Philippine Children, I Found a Hero

  This blog is a little unusual for two reasons: I am on location volunteering rather than scribing an article from my journal at home; and the theme is children, one in particular, instead of a wild near miss adventure. Okay, there have been many near misses in my two months here; like the one of three cows that broke free from the shepherd and ran onto the highway when I was driving the tricycle at 60 kms per hour. There were several near misses with oncoming traffic; like trucks, buses, tricycles, or motorcycles with no headlights at night. Rather than pull out the several close calls on the highway stories from my journal, I want to  mention these little girls before I introduce the star of the blog.

  This little cutie lives close to where I am staying, although she is very shy, she is pleasantly curious. This little girl has many kids around her and it is apparent that she happily plays daily.

                                           


   This next poor girl has a very tough life. I saw her in San Jose, Nueva Ecija laying on some bags of empty plastic bottles. With no shoes/sandals and a filthy body, it was evident from her slight frame and tired eyes that food did not come easy. I did not have any food with me so I give her 50 pesos and gestured for her to eat something.

                                          


There are many such children around the Philippines, and the world for that matter. Witnessing child poverty is heart wrenching, we as adults should be ashamed of ourselves for not prioritizing this urgent global problem.

  If there is a bright side to this rant it is my star of the blog........picture not included so as not to single out anyone in her family. This girl, who will soon be 10 has impressed me as a selfless individual who would make anyone proud with her conduct. I have witnessed for 2 months how much she helps her older sister with her 3 kids....like a second mom. It seems that she is always on duty, although she attends school. I have had the pleasure to see her almost daily and although her English is just beginner level, and my Tagolog is non-existent, we seem to be able to communicate on the basics.

   I decided a couple of weeks back that she deserved to be treated for dinner and have some time to really enjoy herself. Tonight was our night; I took her the 25 kms to San Jose where she had a choice of Greenwich, Chow King, Jolli Bee, or Mcdonalds. She picked the latter, of which I never go, unless I am in a country where the food is just too revolting. When we walked in the door her face lit up when she felt the air conditioning inside the restaurant. I never give it much thought that this was her first time in a Mcdonalds, she was in awe of the environment and the crowd within. Wide eyed, she kept looking around like she was at Disneyland in California.

  She awkwardly tried to express what she wanted to order and we finally got the menu figured out, we were just minutes away from the true hero coming out again, this time in McDonald's. I opened up the Big Mac box and dumped her fries in the lid, she immediately started putting half of the fries back in the sleeve, those were going to be for her niece and nephew. She smiled as she ate her fries and gazed around the restaurant. I knew quickly that she was not going to eat the Big Mac then, that was for her older sister, the mom of 3. I asked her if she wanted an ice cream sundae and she smiled even wider. When I stopped and talked to a guy, something I always try to do, she was right behind me; she thought I would leave her.

  I got her to sit back down and kept an eye on her as I ordered the sundae's. When I got back to the table and give her the ice cream I said, "say thank you", she said, your welcome ! There is often humour when there is a language barrier. This young lady was so proud to take her bag of offerings out of the restaurant, I was so happy that she was happy. In a country where most people expect the foreigner to dig into her/his pocket often, it is nice to make a connection with someone who does not expect much and also thinks of sharing. Some would argue that an introduction to McDonald's at 10 years old is not such a great idea, and I would have to agree. All I can say is the hero picked the location and she was so happy.......

 

 

Koh Tao, Koh Phi Phi ....Thailand

  My companion and I had just made it to the ferry dock at Ban Thong Sala on Koh Pha Gnan after a punishing trip in the back of a truck from Thong Nai Pan Noi. The ferry sailings to Koh Tao had been cancelled the day before, and the morning sailing also did not leave from the dock. After insisting that I did not want to return again to Koh Samui after already spending 5 days there, we eventually boarded the ferry for the 45 km trip from Koh Pha Gnan to Koh Tao. The smooth waters that I viewed from the dock soon turned choppy.

  About one hour into the trip I was starting to realize what a mistake it was to get onto this overloaded wooden boat. As the vessel rocked back and fourth and rose up and down in the waves many people were getting sick right where they clutched for safety. By 2.5 hours into our journey most everyone was very worried; it was horrifying when the boat slammed down from the tops of the 3 metre swells because I could hear that the boat was on the verge of breaking apart. Each time the front of the boat rose up into the air I wondered if it could survive the impact on the way down. The trip time was doubled with the slow pace, this was a very worrisome sailing; so stressful. Somehow the boat made it to Mae Haad Pier at Koh Tao, we felt very fortunate.

