Philippines Part one, eating Balot!!!

I have arrived in the Philippines and will stay here for three weeks, so the perfect opportunity to tell you a bit about a country I haven’t been to yet. I have already been in 55 countries but this Paradise of over 7000 Islands with 70 languages has still escaped, so it is about time to come here.

During most of the travels here in Philippines we will take the traditional methods of Tricycle, Jeepney and bus, but a friend of my girl friend organized us a van, so it is easier with the entire luggage to travel. It is hot here, around 31⁰ C so it is nice to have the luxury to have a van.

We are living about 2 hours outside Manila, a bit in the mountains towards Tagaytay. So it is not as hot as in town. Manila is actually several cities which grew together so it is a huge city, always congested with traffic and of course very polluted. Being out here in Silang, Cavite is lovely, fresh air, less traffic, it just takes a long time if one needs to get into Manila, the longest was nearly 4 hours with heavy traffic.

I know there was again a little time space between the blogs, but I was busy being on holiday and instead of writing I just simply enjoyed the beauty of the country I am in

I don’t know why, but here in the Philippines it is all about eating, food and markets. Everybody has a little stand selling something, being it sweets, savouries, drinks or anything one needs. My first experience here with traditional foods is that we had Balot.

Balot is a delicacy that again could come from Andrew Zimmern’s strange foods. It is duck eggs where the baby duck is already in, very small still, but one can see it. I had a lot of strange foods in my life, but this is one of the most difficult ones to eat, just thinking about the baby duck. The eggs are cooked and eaten hot.. One opens the egg a little bit, sprinkles a bit salt on it and then drinks the juice. It is a clear juice tasting of....eggs!

Then one takes the rest of the shell away, there is a hard white part which is not eaten, then the egg yolk and the chicken. I left the chicken and ate everything else. It strangely tastes nice, just very eggy. So that was my first experience with Balot. Would I eat it again? Yes I would, just not too often.