Oh. My. God. Our hostel, Bamboo Billabong Backpackers, offers a great price (£5.10 a night) but my word you suffer at their hands. In the night we were shown to our room which turned out to be a wicker shed around the back of the establishment. Our 'double bed' was the size of a very single bed and had a luminous and holed mosquito net adorning it. The height of the bed left about a foots clearance from the roof, meaning that we had to slide in sideways and look...

With a promising weather forecast we optimistically rented a scooter (for double the price of Bohol - El Nido is far more expensive than anywhere else we have been in the Philippines) and set out for Nacpan Beach, a fifty minute drive North of El Nido. The roads for the majority of the journey were winding though good quality and wide. Filipinos were raking our rice on black netting all along the roads, drying there produce in the sun while the rain was elsewher...

Looking wistfully out from the beach at the fleets of banca boats on the calm water we waited for our crew to give us the green light to board. We ended up being one of the last boats to leave the bay - very annoying. To add salt to the wound they then said - as we were motoring away from the shore - that we wouldn't be going to the Small and Big Lagoon, the two main sites on the tour, as Ms Philippine was having pictures taken there for her Ms Universe campaign...

Scoffing a quick breakfast and hammering black coffee into our systems highlighted that we were late for our mini van. Our driver dutifully waited however and soon we were off amongst an eclectic bunch of foreigners to El Nido. The drive was six hours long and one that I wasn't looking forward to very much. Being a prepared and organised individual I had downloaded the Lord of the Rings trilogy to my phone so that I could will away the miles. I was also still re...

Today was drearily uninteresting. We spent another millennia in the vortex where time stands still and planes seldom leave (Manila Airport) and made our way to Puerto Princesa. Asia Airways seem to love making customers shudder - they always include a complimentary dicey take off and landing, whether due to turbulence or pilot boredom I don't rightly know. But, we did get there and we were alive so we can't complain too much (they're rubbish though). When we ...