Kara and Nate (travel vloggers) document a trip in the Philippines—invited by the Department of Tourism—to explore Samar and Leyte. The chunk covers travel from Tacloban to Halangamon Island (boat ride), local food tasting (taho, kinilaw, adobo, humba, coconut wine, rice cake), beach activities (kayaks, paddle boards, snorkeling, clam seeding), camping overnight in a simple wooden teepee with sunset/sunrise scenes, and a closing teaser sending viewers to future episodes (including Coron). The hosts note they are in self-quarantine in Singapore and frame the series as inspiration for future travel planning.
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This is how I've always pictured the Philippines. That is some of the bluest water I have ever seen. Real quick, before we start this video, we wanted to remind you again that we are not traveling and we are currently on day 21 of self quarantine here in Singapore. At this point, Carrie even has me wearing a robe.
We have absolutely loved hearing that our videos have helped bring some joy to your homes during this tough time that we're all going through. And we really hope that this video does the same. So enjoy the Philippines.
We are Kara and Nate, and we've been traveling the world full time for the last four years. Our journey has taken us to 100 countries and we are super excited to be visiting the Philippines for a second time. The Department of Tourism has invited us back to this beautiful country to explore the provinces of Samar and Leyte. Yesterday we ventured into the Samar province to explore Asia's second largest cave system.
And today we are heading across the province of Leyte to get to a stunningly beautiful island where we'll be spending the night. But first, we have a bit of a journey ahead of us. We are currently in the city of Tacloban. And now we have a two hour drive across the island.
What a beautiful drive. As soon as we got into the countryside, we. We were just surrounded by vibrant green rice fields with palm trees in every direction we looked. And I think it's just gonna get more beautiful from here.
So this is the soy guy. He sells this local drink called taho. He has this giant metal pot of this white, jiggly soy stuff. And then he added in some brown, I think, like liquid sugar syrup and what looks like little boba bubbles. Looks very unique. Apparently it is a Filipino staple and I had to try.
Okay. It's really warm. That kind of threw me off. But the taste is very mild. It kind of tastes like oaty. I guess the soy bean, like, kind of has that, like, I feel like I'm drinking oatmeal. Pretty good breakfast. Thank you.
Oh, nice. All right.
Gotta walk the plank to get to our boat.
All right, from here we have a one hour boat ride to our final destination of Halangamon Island.
Wow.
This is how I always pictured the Philippines.
This is incredible. Some of the bluest water that I've ever seen in my entire life. Quite a few boats here at the moment, which makes me even more excited that we're spending the night because hopefully everybody has to leave. And later this evening, we'll have the place all to ourselves.
We are so excited to explore the rest of this island. But first, it's lunchtime and it's a feast. This is all for us. Okay. Sam's our local expert. He's going to tell us what everything is. So we'll start from this side of the table. It might take us a while to get to the other side.
Let's do this.
What is this called?
They call that.
It looks like art. What is this called?
I'm not an expert.
Okay.
John.
Like, the most beautiful shell I've ever seen. What is this? That's salty dried fish.
Exactly.
Huge plants. Kinilau. This is basically Filipino ceviche with coconut milk. An entire fish. We have crabs and very big prawns. Adobo, that is chicken. The humba is the pork. And we'll wash it all down with some locally made coconut wine. All right, I got one of everything. And I'm gonna eat with my hands because that's what the Filipinos do. Trying this little clam. That is huge. Do I eat this whole thing?
Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, thank you. Coconut juice. This is great. This looks like a vegetable. Soy sauce.
I think I should have just eaten the whole thing. Oh, my gosh. That is so good. Like, melts in my mouth. Like this, like, skin part that's coming off is, like, salty. So tender.
So first you have to remove this one.
Okay.
Now that. This one?
Yeah.
Open here.
Getting lessons on how to open a crab. I'm so sorry.
And it's okay.
Is everyone okay?
It's okay. That's a good little.
You can get this one.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Oh, my gosh. It's amazing. Whoa.
