From Cebu we took the fast ferry over to Negros Oriental arriving in the early evening in Dumaguete a university town in the south. Unfortunately Dumaguete appears to have a constantly unappealing aroma.You all know what I mean, that kind of disgusting sewer smell that you always get on holiday. Well we've had our fair share of that over the last few months but this was particularly pooey. What would have been a lovely promenade along the seafront was ruined a ta...

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 han...

Leaving El Nido early in the morning we saw the most perilously overloaded Jeepney to date. It's not unusual to see people perched on the roof amidst an array of cargo but this was ingenious, unfortunately backpacks were being carried and there was no camera to hand to record this feat of balance. We took a van from El Nido to Roxas which was probably some of the worst driving I've experienced and I was glad to get out! Getting dumped in Roxas we headed for t...

An 8 hour 'ferry' (larger than usual Bangka) ride brought us safely from Busuanga to El Nido on the north of the main Palawan Island. The trip was rather stunning, passing by many secluded island where some extremely lucky people appear to have built their exclusive retreats. We met a couple of lovely Americans on the boat, Katie and Sean working in Indonesia and China respectively, what might have been a rather quiet 8 hours was certainly enhanced with some ex...

Following the chilly night bus escapades we spent an incredibly dull 9 hours in Manila airport waiting for an internal flight to Busuanga Island, Palawan. The boredom was punctuated with an extortionately priced cappuccino, an equally pricey giant pizza and free wifi (free wifi everywhere, simply marvellous). Many hours later we boarded our little propeller jet for the 40 minute flight to Busuanga. Soon we were on our way to Coron Town the main population centre ...