6 Things Nobody Told Me About the Philippines

From Rappler....travel journey...


'The Philippines is indeed golden beaches, swaying palm trees and beaming smiles… but it is so much more than this as well,' writes Will Hatton"

http://www.rappler.com/life-and-sty...philippines-travel-journey-reflection-stories

Good find - a young, enthusiastic traveller

This guy, Will Hatton, appears to be a prolific blogger.


The Broke Backpacker ....an Englishman travelling in the Philippines...


http://www.thebrokebackpacker.com/tribal-tattoo-with-whang-od/

" There is something about the Philippines, something about the way people here choose to engage with you which I have never experienced before. Everywhere I go, I am greeted with beaming, honest, smiles. I have not yet been asked for anything by anyone; in fact, I have been bought numerous beers and treated to numerous meals – Sisig (pork face) included!

The Filipino mentality is totally different to everywhere else I have ever been; people are genuine here. Sure, there must be a few bad folks scattered around but, in general, everybody I have met has not been just ‘friendly’, they have been unbelievably accommodating – everyone want’s to be my friend but it’s not overwhelming. It’s very different to India, for example, where you can get caught on the street by a mob of people demanding selfies (although selfies are definitely popular in The Philippines!), people just genuinely want to know what I think of their country and to help me out."

Readmore:
http://www.thebrokebackpacker.com/first-impressions-philippines/

Asawas friend visited Whang today for her first tattoo. She travelled two days to get the tattoo however it was Whangs grandaughter that did it and Whang "signed" the tattoo with 3 dots above the grandaughters effort.

Asawas friend said the tattoo was like ants biting but Whangs signature was painful and made her arm bleed. I think Whang can be forgiven, the grandaughter said she was more than 100 years old and recently had Pneumomia.

http://kickerdaily.com/posts/2018/0...onored-by-hollywood-actress-evangeline-lilly/

And Will Hatton? I wonder what he is up to now?

Probably on a plane going somewhere I dunno but I’d love to have done that than be sat behind a desk since forever. I suppose somebody’s got to pay the bills!

I wonder how long the tradition will continue after Whang. I know her granddaughter is continuing the tradition but for how long is anyones guess.

Well, it looks like he eventually moved on and wound up in Iran where he met his wife.

But he seemed to enjoy a side to the Philippines that isn’t always appreciated. He seems to be blogging about bitcoin also.

I see the earlier link doesn’t work, but this one does :

https://www.thebrokebackpacker.com/backpacking-the-philippines/

Whang has reached a ripe old age. Amazing.

Just had a look at this https://www.thebrokebackpacker.com/lessons-from-the-road/ and it looks interesting.
Will is quite a character for sure

One thing I agree with him there, and I have always said it, the best mountain scenery in the world is in Pakistan.

Maybe visit there one day with the family.
I would love the kids to see beautiful mountains.

Have you been there many times, Druk1 ?

I hope JohnAsh returns one day.....

Many times, I even know a filipina lives there just outside rawalpindi. Mountain scenery in the North past gilgit leaves you speechless the first time you see it.

Anybody watch the Michael Palin series, Himalaya?

No, any good? I have spent time in every country that borders the himalayas, very interesting region.

It is an interesting region.

If you like Michael Palin’s documentaries and you like the region, you might well enjoy it. It was a BBC series around 2004.

Did he visit peshawar and the khyber tribal region in Pakistan? I remember the one he did on Hong Kong as I was living there.

He did cover Khyber, yes.

Here is his intro.

If he visited the khyber I might have watched it, it's a fascinating area to travel.