When you’ve got the travel bug, you always want to go everywhere, see everything and do everything. This, unfortunately, does not gel too well with the real world and it’s limitations of money and time. With that in mind, we need to start trimming some of the fat off of our trip. And what better way to do that then by enfranchising you, our readers? In an series of intermittent and in-no-particular-order face-offs, we will be asking you to help us decide which of two similar countries should stay on our itinerary, and which should get the boot. So please vote in the poll at the bottom, and leave us a comment in the comments section to enlighten us about why you voted the way you did.
In our first face-off, we’re looking at two island nations in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia or Philippines
So really, both of these countries are so enormous (and islands so numerous) that we will never see all of either one. The Philippines has over 7,000 islands, but that’s dwarfed by the over 18,000 islands that make up Indonesia. Both consist of a “main” island that is the home to a majority of the population, Java for Indonesia (124 of 234 million people) and Luzon for the Philippines (40 of ~80 million people). This means these two islands are not a particularly attractive travel destination for us, due largely to the overcrowded cities, development and pollution. Disagree? We want to hear about how wrong we are.
What we are more interested in is the “less developed” part of each country. We are largely looking at the Cebu region of the Philippines, and Borneo and Sumatra in Indonesia. A little more detail on each, you say? As you wish.
Cebu City is located on Cebu island in the center of the Philippines. It is a hub for the myriad of ferries that fan out to all of the smaller islands in the region, and a quaint city in its own right. Within easy reach by boat are (obviously) beautiful white sand beaches complete with crystal clear waters, reportedly some of the best preserved WWII shipwrecks for diving (we’ll worry about that certification thing later), and the cherry on top, swimming with whale sharks at Donsol (which is actually on the southern tip of Luzon island).
Borneo and Sumatra are raw and natural islands, some areas of which have still been undisturbed by man. Borneo is known as the home of Orang Utans, pygmy elephants and pygmy rhinos, while Sumatra has its own version of each of these species and more. On Borneo, river boats go up into the jungles and the native outpost villages that exist, which sounds entirely exotic and amazing. Sumatra is a touch more developed, but not dramatically so. Plus they each have their requisite beautiful beaches and opportunities for relaxation after all that action.
So there’s a bit of an introduction for you guys. It’s a tough decision. Both are relatively inexpensive, offer beautiful scenery with a touch of adventure, but in subtly different ways. Of course, we’ve only mentioned here what we found most interesting about each country, you may be interested in entirely different aspects. Here’s some places to find a little more information if you want to dig a little deeper before casting your vote.
World Travel Guide Philippines
Without further ado, open the polls!