Some Thoughts on Backpacking

Geez, its been almost 20 years when I officially became a true-blue backpacker.

I was a wide-eyed (actually, I have chinky eyes) 20-year old, lanky, nerd-looking, jologs, single, and hoping-for-a-blind-girl-to-notice-me- kind of dude then.

It was late in the 80's when I started to venture into it. Back then, backpacking was, in a true sense, actual backpacking. You see the few brave foreigners in the streets with their 80-liter backpacks? Mine was only 60 liters. Saving precious money on a daily or per transaction basis was the primary concern of everybody opting this kind of experience. Now, its not a requisite anymore to carry bags that could accommodate rocket-propelled grenades or cannons (as the mall guards used to joke to us backpackers). You also hear the terms dude backpacking or flashpacking (those who carry ipods, laptops, sennheiser earphones, and whatever their deep pockets could afford).

Oh, I'm blabbering here.....

Anyways, I've done a lot of backpacking in my life that I'm having a hard time trying to shake off my slowly-creeping-in-jaded-mentality. You see, I like travelling. In fact, it has been my life for almost 20 years. If I don't travel in a month's time, I get sick! But some realities are smothering my backpacking lifestyle. Its becoming more and more difficult to travel on an impulse, climb mountains, go deep inside caves, and sleep in the wilderness. Nowadays, I just have to content myself on reminiscing the more reckless (but definitely great) years of my nomad life. So younglings, be warned. Learn from my life lessons.

Cheap? Yep, one can really travel cheap anywhere! Just be prepared to embrace what's in front of you. Or rather, sleep on whatever bed that's available for you. That could include hard mattresses, cartons, mats, newspaper, hard benches, crooked hard benches, hammocks, soft earth, hermit crab-filled sandy beaches, and bed bug infested beds. Not to mention rooms filled with ceiling and wall mirrors and mattresses covered with plastic, the ones used for more, uuhhmm.... romantic moments. Of course, tents and sleeping bags should also be included. There would also be hard, bamboo beds where you could see geckos crawling on the ceiling directly above your face. You also have to learn to sleep in any kind of position – straight, sitting, and yes, even standing (it will really fascinate you when you discover that you can actually fall asleep on your feet!)

Do I spend or do I scrimp? Its not the same as cheap. Do you spend for that tour which would afford you to have access to the best of what the place can offer? Or forget about it and go someplace else cheaper? For some backpackers, the choice is very clear, scrimp. Unfortunately, I've met some guys who totally missed out the best things because they refused to spend the equivalent of five US dollars (to think they spent hundreds of moolahs on airfare alone). The lesson here - read before you travel.

Where to spend the night? - hotel, inn, airport, bus or ship terminal, inside the bus, inside the ship. Remember, spending the night inside the bus can save you 5 to 20 dollars on accommodation.

I'm blabbering again.... I'm supposed to talk about my backpacking days, not tips. Oh well, might as well continue with the tips and about myself later.

Do I drink or not? - rule of thumb: In case of doubt, don't. A bottle of water is much, much cheaper than a hospital bill (throw in your lost time and supposed great kodak moments).

Do I look straight in the eyes of the host, bow my head, my shoulders, my knees, and whatever part of my body can be bent? Well, the best way is to smile first, extend your hand for a handshake (to the same gender only!), or see first how everybody does it the local way. If there's somebody within whisper-shot, ask first if you also have to do what the locals do.

The smell? Yes, be prepared for a full range of aroma. Some are very friendly to your senses and some can cause olfactory paralysis.

The sound? There can be several pages to be expected - from full orchestras of cicadas to the mind-shattering chicken calls. Be ready to be wide-awake at three in the morning. For the lucky ones, it will be deep slumbers serenaded by forest sounds, ocean waves, water rivulets flowing nearby, chants of priests in the nearby temple, or rain drops pounding on the roofs. But for others, the chickens are just part of the whole auditory menu. There will be dogs, unmuffled engines, and that ever-present karaoke machine shared by the whole village. Oh, there might also be babies crying the whole night.

