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…
Tag: explore
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…
Exploring Hong Kong
The famous star ferry took us across the calm waters to the main Hong Kong island. We were now in the much swankier area and a pedestrianised causeway led us over the city without having to cross a single road. We then got slowly carried up the worlds longest travelator. It had pavement sections scattered…
First impressions of Hong Kong
So after 30 wonderful days spent in China we crossed the border to its very modern neighbour, Hong Kong. We headed directly to Kowloon where our hotel was booked. We didn’t want to risk turning up in a very expensive city a couple days away from Chinese New Year without a booking. £23 got us…
The Diaolou towers of Kaiping, China
After the beautiful Li River region we were a little shocked to find ourselves in such a busy city. Guangzhou was heaving! Maybe this was the real China and we’ve been really lucky enjoying the calmness of the rest of the country. We got a bus to Kaiping a couple hours south west to take…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 