Greg and Mandy's Travels

Apr 2, 2025

Up before 3am, and waited outside in the dark for our Grab to arrive. The good thing about traveling at this time of the morning is that the roads are very quiet, and there aren’t many people in the departures terminal.

Well, the Manila airport lived up to the standard set when we arrived, and must be one of the most efficient airports in the world, even if it’s not the newest. There were only a couple of people in our check in line, there were three immigration staff waiting for foreign passport passengers, and nobody in the queue.…

Apr 1, 2025

A day of waiting. Everybody in the group was checking out at different times depending on their flights, either back to Australia, or on to other destinations. We went for an early morning walk along the beach before the day got too hot, then packed our bags, checked out, and sat in the restaurant having a light lunch while we waited for our transport. Ours is the last flight out at 5pm so it seems like a long day. Even when we get to the tin shed of an airport, we will still have three hours to wait before our flight.…

Mar 31, 2025

Our last day on the tourist islands of the Philippines.

It’s our second ‘day at leisure’ here in Boracay, and probably one day too many. Most of the group are sitting in chairs around the pool chatting as they’ve run out of things to do. It’s certainly a great destination if you like swimming and other water activities. It’s really geared for tourists, with lots of eating options, and the beaches are great. However, if you are the kind of person who comes to discover the country rather than sun bake, then we could have used the day to explore somewhere else.…

Mar 30, 2025

Today, after a leisurely breakfast, we did an extensive walk around a significant portion of the island.

Boracay is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Philippines, and most reports have it accounting for close to one third of the 6 million annual tourist arrivals in the country. Yet it is only a relatively narrow island with a length of 7 km. A government survey back in 2017 found that the carrying capacity of the island was around 20,000 tourists at a time, but it was usually being exceeded by over 30%.

Back then development was pretty unregulated, and the island wasn’t in a good shape.…

Mar 29, 2025

We’ve been very lucky and blessed with great weather all our trip, but this morning as we geared up for our last island hopping tour, it was cloudy and raining.

Eventually the rain eased off, and after some breakfast we all piled into some tuktuks, and headed down to the island touring jetty, and joined the melee.

Nothing wrong with the tour today – it’s just that others have been much better, so it seemed rather ho-hum.

The first stop was a beach we waded ashore to, but all there was to do was look at the sand castle sculptures, and be assaulted by touts selling shells.…

Mar 28, 2025

I told you that it would be a brutal start. The alarm went off at 4am, our luggage was collected at 4:30, and by 4:45 we were on the bus bound for the ferry terminal. Our guide got the welcome news yesterday that the airline had changed our flight time, so instead of having a relaxed mid morning ferry, we now had to catch the 6am ferry back to Cebu to make our plane on time.

The usual filipino type security at the ferry terminal. We all had to walk through a metal detector, but nobody was watching and people were going through with their bags on their back beeping away.…

Mar 27, 2025

A lay day at our beach resort. Spent the day walking along the beach, resting, walking into town, resting, swimming in the pool, resting – you get the idea.

So, time to assail you with a few facts about the Philippines.

As told before, the Philippines first became known to the rest of the world with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, followed shortly after in 1543 when Spanish explorer Ruy Lopez de Vallalobos arrived and named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honour of King Philip II of Castile – part of what we know today as Spain.…

Mar 26, 2025

Gee, they smile lots. At breakfast we had two toasters broken. After I tried every possible remedy, I waved at a likely looking waiter who came across, put my toast in with the flourish and pushed the button. Silly old white guy he thought. Nothing happened of course. He then pushed and prodded and pulled every lever, smiled and walked away. I thought he might be going for help but no. I summoned another waiter.  He promptly pushed, pulled and tweaked every lever, smiled and then walked away. I bet you can guess what happened with the third waiter.…

Mar 25, 2025

Our only activity for the day was to check out, get to the airport, and take a flight to our next island destination of Bohol. Meant that we had a leisurely start to the day. Would you believe there was actually coffee for breakfast! However, when we tasted it, we realised that we had dodged a bullet on the other two mornings. Had the last half a bowl of cornflakes on offer for my continental breakfast, and then we headed down the street to our favourite coffee shop.

At least they make decent coffee, or at least they would if the power hadn’t gone off just as we paid.…

Mar 24, 2025

Not sure whether we’re pleased or mortified, but one of the boat crew yesterday bowled up to Mandy, and in an effort to be friendly said “Hey, Grandma. What’s your name?”. Nonplussed, Mandy replied, “Actually I’m Nanna”, and so quite oblivious to the correction, that’s what he called her for the rest of the day.

Had another enjoyable breakfast on the balcony overlooking the bay, watching all the boats loading up for the day’s tours. The restaurant prides themselves on providing Asian, Continental and American breakfast. However, I’m not sure that you could claim in anyway to provide an American breakfast if you have no coffee, no pastries, no donuts and no bacon.…