That bloody rooster. Every morning. Every bloody morning. 6AM on the dot. I find that I eat chicken with even more vigour than usual in the afternoons as a result of opening my stinging eyeballs in the morning to stare mutinously at the bottom of the bunk above me with that sodding thing squarking next door! Oh yes, me and Chelsea are now sharing a single bottom bunk - for anyone that doesn't know chelsea can emit the heat of a volcanic eruption and kick better t...

As Chelsea is selfishly doing here PADI open water course, which I didn't do due to financial restraints and a lingering ear infection, I was left to wander Panglao on my tod. In order to entertain myself I thought that it was high time that I learnt to ride a motorbike, and where better to learn than a foreign country where there are no rules and no NHS? I scouted out a particularly exotic looking little ditty and beat Jorge, the salesman, down from 800PHP a d...

At the beach for 6am wasn't all that bad. The sun rise crept up on our left and the water looked inviting as it crested over the white sand. The only people around us were bangkur sailors, scrambling towards tourists trying to get them to take up their identical day trip. One thing we noticed (which I applauded) was that when they realised you were already in negotiations with another banca owner they would walk away and leave you to it, not wanting to step on th...

It's lashing down. I feel everything I ever read telling me to come to the Philippines in January - February for the best weather should be burnt. That being said, we decided to carpe that diem and head toward Loboc and Bilar and we decided to do it on a scooter - just because we can. The scooter cost 400PHP (£8) for the day so we saddled up and hit the road just as the grey skies above us began to start dribbling. The drive was curiously long and my commando ...

We made our way to the infamous Chocolate Hills today as they are said to be Bohol's number one must see. We caught a bus there from Tagbilaran which turned out to be incredibly lengthy and not air conditioned. I also had the pleasure of an elderly Filipino man breathing rattling and seductive breaths against the nape of my neck for most of the journey, it was very bizarre and in the end I actually turned around and asked him to stop - the popcorn box on his lap ...