Zamboanga, the "pearl of the south Philippines", grew up around a 1635 Spanish fort known as Real Fuerza de San Jose, built by Jesuit priests to propagate Catholicism in the face of opposition from local Muslims, and Portuguese, Dutch and English forces.
The streets are full of jeepneys bearing slogans such as "Jesus of Nazareth" and "Keep on Praying". There is a Muslim district known as Rio Hondo with a shiny silver mosque and houses built on piles linked by flimsy footbridges. The harbour is crowded with ferry boats plying to and from the tropical Sulu islands.
On the sea front is the Lantaka Hotel (where I am writing this). Breakfast here in the cool of early morning is a delight, with fresh mangoes and papaya, and aromatic coffee from local plantations. Dinner is served at the waterside by the light of flaming torches. The seafood is particularly good in Zamboanga, which is famous for steamed spider crabs called curacha and large clams served as marisco en la horno.
The people are mostly friendly and hospitable. They include Filipinos and members of several ethnic minorities, like the Yakan people who hail from the island of Basilan on the southern horizon, where the capital, Isabela, is equally enchanting, and the Tausugs from Jolo, further south. All the signs on the Zamboanga streets are in English, though the people speak a multiplicity of tongues, including Chavacano, or Bamboo Spanish, which is a mixture of Spanish and Philippine languages.
This is one of the most exotic places on earth, rich in colourful festivals, with long sandy beaches and spectacular coral reefs, and inexpensive by international standards.
However any tourist writing a postcard home from Zamboanga would have to say "Glad you are not here". In fact foreigners are rarely seen in this tropical paradise, and those who do venture this far south in the Philippines are advised not to go anywhere unaccompanied, to avoid Basilan and Jolo especially, and to stay in the hotel in the evenings.
In recent years a German businessman was kidnapped in Zamboanga and held for ransom, and two Belgians were picked up by pirates in the waters just off the Lantaka Hotel. The kidnappings by Muslim extremists of foreign tourists presently held on Jolo, and the seizure of schoolchildren on Basilan, has ensured that this will for many years be a paradise lost for adventurers, explorers, backpackers and tour groups. The southern Philippines has become a black hole for tourism, on a par with Yemen and Uganda where foreign travellers have been killed.
The list of danger zones in south-east Asia has been steadily growing in the last two years, mostly because of Christian-Muslim conflicts. Sometimes a wrong impression is given. Malaysia has been damaged by the fact that the 21 mostly foreign tourists taken hostage by Abu Sayyaf rebels from Jolo were diving on the isolated Malaysian island of Sipadan, a 45-minute boat ride from Philippine waters.
The rest of Malaysia remains perfectly safe for tourists. Rob Pelton, author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, who spent time with Abu Sayyaf last year, said: "This incident with the Western hostages is similar to Uganda in that people bought a holiday package to somewhere safe but forgot to look at a map and see they were close to a rebel camp or an ongoing war."
In Indonesia's Spice Islands, tourism has been killed off by the bloody religious war of the last year. Japan and the US warn against travel to Lombok, the Indonesian resort island near Bali where anti-Christian violence broke out on in January. Australians I know who went there at Easter found the island peaceful, and the luxury hotels offering the cheapest prices in south-east Asia. Most of the Philippines' 7,000 islands are also safe but the country is abandoning hope of a planned 15 per cent rise in its 2.5 billion dollar tourism trade this year.
"Starting on May 3rd, the tour agents and hotels started receiving cancellations," said the Philippine Tourism Secretary, Gemma Cruz-Araneta. "The images on television, repeated several times a day, are giving the impression there is always something new and horrible happening here."
Unfortunately, these days there mostly is.