Our original plan didn’t include the Philippines, but after meeting several people who told us, this was a must, we decided to give it a try.

Our time has been split across three different areas. Firstly Palawan & Coron, Bohol and Cebu and then Luzon island.

Arriving into Palawan was a bit of a culture shock, even after 6 months in Asia. Things looked pretty different. For one there was a lot more colour in the buildings and the cars. The wonderful jeepneys and tri cycles were scootering around whilst we were being transported 7 hours north to the small town of El Nido. As we drove across the island you could see the levels of poverty were much more intense, with people living in bamboo huts on the side of the road. But alongside a backdrop of stunning scenery it made for quiet a dramatic drive up the island. As we neared our destination the heavens opened and we were reminded that we were travelling in rainy season once again!

El Nido town is actually very small, and has a huge amount of building work going on around near the bay. There are a lot of labourers living in small shanty huts all around the town and next to our home stay. At night you’d see them sitting outside sinking beers or washing their clothes in buckets. Such a contrast to the tourists strolling around in flip flops with cameras.

The main attraction to El Nido is actually offshore around the archipelago of islands dotted around. We took a tour from a local cafe where we explored blue lagoons, coral reefs and stunning little hidden beaches that you had to climb through holes in a rocks to access. As with most of the attractions we’ve been to in Asia nothing was isolated from crowds, but thankfully the places are beautiful enough to keep you distracted from the groups of tourists elsewhere. We did manage to get a bit of time to ourselves in the big lagoon, which had transparent waters and an almost eliminated blue glow to it.

We also met a lovely Irish couple that day and hooked up with them in the evening to watch the England match against Panama!

Our next day was our wedding anniversary, so we decided to head out on a scooter and explore the island. We’d been lucky, so far, with scooters and managed to not gain the tourists tattoo of grazed knees or elbows but today our luck ended. As I sat on the scooter and pointed to the fact that the petrol gauge wasn’t working, the lady renting us the bike decided to put her hand on the accelerator to check and this sent me flying into the line of scooters before I managed to stop the bike but falling on my side. A very small and slow crash but there we go it finally happened to us! The rest of the ride across to Nacpan beach was sublime, palm trees, coconut trees and rice paddies all the best bits of Asian countryside!

In the evening we headed to a small bar that we’d heard had a pretty good sunset view, and well, they weren’t wrong!

Because we had such a great tour the first time ( e.g the boat didn’t look like it would sink, and they didn’t ask us for extra money for things) we took a second trip out to another set of islands. This time the snorkelling was much more of highlight and we were dropped off at some awesome sights around the islands, including an alcove which had a large coral base drop as we entered. Hard to explain but very cool to be swimming around.

From Palawan we jumped aboard the ferry to our next island of Coron. Unfortunately I seemed to develop food poisoning as soon as we arrived, which made our first day pretty uneventful. We had started to become a custom to the less developed type of accommodation but our first hostel pushed us a bit to far out of comfort zone. The room was boiling and the window tiny so no air circulated. Outside the back the concerns that you see wandering around all day began their morning calls at 5 am and didn’t stop until maybe lunchtime. Every minute one would go off!

Fortunately we managed to find a new place a little less crazy and we stayed with a wonderful family. They had some small children, one of which called Mandy welcomed us to the hostel and asked us where we were from. She also introduced us to their tiny dog christoff.

For our brief time on the island we decided to see more of the islands around us and hopefully the odd ship wreck under the waters. Lots of Japanese ships had sunk in the area during ww2, and these had been turned into somewhat of a tourist attraction now. We met some lovely Filipinos on the tour who acted as a bit of a translator between the guide and us and also just were super friendly during the trip. The trip itself was a bit of a disaster, as we stayed in the dock for two hours before leaving and then had to rush through the sites before making it back before ‘the head office closed’. By now, olly and I had become very relaxed at things like this happening around Asia; otherwise we would have been pretty frustrated a few times in the past 6 months.

For our second day we decided to get some exercise and take a hike up to the highest peak we could see on the island; Beautiful scenery and not a sole in sight for the whole walk! Perfect. Again the Philippines has blown us away with its spectacular sights and scenery.

From Coron we flew to Cebu via the smallest airport we will ever go to. One check in desk, and one boarding queue. Even the local bus ticket vendors describe the airport as a ‘cowshed’. There isn’t any hay, nor cows, but plenty of birds flying around and some old school scales for weighing bags!

This next leg of the journey was a bit of a mammoth one, including a taxi into the city, a boat to another island (Bohol) and then another Tricycle ride across the island. The journey took us through lots of small villages until we reached our mini resort town where bars and restaurants sprouted up from nowhere! Thankfully we had booked a room a bit out of town, and well, down a dirt track. The heat in the Philippines was pretty intense in our first few days, so our non air con room was well, difficult to be in. We upgraded for a night to a room with aircon, but only because the England match was on and we needed access to a tv. Olly didn’t have to twist my arm too much to agree to the extra money.

Our time in Bohol was short and sweet. We put our padi course to use and dived a small island call Balicasag. Incredible to swim so close to turtles and see the best coral we had seen so far. It was a huge cliff edge of the most colourful and diverse coral and animal life I had seen. I spotted a very tropical Lionfish and tonnes of Nemos and huge school of jack fish school. Both of us really enjoyed the dive and had a great guide Who snatched a chinese guys camera and got snap happy with us and the wildlife. So happy, to have captured some of time under water.

Our second day was jam packed again but on land. We rented a scooter and headed to the tasier sanctuary. It was interesting to hear how the guides spend two hours in the morning searching for the 5 tasiers in the sanctuary and then once found, they stand by them all day to point them out to tourists.

From there we drove across the toninfamous chocolate hills. A quick google of the Philippines and these hills are likely to pop up. Being wet season they were actually green (!) but anyway great to see these weird formations and to learn how they are formed from coral deposits. This was a very typical attraction in a sense. After being in Asia for a while you can see some places are an attraction for the purpose of selfie taking rather than engaging with place and understanding the environment. More often than not we’d find ourselves watching throngs of Asian tourists do mini photo shoots in these places, rather than being interested in the sight themselves.

The journey itself across the island to these two points was awesome. We did, at one point, come across an unofficial tourist stop where we found tourists laying or sitting in the road trying to get selfies... we didn’t stop to try!

And from Bohol we returned to Coron, assuming this old capital citadel would have some interesting things to keep us occupied for day. Alas we found a very busy, noisy and run down town and resorted to seeing a very bad Keanu Reeves film to pass the time! Even the locals walked out of the film!

We then took our final flight back to the island of Luzon, and the city of Legaspi on the west of the island. legaspi is famous for one thing, and as you approach by air or land you will see for yourself. A massive very active volcanoe towering over the town and on a clear day, a small cloud of smoke is always hovering on top.

We took the unconventional route of a quad bike to explore. We got ourselves up to the latest lava flow created when it exploded properly years ago. We spent the rest of our time with no specific plans walking the local area, talking to the kids and playing basketball with them.

The Philippines has been one of the most welcoming places. So many people we passed would great us with ‘welcome to the philippines’, and almost everyone would smile back if you smiled at them; rather than think you were being socially awkward as they would in England. These small things go along way to making us feel comfortable and welcome in a country.