We are in the Philippines now and absolutely love it.

We almost missed our flight to Manila because the airline wouldn't let us board without a print out of our flight out of the Philippines. One massive argument later we landed in Manila. We arrived at our hotel, which was hidden behind a massive metal gate and were welcomed by security guards with guns.

The next day, we only made it a few blocks before finding a shopping mall and spending most of the day in there eating and watching a film. On this short walk to the mall we saw cars getting checked for bombs at car park entrances and there were security guards on every building.

To be honest, we were both really tired and we weren't in the mood to try and tackle Manila, and a turn down a dodgy road was the icing on the cake. I'm sure Manila has some good places but this is the first place we've really not liked. There is such a visible inequality of wealth here too; massive shopping malls sit next to families of homeless people living on the street.

Next stop was a 7 hour bus journey up to Baguio to start our North Luzon trip. Much to our disappointment, Baguio was a dump. We didn't see any other tourists whilst there so people were fascinated by us. Some kids even came up to us and sang Mariah Carey songs until we paid them to stop.

Just when we were starting to question why we'd even stopped off in Baguio, we found an amazing restaurant, which served the best food we've had so far in the Philippines.

On returning to our extortionate hovel, the Skyrise Hotel, we were greeted by 5 cockroaches. Needless to say, we were very happy when the bus pulled out of Baguio the next day.

We arrived in Sagada following a hairy, but breathtaking bus journey up through the mountains. Finally, we arrived somewhere that we instantly loved. We stayed in a nice little log cabin and the main part of the guesthouse was really homely. Sagada has a very chilled out vibe and there are loads of great places to eat. We went to one place called Lemon Pie House, where we treated ourselves to a slice of lemon pie. However, not satisfied with that, we bought a whole pie and devoured it back in the comfort (and privacy) of our guesthouse!

We did a fascinating trip up to see the hanging coffins, which are suspended on the side of the mountain. Some of the coffins are over 400 years old and the newest one was only a year old. The guide explained that the dead bodies are carried up to the mountain on a chair then put in the foetal position and then into the coffin. We trekked up into the mountains and came across a small pig farm. Immediately we could smell burning hair, so presumed that one of the pigs was being cooked, but no, on closer inspection it was in fact a pet dog (kind of like a border collie) having it's fur and skin burnt off with a blow torch so the locals could eat it!!

Despite the dog incident, we were really sad to leave Sagada after 3 days, but were excited about more trekking in the north.