The 4 hour bus from Paraty to Ihlabela was really scenic. I think I read that stretch is known as the Emerald Coast (or something similar), and for a good reason. Luscious green mountains to the right, blue water to the left. We a passed a lot of enticing little beach towns on the way - if we were driving ourselves we probably would have stopped many times, maybe for the night. But on the bus we had to just hang tight and enjoy the scenery. Ilhabela is an island (ilha means island in portuguese), reached by a short 15 minute ferry ride from Sao Sebastiao on the mainland coast. The ferry is for cars too, and is actually free for pedestrians. Luckily the ferry departs fairly close to the bus station in Sao Sebastiao so ... read more

Already falling behind in the blogs and we've barely started our trip! We'll see if I can keep pace... I'm counting day 1 of our honeymoon as our travel day from L.A. to Rio de Janiero. Normally I wouldn't count it as a day but it was awesome so it counts. The reason it was awesome is all thanks to our good friend Jeremy who hooked us up with first class tickets. His dad is a pilot so he gets a certain number of standby tickets to use - and we could get first class if it was available. First class was full on the way from LAX to Miami but we got on first class from Miami to Brazil. That was the leg that counted. We got a 5 course meal, free drinks, ipads for ... read more

Boracay was our last stop of our 6 month journey. AAAAUUGGHHHH! I still can't believe how fast this trip went. Boracay is an island that is home to a beautiful 2 km stretch of white sand - and is also the most popular and overdeveloped tourist area in the Philippines. Still, it's pros outweighed the cons for us. As long as you don't mind saying "no" to hundreds of touts a day, the beach really is top notch. That is, as long as you don't mind wading through a few feet of green slime on your way out into the ocean - that was a little weird. Our plan was to do nothing for the 4 days we were there, and I think we executed the plan nicely. Just hanging out at the beach, swimming (past ... read more

We spent one night in Manila, in between Coron and Donsol. Basically all we did in Manila was drop off our bags at our hotel and head straight to the Mall of Asia. The Mall of Asia pales in comparison to the Mall of America in Minnesota, but it was still pretty impressive. They have an ice rink, a bowling alley, and an IMAX theater among many other things. We had a pretty great time there. After exploring a bit we hit up the ice rink for some ice skating. Steph learned of my secret talent for ice skating. I'm really not very good at all but she is terrible so I guess she was impressed. For dinner I had a Wendy's double cheeseburger. Steph had a few pretzels from Annie's. Ahhhh, American junk food. We ... read more

El Nido is the crown jewel of Palawan, and rightfully so. It is surrounded by over 1000 islands of the Bacuit Archipelago, many of which are a short boat ride away from town. The island hopping is amazing. The boat ride from Port Barton to El Nido took about 5 hours. It was pleasant enough, but the longer ride when compared to the Sabang-Port Barton trip had us dreading the much longer El Nido to Coron trip to come. As we got close to El Nido we marveled at all the karst limestone islands. The cliffs go straight down to the water, with an overhang 5-10 feet above the water due to erosion. Most islands have little hidden coves of white sand beach. The town of El Nido is surrounded by limestone cliffs, making it a ... read more