Tuesday 3 September 2019

Manila

The same with Jakarta, everyone we met told us that we wouldn't need long in Manila and to pretty much spend as little time as possible there. N'aw. They also said the traffic was AWFUL. And we found that yes, they weren't all lying to us. It was really bad. We were only here for about 22 hours but here's a quick post about Manila anyway

Accomodation
We stayed in Ola Hostel. It was recommended to us by friends, and it was fine. We opted for a double room as we arrived at like 2am. Staff were friendly and helpful, breakfast was average but they had a cool rooftop to eat it on. It did take our Uber SO long to find it though as it's a bit nestled away, but in his defence we were sleep deprived and unhelpful

Things to do 
Market- we went to Divisoria market for some last minute souvenir shopping. Personally, I was not a fan, but meg loved it. My sole purchase of a massive bag of veggie gummy worms confirmed this, but she picked up some cool stuff. It just had a lot of random household belongings for sale, and after being spoiled by the markets of India I was not that impressed.

Food
We did actually have a stop off here before our first night bus to Batad and found a really good pizza restaurant in a shopping mall which also sold Quorn nuggets?? Mad. Other than that the food was the same as the rest of the Philippines aka meaty. Lunch was approximately a bucket of French fries- healthy and nutritious eh?! We did get some cheap drinks though, surprise surprise

Escape room- Lollll very traditional for our last day!! We met up with some friends and did an escape room which was so funny even though we were awful and definitely didn't come even close to escaping. Oops

Getting to/from- we arrived from our night bus and took an Uber to our hostel using a random hotel's WiFi. The metro here was good and pretty simple, but we took an Uber to the airport in the evening. The traffic is pretty bad, and we spent a fair amount of our time in Manila sat in queues of cars



Manila was our last stop before flying home! Had the best trip and still a month and a half later wishing i was back in Asia

Laura x

Banaue and Batad

A friend recommended we visited Banaue and Bathad, describing it as his favourite place in the world. Given everyone's warnings against going to Manila it was a perfect destination back on the island of Luzon before flying home. Banaue is a small town located in the hills covered in rice terraces, with Batad being a tiny village right in the heart of the rice terraces themselves. The terraces are sometimes described as a wonder of the world

Accomodation
Banaue- we stayed in Bogah Homestay. This was pretty out of the way from the main town (which I only discovered when we tried to walk back in torrential rain) but it was nice. They had good WiFi in communal areas, our private room was decently sized and clean, and their restaurant sold nice food (the veggie curry was massive! And Georgie got the noodle dish which could have fed the three of us, looool). They also picked us up and dropped us off at the bus station for free, and let us check in to nap early in the morning after arriving by night bus

Batad- we stayed at Cristina's Main Village Inn Guesthouse. This was an amazing place located in the heart of the rice terraces in Batad. The walk to get there from the main road was an event in itself, but it was such a cool place to stay. Surrounded only by the other houses and homestay in the village we were so isolated and the views were AMAZING. The staff were really nice and the food was so good (they randomly sold Israeli food? Which was so good)

Things to do/see
Banaue didn't actually have a ton to do.

Viewpoint- We went for a walk to try to reach a viewpoint, but quickly realised that a 2 hour uphill trek was not for us x we did make it to a viewpoint on the way though, where we met some older ladies in traditional dress who we paid a donation to to have a photo with



Market- They had a little market section of town, which was very much for the locals. I like that though as it doesn't feel like everything has had to change for tourists. In a bakery here I got some small hot fresh bread rolls really cheaply which became part of my dinner/breakfast

Waterfalls- from Batad we did a hike to the waterfalls through the rice terraces. We opted not to have a guide as everyone told us how easy the walk was. Lol. We ended up lost and stranded in the terraces until an older local guy came to help us. Embarrassing. The hike was pretty tough, especially going back up. But it was worth it as the waterfall was amazing and we spent a few hours lying in the sun and the other two ventured into the freezing waters


