Whilst I still make plans for my next trip i thought I would post about my time in the Philippines in 2023.

I was 2 months into my travel in December 23′ so far visiting Thailand and Cambodia, when i decided it was time to head to the Philippines. First stop Manila. I took the 3 hour flight from BKK to Manila with a transfer and hotel booked when I arrived. I made a mistake when booking the accomodation. After 2 months of slumming it in hostels I decided I would book a couple of nights in a hotel with a infitnity pool. Without looking where it was I booked a hotel located in Alabang, an hour and a half taxi journey from the airport and the heart of Manila, Makati. After arriving at the hotel i noticed christmas decorations everywhere inside and outside the hotel. Me not being a big fan of christmas, the idea to leave the UK was to avoid it. Being naive I didn’t think of a catholic country like the Philippines would be so big on christmas, how stupid of me. After speaking to a local at the hotel they told me they will celebrate christmas for months during the run up to December and after! so be it. After a couple of uneventful days mooching around Manila I decided to fly to Cebu city. Here I spent another couple of uneventful days in a digital nomad hostel where there wasnt alot of socialising happening. So far not so great. I booked a flight to Puerto Princesa, Palawan the next day.

After arriving at the airport in Puerto Princesa I jumped into a trike to my accomodation about 20 minutes away. I arrived at a nice hostel around 6pm that was very busy with travellers. Once checking in I sorted my stuff out and got chatting to a lad from Scotland. He told me to join him and his friend from england in the resturant for a drink. After a couple of drinks and some cards we called it a night and arranged to go and watch the England v France world cup game the next day. I cant recall what I did that day but that evening me and three of the lads from the hostel went to a local bar to watch the game. Turned out to be owned by a french guy so we were severley outnumbered by the french and had to sit through a painful loss. Time to move on from here. The next day me and the two lads I met on the first night in the hostel travelled to El Nido. Upon arriving in El Nido after a uncomfortable 5 hour mini bus ride we checked in to our hostel. Wouldnt you believe it was a french owned scuba hostel. The rooms were pretty small and the electricity was out alot of the time but it will do. The next day we went to Taraw cliff to try out the hike. I tell you I do sweat a bit and I was well and truly soaked doing the 30 minute hike, it was baking that day. After the workout we went to the beach for some food and had a few drinks that evening. The following day we went a island hopping day, I believe tours A or C were the better ones.

El Nido was fun and the island hopping was good but it was very busy with tourists. We took a choppy 5 hour ferry to Coron the next day, be warned if you get sea sick. Once in Coron we walked to our hostel from the harbour following the instructions of the english guy we began walking through a field of fighting roosters strung up on there perches before realising it was the wrong way. We checked in to the hostel which was pretty nice, the name was Bakawan. That night we went drinking, I finished my first litre bottle of Red Horse, that was a battle. The following day I had booked a diving day with a local filipino company. Luckily I wasn’t too hungover for diving the next day and had a really good time. We started with a refresher as I hadnt been diving since 2019. After that we moved onto a wreck dive. I only hold a open water license meaning I can go to a depth of 20m but seeing as the girl in my group didnt want to dive the instructor took me the full 30m and into the wreck. It was an amazing dive with only one brief moment of my tank getting stuck on the ship, I survived. The final dive of the day was at the barracuda lake. This was an interesting dive, the water tempreture constantly changing from cold to warm. This made me think my mask had water in it but my instructor informed me that it was just how the vision was with the change of temperature? The next day I went to get a haircut which cost me the grand total of £1.50, that uncluded a tip. This was the best haircut I had dutring my whole 8 month trip, I wish i could remember the name of the shop. That afternoon me and the guys I had been with left Coron and headed back to Cebu City. Although I had some good times with the guys, being a solo traveller I felt the need to head off on my own again.

After one night in Cebu City I made the decision to go to Boracay for a few nights before heading back to Thailand on the 22nd of December. I had spoke to a few people whilst in the Philippines about Boracay. Many people said it was overpriced and overated but, I always think you have to see yourself to judge. So off i went to Boracay. After landing at the airport I then had to go and take a 100 peso trike ride to the ferry port, where I needed to buy 3 or 4 different tickets such as the ferry ticket and the enviromental fee for the island. Once arriving at Boracay I took a motorbike taxi to station 2 where my accomodation was. I stayed at Kommons by Kamino, a decent clean and modern hostel. First night I walked down to white beach for some dinner. I enjoyed an amazing red snapper and some red horse. The following day it was my birthday. I asked the hostel staff the best place to go for my birthday which they remembered later that evening and sang me happy birthday. That day i was chilling out on the beach when I noticed a filipino girl staring at me. On my exit from the beach I walked past her and asked how she was, this lead to a conversation and i told her today was my birthday. She then invited me for a drink that evening. After meeting her at music bar we had a few drinks then moved on down the beach bars. We ended the night in Epic nightclub, here she had asked them to wish me happy birthday on the big screen with an announcement. I woke up the next day with patchy memory and it was time to leave the Philippines and head back to Thailand for christmas. A long 30 hour journey from Boracay to Phuket awaited me with a 16 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Phuket.

Althought I had enjoyed the last week in Coron and Boracay I will be honest, I was disappointed with my time in the Philippines. This was one of the country’s I was really excited for. Maybe it was that I just hadnt met the right people on this trip or just hadn’t seen the true beauty of the country I had expected to. I told myself that I would be back to give it another try before I finished my trip.

To be continued…..