The food? To make it easier on yourself. Just remember that every living thing is made up of the same organic materials. A bug would be as nutritious as a piece of peanut. It will also help if you would know the different terms for the same thing. An anchovy in English would be some sort of bagoong isda in Tagalog. The same thing with caviar (suso in many parts of the Philippines). And yes, the number of your tastebuds would increase when you are introduced to different food cultures, MSG included.


Do I act praning? (I can't remember the English term!) - If you understand this, by all means YES. You always have to be very, very careful about your things, especially that small bag that contains 80% of your cash, your passport, and whatever insignificant, but valuable, item for you). You don't only guard your things from possible local bad people, but from other travelers as well. A friend shared this - in one place in the Himalayas, seasoned backpackers would chain their belongings to their bodies. Misdeeds between tourists usually happen in dormitory-type facilities. Some backpackers would also become very localized and they connive with locals to con other travelers. Just keep your wits every time you go out of your comfort zone. No need to cancel you backpacking plans because of this reality.

The Bugs! the bugs! Yes, my dear, they are everywhere! From six-legged to eight legged (or should I say, thousand-legged?). From the ones that suck tiny amounts of your blood to the ones that leave stinking smells when they land on your delicate skin. Better keep that mosquito net neatly tucked under your mattress. Also, keep away any food material inside your clothing, if you care about that jeans or cargo pants. Don't worry, you will learn to live with them. As we say in the environment circle - ey, its biodiversity! The more species, the more healthy environment! Ha ha! Somebody throw me bread with a rock inside!

Happy Backpacking!

The Philippines and ESL (English as Second Language)

No matter how perplexing it may seem to many native English-speaking countries, the Philippines holds an ace as a major ESL or English as Second Language destination.

This country has the chance to become a major ESL destination...... if it does it the right way.....

Thanks to the 50 years of American colonization, the English language has become a permanent way of life in the Philippines. The language has become the de facto tool for communication in education, news, and official documents and conversations.

The Filipinos also has the uncanny ability to mimic accents that would almost be indistinguishable from native English speakers.

The English language has also become the global lingua franca towards effective communications and business deals. It does not matter if there are more people who speak Mandarin or Russian. It is still English that is the common denominator when two people want to understand each other.

Learning the English language has also evolved into a convenient excuse to travel to other countries. So you have hordes of people coming from newly rich countries traveling to western destinations to "learn English."

This is where the Philippines can conveniently position itself as an ESL destination. Its education system based on the English language is already widespread and has attained a permanency in the way of education in the academe. Plus, there are a lot of potential English instructors available to be made part of the labor pool.

The main differentiator of the Philippines is the cost of getting the language education compared to other destinations like the U.S., U.K or Australia. Unlike the typical tourist who stays between 3 - 7 days, a serious ESL student/tourist can stay between 1 - 3 months (or even longer) to really learn the language. Thus, cost is a real motivation to consider the Philippines as a preferred destination. Of course, there are subliminal images of great beaches, scenery, food, golf, spa, scuba diving, and resorts that one can visit while he is trapped in this country.

If the Philippine tourism industry can actually play it right, ESL has a HUGE potential for the country, basically because of the often-proven theory of supply-and-demand.

There is a huge global market that has a keen interest on ESL. South Korea, for example, has been sending more than 100,000 ESL students to the Philippines annually. Yet, the number of suppliers are very, very few globally. And almost all of them are in the developed countries that have no choice but to offer their services at a very high cost.

Aside from India, I don't know of any other Asian destination that has a good local supply of ESL manpower. But then again, the Philippines has a very good edge over India as Filipinos are able to speak a more "neutral" English that has no heavy or easily recognizable regional slur or accent.

Of course, there are a number of valid reasons that can contradict the ESL viability in the Philippines such as the pronounced regional accent and relatively weak grammar of the greater population. Teaching English, though cannot be done by just about any Filipino, but by qualified instructors who undergo the usual skills training. This easily negates the "skill" concern.

Given the market size and the very limited number of competing destinations, ESL for the Philippines could actually be much, much bigger than other tourism sectors such as medical tourism and even scuba diving. Many other destinations are either at par or even ahead of the Philippines in product, skills, infrastructure development, and marketing when it comes to these other sectors. This is a very simple fact.