   We made our way up to the north west coast and found a little bungalow on a bluff that had a good view of Nang Yuan Island.

                                             

                             

We walked downtown via the beach, where possible, it was just an okay beach; very long. After a little walk around we made it back to our little village, where the generator operates from 6pm-midnight, and got settled for the night; thoughts of the harrowing boat ride were still fresh in my mind. The next day we visited Nang Yuan Island which was actually 3 islands connected by sand beach. We climbed to the highest point for a good view

                             

and the rest of the time was spent leisurely swimming and laying around a beautiful beach. The next day we walked the 5 kms to the ferry dock with our packs, they seemed a bit heavy on this morning. The ferry ride this day was an excellent experience; the weather was beautiful, which made for nice views.

  We overnighted on Koh Samui and then caught the first ferry to Surat Thani; from there we caught a bus for the 155 km trip to Krabi. The scenery was okay, many jutted mountains; too bad our bags got drenched on top of the taxi that we took to the bus station. We found a guest house that was very reasonable and then we walked around Krabi, fairly nice little city I thought. In the morning we caught the one hour ferry to our 6th Thailand Island, Koh Phi Phi, we would celebrate New Years here. The island was jam packed, after searching everywhere we were lucky to find a women in a small house who was renting a bed. We had an excellent New Years at the Jungle Bar, we met so many people and had a blast.

                          

When we made it back to our lodging at 3:30 am we had to get rid of 2 Thai's that were sleeping on our bed; at 7:30 a guy opened our bedroom door just to look at us; needless to say we were tired the next day.

  On Jan. 1st a very nice bungalow became available so we moved our packs down the beach and settled in. I then hiked up to the viewpoint which give a great view of Aow Ton Sai Bay and Loh Dalam.

                        

                        

After that I walked to the opposite end of the beach where I found many monkeys in the bush and sat to watch them interact with each other for an hour, very entertaining. That evening we were spoiled by a delicious sea food dinner and a nice stroll on the beautiful beach.

                        

The next day we took a long boat trip around Phi Phi Lay which was very nice; the boat stopped at a large cave.

                                       

                            

We then headed around the big island, stopping for lunch on a nice beach. After lunch we went to Bamboo Island which was also very nice. We walked the beaches and spent a lot of time snorkeling; this was a great day.

  The next day we were going to be moving on so I went for one last walk early in the morning. I found another viewpoint that needed about 1 hour to climb and was the view ever worth it......stunning. We loaded the ferry for the 1pm sailing and the boat pulled away at 1:30 only to turn around before we got out of the bay to be met by a long boat with 4 passengers; once those passengers got on the boat was turned around and we set sail. After a few minutes some workers on the ferry started a 20 minute argument with these passengers; these people had paid for the trip in Krabi and the workers wanted them to pay again. The captain stopped the boat in the middle of the sea and threaten the passengers to pay or he would take them back...it seemed like the rest of us were forgotten. There seemed to always be nice scenery from our boat excursions.

                           

  After some delays and a 35 km sailing, we arrived at Koh Lanta and settled in to Lanta Sea House; it was time to get familiarized with another island,

  Koh Samui, Koh Pha Ngan....Thailand

  My companion and I took the familiar 12 hour train ride south from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, the locomotive was delayed and took 14.5 hours to arrive in the capital. I did not take any photo's out of the window since the scenery was for the most part repetitive; there were a couple of nice shot's if I had had the camera at the ready. We stayed on Khao San Rd again and made plans to get out of Bangkok the next day.

  On the morning of the next day, after I took a long walk, I hired a tuk tuk to go to the International Post Office to mail some boxes of souvenirs. On the way back I could not get any tuk tuk driver to agree to take me back; the distance was too far away from their usual routes. I ended up to get on the back of a motorcycle and felt lucky to arrive back at the guest house uninjured; the driver weaved in and out of traffic nearly missing many vehicles; he had a helmet on and I did not. We were to leave Bangkok to head south at 4:30 that afternoon.

