Modesta, weekend of the 16th–17th; 2 nights at Ate Meriem’s.

We arrived in Modesta in the early afternoon; it was very cloudy. We met up with Marlon’s entire family: his grandmother, Great-Aunt Valing, his uncle, and all his aunts with their children. Marlon also reunited with many of his old friends…

Meriem welcomed us into her new home, which she’s proud of but which isn’t quite finished yet. It was built recently because the old one had been swept away by torrential floodwaters last year due to a typhoon and the river overflowing… The water rose as high as 2 meters.

Every year, the Philippines is ravaged by typhoons, rising waters, and landslides. In the past, torrential rains occurred during the peak of the rainy season—July and August, sometimes extending into September. But since global warming and deforestation, it has become impossible to truly predict this kind of threat. Super Typhoon Juan (international name Megi) was reported a few days earlier, 980 km east of Luzon.

In the evening, it’s party time in the village—beer and alcohol are flowing freely, and karaoke keeps everyone entertained. Partly because Laurent had mentioned it, but also because the family loves it. In the end, it was Seb who sang all night long—in Tagalog, no less! We had a blast; I filmed the whole thing.

On Sunday, it was impossible to get accurate information about the typhoon; the only news was that it was expected to arrive overnight from Sunday to Monday. Everyone in Modesta and everywhere else was on high alert. We spent our day in Riverside. So much has changed since our last visit 9 years ago—the place is cleaner and safer, with new buildings… In Modesta, too.

We stayed there for two nights.

At 5 a.m. on Monday, a friend of Meriem’s, Alan, dropped us off at the domestic airport. But it wasn’t the right one—there are three different terminals for inter-island travel. Since Alan and Meriem had already left, we took a taxi. Luckily, there weren’t any traffic jams yet. We finally arrived at Terminal 2 right on time. We were worried because we didn’t know if our flight would be canceled due to the typhoon. But the typhoon was running late—perhaps to let us go to Palawan. A long island at the southwestern tip of the country. The plane took off at 8:00 a.m. and arrived in Puerto Princesa at 9:20 a.m., with a lot of turbulence.

We read in the newspapers that the typhoon had passed the Philippines and was stuck in the South China Sea, nearly 400 km away from us. That’s what brought us the bad weather, clouds, and rain. But the sun was still out. On the news, they reported that the typhoon might return to the Philippines even stronger and more intense. A total of 10 people died across Luzon. The Filipinos were very well prepared. The worst damage was in Banaue, where the rice harvest was due to take place in a week..

The Palawan airport is located right in the city center. It’s an old-fashioned city center, muddy, with barely cemented roads. There are many wooden houses and nipahat (traditional houses made of woven wooden panels). Our hotel, the Microhotel, is located 9 km from the center, a 30-minute van ride away.

It’s situated on a marshy site full of mangroves. It’s a nice hotel, offering a different view from what we’ve seen so far. Calm, wave-free seawater from the Sulu Sea.

The hotel offers a free van shuttle service to town at certain times of the day. We took the opportunity to go out for dinner in town that evening at the Tiki Restaurant, which had live music and very good food. We went back early because we were exhausted, except for Laurent, who went to check out another bar.

The next day, we swam in the pool and then headed into town, where we had a huge and delicious lunch. Seb and Laurent stayed at that restaurant-bar. Marlon and I went for a walk and returned to the hotel so we could explore the mangrove swamp in daylight, where the water had receded almost entirely. There we discovered incredible flora and fauna: starfish and other oddities of nature. For example: large white tentacles sticking out of the rocks.

We’ll never know what they were…

In the evening, we tried another Kanabuche restaurant. We hailed a tricycle to head back, but after a kilometer, its tire blew out. We took another one back to the hotel.

Last day in Palawan, 7 a.m., bright sunshine—the four of us have breakfast, then catch our flight to transit through Manila. At 3 p.m., we board another flight to Taglibiaran Airport in Bohol.

Our hotel is the Bohol Beach Club…