But the tourism industry in this country has been quite slow in grabbing this golden opportunity! It has only been a reactive agent in answering the minimum needs of this market segment. This trend is clearly seen by the number of ESL establishments that are largely focused on the Korean market. There are other nationalities that are waiting for the chance to learn English and have a grand vacation at the same time.

There is still that great opportunity to fully develop this sector. If really developed there is a good chance that the growing trend of Filipinos going abroad to teach English could be stopped or significantly slowed down. The continuing outbound trend will diminish the potential economic impacts of ESL to the entire country and it also perpetuates the steady outflow of Filipino teachers and their separation from their families.

Another reality check is that this edge will only be valid for I-don't-know-how-many-more-years! Other countries are developing their pools of English speakers that they will later have no need for minimally-developed ESL destinations.

This eventuality could be avoided if the Philippines could develop enough competency and marketability to the global market.

Unless the Philippines develops a highly organized and professional ESL industry with adequate facilities and operators, it will totally miss the boat, no - the cruise ship of ESL market

Birdwatching in the Philippines

[I just updated this blog because the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP) provided me with some very good bird photos! ]

Try to answer this one: In two minutes, name as many bird species as you can. Chickens not included. I bet 90% of you got to name only one or two species (let me guess..... maya?).

Since the early 90's I have been advocating birdwatching as a tourism product of the Philippines. We got the numbers: more than 600 species of birds and about 200 of them are endemic to the Philippines (found only in this country). The international market is HUGE. From Europeans, Americans, and now even Asians.

But lo and behold! Its been more than 15 years since I started doing a study on that thing and not much has happened (well, touristically). Its a good thing that a local birdwatching club name the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP) has been organized by bird enthusiasts and they have been doing a great job in spreading the word on the value of birdwatching and environmentalism. The only thing is that there is less than 200 birdwatchers in the country. The country does not have enough warm bodies yet to become good birdwatching guides. So we stay here in our little corner while that huge, quality market stray to other destinations.

Well, aside from the guides, we actually have other challenges - have you heard of deforestation or habitat loss? In 1930's the Philippines used to have 16 MILLION hectares of virgin rainforest. Now the statistics are down to less than 800,000 hectares. Can you imagine how many bird species may have gone extinct without us even knowing they even existed? So those almost 600 species may actually be hard to encounter since there are very little and patches of hiding places they call home.

This is actually one of the reasons why we have to promote and develop birdwatching. There is a great market out there, we have the product (high quality, Im telling you). The only thing missing right now are the guides.

At the start, it can be quite intimidating trying to learn the appearance and names (scientific also) of 600+ species. But actually, it can be really easy, especially for the locals. Usually, the number of birds in a small area would only be in the vicinity of 30-50 species, the locals would already know a lot of them birds. So, its just really be the common and scientific names that remain to be hurdled.

What about expense? Birdwatching is one of the cheapest forms of hobbies. Just a pair of binoculars, a field note, and a field guide would do. A pair of binoculars could be bought between Php500 - 5,000, depending on where you buy it. More expensive options would be a spotting scope and long lens cameras. But those are reserved for the real birdwatching addicts (yes, this can be very addicting).


So what's the reward in birdwatching? Its the discovery of seeing more of nature (wow, there are actually more impressive birds than the mayas!!), of learning, of touching your heart and your spirit that we are part of this universe, of pinching your morals that we can do something to help contribute in keeping our environment the way it should be.

And where can you start doing birdwatching - try to walk around your neighborhood. The mayas are everywhere. but have you noticed the fluttering birds whose dancing tails are edged with white color? You have seen the pied fantails. Have you walked under a raintree in the park and saw a small, yellow-bellied bird that sings a long song (actually sounding like a whistle of a cop played nicely), that's a golden-bellied flyeater. Or you may have heard a similar but shorter whistle and saw a small bird drumming its beak on tree trunk - you have actually seen a woodpecker bird that is found only in the Philippines. And come September, you could very well see a relatively large bird (compared to the maya) whose face looks like the masked Zorro. This species has now arrived from Mainland Asia (well, China and probably Korea also) and will now spend the cold months in the warmer Philippines. You probably already know this one - its called the Tarat or Brown Shrike.

