On arrival in Manila I was greeted by Dominique (friend from Uni those that don't know) and Paddy - fantastic to see both of them. Once we had left Dom's air conditioned jeep however, I was all too aware how inappropriate most of my luggage was - expect a package home (sleeping bag, gloves, hat, scarf, hoody joggers and more ridiculous items for sweltering heat). Those checking my bags at the airport thought I was a madman.

Anyway, Paddy and I enjoyed 5 days in Manila - a little too long perhaps simply because we didn't leave ourselves enough time to get to many other places (its logistically very hard to get between a country with over 7000 islands). We had both been travelling with girls recently, however, so we decided to have some guy yime; 30p a beer made this idea a certainty. We dominated the local pool hall and bars, catching some live music, exchanging stories and laughing at all the fat white men walking around with beautiful, young Filipino women (apparently 75% of tourists to the Phillipines come for the sex tourism). We eventually decided to move on and immediately ran into problems. Most flights were fully booked, but we managed to find an overnight ferry heading south, so we took it. It stops in a harbour town called Coron but we were told that from here we could catch another small boat to a beautiful, remote region called Palawan that was famous for its beaches and relaxed living (perfect). Except we didn't make it. We missed one boat and were told to wait three days for the next. A spectacular failure really. Luckily, this same day we bumped into a local man called Pitan. (Ca)Pitan owned a boat and said he could take us island hopping for 3 days. Why not? To make it cheaper for us he also managed to talk two Danish girls into coming as well. So there we are: 4 tourists, 3 days, 2 boatman and 1 boat to sail around the region (consisting of over 1000 small islands.) Plan....