Exploring Boracay’s other beaches

A tricycle took us all the way north to Puka, named after the abundant puka shells on the beach. The sea was rough but beautiful with every tone of blue shining in the sun. Some young lads played on skim boards and we enjoyed the breeze walking along the shores. It was too rough for…

Backpacking in Boracay

Plans can change last minute while travelling and we’d hoped to travel around Mindoro island, check out some of the loin-cloth wearing locals at the markets, visit Apo Reef and then get a ferry to Palawan. But upon calling the company we were told the ferry wasn’t running for another month or two. So, we…

Snorkelling in Puerto Galera, The Philippines

Puerto Galera is said to be one of the top dive sites in the Philippines so we decided to test out the waters with a snorkel. It was much cheaper for us to join a dive boat heading out and just snorkel around the shallow areas of the sites than hire a private Bangka. The…

Parasailing and beach life in Puerto Galera

Our first boat across to a tropical island wasn’t exactly the boat we’d expected. Instead of a sizeable ferry it was a brightly painted Bangka, basically a large wooden boat with bamboo stabilisers on each side tied together with fishing line. We were heading across to Puerto Galera on Mindoro Island and were so excited…

Taal volcanic island, the Philippines

Two long days of transport, a stop in a hotel with a swimming pool which was empty on our visit and hours spent sitting in gridlock traffic through Manila but we finally made it to Tagaytay. The town sprawls along a ridge line 600m above Lake Taal crater lake.       We met a French…

One of the best views we’ve ever seen | The Batad Rice Terraces

We’ve seen a fair few rice terraces on our travels but the UNESCO Batad terraces truly blew us away. We went against the advice of the tourist office to only go with them for transport, and found our own private tricycle for much cheaper. Our driver was a young chap named Jan who constantly had…

Tight roping along rice terraces and crazy transport

We set off on an early morning jeepney to Bontoc. One thing we’ve been seeing in this area is locals sat on the roof of the jeepneys or top-loading as its called here. So I asked the driver if we could go on the top and he was more than happy for us to. It…

Sunrise and the sea of clouds in Sagada

We woke super early and quietly headed out of our hotel to do an hour hike and catch the sunrise at the 1636m peak of Kiltepan. Our hotel dogs jumped up on us in excitement which was super cute. The whole walk was along roads and when we got to the top we realised 99%…

The hanging coffins of Sagada

After our first two dull stops it was time for the adventures to begin. We were heading inland to the cordillera mountains. It took 1 bus, 3 vans, 1 jeepney, 1 near crash, 1 break down and 1 prompt replacement van to reach Sagada. We passed rice terraces and beautiful mountain vistas along the way…

First impressions of the Philippines

Our flight to the Philippines only took a couple hours, but we had a five hour wait in Manila and a further two when our plane became delayed. Luckily beer was cheap so we sat amongst the busy crowd sipping San Miguel and whinging about the wait. Our flight was finally called and we were…