Exploring Tawi-Tawi Philippines (IS IT SAFE?)

one of the last time here that kind of quiet you'd think it'd be scary but it's not it's just leaves you at peace an old sama tale goes something like this an elder widower found a sea turtle and he brought it home to care for it after a while the turtle transformed into a beautiful lady and started to care for him he took her as his wife and from the Union a crying child was born out of frustration the man called his child the son of a turtle who is always crying his wife got angry and told him that if he loses his temper again she will leave and transform back into a turtle he wasn't able to control his anger and eventually the wife left now each time the child is hungry he needs to bring his son to the coral reef so that his mom can feed him [Music] [Music] the Sulu Archipelago is a group of islands in the south of the Philippines which don't have the best reputation Tao eats how is the last province of the country and is actually closer to Malaysia than it is to any other province just take a look at this map it consists of 11 municipalities and many beautiful untouched Islands [Music] I've been wanting to come here for a while now so when the opportunity arose to join Gino Lopez on her test torrent Aoi towie to try and help the local community I jumped on the chance immediately the concern is with good reason the Sulu Archipelago has been known for years to be home to terrorist cells kidnappings and tribe wars that always seem distant to a city folk yet very real evoking fear each time these islands are mentioned are provoking travel bans and warnings however from all the people I talked to from the military to NGOs I found that that Tali Tao he was a place of peace where people were working hard to change their image and showcase their culture I [Music] think this thing was a lot of people still think it's not safe yeah yeah everyone I asked you know they were telling me they're saying are you sure and everything else like but everyone I've talked to today because we are surrounded by government enforcers yeah so still highly militarized but the military presence of military connotes something I heard yet there was a saying where they said all the peace-loving people came to tau e tau e [Music] currently bunk ow normal cow I really did not expect this city is extremely busy I thought once a tiny island so yeah we're basically just we just need to take out some cash and then we're heading to an island shimmy fun cool the archipelago is filled with stunning islands that all feel like local secrets since we didn't have much time in the region we focused on some you know land sungai chapeau island but there are so many more to see all right so currently on our way to see one old island and we're writing a really cold reconstructed Leppa when the sound modules are mostly nomadic people they would do absolutely everything on these kinds of boats for me eating sleeping I think it's really kind of cool and an important cultural historical thing to know quick 45-minute boat ride just across where you can see bone cow island over there Seimone oil is behind me well we're gonna be staying overnight and this small island forgot the name I'll say it later whoo I'm really excited about it's two things actually the food that's good about to come out and they're not cooking it here they wring it from bungalow they prepared apparently a feast than they are put this together and it's probably going to be extremely scrumptious and after that we're gonna go diving and diving here is said to be super pristine they kind of crack down on dynamite fishing and and now it's it's just you know the coral reefs and everything have like and all the weight always there's going to be that balance between the good in the bad but apparently here it's absolutely you [Music] put my pants on a shampoo I live at solution here in Seminole fatality we prepared a lot of food like she parties locally we call it Cameroon we have also severe chain double Abu and Alawi yes yellow pin a kilo so we have also the blue crabs here and also we call this one to come back locally I don't know what is that they call it in English we have also be locally we call it sambal sample cooling this is made others made up shrimp paste and also release then we have also the me goring this is actually the staple food of the bad child no it looks like I can okay yeah look at it much we owe sour yeah if you want to be funny to me you do with that okay later I'm just excited to eat now [Music] okay I am absolutely starving so I'm going to dig right in I'm gonna try first the sea urchin it's like it's a strange color she's kind of take a look at that it's like reddish brown it's like stewed I want to say but it retains kind of a texture try the meat goring which is basically gonna like a local version of fun tip army growing from from Malaysia quite nice when you expect whoa like the spice level and that's pretty good I'm actually liking this if all the food's gonna be spicy while we're here makes me a happy man kela Winn pretty standard nice and fresh actually sweeter than what I would expect so they probably add some sugar in there then we have the fish the third time out a while ago not quite sure still what it is mmm very meaty lots of texture and finally we have the crab not as spicy as I expected it to be but quite nice it's cool it's completely full I'm gonna dig it into that later but what we're all here for is for the sea mantis so it's kind of like a cross of a lobster and shrimp sorry it's smoked say Timaeus that flavor is so good I actually think it tastes more like a lobster daddy does a shrimp if this is the start of the food that we're gonna get in the region I'm gonna do this Michael I suppose it could be delicious and over really happy [Music] so we just got off the boat seelix I kind of like still there it's a little busy but we're now in Cebu little island and what we'll be seeing in some houses here in town and then tomorrow there's just like a flurry of activities but yeah I'm pretty excited pretty tired pretty excited the area is mostly inhabited by the sama people and I use this term in a very general way as there are lots of various subgroups with their own distinct languages usually people will identify themselves as sama followed by the island they are from they not only live in the Sulu Archipelago but can be found in sabah malaysia or in indonesia from our discussions there are two main groups the sama delao which are sea nomads who used to live primarily at sea on wooden ships who now build their houses on stilts and the second group are the sama daya daya meaning inland however it's best to ask the person you're talking to to which group they associate themselves with the term Bajau seems to stem confusion and tension so I personally don't use it they found a big boy about 50 kilo 60 kilos it took some two days to do it so like a long over night over at