Philippines - Puerto Princessa

Puerto Princessa is a dump. 

We booked a flight to Cebu island so that we had four days in the capital of Palawan, which was a bit of a mistake.

We first went to the 'expensive' mall...it was terrible. 

We went to check out the town.... And then hurried back to the mall and the one coffee shop there.

We went to the 'world famous' 8th natural wonder of the world, an underground river. The caves were great, but after 4 hours of travelling there, the 'guide' on our boat didn't know how the stalactites had formed or why there were apparently Japanese soldiers there in 1939..., but did tell us what the rock formations tenuously looked like. For example, the 'half the last supper' rock, the 'Marilyn Monroe', and the 'upside down chicken drumstick'. 

I think I've broken the air quote button on the iPad.

Best thing in the city was the bathroom in our hotel. It was a small room with barely a toilet and sink fitted in...and also a confusing single water value, with no spout. It was only when you turned it that you found out the shower head was directly above you and the room doubled as a shower cubicle.

Next highlight was half a day getting our visas extended for the Philippines, from 31 to 41 days.

And then we flew to Cebu. Even the airport was a hole.

Chris

Philippines - El Nido

We took a seven hour boat ride from Coron to El Nido. Chris was dosed up on anti-inflamatories so slept all the way!

Arriving in El Nido we were impressed. The limestone cliffs surround the bay and make a very beautiful backdrop for this little town. 

We had booked into a hotel ahead of time, which turned out to be a bit of luxury. We had a gorgeous room with lapping ocean just outside!

They lent free canoes in the hotel though, so this is us on the desert island. It took us two hours to canoe to and two hours back but was gorgeous. The beach was lined with shells and coconuts and rock pools. Our own desert island!

Soon we found out that our hotel was a 30 minute tricycle ride (motorbike and sidecar thing), from town and was 5x the price of a backpacking room elsewhere, so we packed up after two days and headed into town. 

We found a place and then within 10 minutes went on a lagoon tour. The weirdest bit of the tour was getting nipped by territorial fish on our way into one of the lagoons....such an odd and alarming sensation.

The next day we went diving. 

Chris hadn't dived in ten years and me in three, so it was a bit scary to start with, but we soon got into it and had an amazing day! Apparently Chris jellyfish sting on his hand went black under the water and we saw an array of fishes from Groupers to Eels. I hadn't seen a unicorn fish before so seeing a huge sholl of them was cool! We even got to swim through a tunnel!

In the evening we went onto the beach and ate fresh fish (Unicorn obviously)!

El Nido was incredible.... Diving, boat tours, amazing vistas, and seafood dinners on the beach, but after three days we were out of cash and with no cash machines in El Nido (or anywhere close), we had to move on to the capital of Palawan; Puerto Princesca.

Jane

Philippines - Palawan

From Tokyo we hopped on a plane to Manilla and we were looking forward to some sun.

The Philippines is made up of over 7000 Islands and broadly split into 3 main zones. Luzon is basically anything in the North, the Visayas (the Islands in the middle) and Mindanao down South. It is advised by the government not to visit the southernmost area so we had planned an itiniery that focused around Palawan (the long thin island in the West of the map below) and the Visayas.

We spent two nights in Manilla. We didn't fall in love but it's not supposed to be a tourist highlight so weren't surprised. However we did visit the Mall of Asia (largest Mall in Asia), had a great massage and saw Interstellar at IMAX!

After two days in Manilla we were keen to see more of the Philippines and from Manilla Port we hopped on an overnight ferry to Coron, a small island just North of the larger Palawan. The boat was pretty scary for various reasons (and I would suggest that if anyone reading takes a 2go ferry from Manilla to Coron to pay more to get a private room) but so worth it when we arrived the next morning in Coron. It looked amazing, beautiful waters surround forested islands and as the boat came into port we caught sight of secret coves and fishing boats. The sun was shining and suddenly we could understand all we had heard about the beauty of the Philippines.

We had booked accomodation on a remote adjoining island at a place called Majika's island Dive resort. One of her employees met us off the boat and drove us to her office in Coron town. Here she joined us and accompanied us to the island via car and then boat. The trip to the island was great; through Mangrove forests and across a calm cove of water almost like a pond. Majika explained that it was safe to swim, snorkel and canoe around this region and there were no sharks etc to worry about. 

So we got straight to it taking out one of the canoes and going snorkelling (Chris canoed in the below boat) while I snorkelled and vice versa. There were amazing starfish and colourful corals and it was a great start. After a few hours Chris persuaded me it would be a great idea for me to swim back to shore from the pontoon. It was about three quarters of a mile and scary as the sea shelf dropped off and I couldn't see what was under me but quite fun once I got closer to shore.

We had prawns for dinner and watched the sunset over the island. We had ordered lobster.

The next morning we were told that the dive master wasn't going to be around for a week or so, so no diving for us! Coron is world famous for its wreck diving, so making the best of it we took a boat to a local Japanese ship wreck so we could go snorkelling. This was really fun and the fish were absolutely stunning.

Coming back into the resort after the snorkelling Chris wanted to do the same swim I did yesterday so he hopped off and started swimming back. He was looking good so I headed into the resort to put down our stuff (diligent lifeguard). 

Within five minutes I heard people running to the beach and returned quickly to find Chris hanging off the side of the moored boat with three staff members around him pulling jellyfish tentacles off his arms, legs and hands. The tentacles were everywhere...in between his toes, stuck to the hairs on his legs, down the side of his toenails and fingernails and on his board shorts. As we carefully removed the tentacles and doused his stings with vinegar it was clear Chris was in shock and we had to move him onto the beach where he could sit down.