So the next time you walk in the tree-lined streets and parks, try to observe a bit more and you may discover that birdwatching can actually be fun. Then you'll be ready to explore the forests and discover the world of the eagles, malkohas, doves and flowerpeckers.

Who knows, maybe you can decide that you want to be a birdwatching guide in the Philippines.

And no, the hummingbird you guessed earlier is not found in the Philippines.

We Owe Our Civilizations to OCs!

Come to think of it, can you try to imagine how the world would look like if there were no OCs (obssessive-compulsive) in this world?

The OCs are the ones who are obssessed with order, with cleanliness, with numbers, and with whatever that resembles symmetry. They cannot bring themselves to compromises. Everything that they are obsessed with will have to be made in perfect form, or else, they die of frustration!

If not for the OCs, would we have the great pyramids? the Stonehenge? the great monuments and the palaces? Heck, I doubt if we would have well-planned cities if not for the OCs.

The next time you wonder and try to see the perfections of the landmarks and cultural treasures of the countries you visit, you can perhaps conclude that the OCs were responsible for them.

So, we do not only owe the great man-made tourist attractions to the OCs, but perhaps our great civilizations as well.

This article is a salute to the OCs of the world! Ang galing nyo!

Can We Save the Thresher Sharks in Verde Passage?

It was in late 2007 when Cecille Rosales, the tourism officer of Batangas City started posting and reporting in her multiply site about the catching and selling of thresher sharks in the waters of Batangas Bay (which is part of the larger Verde Passage located between the province of Batangas and the big islands of Mindoro and Marinduque. At first, I hardly gave any notice given that I could not really relate because I am not a scuba diver.

But her reports and logs kept increasing and I began to do more research on the animal. By another co-incidence, I became a consultant of Bantay Kalikasan, a big, media-based NGO that included the Verde Passage as part of their advocacy areas. That's when things started to fall into place (as far as I am concerned).

One barangay in Batangas City really catch the animal in order to augment their iffy fishing livelihood of sardines. They regard the shark as more of a pest because it eats their catch and destroys their fishing nets (actually not true, but more of a convenient excuse). Listening to the fishermen how they survive through fishing the shark could make you shake your head that issues like this are ever present in many communities in the Philippines. But we could not just accept this as a fact that we have to live with. We know, from many experiences, that there are ways to address the issue of conservation and socio-economic well-being of the people.

The situation for the thresher shark could already be very bleak. Their sexual maturity could be very late (8 years for the female) and they reproduce only about 2 offsprings per birth, and they don't give birth on a regular pattern. In March, a total of 29 thresher sharks were caught in only three days! For conservationists like Simon Oliver (a visiting British guy specializing on the sharks), that is already very, very alarming!

I've personally seen some of the dead sharks that were caught and I'm telling you, the experience could be numbing. Five dead sharks were lined and you could just imagine how awesome they could be if seen alive and swimming freely in their natural habitat. The long, banner-like tails that reach about five feet, easily match their body length. Their mouths and teeth were quite small, indicating that they only eat small preys such as sardines and squids. Yup! They DO NOT and CANNOT eat humans.

And I was imagining that there could be an opportunity to help save the remaining thresher sharks (the three species found in the Philippines are now labeled as Vulnerable by the IUCN, an international conservation body). The good thing is that thresher shark encounter has been an established tourist activity in very few areas in the world (one is in Malapascua Island in Cebu). So we have here a major, MAJOR ecotourism product that can attract a good number of scuba divers. Another good thing is that the Philippines is no stranger to wildlife-based ecotourism product development. We've seen it with the whales, dolphins and whale sharks whose numbers and habitats are now zealously protected by the locals because of the viable livelihood they now enjoy (update: except Oslob in Cebu where the practice of whale shark watching is constantly questioned).

For the thresher shark ecotourism to flourish, some major efforts will have to be done. The people and officials of Batangas City (and the province) should pitch in to protect the animal by banning the catching of the animal. Of course, the national government agencies must also do their jobs. Efforts must be done to convince the fishing community to stop the catching of animals and they should be willing to embrace an alternative livelihood in place of unsustainable harvesting. And yes, ban the catching and killing of this awesome animal in danger. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. As I said earlier, it has been done in other areas, it could easily be implemented for the Thresher Shark in other parts of the Philippines.