Hot springs- From Batad meg and I went to some hot springs. We organised the trip through our hostel and it seemed a bit pricey but ended up being a full day with lots of driving. On our walk up to the road we met a random Israeli guy who asked to come with us, so that kept the costs down. We went for a walk to some hot springs where we spent an hour or so bathing in the boiling water which was so nice. We saw the local women at work in the rice paddies which was really cool. A thunderstorm started though and I had to wear a bin bag for the walk bag #fashionnnn



Getting to/from
To Banaue- We took a night bus from Manila which we booked online. Some of them have WiFi, some don't. they weren't my fav night buses as the seats didn't recline fully, but they were alright and did the job

To Batad- from Banaue we took a tuk tuk to Batad. We got dropped off in a place called Saddle and walked down from there. Leave your big bags in Banaue! The walk down to Batad itself is pretty intense and you don't want extra weight for it

Sunday 25 August 2019

El Nido


El Nido was the ultimate beach location and presumably what everyone thinks of when they imagine the beaches in the Philippines. It was really nice, but we were pretty unlucky with the weather and experienced a lot of monsoon rain.

Accomodation
We stayed in two places whilst we were here. One was on Napcan beach which is known for being really beautiful. The other was in El Nido itself 

Where2Next- we opted to stay here instead of mad monkey which was more expensive, and I think we made the right choice. This hostel had some pros and cons; they had WiFi, which turned out to be a rarity in this part of town. The dorms were clean and had mosquito nets, we could book tours through the hostel, and it was close to mad monkey. However; the restaurant attached to the hostel was never open, and was expensive. Also, because the weather had been so bad, the walk to mad monkey was through a literal mud river. It was grim. The staff were also really unfriendly. And they had so many power cuts while we were there and no generator

Dormitels- this place was great! We stayed for 2 nights and it was in town and super cheap. I think this was the cheapest place we found anywhere in the Philippines but it had a good, central location, we had the dorm to ourselves with an ensuite bathroom, the staff were friendly and helpful and it had WiFi and air con. Ticked every box

Food
We ate mainly at a restaurant opposite our hostel which did chips, toast, veggie burgers and fried rice. The vegan dream. Mad Monkey did nice (but pretty pricey) food- I had a lovely falafel wrap. In town there were lots of nice restaurants and we found one on the beach doing lush Thai curry, mmmmm

Things to see/do
Mad Monkey- lol I'm putting it first which is a bit tragic. This was a really good hostel on the beach, which had lots of beach seating. The bar was amazing and they did loads of free drinks including an open bar from 7.30-8. I managed 8 gin and lemonades during those 30 minutes one evening- what a legend I am xx it was a great place to meet people and yeah just super cool! Maybe we should have stayed here, but I kind of thing we had the best of both worlds having a cheaper hostel (which had WiFi) and then just coming to use mad monkey's facilities


Island hopping- everywhere in El Nido does the same island hopping tours called tour A, B, C and D. Everyone else seems to say that tours A and C are best. I think we did A? It involved lots of lagoons, and was a really cool day. We saw loads of beautiful beaches and swam in the lush blue water. Unfortunately the weather was a bit average on the day that we did it, but luckily it wasn't raining



Scuba diving We finally went scuba diving! We'd been told that Coron was the best place to do it, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go there. We still had a great time doing it here! We went to some cool dive sites and saw so many amazing fish, and even got up close enough to feed a turtle. Such an amazing experience and well worth the pretty hefty price tag


Bars and restaurants- El Nido town has loads of great bars and restaurants close to its amazing beaches. It's just a lovely place to come and spend a few days relaxing, and despite how touristy it is I would definitely return


Getting to/from
We took the bus to and from Puerto Princesca to fly in and out. The journey takes 5/6 hours including food stops in a not very comfy minivan, but hey it does the job