Filipino version of a Reese's peanut butter cup.
Whoa.
Whoa. All right, I better stop there since we've got to spend the rest of the day at the beach in our bathing suits.
Yay. All right, we have kayaks, we have paddle boards. We have those goofy full face snorkel masks. And we are about to spend the entire afternoon in the sun.
And then when we get back, we're going to show you where we're staying tonight. This is dramatically different than yesterday's kayak trip.
A little bit more sunshine.
That's fun. We're going to go visit some local fishermen.
Yeah. No reel, no pole. All by hand.
Made it.
Amazing.
Yeah.
The giant clumps. It's huge. Can I hold it?
Huge.
Sorry. I'm sorry. It just startled me. Okay, so we are currently clam seeding. This entire area of the ocean is like a marine garden.
Yeah.
And they're preserving these clams because they're unique to the Philippines and very rare, and they filter the seawater. I'm putting the clam in his new home.
Oh, you can see it's got, like, a mouth.
Okay, so Nate made fun of these, but I've always wanted to try one. These giant snorkel mask that your whole face goes in. I am your father.
If this works, this is going to be incredible.
This is my first time swimming through my house underwater.
Okay, now, before it gets dark, let me show you where we're sleeping tonight. This is it. I was gonna do, like, a room tour, but why don't you just take a look for yourself?
How good is this? This is it. It is just a wooden teepee, and all that's inside is a mattress, two pillows, a blanket that we won't use, no electricity, and the doors don't even cover the whole house. But it doesn't even matter. We're going to sleep with them open because look at this view.
And the best part about staying in the TP isn't the teepee itself. It is 5:30. There's one, two, three boats left, and it is just us and the locals.
This sandbar was filled with foreigners just an hour ago. And now the sun is setting, and it's just casting this beautiful glow on everything right now.
Oh, it does not get much better than this. We busted into the coconut wine. We're having chips for dinner. And that was one of the most incredible sunsets I've ever seen.
Ooh, that's strong.
It leaves your tongue feeling fuzzy.
I like it. It's been such a good day. I can't imagine if we wouldn't have stayed the night. This has been the best part of the day.
100%. After everybody else has left, having the island all to ourselves.
Good morning. 5:30, the moon's still up. The sun's about to rise. That's surprisingly good.
It is totally worth making the trip to this island just for the sunrise. And the sun sets, and there are these long, winding sand bars on both sides. And the sun sets on the tip of one and rises on the tip of the other. It's pretty much perfect. Are you holding up a cup of coffee? Pretty good so far. There's only one thing wrong with the island.
We finally managed to find some coffee, ate a delicious breakfast, and now we're about to put pack up and start our journey back to Tacloban on the ferry.
This is just the start of our Philippine series. Tomorrow we're heading off on our own to the breathtakingly beautiful island of Coron and where we're sleeping tomorrow. You'll just have to wait and see. The teepee was cool, but it's going to be awesome. We know a lot of people are stuck at home right now, and while now is not the time to be traveling, it is a great time to start planning your next adventure. And if you don't know where that is yet, we think you should strongly consider the Philippines.
We're going to be showing you more awesome places coming up in this series that you can use for your planning. But we also recommend following the Philippines on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for more ideas on incredible places to visit in this country.
I've never seen anything like, oh, it's dripping, it's juicy. So I think I just pull on this little thing.
Wow, that's a lot of meat.
I like it.
Okay, next. This end.
Yeah. Good. Careful.
Okay, good.
That's it.
There it is. Look at that meat.
Yeah.
Thank you for the lessons. We are trying done yet. It is a Filipino staple from what we've been told, and they basically, basically take an entire fish and turn it into chips. Here it goes.
Oh, wow.
I really, really like this. I love salty, crunchy things. It kind of weirds me out that there's an eyeball right here, but it's delicious.
And last but not least, the rice cake. I feel like when they're all rice based, I start to run out of unique words to describe them. This is a very nice, light, not near as sweet as the rest version of rice. Cooked another way.