  We were picked up at our guest house at 4:15 along with 2 other people in a van....we picked up  others on the way to the bus station. The van passed all these nice buses before stopping; we sat in the van for 30 minutes until the driver drove to a slummy area where he dropped us off and told us the bus would come at 7pm. We had heard many bad things about buses so we were very worried when this junker bus pulled up. Turned out that our driver did an excellent job, he was very defensive on roads where big trucks and buses race head on. There were some good views from the bus

                      

We arrived at Surat Thani at 7am after 12 hours of travel and arranged to catch the 8:20 vehicle that would take us to the ferry for Koh Samui; Koh means island in the Thai language.

                       

                       


  We booked into the Nice Resort #1 which was right on  Lamai beach with plenty of  restaurants and night spots. The next day we rented a motorbike and toured around the island which has so many nice beaches;

                                      


we stopped at one location and took a 30 minute walk up to the waterfall. Once we got back to home base we ate at the Starry Hut for the second night...exceptional seafood dinners. We went out that night to the disco area, there were so many partier's. We watched cross dressers put the moves on men who had had many drinks. My companion told the guy next to her that the "woman" he was flirting with was actually a guy; very hard to tell sometimes, the guy didn't believe it. The next day we moved bungalows to a quieter place and spent time on the beach. I was walking along and a guy I knew from my small hometown rode by, I caught up with him and we chatted for some time; it is a small world. Later in the day I saw what I thought was a fire truck; I heard screaming from people and yelping. A man jumped off the back of the truck with a spear and was targeting stray dogs; two other guys were throwing the dogs on a pile of about 100 dogs in the back of the truck, I was shocked to witness their animal control.

   A lazy beach day later; the previous night time saw monsoon rains and power outages in Lamai. I toured the whole island again on the motor bike, one would not get tired of the 50 km trip around Thailands second largest island. We spent one more whole day on the beach, the weather seemed perfect for it.

                       

The next day we went over to visit Ivan and Diane on Mae Nom Beach, our Chiang Mai hiking partners; at night I went to the Thai Boxing competition in Lamai, this sport is very entertaining to watch.

  Next morning we loaded a taxi and headed to the west side to catch a ferry to Koh Pha Ngan, our second Gulf of Thailand Island. Once the ferry landed we took a boat to Ban Thong Sala and found a bungalow on a cliff with a nice view. After a couple of days just hanging around the beaches, like this one with all of the moss/seaweed

                                       

 we hired a taxi to take us on the interior road down to Thong Sala where I could catch the ferry to get over to Lamai so I could rent a dirt bike to use for travel. The road was very rough and seemed as though it was not an option for transport in the rainy season. We rode the dirt road by motorcylcle back up to Ban Mae Hat which has a Thai fishing village. After viewing some nice scenery and more beaches we stopped at the Phang waterfall only to find out that we had lost our camera while bumping our way up steep, rugged hills. We turned back immediately, backtracking as best we could, but to no a-vail, our camera was lost. There were about 30 photo's of nice views that were lost in the camera; we would not get those memories back.

  The next day I took the bike back down the rough road so I could return it in Lamai, the weather was taking a turn for the worse. Once I got back onto Koh Pha Ngan the rain was incredibly heavy; this was a large tropical storm. I caught the truck ride to the north of the island; after about 10 minutes the truck stopped and a new driver got in, he smelled like booze. After joking with other passengers about his incapable driving the guy got stuck on a muddy hill. All us passengers got out onto the slick hill to try to push; an unforgettable sight was the old Thai passenger that slipped to the ground 3 times in the mud, each time holding up his plastic bag of soup in the air. We made it back to the village...bag of soup in good condition, but one of the western women lost her sunglasses while pushing the truck.

  The next day the storm had blown over so we decided to stay until the day after Christmas, the locals were so friendly and with beaches like this one there was no point to rush.

   We participated in the X-mas dinner for 150 Baht which was an excellent meal. Another storm moved in for the next couple of days; the road was closed and the water was too rough for a boat out of paradise. Finally we were able to get off of the north coast by taxi....locals were happy when they heard it come up the road since it brought some supplies. After an adventurous drive down to Thong Sala we found out that the ferry had been cancelled the whole day before, and the first sailing in the morning also. My companion did not want to go on the 45 km ferry ride to Koh Tao and I did not want to go back to Koh Samui too early; the water seemed very calm. This insistence to get on this ferry was almost a life ending mistake.

