Philippines

Hi there. We are back from our brief but interesting trip to the Philippines. After transferring in Manilla we landed in Puerto Princessa on the Island of Palawan. The highlight being the outdoor baggage collection. Plus the immigration section of Palawan was a guy, a desk, a pencil and an exercise book.

Puerto Princessa the city was fairly nice, but we went to Palawan to see the underground river (nominated as one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world) it was pretty amazing. We took a 2 hour bumpy 4wd trip to to the other side of the island - only one flat tire.!! We then got on a boat to go about 20 minutes or so along the island, walked through the jungle a bit and then got to the entrance of the river. Waiting at the entrance were many many monkeys. I managed to get scratched by one, but since it was three days ago and I haven't climbed any trees and started flinging poo at passers by, I'm not worried. We then waited our turn to get on these canoe type things and traveled 1.5km up the river with nothing but a torch and a guide. It was really incredible. The river length is 8.4km in total - all under a huge mountain.

We also took a tour of the local Islands around Honda Bay. They were very pretty and perfect for snorkeling. The aqua life was amazing, we saw the blue and yellow fish (you know Dory from Finding Nemo), parrot fish, orange fish, small black fish, rainbow fish, pointy sword fish and silvery big fish. (These are all of course the technical names). I liked the starfish the best.

We then went back to Manila and stayed for a night. Big mistake. I can't find anything nice to say about Manila. But we did manage to find a few massive shopping centres and shopped like crazy.

All in all we really enjoyed our trip and definitely will head back to the Philippines again, maybe next time just a transfer in Manila.