Phillipines

September 21st to 25th - Exactly 1 month ago, I arrived back in Malaysia and started my life as a coach potato. In between, Caren and Duy dropped by for a brief visit and I brought them around to have proper food and some cheap beer.

In order to get some life back into me, I went to the Phillipines on 21st September. Flew Air Asia for the first time and heard that its notorious for flights delays and etc. I was pretty lucky, flight was not delayed both ways. Air Asia didnt flew to Manilla directly, instead, flying into Clark Airbase which is 2hours bus ride away. After much hassle and many sms back and forth, i finally managed to find out which bus station Duy was in and managed to join him on an overnight bus to Banaue. The bus ride was 9hrs and it was the coldest bus I have ever been on. The locals all brought their blankets with them... and us travellers just pile on all the clothes that we have, as we didnt realise that it was going to be freezing cold for the next 9hrs. I had to wear my North Face wind proof +jumper+cover myself with my pashmina. Some of the travellers took out their towels and also put shorts on under their skirts and etc to try and keep warm. Its ridiculous.

9hrs later, at 6am in the morning, we arrived at Banaue. The reason we came all the way here is to see the famous rice terraces of the Phillipines. Its actually a Unesco World Heritage Site and it was started by the ancestors of the Ifugao people some 2000yrs ago. We stayed in this peaceful land of nothingness but rice terraces for 1 night and then headed back to Manilla.

Photos from "viewpoint" in Banaue - Apparently this is the same spot where they took the photo for the 1000 piso note

I woke up at 5.30am to get these photos

Transportation around the Phillipines - the Tricycle and the weird and wonderful Jeepneys. Some jeepneys have colourful disco lights on them with loud music blasting.

Stayed at Friendly's Guesthouse at the heart of Malate in Manila where tonnes and tonnes of bars/pubs/ktv/restuarants can be found. There is little sight-seeing to do around Manila city so we spent a whole day at the SM Megamall and spent the night pub hopping around Malate with people that were at the Hostel. On our final day in Manila, we went to the Aristrocrat Restaurant to eat the famous traditional grilled chicken. The Roxas street mainstore apparently sells 30,000 plates of these grilled chicken each month - thats like 1000 plates a day.