Behind the scenes

Nothing gives me so much inspiration as when I travel. Seeing things in real life is worth so much to me. To travel and get real life experiences from around the world is in my opinion one of the best investment you can do. Of course visiting the Eiffel tower, seeing Big Ben and hiking the Great Wall will provide you with travel memories for life but what would do so to you aswell is if you step one or two steps aside from the touristy road and explore the local life at the destination you are at. I promise. Even if you travel solo there is no need to be afraid. Most people are nice and curious like you are curious about their life they are curious about yours. When I was in the Philippines last week I stepped away from the paved roads and made some discoveries around the corner and that was definitely the places where I got some of my most valuable travel memories so therefore I would like to share some picture and thoughts from “the other side” of the islands of Palawan and Bohol in the Philippines.

Kids

When I travel I cannot avoid thinking about how much it actually means to your life where you are born. I mean it is really nothing you have any impact on and still it more or less determines your whole future. Life isn’t fair.

Living

This is a home. A home that should house a whole family, protect them from all kinds of weather and be their base in life. When I see places like this that more or less looks as simple as cabins that I build in the forest when I was a kid I don’t know what I think. It is better than sleeping on the street but miles away from a high rise condo with pool and gym. I wonder what people living in places like these think. Before wifi was available to everyone it was not that easy to know how it was on the “other side” but nowadays when it is so easy to see how others have it I am curious to know if it is a motivation for poor people to see the life of more privileged people or if it just feels like just another stab with a knife from the society in the tummy.

Local business

These local stores. No supermarkets stocking 100 kinds of cereals. These stores where the shelves consist of 100 products. There are tens of these in every other little village catering customers with almost no money to buy goods for. Its a tough business feeding your family through running a store like this.

Local design

My first day at Palawan I hired a scooter to take me around. It was a really, really friendly guy that drove me around more or less the whole day. One place he took me to was the lookout at this picture. Look at the place. The furniture is so simple but fits so well into the surroundings. I love these pieces of local handcrafted things. Make it your own vs IKEA 1-0.

Rice fields

I love seeing rice fields. At Bohol or Palawan there were no rice terraces like Bali but they were still growing rice. Rice is actually a big source of income in the Philippines like many other countries in the region. Watching rice fields feels so exotic to me. I guess people from Asia would think it is exactly as exotic to watch strawberry plantations here in Sweden.

Infrastructure

Both islands I visited this time in the Philippines got their main roads paved about five years ago as an investment from the government in order to attract tourists and make the economy grow. But that was only the main roads. Still at both Bohol and Palawan the majority of the roads were mad out of mud. And everyone who has studied economy know that invest in infrastructure is one of the first things you do when you want to grow your economy so by checking the road conditions it can tell you quite a lot about the economy of a country.

The Philippines

Hope you liked the read although it is a bit fuzzy with random thoughts and reflections. My purpose of this post was to show some pictures from behind the touristy places in the Philippines. The Philippines is a very poor country. Over 40% of the population is considered poor. If you visit the capital of Manilla you have to be prepared to see kids living at the street everywhere.

/ Pernilla with some Sunday thoughts