the celeb SC and it's a big one that's impressive very unique from the rest of the Philippines people here primarily Muslim mixed in with their traditional beliefs when the rest of the country was being taken over by the Spanish this area held up longer the island of Seminole is actually home to the oldest mosque in the Philippines constructed in 1380 so these are the actual original pillars from that mosque all the way from the 1300s which is pretty impressive and then the mosque itself has been renovated about four times already [Music] the people here live close to the sea and many of their myths and tales are centered around the ocean being part of the Coral Triangle tawi-tawi is one of the global centres of biodiversity so we suited up to see this for ourselves [Music] a story meaningless you [Music] [Music] fishing and seaweed farming are the main sources of revenue on these islands so we woke up early at 3 a.m. to go out and to see with mana and Ronny [Music] we fell on a strong and silent type so he's basically just preparing a long line and then he had about four hooks in one line and then he's using octopus as a bait which he's hooking up and then he has a makeshift sinker that goes all the way down and kind of the long line just goes in it what I found particularly interesting is he uses his leg in his foot with a paddle to kind of steer the boat in the direction he wants but this is insane like it's really cool it's dead quiet while we were driving we couldn't show you because it's hard to shoot but there was plankton like fluorescent plankton and then each time we shined the light down you see these kind of like glow-in-the-dark things popping up with no idea what it is but I'm sure night diving here must be insane there's no moonlight so we're not really guided so really just kind of navigating in the pitch dark you know it's just peaceful I guess one last time here that kind of quiet you'd think it'd be scary a good side it's just leaves you at peace it's 5:30 as you can see the Sun is rising now so we've been out for about two hours being out here kind of reminds you of a couple things one that it takes a lot of hard work patience and perseverance to actually catch fish let me think of food a lot of people look at it as a commodity because you go to the market and it's there but you don't realize the amount of work that goes behind actually catching it and the traders who actually do trading or the exporters that's where all the margins are added but at the basis none of that would be possible without this and these guys get paid at least so think about that next time you buy fish after a quick little nap we headed to explore the rest of sea moon'll on some bamboo bikes all right so we're currently writing currently we're hiking the BAM bikes made by Brian here behind me they're made in partnership with gawad Camino which is really cool all of this is made from bamboo and obviously just some steel and stuff right yeah poka from Bicol to find the joints and act as like a natural carbon fiber nice and so what are the bikes doing here so here is how we were working with the I love foundation to try and create sustainable livelihood for the people through BAM bike eco tours of creating bike routes to the far-flung destinations so that you can kind of explore and not need to burn gasoline wherever you're going and just be able to enjoy the ride and the natural beauty of the place nice and Gina is teaching us that she's still got it [Applause] this area being very remote life is very different from what you might expect trash water livelihood and electricity can be quite difficult we were accompanied in this trip by alott Diaz who runs litters of life a company that helps isolated communities set up low maintenance solar lights this just shows that tourism could benefit this area greatly however it has to be done right progressively and in coordination with local customs world all right so we met convince the fishermen as we saw them racing speedboats a while ago made out of wood and we managed to convince them to lend us their speedboat so that we can race against each other this is actually Brian's idea this is his idea we're gonna make this happen rubbings racing rock and roll the arrow idea so I clearly lost that race all four races my boat was called legend two and we had two epic engine failures how does it feel to be the winner you want to call me speedy they left our Italian salad what was your boat name legend your alleged I was legend - really and I had two engine breakdowns well some people tried to be legend and some are just original tired and inspired we top low - the speedboat under the stars on our way back to bunk out three magical days I've been wanting to go to Joey Joey for the longest time and it really did not disappoint in terms of expectations versus reality it's really its own place it feels like its own country it has its own cultural norms its own food it's such a special Island it's such a special province that I wish more people would be able to experience I get the stigma of fear and I get the stigma of security and they just seem to be in a very you know not the ideal location especially because they're next to islands that are known for heavy conflicts but everything everyone I met here said that it was super peaceful and super safe and we never felt unsafe and everything that we did so hopefully that opens up a little bit you know you really feel like what's great is the cultural heritage is so strong people live the way they've been living for you years but you also do feel like there's a need for people to to you know to live slightly more comfortable lives and be able to have more revenue and you know in a more sustainable way because you know with the fishermen it was up and down all the time if they have to go further so there was also a situation where you do feel like the communities could benefit from tourism and I really hope that the tourism that does happen is a sustainable one where it's slow takes its time and really respects the local environment the local culture has a strong educational aspect to it where people can really take care of the land and appreciate it for what it is and also the locals can learn to really appreciate their land and be proud of it because I think that's the most important thing we're heading does I'm long enough so make sure you guys check out these videos pace [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: FEATR

Views: 1,376,007

Rating: 4.9535098 out of 5

Keywords: erwan, heussaff, thefatkidinside, tawi tawi, tawi tawi philippines, tawi tawi documentary, mindanao, exploring tawi-tawi philippines, clearest water in the philippines, mindanao cuisine, mindanao cultural dance, fishing tuna, island philippines, tawi tawi island, philippines travel, philippines islands, philippines travel guide, philippines

Id: j61aD3H2Mns

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2019