7,107 Tropical Islands' Shakes and Secrets

Every place, just like every face, holds a secret.

The Pyramids of Egypt cradle more than just mummified Pharaohs; Leonardo Da Vinci's Monalisa smile not in greeting but at what you know not. What lies beneath the Pyramids and what Monalisa grins about, only the desert and the canvas will ever know.

There is a place called the Philippines where the Sun god, the Sea goddess were said to have frolicked. Legend has it that the 7, 107 carelessly scattered yet mystic islands of the Philippine archipelago are the handiwork of the playful lovers who after picking daisies and chasing dragonflies would run to the beach and start throwing handful of sand at each other until they are short of breathe. At the end of the day, what remains is a messy playground with mounds of sand strewn about.

One night, a tumultuous storm came and the lovers were never seen the following morning and in the many mornings thereafter. But the lovers were never forgotten because the mounds of sand they have played with went to become the more than 7,000 islands of the Philippines.

No one exactly knows if the Sun god and the Sea goddess still hang out in this hideaway. What the natives and the whole world knows is that this islands has since become green paradise floating on the blue South Pacific.

Many believed that the story about how the islands surfaced is just a legend. Perhaps they are right, but a traveler who have set foot and wandered in its shores attests to the fact sun does not fail to kiss his darling sea each morning when he rises in the east and at dusk as he settles in the west for the night.

Every place, just like every face, holds a secret. Even the Garden of Eden holds a secret. What lurks behind wild flowers, what swims silently in the crystal waters, and what creeps underneath the bushes in this tropical paradise is a secret only the face of this one Adam of a blogger knows.

Mabuhay! Let's travel the Philippines. Run, jump, crawl, dive, swim, and hitchhiked along with me as I hop from one island paradise to the other on bare foot.

Together let's discover the untold tales of joy and sorrow in the cities and the countryside, listen to stories of legends, and hear the Filipino people laugh and wail.

GOD SPEED.