For our time in the Philippines we had a rough idea of where we want to visit but no real set plan on the order and how to get there. We knew we wanted to head south after Boracay so after we’d waved off Eleanor in Caitaclan we caught a bus down to Iloilo with the plan to head over to Negros and beyond. We’d forgotten we’d actually done the 6 hour ride before in the opposite direction 3 years back and it was painless enough on a nice air-conditioned bus (386PHP) and with some good, bad and truly awful movies to keep us occupied along the way. We arrived in Iloilo in the dark and had chosen a guesthouse from the LP along the way so we had somewhere to head to. Unfortunately for us ... read more

Oh how plans change... As we said in our last blog our plans to return to life on the road have changed, changed and changed again since we returned back to the UK in February 2010. After a slightly longer stopover than we'd initially planned we are now just days (well tens of days) away from our next trip so what have we been doing in the 3 years we've been back home.. Well the most major thing was getting married back in February 2011 and we are looking forward to celebrating our 2nd anniversary in the country where it all came about.. The Philippines. This place will always be special to us as it was the place Dale got down on one knee and asked Sophie to be his wife and we feel sure that ... read more

We were looking forward to going back to Bangkok as it is one of our favorite citites, certainly our favourite in Asia anyway. It has everything you could want in a city.. fabulous shopping, cheap & tasty food, good and cheap (sometimes free!) public transport and loads to see and do. As is now typical of our time here Sophie had organised for us to come here for one thing and one thing only.. to shop.. Dale was delighted as always! We spent our days wanding the city, looking round the shopping centres and went on a silk buying mission to Little India to get some material for Sophie's mum which took us to a new area previously unexplored by us so we enjoyed walking around here too. Whilst browsing in Siam Paragon Dale engineered a ... read more

We'd been flapping a bit about where to spend Christmas so when we found a resort that was affordable we texted them straight away to try and book a room and thankfully they had a room free so that was sorted. This resort was on Cacnipa Island, a small island a 40 minute boat ride away from Port Barton. After a night spent in Port Barton to relax after our 6 hour dusty bus ride followed by a 1 hour bumpy rooftop ride on an overpacked jeepney we caught the boat over to the island on Christmas Eve. We were really happy with our choice because the resort was gorgeous with it's own little private beach and beautiful coconut tree garden behind. Our room was really nice, the food served on the island was mouthwatering and ... read more

To get to Coron we chose the ferry route which was surprisingly comfortable despite opting for the equivalent of 2nd class. We chose Superferry to sail with and it was a 15 hour crossing from Manila to Coron Town on Busuanga Island, part of the Calamianes group in Northern Palawan. We had reserved bunks and after a quick swap with another passenger so we could have adjacent top bunks, eating our disgusting included meal which was basically pork fat in salt with rice we settled down to a good nights sleep and woke up at 6.30am when we docked. We'd pre booked our accommodation here but as our room wasn't going to be ready until midday we decided we'd hire out a bike and explore the island so we didn't waste one of our few days ... read more