted the whole time I was there.   It was difficult to leave the hotel during the daytime because of strong torrential downpour rains and even stronger winds:

I was able to leave on three different occasions during the late afternoon/evening.  The beaches still had a small amount of people on them; however I can imagine that during the high season it would be much more packed.  I was able to snap a few pictures of the beautiful landscape before the rains came back in.  I would have liked to visit some of the islands on boats during our stay there, but I will have to wait until next time.  I did manage to find a great restaurant on the beach that we made our home for the three nights.  They had everything from different types of fish, clams, lobsters, shrimp and other delicious seafood.  It was not uncommon to leave there ordering a plethora of fish and shrimp and only pay a fraction of the cost…

As we left Palawan heading south to the airport, the weather seemed to get a lot better with the first sun we had seen in days.  Come to find out, a friend that showed up just two days after us had a delightful time on the beach with sun and was able to island hop.  I guess it was just my luck…

Going to the mainland, we flew into Clark which is an old United States Air Force Base.  We stayed in the city of San Fernando which is filled with bustling streets and food just about everywhere. 

I was able to hang out with my friend from SMIC Mrs. Bes who organized for us a trip to Subic, which is down south on the mainland and boasts some impressive rain forests.  Rain is the keyword as we did a jungle hike, and it pretty much rained the first hour on our hike and we were drenched.  During the jungle hike we learned about the different plants that the local tribe uses as medicine and how they can take just about anything from the jungle and turn it into something useful.  We ended up at a village for lunch in which they showed us how to make fire from bamboo, even when it is wet and how this life they live has been going on for more years than anyone knows.  We were also able to open up stalks of bamboo to find the tiniest bats I have ever seen in my life.  At the end of the day on our search for monkeys (to no avail), we ended up seeing trees with hundreds of huge bats on them.

The next day, we went into Manila and stayed at one of the oldest hotels which was a throwback from the 1920’s USA and caught our flight at 4 in the morning.  You can guarantee that I will be back to the Philippines to see more of this wonderful land and perhaps I will go during the dry season….