I just left the broken bike at the side of the road yesterday. This morning it’s back in front of the door. Comment: “It’s running!” I say “No, it’s broken, the engine keeps cutting out and eventually it won’t work at all. I don’t want to push it again!”. But the mucked-up ones remain firm. In the end, I get back on the battered two-wheeled flak. We head south on the west side of Sibuyan.

The concrete road soon ends. The gravel tracks lead through green jungle, with high mountains to the left and the blue sea to the right. The engine stutters again on the first steep incline. It cuts out on the next one. I just start shouting, loud and long. A Filipino comes running up. And helps me immediately. They have nothing and give everything, always. (more…)

I’m lying on the kitebag at the edge of a little-travelled road and looking up at the sky. Clouds pass behind a large ficus tree. Next to me, the local motorbike gang sits in the shade of the palaver. Chicks chirp, hens cluck, roosters scream. Children laugh, girls sing, men argue. A pig grunts. The wind rustles in the leaves of the trees.

The teachers are teaching in the school next door. In the village, a radio plays Filipino evergreens. A dog barks. The escaped goat eats the flowers in front of the church. The policeman throws a stone at it. Birds chirp. The paddy field sways in the wind. A woman hangs up washing. Thanks to its engine, you can hear the jeepney long before you see it. Everything is: good. (more…)

Everywhere: masses. Many times smaller than on New Year’s Eve. But many times more sluggish. Where just a few days ago wolves danced around tap-dancing bears, now chill-out bags groan under the mass of tired bodies. To the endless repetition of this sight from bar to bar to disco, “You are not alone” booms in my head.

I, too, am infinitely tired from doing nothing. Doing nothing means bridging a five-day lull with 10 hours of work a day. In bed. As soon as I get out of bed, I get tired. We watch “Into the Wild” – Boracay is the most inappropriate place imaginable. Chris McCandless endeavoured to call a spade a spade. For the time being, my precious targets are drowning in Boracay’s 50 cm deep fish pond. (more…)

Visit Boracay! Why? We have the most beautiful beach in the Philippines! Sometimes you can even see it for all the people. Enjoy good food from all over the world – at prices that are guaranteed to upset your stomach. Boracay, with its 14,000 inhabitants, had a turnover of around 14 billion US dollars in 2010 – that’s three billion more than Manila with its 12 million inhabitants.

We need you to safeguard this standard! Forgive us for the significant downward correction of the official visitor numbers – if the figures were correct, we would have to purchase a much larger sewage treatment plant and the poo would not rot in the streets. We don’t want to waste the hefty ecotourism tax on the purchase of superfluous rubbish bins. (more…)

My customers are going through a lot right now. Even on the last islands of Fiji, the connection was much better four years ago: there was a connection. I prepared myself well for this trip. The Philippines is one of the most advanced countries in Asia in terms of mobile phone technology. I know which provider is better on which island and I have a mobile phone and SIM card.

But what use is all that? Nothing, nothing, and nothing again! Internet in the Philippines is a disaster. Now I’m in Looc, the capital of the big island of Tablas. No internet shop has a connection. The mobile phone network kicks me out every 30 seconds. Wouldn’t be so bad. But even the Google homepage takes over a minute to load. (more…)

What do I like so much about travelling? Travelling is life through a magnifying glass. You see everything more sharply, more focussed. Travelling is often a magnifying glass, especially after cloudy days. Sometimes it’s hard to decide: Straw or charcoal? I see people burning and I hear glowing stories. But above all, travelling is one thing: a reduction to the essentials.

You feel every gram of luggage that you don’t really need. You waste all the money you don’t really need. You forget everything you don’t really remember. You only find what you’re not desperately looking for. And the most important thing: friends come and go. As long as you stand still, staying is just a coincidence. But travelling friends stay, no matter where you are. (more…)

On our last day together, I go diving with Dave and Miri. We take the little Bangka from 3P out to Logbon Island. The weather is finally good again – it has often rained heavily over the last few days. We dive at Coral Canyon: a few small fish, colourful corals, nothing special. The dive is twice as expensive as in the Red Sea – and there’s much more to see. I’m a little disappointed.