Laura x

Puerto Princesca

From Bohol we flew into Puerto Princesca. In retrospect we could have skipped it or just had one night here. We stayed far out, and whilst it was beautiful and cool to stay in a remote area, it was a little too remote for us, especially since the weather was bad

Accomodation
We stayed at B&R hostel. It was owned by 2 sisters, and had so much potential. There was hot water, a cool on site bar and they made delicious food. The rooms had A/C and plugs. Basically, it should have been great. But it was in the middle of nowhere, there were very few other guests and unfortunately the weather was awful. They helped us book our onwards travel though they overcharged, and as the hostel had no wifi or signal we were very much trapped there

Food
We mainly ate at the hostel. The food was good and cheap, and there were nice veggie options. I did have a meal at the beach, which was pretty much just white rice and salad. Fancy x

Things to do/see
Beach- the hostel was near a beach, which we ventured down to a couple of times. However; the 20 minute steep downhill walk wasn't so bad, but going back up was truly horrible. In the humidity and heat the whole experience was not worth it as the weather wasn't even very nice while we were there. We ended up hitchhiking a lift up the hill which made it a lot more bearable

View point- the other attraction was a nearby view point, which was okay, and not as far as the beach. However; other than the view there was nothing to do here and there was a monkey chained up which was sad

Getting to/from
We flew into the airport there and took an Uber to our hostel. Onwards we were going to El Nido, and there are loads of buses going every hour. We went early in the morning and got one which we booked through the hostel, but if you're up for a risk you could just find one by waiting by the main road

Bohol

We visited this place pretty much solely to see the famous Chocolate Hills, which of course weren't even chocolate covered when we went (a summary of my life). We ended up finding lots of cool stuff to do, though, stayed in a lovely hostel and made friends with a really nice group of guys, so it was actually one of my favourite places that we visited

Accomodation
We stayed at Bohol Coco Farm. It was a really cute hostel with loads of little bamboo huts forming the dorms. There were fans but it was still pretty hot. The bathrooms were good with hot water, and the staff were super lovely and learnt all our names almost immediately. The hostel is a little out of the town, but cheap on a tuk tuk and about a 15 minute walk to the local beach which was really nice. They had very cute dogs!!


Food
We ate every meal at the hostel lol. The food was so nice with loads of vegan options, and we'd rotate on diets of vegetable curry, sweet potato fries and different types of rice. Mmmm. There were other restaurants around though, and shops selling cheap snacks. Rum was ridiculously cheap- like £2 for 700ml !!!

Things to do/see
Countryside tour- We did a countryside tour which involved visiting loads of different places including the chocolate hills. Some of these were less appealing, like a cobra house where you just saw a load of trapped animals so I stayed outside. We did see these really cute animals called tarsiers at another place, as well as some viewpoints etc. We also did a cool but terrifying zip line through the forest! It was a long day tour with a group in a minibus, but I think we got our money's worth and it was cheaper to do it like this than just pay a tuk tuk to take us to and from the chocolate hills




Beach- near to our hostel was a really nice beach! We spent a couple of afternoons lying there reading and swimming in the sea. Aka living the dream


Bars- given the cheap price of rum we had a couple of nights of drinking games and one night in a club with the guys from our hostel. It was a really fun night, and we ended up going on to another bar after the club. Bohol has nightlife if that's what you're after, but it's probably better to stay a bit closer to town than we did

Other tours- we didn't do this one, but our hostel was advertising a tour where you got to see fireflies!! I wish we'd done it in retrospect

Getting to/from- we took the ferry from Cebu, but hadn't realised Bohol has its own airport. Although flights are more expensive into it, once you've factored in the price of the tuktuks and ferry it's probably about the same

Cebu city

I had been excited to visit Cebu, but realised quickly that as we were short on time we wouldn't have time to spend long here. The city itself didn't seem to have much going on for it and we just spent the night there before going over to Bohol on the ferry. I know other parts of Cebu are meant to be lush, and you can do stuff like swim with whale sharks and go to waterfalls, but we just didn't have enough time