  Chiang Mai, Thailand.....More Successful Second Time Round

    This trip my companion and I decided to give Thailand a second chance; surely our plan would work out more smoothly than the first trip. After traveling to Vancouver for a flight to LAX in L.A and then on to the Gimpo Airport in Korea, we finally arrived in Bangkok........awake for 29 hours.

  We shared a taxi to Khaosan Rd. with a couple who had had the same grueling flight schedule as us. The Diana Guest House from our first visit had changed to Freddies; the lights were out so we checked into a Malaysian Hotel room, that was 700 Baht.

                                          

 In the morning I took a long walk around the city, filling my lungs with smoke and vehicle exhaust; there was a lot of development. I wrote in my journal how sore my throat was from the pollution, but I also wrote about how affectionate the Thai parents are with their kids; it is nice to see a culture where the parents give their kids love and attention. The 12 hour night train to Chiang Mai was booked for that evening; it was good to leave this city of 6.5 million quickly. We had a surprise in store for us at the station; we talked to a cute little boy for awhile, and then his older brother. When a train stopped we walked the length of the locomotive, only to find out there was no car with our number on it. We showed our tickets to a worker and he told us that the train for Chiang Mai had left at 6pm. We had stood on the track #7 platform waiting for train #7; that train actually came on the #4 track. There was no #4 on our ticket or the envelope; so we took a 7:40 train, after paying 350 Baht more.

  The familiar trip up to Chiang Mai; with all of the rice fields, was pretty good.

                        


I took very few pictures from when we boarded the train to walking in the front door of the same bungalow at the Golden Riverside Lodge. The first priority was to walk up the road to Pradid and Amira's, our local friends from the last visit, we had a great day. We went to the night market for dinner, the food was so delicious, and the company was exceptional. The next day we rented 2 motorcycles and choked our way through the exhaust of Chiang Mai before traveling the curving mountain road again to the Phuping Palace; this trip to the palace we stopped at the Doi Suthep Temple,

                                    


the serpent staircase was extraordinary, very fancy.

                          


  The next day we hung around the city; checked out the market, it was very crowded. There were so many products for sale; many fruits and vegetables.

                           

cheap knick knacks, and then, the meat section; the stench of something rotting was very strong. The following day we booked a long boat ride up the Ping River....before turning back, after traversing the waterway, we had a nice lunch. There were so many huge homes along the river, I guess it is a prime location. Like in many countries, someone who lives in this

                           

will live close to someone living in this home.

                           

    Our next agenda was a mountain trek; we left early in the morning in a jeep and headed north for about 100 kms. We went up high into the mountains; first stopping at a village called Lehu (approx. 350 people), which is about 50 kms from the Burma border;

                           

                           


the locals were originally from Tibet, they then lived in Burma (Myanmar) before crossing the Thai border. The scenery was very nice on this day, especially when we got higher in altitude. We then walked for about 2 hours to another village where we were to stay the night. I felt a little uncomfortable staying there because the village adults did not seem to want us there. All the young kids were excited to see us; we had some little gifts for them but for the local adults it was like we were trespassing. Our guide Veer said that the people did not mind us being there and that they do not think about things like we are rich, I did not agree. The adults just looked right through us; you can't blame them when they live in an isolated village where they haul water bare footed, garden all day; and the western people come along with their expensive runners, backpacks, camera's and mouth full of teeth.

  Our sleep was not so good; the bed was just a mat on a wood floor; the dogs, pigs, roosters, and crying babies kept us up most of the night.

                              

                              

 In the morning we left the village with our fellow trekkers Ivan and Diane from Switzerland for a 3.5 hour hike up the mountain to the elephant camp. We had a quick rest at this waterfall

                                              

  The elephant ride was about 1.5 hours of traversing narrow trails on steep grades. It was amazing how these huge animals were so sure footed. It is not exactly a comfortable ride on the back of an elephant with the pounding and hanging on for dear life, but it was quit the experience.

                            

  We arrived at a Karen Village where we would sleep for the night. Veer the guide started a fire to cook our evening meal, as he had done in the morning. The smoke is a bit hard to handle as it fills the hut we called home.

                            

  We were guaranteed to be woken up by: the dogs biting pigs behinds, kids crying, bulls grunting, people yelling, and the dreaded roosters. The view from the village was nice.

