traveller
our region
The sleepy town of Oslob is now a tourist destination after whale sharks appeared on its shores a year ago.
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Cebu essentials From swimming with whale sharks to eating the best suckling pig in the world, Susan Gough Henly immerses herself in the Philippines.
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bright red and white Zubuchon restaurants. What makes his lechon so special? The farm-raised pigs are stuffed with shallots, green onions, garlic, chillies, peppercorns, lemons, fresh thyme and rosemary, lemongrass, sea salt, and olive oil and the skin is rubbed with fresh coconut water. They are cooked rotisserie style in the old-fashioned way on bamboo poles and no MSG or soy sauce is added.
he oldest city in the Philippines and now a thriving port and manufacturing centre, Cebu is the country’s epicentre of Christianity and a gateway to more than 160 white-sand-rimmed islands and islets. For visitors, it offers a heady mix of Spanishinspired culture, fabulous food and interesting design stores as well as access to terrific snorkelling and diving. Here are 12 must-do adventures in this friendly Queen City of the South.
From the depths … a whale shark surfaces among the boats at Oslob (top); Cebu suckling pig impressed celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.
52 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine
Eat suckling pig. Anthony Bourdain followed his taste buds to Cebu and pronounced that they make the best lechon (Spanish for “suckling pig”) in the world on his television show No Reservations. His lechon consultant was Cebu native Joel Abueca Binamica, a retired banker who writes the Market Manila blog. After the broadcast, people begged Binamica to sell his lechon commercially and now he has five
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See the city’s most famous landmark, Magellan’s Cross, which is a powerful symbol of Christianity in the Philippines. The explorer Ferdinand Magellan planted the cross on this location when he landed here in 1521. The original cross is encased in hollow tindalo wood to prevent devotees from taking it home chip by chip.
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