The couple of days spent in Puerto Princessa were not much to shout home about, a decent place to stay and some pretty dodgy meals.

So it was onwards to the Visayas and in particular Cebu, the Southern capital of the Philippines. Yet another wonderfully swift flight took us over the ocean to Cebu City. We set up home for a few days in the centre of town in a slightly run down hotel. Our room had no window which James was greatly disturbed by; I on the other hand was rather chuffed as it meant no road noise! The hotel boasted its own Spa, offering a sauna and massage, and for all you sceptics out there this was not one that kind of spa, though I did wonder when we discovered it was it was open for about 18 hours per day.

In need of a little exercise on our first morning along with some retail therapy we set off on foot to one of the large shopping malls. My tops are so disgusting having been worn constantly for months I'm almost embarrassed to wear them in public so this was an honourable pursuit that even James encouraged. After wandering in the scorching heat along extremely busy and smog filled streets we soon realised why there are so many taxis in Cebu, no one walks anywhere! Not to scupper our plans we continued on foot arriving finally at the mall sweaty, dishevelled and rather pooped.

First stop one of the many restaurants on the aptly named terraces. These places are so vast it's quite alarming. One could easily spend all day inside shopping, eating, gaming etc. This is no Westfield think more like mini city. Anyway food was delicious and soon we were shopping, one of my favourite activities which has almost been curbed into extinction so far on this trip. After much umming and ahhhing I made a few purchases, not as many as I would have liked but the backpack can only hold so much and believe me it's already bursting. Now I can finally chuck four particularly disgusting dishrag tops, hurrah. After a quick stop at the gelateria for some surprisingly authentic gelato we jumped into a cab (what crazy people walk?) back to the hotel.

The city has a couple of historic sites including an old fort and a couple of museums well worth seeing. After a bit of culture we agreed it was worth sampling some of the decent eateries and gambling opportunities so dolled up to the nines, me in a newly purchased beach dress, James in his trusty camo shorts but complete with shirt, we trekked off to a restaurant and the casino. Dinner at a pretty authentic Mexican place was delicious, hung on the walls were a few odd items aimed at adding character I imagine. In particular was a super sized set of buffalo horns. We were hoping to conjure up a cleverly crafted 'jamirouquai' photograph until a group of selfish people arrived and sat directly below them.

Mistakenly I thought the casino might be something out of Casino Royal albeit a cheaper alternative and was looking forward to a little glitz and glamour. Ah, not quite, this was more gala bingo than the Bellagio. Oh well time to make the best of things and get gambling, off to the 10 peso slot machines. Those machines are mad, I have no idea how they are supposed to work so just kept feeding it pesos and pressing buttons. I appeared to win a few but James surpassed himself, the thing wouldn't stop spitting out coins for about 10 minutes, a fabulous start to our gambling evening or was this just a trick of the casino to lull us into a false sense of security.

And so on to the Roulette table. Having had a very sensible adult discussion about how much we were prepared to bet our pile of chips arrived. Somehow we managed to double our money, it must be beginners luck. Looking at James watch we realised just how many hours had ticked by so it was off to bed rather pleased with ourselves and our winnings. Gene we think you would have been impressed.