Hello! The next week was a little up and down: a great little adventure, but one which I would have preferred to have had more time to enjoy. It was a classic case of not being able to do exactly what I wanted to do (i.e. go to Palawan), or to have the freedom to make mistakes, explore, and seek out the best locations to spent time in - the sort of freedom I was afforded when travelling around Latin America. So, for my last few days in the Philippines I had ...

Hello! After a very rushed trip from Indonesia to the Philippines, punctuated by a very welcome 5-hour transit at the world's most entertaining airport (Changi in Singapore), I eventually arrived at my hostel in the Makarti Avenue area of Manila. I stayed in a very peculiar place called Our Melting Pot, which was essentially a penthouse apartment in a very posh development which they'd just jammed a bunch of bunk beds into. A great idea, and a friendly place...