Suddenly there are lots of small creatures floating in the water. My face immediately starts to burn badly. I protect myself with my hands. But it’s too late. We dive through a nice swarm of jellyfish. All the open areas of skin are covered in nettles. It’s bearable on my hands and ankles. It burns badly on the face. Great souvenir. (more…)

Romblon is famous for its marble. Everything here is made of marble. Tiles, washbasins, fence posts, even street lamps. Romblon is not rich, but there is plenty of stone and labour. The locals live well together with the foreigners. The mix is pleasant. There’s hardly anything on Boracay that belongs to Filipinos. Supposedly almost everything is Korean black money.

I hire a Chinese dirt bike and cycle around Romblon. The route is just 50 kilometres long, but quite tough. There was also heavy rain and flooding here a few days ago. Even when the road is tarred, there is not much difference to the usual dirt track. Streams and roads, all one. (more…)

Travelling on the small islands is difficult, but also valuable. A jeep takes us to the highway three kilometres away. After a while, a jeepney comes along and takes us to San Augustin in the north of Tablas, two hours away. The crossing to Romblon with the big bangka is another tough one. Even a Filipina gets seasick – the equivalent of a fish drowning in the water.

I remember my first trip across the open sea on the bangka. I was really scared after all the horror stories I’d heard. Now fatalism sets in, coupled with the knowledge that I can swim further than most of the other passengers. Or rather, that I can swim at all. My head rocks calmly in the swell. (more…)

Before five in the morning, Chris and I set off on our bikes to the harbour on the other side of Carabao. Breakfast and a shower are cancelled and I don’t sleep for more than four hours. One clear advantage: Sir Tanduhay’s hangover doesn’t catch up with me at this travelling speed. I cycle over wet mountains in the dark. It has been raining heavily for most of the night.

The big bangka leaves over an hour late because the tide is very low today. The first of the three departing bangkas promptly hits the reef – fortunately without any consequences. The swell is very rough at over two metres. Plastic tarpaulins are lowered. They do a makeshift job of keeping the water out, but the swell also increases the chances of seasickness. (more…)

Carabao seems to exist solely to supply Boracay. Carabao is the island of the serfs. Everything is brought to Boracay. Labour and live cows on bangkas. Mangoes, pineapples, bananas, rice. You can’t even buy fish on this island full of fishermen. What remains here is a big nothing. Nothing is much better than Boracay.

There is hardly anything to eat, but what little there is tastes better. Even if you don’t have a choice: it’s still much freer. Carabao is conspicuously deserted during the day. But after their ten-hour shifts on Boracay, the residents are happy to have visitors. The internet is on its last legs, but the few minutes are put to good use. (more…)

I’m almost happy when it rains for a day. I can hardly keep up with the work, the kiting is good but also quite flat and always followed by exhausting nights. We go to at least three good concerts a day. A drink in the bars on White Beach often costs more than a full bottle of rum plus ice and a cup in the expensive supermarket. I no longer count the money, otherwise I would have to shout all the time.

What I miss most are adventures and stories. Everything here is 100% planned, reliable and runs with the grey monotony of clockwork. The best story I’ve heard in a week on Boracay is the one about the Ukrainian woman whose flatmate locks her out of her room two nights in a row. There are better stories. (more…)

I go up to the northern tip of Boracay for a day with a Ukrainian woman. Puka Beach is described as a deserted beach. Compared to White Beach, the 200 people there are hardly noticeable. The strong shorebreak sweeps away quite a few bathers. I set up the kite, but the wind is taking a break today. Me too. I realise that in the last seven weeks I’ve only just lain on the beach once.

In the evening, David and Miri arrive from Bohol via Cebu. We celebrate his birthday properly with a barbecue and a few gin and tonics in a bar with good live music. Boracay eats away at my stamina. I’m tired all the time and quickly feel tired when I go out in the evening. Again today. Somehow I always just survive in places like this. I live in other places. (more…)

I’m glad to have good people around me at the turn of the year. New Year’s Eve on Boracay is an absolute madhouse. Being alone in the desert is okay, but in places like this it’s deadly. We meet up in a small restaurant. My thanks for the company is a large bottle of rum. It’s quickly empty and the beach is packed. For three and a half kilometres, tens of thousands of people celebrate to a gigantic fireworks display.

Filipinos only live in the now. Except on New Year’s Eve. The fireworks start long before midnight, and the crowds make that necessary. Night is day, smoking is forbidden on the beach and the sound is the same everywhere. We walk back and forth for a long time until we arrive at a good spot. Everything is good and nothing is perfect. Then I open my ears and listen to a story. (more…)