So as I said earlier I'm not one to take too many risks when I travel. I like to have things organised for me in bite-sized chunks. I find this to be particularly important in the Philippines because I'm still finding my feet and if I bugger it up I'll have to charter my own tour (see my trip to Palawan). The problem was that all the travel agents were either jerks or too expensive (some were expensive jerks too), so I decided to go about organising my own tour which was all going smoothly. The bus tickets I would…
Guns, Guns and Steel
When I first arrived in the Philippines I spent the first weekend with a copy of the lonely planet and a notepad listing all the things I wanted to do/see while in the Philippines. Being focused (at the time) mainly on the prospect of being able to talk about my travel afterwards, I used what I would like to term the 'fanboy' approach. Essentially the technique revolves around reading your chosen travel guide and just going along with their recommendations. On the list was Corregidor Island, a small parcel of land nestled inside Malina bay. It has been a key…
How Haggling Saved My Life
A Dutch auction is an auction started as high as the salesperson thinks they get away with, without alerting the buyer they're getting ripped. For me, who's not your average moron on the moron bell-curve this has been quite a costly learning process. If I was to paint this blog post as a coming of age story my trip to Palawan would have brought me up to infancy. Getting to Palawan, from Manila is a relatively painless affair and requires a taxi and a ticket. For anyone who has been or who's going to visit, if a taxi driver spends…
Where I Spent the End of the World
I imagine a lot of you have wondered where I would spend the end of the world (in particular so you could share the occasion with me). Well after a lot of time, money and science the optimal choice was obviously inside a volcano. After all if there is anything I remember from primary school it's that putting baking soda and vinegar in a cardboard cone is a lacklustre affair and consequently the most boring (and therefore safest) place to be. So on the 21st of May 2011 I traveled out of Manila to Mount Pinatubo the last place God…
Putting the ‘Man’ in ‘Manila’
Like all great men, I've decided to start where it all began. The ninth floor: Having paid many a Peso to secure myself a shoebox in the city, I was pleasantly surprised that once I opened the balcony door I had twice the space and a view overlooking Ortigas, Manila. It being three weeks since I first set foot in the city it is hard to remember precisely what my first impressions were but from the best of my recollection: 1. Heat. Yep, not surprisingly Manila (and I'm told the Philippines more generally) is hot. Hot to the extent that…