                           

Once we ate our basic breakfast we walked about an hour on the jungle trail to the Mae Kok River where we would raft. The river was a bit too low but the 5 of us had a great time; with lots of laughs. Too bad Veer translated what guys had said in the larger village that we passed when we left the home village; one guy said, " how come the beautiful woman is with that ugly man (me), and that ugly woman (Diane) with that better looking guy?" I could tell that Diane's feelings were hurt...really too bad to know what guys were saying; I could have guessed, that is common behaviour; especially when one does not speak the language.

  We got back to Chiang Mai; had a shower and then went to Pradid and Amara's place; we eventually went to eat at the night bazaar. The food choices at the bazaar were tremendous....with great company the night was very successful. The next day we just relaxed and hung around, returning to the night bazaar again to have dinner.

  The following day I walked again down to the morning market, it was a great ritual to watch the hustle of the crowds walking among the many types of fruits and vegetables. This day was a school holiday so we went with Pradid and his family to the Mae Sa Valley where there is a large garden to view; we had a lot of fun.

                        

 
  We then went to an elephant camp where there were 40 elephants that we could feed, that was also a great experience.

                        


   We proceeded to the Chiang Mai Zoo which was a bit depressing for an animal lover. The pens were overcrowded and Thai people were throwing so much junk for the animals to eat. One hippo stood on the concrete in the hot sun with his mouth open against the wall, people threw candy's still in the wrappers, cigarette butts...just disgusting and hard to witness. The day ended well with a group meal at the mall.

  Our second trip to Chiang Mai was memorable, we felt fortunate to have good friends to share some of our days with. This would not be the last time in Chiang Mai. We set off on the train to Bangkok.

Nairobi......Kenya

  When I first landed at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi I viewed grazing giraffe's out of the plane window. My first thought was, where in the world can you land at an airport and see giraffe's by the runway; my second thought was that this was a tourism ploy...I never did find out, but it was neat to see. I was not able to get a focused photo of those large animals.

                                      

   From the airport I boarded a shuttle bus for the 16 km trip to the city ; many times cattle were taking up half the road, sometimes it was donkey's or goats. Once in Nairobi I made my way through the crowded streets and ended up to find a shuttle bus that would take me the 275 kms to Urusha in Tanzania. There were so many large and small buses lining the streets, many guys worked the crowds trying to get passengers for their bus.

   We soon left the metropolis of Nairobi with it's run down city buildings and found mostly red mud dwellings on the outskirts of the city. It was amazing how quickly the city changed from 6-20 floor building to suburbs with tin shops.

                      

                     

   After an amazing time in Tanzania I was back in Nairobi and making plans to get out of the city with the nickname Nairobbery as quick as possible.

                         


                        

                        



      I realized it was too late to go the almost 500 kms to Mombasa so I found a youth hostile in the downtown. I walked so many kms around the city so I could get familiar with it. I managed to meet so many nice people as I walked around, there was rarely a white person; I was told more than once not to go out at night. Nairobi is very dangerous, many local men do not even go out after dark; they are afraid. I had a couple of guys pull the trick of saying that they knew me, "hey man..how are you doing ?, remember I saw you on the bus" they were trying to lure me somewhere. Another common tendency in Nairobi is well dressed guys portraying themselves as cops, so they can extort money. I walked so far that I thought I should take the #46 bus back, which had passed me several times. As I waited at bus stop all the #46 buses were full, I finally asked a guy about it and he directed me to a street where people line up for this particular bus...there was a line up that was about 400 metres long. The city is very dirty; both for litter and air quality; it is also very congested.

  I was able to get out of Nairobi for what I thought was going to be about 17 days; unfortunately I returned early since I had problems with my passport (story in a previous blog). While waiting around for the Canadian Embassy to let me know what they were going to do I just walked the streets feeling dejected. At the embassy there is an in-ground pool and double tennis courts for the workers, I guess there have to be some perks for employees living abroad. When I traversed on a busy street I heard what I thought was two cars colliding; the noise was actually a man getting hit by a truck; when I looked over he was about 2 metres in the air. The pick-up truck driver stopped, dragged the body to the side of the street and then drove away; life does not mean so much to some.

