OK, so it's an old thread, but here's my two pence: buy your parang in country. You'll be able to choose from thousands, they are cheap (£4-£10 in Indonesia, £10-£20 in Malaysia) and they do the job.
One other point: some people (my mum included) seem to think that parang are for hacking trails through the bush. This is typically not the case - the jungle is a strange place, or rather a mosaic of strange places, but even in completely virgin forest you can usually move about without blazing a trail. Parang are mostly for chopping/splitting firewood, shaping wood, building shelters, digging for roots, cutting drainage channels around your shelter etc.
My favourite style of parang, parang Karo, comes from northern Sumatra in Indonesia.