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March 10th 2010

Published: March 14th 2010

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Nomadic Neaves

Taoist temple, San Fernando

OK, so we're not really in the Philippines anymore.
We're now home, and sadly our three month epic journey has come to an end. What a trip!

We've not posted for a while, as we really enjoyed the last couple weeks of chilling in different parts of the Philippines.

After flying out of Cairns, Australia we traveled to Manila. We found much of the Philippines is a great place to visit. However, Manila, the capital, does not remotely fall into this category. We hastily got out of the massive, smog-ridden town and bussed north to try to get in some more surfing, as we'd heard that San Fernando has reliable waves. It turns out 'reliable' is not the words we would use, as although there was a nice beach, the only waves to be seen were from departing tourists. Skimboarding was a brief but dangerous distraction for a while, and after a few days of beaching and poking through endless markets we headed back south to Manila, and then caught a flight to the island province of Palawan, the 'last frontier' of the Philippines. The Philippines are made up of over 7,000 islands-- island hopping is the big

Bizarre sign outside the temple

tourist draw, and we did our fair share.

We spent a few days based out of the capital city Puerto Princessa, where we paddled through part of an amazing underground river that wanders through impressive caverns and limestone formations, and squeezed in some island hopping and snorkeling. From there we deliberated making the long bumpy ride up to the north end of the island, and fortunately decided to make the trip. Although very hot, bumpy, and severely cramped (Philippino van seats are designed for short people!) the trip was well worth it.

After 7 hours in the barf-mobile, we got to El Nido, which ended up being one of the best parts of our trip. We did lots of incredible island hopping, impressive snorkeling (except for the boob-stinging jellyfish), checked out delicious beach restaurants (literally right on the beach), got great cheap massages and finished our trip in style. The pictures of the limestone cliffs and beaches just don't do the scenery justice, you have to go to believe it.

The trip back home was an epic three day journey (bus, tricycle, plane, taxi, shuttle van...) which might help delay the desire to travel for a little