  I managed to travel north for a few days with the lent money from the embassy, that I would repay once I got a new credit card. I boarded a bus in Nakuru to get back to Nairobi and the bus stopped in a bus station that was in a real slum area of the city; about 3 kms from the area I was familiar with.

                            

I tried to walk as fast as I could past an abandoned building with many homeless street people; so many children are without a home. My big backpack may have looked inviting, or my shoes for that matter, since most of the kids were bare footed. I wanted to take photo's but that was both risky and in bad taste.

  I got my passport and credit card which allowed me yet again to get out of Nairobi. In the morning I left the hotel to go to the familiar bus street, not really a station, and there were the usual street kids hanging around. These poor kids get beat by many adults because they are around the market area to steal food, I was shocked the first time I witnessed the abuse. What I tried to do when in this area was to make eye contact with some of them and then throw a bottle of water and a bun to them. Once the street child, for the most part boys, received the food there was a special look that we exchanged......it is hard to describe; a sort of appreciation and an understanding (empathy).

  There are extreme conditions in Kenya that can be hard to accept......one can go from the slums of Nairobi to the beautiful beaches on the Indian Ocean.

Boracay.......Philippines

  Arguably the most famous Beach Island in the Philippines is Boracay; my girlfriend (now wife) and I had already seen the 4km long White Beach on the west coast of this paradise when the outrigger boat we were on stopped to let passengers off that sailed between Mindoro and Panay. I am not much for tourist destinations but I was pleasantly surprised with our experience on this 10 sq km island in the Sibuyan Sea.We checked in to St. Vincent Cottages which sits on the middle road of the island around the 2nd station of White Beach. We swam in the warm turquoise water that was abundant with fish; the water was so calm and clear.


                       


                       

  After several hours on White Beach I focused on our main task while on the island....getting married. We had thought, while in Canada, about a good place to get married while in the Philippines; the choices came down to Baguio or Boracay. I walked from Manggayad to Balabag to look for the church to arrange the marriage, there are 3 catholic churches on the island; and one priest. The priest at Balabag was away until the Saturday but the replacement priest was said to be at the church 4kms south in Manoc-Manoc. I walked there and was told that I should go to the Borangay Office (local government office) to get a marriage license. I trekked back north, the temperature was very hot, and went into the office where I was told by the lady at the desk; that I would need to go to Manila to the Canadian Embassy to get clearance. I guess they needed confirmation that we were not both married to someone else.......anyway, a trip to spend 3 days in Manila was not happening; the marriage was put off until we got home.

  The next morning on Boracay I picked up a newspaper and read an article about a priest who had been abducted on the west side of Mindoro; the priest had said that youth recruits from the NPA (National Peoples Army) were guarding him; there is such a problem with NPA throughout much of the country, this really takes away tourist dollars.

  On this day we ate so many mangoes and then headed down White Beach to the end, it is such a nice beach.

                    

                    

   We crossed a bluff to get to Diniwid Beach and then walked the road to Pinaungan, which was a small village. We then proceeded to the east side of the island and the Lapuz-Lapuz Beach which was deserted. There were steel barges and other assorted things washed up on the shore....no people though.

                    

   We went into the Sibuyan Sea up to our waste to round the bluff and get to Sanbaloron Beach, it was another deserted spot with 2 small nipa huts.

  The water was too turbulent to go further so we climbed up the bluff and took the overland route to Ilig-Iligan Beach, the scenery was nice but boy was it hot; time for a dip in the sea. A couple of boys ran up to us calling out "bat caves, bat caves!!" We ended up going with our two young guides and for 25 pesos we went into the caves; there were thousands of screeching bats.

                       

   The caves were actually nice inside and although they were not large, it was worth the effort to check them out.

                                 


                                 

We met a vacationing couple and went to a restaurant with them, the east side of the island was expensive for Philippine standards; 4,000 Pesos ($110.00) for a one night stay. Our food was under-cooked and not so delicious but our new friends were delightful. After about 8 kms of walking in the heat we made it back to St Vincent Cottages and caught yet another nice sunset from the west facing White Beach.

                     

  The next day was a relaxing day on the beach with swimming and drinking many fruit juices. The locals here were very friendly and the customer service was exceptional. When one is staying on a tropical paradise island like Boracay it seems like there is not a worry in the world. In the coming weeks we would see many beaches that rival White Beach, for this the Philippines is truly blessed.