Accomodation
We stayed at Le Village hostel. It was alriiiiight. For one night. Not great to be honest. We were in a big mixed dorm with very few plugs but a big extension cord thing in the middle. The beds were wooden but so loud to get in or out of. The staff were alright and you got a free beer, but the quality of the bathrooms wasn't great and everywhere was boiling. The hostel also wasn't very near to anything, which was so annoying as we wanted food (shock). Every blog I'd read had said that accomodation in the Philippines was lower quality but higher in price than other places in SE Asia, and this hostel confirmed that these rumours were in fact correct

Food
Omg. The saddest time xx the concept of vegetarianism is pretty much non existent in the Philippines, and a girl we met in India warned us of this. She was right, it was bad. After checking in we ventured to the restaurant attached to our hostel for some dinner. We found a single vegetarian dish on the item, I think it was called capcay (?) And I checked twice when ordering that it was just vegetables- no meat or egg. The staff assured me it was. We were STARVING and when it arrived I started tucking in, until my friend pointed out that there were tiny pieces of grilled pork in it. MMMMM.

We couldn't find anywhere for breakfast the next morning so opted for biscuits and dried crackers purchased at the ferry port. Gourmet


Things to do/see
Honestly as we were only there for one night I have no recommendations. We stayed again on our way back from Bohol and the highlights of this visit included a trip to 7/11 and an early night. Cebu city was borin


Getting to/from
We arrived from Manila on an internal flight. We took a tuk tuk from the airport which was fine.

From Cebu we went over to Bohol on the ferry. We bought our tickets at the port but I think you can also get them online

When we came back from there we flew over to Puerto Princesca, though you can just fly from Bohol which we discovered afterwards

Friday 26 July 2019

Jakarta

As we were originally going to Sri Lanka rather than Indonesia, we had a flight booked from Kuala Lumpur to Manila. The cheapest place to fly to Kuala Lumpur from was Jakarta, and so we decided to spend a couple of nights there. When we told anyone that we were going to Jakarta their response was always along the lines of "spend as little time there possible", to the point that people suggested taking a day train rather than a night train just to use up time. As it turned out the city wasn't great, but they were perhaps a little dramatic!

Accommodation
We stayed in Wonderloft hostel. The free breakfast was excellent- unlimited toast, cereal or porridge with peanut butter and dark chocolate spread, with fruit and free flow tea and coffee. The hostel had good communal areas, pod style beds and a rooftop. The staff were friendly and helpful and yeah just a great place to stay

Things to do
Cinema- Lol. We thought we might as well kill some time and toy story 4 had conveniently just come out. Popcorn and a ticket for a couple of pounds, it was the perfect way to stay cool in the midday sun. I love going to the cinema abroad because it's SO much cheaper than in England. We went to a cinema in a massive shopping mall and had a little browse afterwards

Museum/main square- We wanted to go to the heritage museum as I don't know anything about Java's history, but it was closed as there was a festival going on. It was actually pretty cool to see lots of people in traditional clothing and a huge street market. We also found a nice cafe nearby to people watch, so the museum being closed worked out pretty well




Food
Omg. We had THE BEST vegan food here!! I went on happy cow and found a vegan restaurant so we took a grab there. The menu was so extensive that we checked a couple of times that everything really had no meat in it. They had so many meat alternatives and we had probably my favourite food of the whole trip here. Crispy tofu nuggets, a vegetable and noodle soup, mushrooms and vegan chicken... It was all so nice and still super cheap. They even had an amazing looking caramel cake which I resisted as I'd eaten so much but it was tough!!

Getting to/from
From Jakarta we flew onwards to Kuala Lumpur, and took an Uber to the airport. The traffic there is BAD so allow yourself plenty of time!

