Mindinao Islands
The Land of Promise
Mindanao is a corruption of Maguindanao, People of the Lake. Evidence from stone tools suggests that the area has been inhabited for at least 10,000 years and there is a great deal of evidence of early trade as far away as China.
In more recent times, Ferdinand Marcos was busy resettling Christians in the area, by massacring or otherwise encouraging to leave the Muslim Moro people and the indigenous Lumad. This reached a boiling point in 1968 with the Jabidah Massacre of Moro army recruits by Marcos forces.
Things have been tense ever since, and as recently as 2017 the whole place was put under martial law due to a war between Philippine forces and the Islamic State of Lanao.
Mindanao is also famous for its durian fruit, which apparently smells like turpentine and onions with a hint of gym sock, and will make your breath smell like you have been kissing your dead grandmother. Durians are banned from Singapore's mass transit system along with smoking, eating and flamable goods. The fruit also blocks aldehyde dehydrogenase, the enzyme used by your liver to break down alcohol. So there is a piece of ancient Asian wisdom that states that eating durian whilst consuming alcohol can be fatal.
And beaches. Nice beaches in Mindanao. So let's go take a look.