I was recently commended by a Polish friend on keeping a blog so thorough and up to date throughout this trip. Here I am over a month into my visit to Australia, two weeks into another monumental road trip and not a single word about it all here. So here goes a lazy half hearted attempt at describing my time in Sydney. Our first shock upon arrival was how cold it was. A clear blue sky with a crisp wind blowing reminded my of Madrid in the winter and what it was like to feel cold. It took me a…
This, I’m afraid, is a bit of a half hearted attempt at a post. Sitting in the cold in Sydney it is hard to think back to what the 35 degree tropical islands of the Philippines were really like. In fact the last place we stayed at, Panglao Island, was much like the other places we visited in the Philippines. Beautiful soft white sand, coral reefs off the beach, expensive package holiday resorts and distinctly German menus in the restaurants (not a bad thing in itself but while in the Philippines it would make sense to eat Filipino food thus…
I’ve been too busy doing pretty much nothing over the last week to bother posting anything here. Met up with some familiar faces though, which was nice. I might get round to posting something about that this week. For the time being here is my June Photo… Sunset over Coron Town, Philippines.
You’re sat in the office on a dull afternoon reading this immensely interesting blog and quietly wondering to yourself, how can he afford all this? This round the world trip has been a long term plan of mine ever since uni when Jon and I said we would travel once we graduated. Well that didn’t happen due to money and the fact that I was enjoying Spain too much when Jon did set off. For this trip Espe and I had been saving for about a year, helped out by a pay rise (and an unexpected bonus a month before…
Our long journey from Coron to Malapascua got worse after the two flights and 10 hour wait in the cramped ill equipped Manila domestic terminal. After an overnight stay in Cebu we boarded a bus bound for the closest port to Malapacua island to be told that we were lucky, we had a “very good driver, very fast”. Not two things that necessarily go together in my mind. The guy had a heavy right foot, full throttle or full braking was all he knew. Add to that the constant swerving in and out of traffic to overtake regardless of oncoming…
Once again we found ourselves in a situation whereby we were uncertain on how to move onwards. Our plan was to move south to El Nido on Palawan for a few days and then go over land to Puerto Princessa followed by a ship over to Cebu. The problem we encountered was finding anyone who could give us reliable information about getting to El Nido. After loads of faffing about we came to the conclusion that to travel in the Philippines you need either lots of time or lots of money. There were ship / boat connections to various locations…
I’m standing on the back of a Bangka (Filipino style outrigger boat), San Miguel in hand, watching the sun reflect off the beautiful clear blue water. We are passing by the limestone cliffs of Coron Island to my right with the bizarre rolling Windows wallpaper type hills of Busuanga Island to my left. I wonder how two such topographically different islands lie side by side. After visiting as many “tropical paradise” islands as we have over the last three months they do start to lose their impact but standing back enjoying every sip of my San Miguel, the beauty of…