At this point the members of staff left us to it. I moved Chris back up into the resort and sat him down and watched over the next few hours as his hands and feet became increasingly more swollen and puffy. His foot was covered in black marks from the tentacles and he wasn't feeling great. 

Unfortunately we had finished our painkillers and only had Lempsip left over...the staff at Majika's had nothing. After I had asked three people they provided me with an anti-irritant....We did our best putting Chris' foot in cold water and raising it but he was still in a lot of pain.

This is the jellyfish (dead).

This is Chris' foot.

One of the lash marks on his arm.

And his hand almost two weeks later.

Chris was in a LOT of pain so even though I had made him promise not to do his model until he got home, he spent the entire afternoon playing with his toy. He didn't moan once. Apart from the jellyfish I think it was one of the best afternoons of his life.

Toy complete.

That night we ordered the lovely prawns again... We got fish.

Back on the mainland a few days later and Chris could barely walk and was finally able to see a doctor. The doctor was shocked and prescribed Chris four different types of pill including an antibiotic and two different types of anti-inflammatory.

However getting off the island was a bit of a challenge... We had the normal 20 minute boat ride, but there was no car on the other side, so we were left for 3 hours by the side of the road in a tiny village. Chris taught the local kids how to make paper airplanes, while I desperately tried to call the owner to sort it all out! After a 5 hour trip, we weren't in the best of moods when we reached the owner to pay, and that might have come across. We ended up paying about 10pc of what we should have, as the owner told us to pay "what we thought we should". 

Jane

Tokyo - day five

We continued our adventures with one final day to explore Tokyo... And we had a fair bit to tick off.

- imperial gardens

- Tokyo station

- ginza district

- Sony building

- Tokyo tower

- Rainbow bridge

- eat some Kobe wagu beef

So we set off early.

The imperial gardens.... Tick. I really loved the beautiful walls!

Tokyo station area..bit of a disappointment, as there was nothing really there other than the station building.

Having seen the price of the wagu beef, we grabbed a 7 eleven lunch, trying out some more strange foods; a cream and fruit sandwich, and a yoghurt drink... Both great!

Next we walked through the Ginza district... This is the old expensive shopping district, but it's still full of insanely pricey brands. The Sony building is here as well, which was on the list. This is Sony's flagship store and was described as showcasing their new technology for coming years, but turned out to be a 4 floor advertisement for everything Sony, complete with gift shop. However we did see our first Japanese protest as we left.

Thousands of people chanting and marching, while thoughtfully only taking up one lane of traffic and being controlled by half a dozen police officers. Incredibly ordered and Japanese.

We pushed on to Tokyo tower, which is one of the things I remembered visiting when I was a kid. It's actually better than the Eiffel Tower in my opinion.... It's bright red, and although we didn't go up it, it's more spectacular, especially as the sun goes down.

We set off for the final item on the list, Rainbow bridge. However we couldn't work out the best tube stop to go to to see it, so got in a taxi. The driver thought we wanted to go across the bridge though, so we ended up with a ¥300 taxi bill (£30)...ouch. We jumped out at the other side and saw that we were at a shopping mall over looking the waterfront....it was a better view of the bridge and city than we could have hoped for.

We again found ourselves at an 'all you can eat' and again ate way too much. We firmly agreed that was the last one. Here's my first of three desert plates, featuring green tea, rose, mango, vanilla and chocolate ice creams.

After dinner we messed around in the mall a bit, I bought some trousers and a hoodie (which Jane quickly claimed as hers under the new 'what's yours is mine' rule), and then set off back to hotel.

Chris

Tokyo - day four

Before we start, Japan will use Hello Kitty to get any and every message across, however inappropriate.

Anyway..we got up and started the day with a nice walk around Ueno park...like New York, the parks are amazing here, and are really peaceful given their proximity to the bustle of the city. We walked out after an hour and headed for electric city again (as Jane hadn't seen it). First stop was the manga district, which was always going to throw up surprises.

The giant electronics megastores are surrounded by burrows of independent traders selling literally everything with a circuit board in. It's all a bit overwhelming.

So we went for coffee.

It was a proper coffee shop so:

a) it tasted amazing.

b) it took ages to prepare.

c) Jane didnt like it.

I don't know why, but sections of the city are dominated by a particular type of shop. We moved from manga shops to electronics, then onto the guitars, golf, and the ski and snowboard sections of the city. Why you need more than one of any of those next to each other is a mystery.

With a purchase (Xmas present), at the golf store, I was told that I could have as many tees as I could get in one hand. The store clerk was horrified by the 100 or so tees I got, and also how I refused to let go of them when my hand was stuck in the container. But I won.

Looking for a change, we headed for the business district and headed up to the 42nd floor of the government municipal building. Rather than paying a huge fee for the Skytree across town, it was free to head up and had no queue. Was great to see the city from above, and would definitely recommend it!

We left and metroed back to Shinjuku for some drinks and dinner... And our current addiction, Bananagrams. It's sort of like a fast paced version of scrabble, and it's constantly with us incase of any spare 10 minute down times. I usually win.

A 'few' drinks later we moved on to a pub called 'the Aldgate', though at £7 a pint, it was more expensive than the London namesake we live in, so we denied it our patronage. Instead we went for some karaoke.... Again, I think I won.

For £16 an hour, we got a private karaoke room and unlimited drinks. We had to check that they really were free, but once established we took full advantage and sung our little hearts out. I'm pretty 'good' at Hanson's 'Um Bop', and Jane attempted everything with an incredible belief that she knew all the words.

After a good night, and plenty of drinks, I was sure it was time to finally try the local isotonic drink. I'm not sure what a pocari is, and although it's sweat is disgusting, I didn't have a hangover in the morning.

Chris