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