Final Thoughts

The Philippines seems to get missed off many people's South East Asia itinerary, possibly because it's considered sleazy and somewhat dangerous. On the sleazy front, the stereotype is largely true, and in Manila especially, you can't swing a cat without hitting a sweaty, overweight, middle-aged white bloke, with his young Filipino girlfriend on his arm. Mindanao in the south east of the archipelago has some political violence, and tourists are warned off the region. However, the rest of the country is perfectly safe.

The Makati area of Manila is where the higher end hotels are, along with the humongous Green Belt mall, with its two cinemas, and masses of shops, bars and restaurants - a sanitised, air-conditioned, city-within-a-city. It's where the expats and the monied locals hang out. Having been to other parts of Manila, you see why.

Pretty much everyone we came across spoke fairly good English, and the TV channels are either in English or a mix of English and Tagalog (Filipino), often in the same sentence. Because of this, travel is easy, if not always comfortable – the roads in the areas we visited (Cordillera and Palawan) seem to be in a permanent state of “under construction”. Airfares are cheap, but almost all flights are in and out of Manila (so you may need two flights to get from A to B), and check baggage has a pitiful allowance of 10kg, meaning we had to hand over an extra 15 quid for each flight. Getting a boat is notoriously unreliable, partly because of their insistence on using outriggers, which sink in a light breeze.

All this means you need to not try and fit too much in, and keep a loose schedule. The Ifugao Rice Terraces were well worth the torturous bus journey; and the wreck diving in Coron is amongst the best in the world. We missed out Boracay, which is a pity, but I'll certainly want to dive Coron again, so we can pop in then (plus, it's not far to Palau...)