Manila
We arrived in Manila expecting to be ripped off straight away as we’d heard a few horror stories about taxi drivers, however, we had no problems and arrived at our guesthouse quickly and paid less than they said we would have to! We’d sensibly booked a room at Friendly’s Guesthouse but had no idea how compact it was until we got there, think of a room just big enough to slide a double bed into. Unfortunately the mattress was wafer thin and it was like sleeping on a hard wooden floor but it was only for a couple of nights.

The following morning we had to go to the Vietnamese Embassy to arrange our visa and on the way we drove past the zoo and thought it would be worth checking out on the way back. You know all those documentaries you see on TV about some of the zoos in China where the bears are chained up and all their fur is falling out – this wasn’t too far from that! We’d never seen such shoddy conditions and it was a pretty depressing experience although the animals looked way more depressed than we were!

To be honest we didn’t really do anything else as it was so expensive to get around anywhere and our money was rapidly running out – we had to go back to Manila a couple more times before leaving so decided to do the sight-seeing next time.

Banaue
We got on our bus at 10pm in Manila only to find out that we were sitting on the back seat – probably the worst place as you just get bounced all over the place. Luckily for us we noticed a couple of empty seats just after we set off and settled down for the next 9 hours of uncomfortableness. One thing to mention if you are ever on a long distance air-con bus in the Philippines – bring something warm!! It was so ridiculously cold and we had no blankets or anything warm to wear as we only packed for hot climates – we did our best by cuddling up but still felt like we were riding around in a fridge!

We finally arrived at 6.30am and got out of the bus, shivering, and didn’t really warm up much until we found a room and crashed out for the next 6 hours for some well needed sleep. We did manage to drag ourselves out of bed to go and grab some lunch but it then proceeded to piss it down for the next couple of hours so we headed back to our room to catch up on some work.

Batad
The following day we set off early in the morning on a moto-tricycle towards the small village of Batad. The “road” was not the best maintained so it was a pretty bumpy ride but we got to Batad Junction in one piece and just a few bruises. We were now supposed to be walking the 2km up to what is known as “The Saddle” but as luck would have it a jeepney drove past us after we’d been walking for five minutes and we managed to grab a lift to the top of the hill! Once at the top we just had to make a 40 minute walk down to the village of Batad – well that’s what the book said anyway. The walk down wouldn’t have been too bad except that Kim’s left flip-flop broke after about 10 minutes and she had to struggle the rest of the way with it attached to her foot with a spare bobble!

We spent our first afternoon just relaxing and enjoying the view of the rice terraces and noticed that just like Banaue, come 1-2pm, the thunderstorms appeared and it proceeded to piss it down for the next few hours! So the following morning we set off nice and early to have a walk down to the village centre and through the rice terraces. The walk down was quite treacherous to say the least; we’re still not quite sure how the locals can walk up and down them so easily with bags of rice balanced on their heads! Once in the village centre we sat down with a nice cold drink and got chatting to a few of the local kids who were all very friendly and told us that they were on vacation – for 2 months! We also had a chat with an old lady who was doing some traditional weaving in a nearby hut, very friendly and very good English considering where we were. Everyone we had talked to asked us if we were walking to the waterfall, we hadn’t planned on it but after so much persuasion we decided to go and see what all the fuss was about. Most people who went to the waterfalls had a guide as it was pretty confusing getting through all the rice terraces but luckily for us we managed to follow a few people and made our own way without having to pay for a guide! It was now almost midday and unbearably hot, sweat was pouring off us both and we were getting pretty tired as we hadn’t eaten since 7am and then we saw how much further it was to the waterfall. After a few minutes considering the options we decided it just wasn’t worth walking all the way down to the waterfall only to have to rush back before the storm. We were both glad we did as the walk back was a lot tougher than we thought and then the storms came in an hour after we got back to our room!

For some reason we had chosen to stay 3 nights in Batad, we must have expected there to be more to do so the next day we didn’t really do anything at all – apart from get swarmed by thousands of baby dragonflies in the restaurant on our last night – that made us finish eating quick!

Sagada
After spending the night in Banaue we decided it was time for us to leave and go to our next destination Sagada, called a “Backpacker’s Mecca” or some other such rubbish by the Lonely Planet! When we arrived it didn’t look all that amazing and we weren’t sure how we’d spend the next 4 days but on the plus side we did find a decent cafe that made great sandwiches. Instead of wasting our time and money (on sandwiches!) up in Sagada we decided to just head back to Manila the following morning to abuse the free Wi-Fi! We got up just before 5am the following morning to get the first bus out to Baguio (7 hours) and then from there we had to get another bus to Manila (another 7 hours!).

Manila
We finally arrived in Manila at almost 8pm and were absolutely shattered and to make matters worse the hostel we were staying at was fully booked apart from the dorm rooms! After the first night in the dorm we were expecting to move to the double room that we’d booked but unfortunately they managed to screw this up and we were stuck in the dorm for another night!  We had already decided that we were just going to work and leave the sightseeing to just before we left for Vietnam, so to cut a long (and very boring) story short we just worked for 4 days.

Lucena
By a miraculous stroke of luck we got possibly the nicest bus in the Philippines for the trip down to Lucena. During the amazingly comfortable trip we watched a couple of movies and got to taste a couple of Filipino delicacies – Buko Pie and Espasol – both of which were delicious! The only reason we were in Lucena was because of the Lucban Pahiyas Festival, and as we were too cheap (and sensible I think) to stay in Lucban this was the closest place we could find. The hotel turned out to be a massive complex of 90+ rooms and 3 swimming pools, but to our amazement they also had free wi-fi!

The day of the festival turned out to be one of the most miserable days of the week, it rained all morning, we got soaked and the rain must have had an effect on the festivities as it was nowhere near as colourful or interesting as we had hoped. We really tried to stay positive about the whole experience but there’s not much you can do when people decide not to bother with the traditions of the festival – you can’t say we don’t try!

There’s not really a whole lot else to say about Lucena, the town was nothing exciting, we downloaded a lot of movies with our free wi-fi, ate some pretty awful food at the hotel and had quite a few beers! When the time had passed and it was finally ready to go we were pretty glad to be leaving, even if it was back to Manila!

Manila
Before setting off back to Manila we had decided we should reserve a room back at Friendly’s Guesthouse (where we’d spent our time in Manila the previous times) however once we arrived we were told that our room had been given to someone else and there was nothing they could do except offer us another room at almost twice the price. Well this was not really what we wanted to be hearing and we’d had enough of the shoddy staff and their plain incompetence so told them to forget about the rest of our 5 night’s reservations and went somewhere else. Luckily we found another cheap place just down the road which was fine for the rest of our remaining days in Manila.

For our last few days we had planned to go and see some sights and attractions but after looking into them a little further realised that for the cost of seeing these things it really wasn’t worth it, we tried a few and were completely let down. We thought that we had managed to save something good until the end – Ocean Park – we’ve always enjoyed aquariums and were really looking forward to it. However, once we got there we could clearly see that this was just going to be another let-down as most of the building was still under construction – instead of wasting our money on what was surely going to be a massive disappointment we decided to spend our final two days in nice coffee shops!

Next stop Vietnam…