This final blog for the South East Asia part of our trip is a little late! We arrived back in the UK on 22 December but the madness of Xmas quickly took over and we didn't get chance to post anything until now! Neither of us can quite beleive the first leg of our travels is already over - it's gone very fast but it has been the most incredible three months! We have done a little summary of our favourite places/experiences at the end of this blog - but first le...

Next stop on our trip was Banaue - rice terrace country, via a small town called Bontoc. We got a jeepney (think brightly coloured miniature American school bus) part of the way which once again, was quite a hairy experience. There was leftover rubble along the roads from recent landslides and road signs warned of 'crash prone areas'. Banaue has incredible views of the rice terraces and which have been there for over 2000 years. We were told that if you lined ...

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 t...

After leaving Semporna, we got on the bus to Sandakan, 8 hours away. It is never that simple though and 2 hours into the journey the bus completely broke down, so we had yet another fun wait by the roadside for a replacement.Finally, we arrived in Sandakan and the taxi dropped us off at our hotel, which looked like a hospital. We are clearly not the first people to ask about the history of the building as when Paul asked the owner he responded with "it used to be...

We spent the first 4 days in Borneo volunteering for a tropical research and coral conservation project on a tiny island called Pom Pom! The island itself is the definition of paradise - blinding white sand and crystal clear water and very little development. We stayed in tents just next to the beach and showered in the jungle, which surprisingly, we both really liked. It was possible to walk around the entire island in about 40 minutes! The reefs around Pom P...