NZ to Asia

Yesterday was a LONG day. After spending two sleepless nights in our very loud, night club flanked hostel in Auckland (which really bizarrely had the feeling of one of those rundown Conservative clubs that host weight watchers meetings and stuff, complete with stale beer smell and blue carpet everywhere), we began the mammoth trip to our next stop: The Philippines!

The flight from Auckland to Manila was 9 hours overnight, meaning we had to stay awake at the airport way past normal bedtime to board at 12:30am and then try to sleep on the plane itself. This task was made extremely difficult by the incredibly dated plane we ended up on. The Philippines Airlines flight had very old, uncomfortable seats, with no leg room at all - for the first time in about 10 years we ended up on a long haul flight that had no entertainment system in the seat in front (which they did attempt to remedy by providing iPads). They still had the communal screens at the front of each section with a real bulky square 90's tv in which was flanked by phone sets. It was like a blast from the past which actually just made for quite an uncomfortable night. Plus for some reason they woke us up half way through the night to serve a steak and cheese sandwich at like 3am which seemed very strange when we had already been served dinner and we're getting a breakfast as well...

We arrived at glossy Manila airport at 5:30am, bleary eyed. We had to collect our bags and make our way to the domestic terminal for a connecting flight to Palawan that wasn't actually due to take off until the afternoon, meaning a less than glorious 10 hour wait at the airport. We drowned our sorrows in pancakes and coffee (literally the best ever- I had banana, Joe had blueberry), before sitting in uncomfortable seats for basically the whole time until we made our way to the gate for boarding. There were signs everywhere banning lying down on the seats so we couldn't even take a nap! We were both white as sheets and looking terrible by the time we arrived in Palawan, our base for the next few weeks.

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Palawan is a large island to the east of Manila that is famed for its beaches and outlying islands perfect for 'hopping'. It was around 30 degrees when we got in at 6pm so we were sweating in the humidity as soon as we stepped off the plane. We took our first ever tricycle (think literal motorbike with homemade attachments for guests to sit in) to our home and base for the next two weeks - a guest house in Puerto Princessa city. We opted for a private ensuite room with A/C - something we were glad our past selves decided when we read reviews of our initial choices that mentioned cockroaches and bed bugs between the sheets!

This nice family run place seems to have good wifi connectivity, so hopefully we'll be able to keep all of our budding fans and large readership (lol) up to date.

For now we're enjoying resting and planning our next two weeks - activities on the current wish list include scuba diving, paddle boarding and a trip to El Nido; so watch this space.