Laura x

Yogyakarta

Also known as Jogja, the main attraction that we were aware of here was the very famous and beautiful temples. Turns out they often do loads of cool classes in things like jewellery making and cooking. This ended up being a really cool place to visit and we could definitely have filled another day here. Don't rush it to get to Jakarta, you have been warned x

Accommodation
We stayed at Laura's Backpackers. Lured in by the promise of free dinner and breakfast, this hostel had hot showers, a big communal area and dorm beds with curtains around them. The big free meals made it very easy to meet other travellers, and it was a very sociable hostel in that sense, with a big group going camping and hanging out in the evenings

The owners were really helpful in finding stuff to do and arranging stuff for us, though a couple of times the prices they told us were wrong which was a bit awkward. The hostel was a 15 minute walk to the train station which was very doable despite having to cross a pretty big roundabout.

Things to do
Temples: The main attraction here is the  temples but they come with a pretty hefty entry fee. Considering the Taj Mahal is £10 we were shocked and so only opted to go to one of the temples; Borobudur. I definitely think this was the right choice, the price as a student wasn't that bad (£15 I think) and the temple really was beautiful. We did a full scale photoshoot here and also had to pose for about a million photos for other people. From our hostel it was possible to take buses but we ended up taking grabs for the one hour journey each way and they weren't that expensive







Cooking class: Meg and I did a cooking class which I really enjoyed! In the morning we visited the local market to buy our ingredients which was a really cool experience. Everything was SO cheap (like a massive bag of tofu for hardly anything) and then we went back to the kitchen to get started. We made a vegetable curry, a dish which was essentially a tofu omelette with different mushrooms, a caramelised tempeh snack, purple rice, tofu fritters and vegan prawn crackers. We made the food with a lovely lady in a class on our own which ended with us all eating what we'd made. So much fun and so much good food






Jewellery class: I've wanted to do a class like this for ages so was so glad we got a chance! We were able to make one item each (I kind of cheated by making a pair of earrings) and we chose the designs ourselves. It was weird in the sense that we just kind of guessed what we were doing and then the guy would correct us but hey we all made something cool

Spa: The others did such a good spa package which sadly I didn't have time for. Arranged through the hostel they got loads of treatments including a sauna, hair spa, massage, exfoliation etc. for 4 hours for under £10. Slightly gutted not to have done it but I decided to opt for the temple instead

Food
Because our hostel did free breakfast and dinner we mainly ate there. The portions were pretty small and very much lacking in anything other than carbs for the vegans, so one night we found a nearby place which served lots of different tofu and tempeh dishes to fill up on. The staff spoke no English and we walked around with a translator app (funniest thing ever- I tried to say "we don't eat meat" and it auto-translated to "please don't eat me")

General notes
Yogyakarta is a cool city and we split our time pretty evenly between here and Jakarta, but the general consensus is to spend more time here, and I agree with that

Getting to/from
We arrived to Yogyakarta from Malang, taking a pretty long train during the day. We lost a fair bit of time doing this but the train was nice and air conditioned so can't complain.

To get to Jakarta we took a night train which got us there at around 3am, where we got a grab to our hostel. Not the most fun journey ever, but it did the job!

Laura x

Malang

I'm just gonna write a tiny post about this because it was a good place for a quick stopover but we were only there for like 14 hours to break up the journey to Yogyakarta

Accommodation
We stayed in Mador Malang Dorm. Really good hostel walking distance to the train station. Perfect for one night, and everyone seemed to either be on their way to or from Bromo. Had free breakfast (jam and peanut butter toasties yum) and was clean. The beds were like little pods in the dorm which I love and there were hot showers

What to do
We visited the colourful village here which was actually really cool for a short trip. The houses and buildings are painted in bright colours and there are loads of decorations like umbrellas and hats. Not really sure of the history behind it but it made for a nice walk




Other than that we just bought me a phone since mine had died the week previously, so if you need to know the Oppo store is excellent.

There was a market but not touristy just aimed at locals and was pretty much all men's clothing.

The hostel had lots of recommendations for stuff to do, restaurants etc. but we didn't use these because we were just there for like 15 hours

Laura x