So.Many.Flights

A long flight from Cambodia-Manila (Asia fails to do direct flights 

for some unknown reason) and we arrived in the Pink Hostel expecting 

to be like princesses in a castle however it was more like a

scummy rundown castle. There's not a huge amount to do in Manila 

so we just went to the biggest shopping mall in the Philippines which really 

was massive and we went to the cinema. But Manila was really a stopping

 point before the islands. Next we flew to Boracay a notorious tourist 

destination but our favourite place in the Philippines. 

The beaches were beautiful covered in palm trees with the clearest coolest sea 

in which we jet skied in (and Robyn taking a corner too recklessly caused me 

Erin to fall off and experience my worst nightmare of being

 stranded alone in the middle of the sea). One night in Boracay

we were aimlessly walking around when suddenly Megan and Robyn were

dragged into a Phillipino dancing chef routine, they danced along

with them for 15 MINUTES, and so was very hot and sweaty

when they finally escaped.

On Megan's birthday we did an island

 tour which was fun jumping off a 10m cliff board, snorkelling, chilling at 

the many beaches as well as being given a huge bottle of vodka and rum! 

This led to our joining the pub crawl with many free shots, asian advances 

and hanging around the aircon machines (Because the Philippines

is so fricken hot DAY AND NIGHT). Our four days in 

Boracay were so much fun next onto El Nido, Palawan...

Due to a lack of good transport in the Philippines we had to get

a flight from Boracay to Cebu, then Cebu to Puerto Princessa

and finally a 5 hour bus south to El Nido.

(I told you transport wasn't great, they have very limited flights)

We spent our first day there recovering at the beach from

 travelling so long the day before, that evening we met a

Norwegian guy called Sam who decided to round everyone up and take

us to an outdoor cinema. However, when we arrived the speakers 

had broken so we sat in a restaurant on the beach and

chatted till the late hours of the night whilst being

serenaded by a Philippino and a guitar.

The next day we went on a tour called 'Tour A'

it took us on a boat around some of the famous locations such as

Big lagoon, small lagoon, 7 commanders and a few more

 (I can't remember the name of). We did snorkelling

which was so beautiful and was like being in a fish tank, ate lots

of watermelon and fresh BBQ food, and got to see some of the best coral

reefs in the Philippines. I think one of my (Robyn) most prominent

memories of El Nido was the lack of Wifi, in the whole of

El Nido we could find only one place with good wifi 

(when I say good, I'm not fussy I just need it to load instagram and

be able to message my mum) anyway, we would sit outside this hostel

every evening to catch up on the latest facebook posts however, if 

they caught us they would turn off the Wifi so we were reduced to hiding round 

the corner whilst scrolling through twitter.

I think that's pretty much it for El Nido, next up is Megan to tell

you all about the trip of a lifetime and Bohol...

so waking up at 4am was a struggle in itself we then had to get on a 

5 hour bus to Puerto Princessa to catch yet another flight to Cebu. 

(One thing we learnt whilst being here is that the philippinos like to faf

 around a lot so after going back to the bus station we started at 2 times 

we finally set off.) When we arrived in Cebu we hopped in a taxi to take us 

to the ferry port, this was suppose to only take 20 minutes but traffic is worse than 

London in rush hour that it took us a nice long one and a half hours 

*thumbs up fake smile face*. By this time we had already been travelling 

12 hours that we just wanted to get to our hostel but no that was not the case, 

we had to wait around for 2 hours to catch our ferry to Bohol...

WHICH TOOK ANOTHER 2 HOURS TO GET THERE, but we had a 

very yummy hot dog so it wasn't too bad:). Finally after a long, stressful and 

parched 18 journey we finally arrived at our hostel wooooo :))) 

Our one and only day in Bohol started off with an extremely scrummy 

breakfast which was then followed by another long bus journey to the 

longest zip line in the Philippines. We sat in a thunderstorm for an hour and then 

got to fly across a very nice lake for a lovely 45 seconds only then to make the

 long journey back again. We question whether it was all worth it but 

I guess its all part of our adventure!!!

Our next stop is BALIIIIIII!!!

Lots of love 

Megan, Robyn, Erin

xxx

Malaria Tablets Suck

Cambodia, 3 stops, 10 days, 1 very ill Robyn.

After a VERY long bus journey from Krabi we finally made it 

to Siem Reap.

We spent a day looking around the amazing markets and drinking the 

fresh fruit shakes they sell everywhere. The next two days 

were dedicated to looking around the temples though we wished we only

 booked one day. 4am start to watch the sunrise at the main and most 

famous temple Angkor Watt was incredible although very busy. 

We also visited the temple where scenes from Lara Croft and Indiana Jones 

were filmed which was our favourite temple as the roots 

had grown over it leaving a ruined effect. 

However, day two was less enjoyable, by then we were sick of temples the 

less famous ones starting to blend into one another combined 

with the heat and having to cover up for respectable reasons 

so we wished we had stuck to day one.

She's being 'Lara Croft'

Our next stop was Phnom Phen, we were only here briefly as 

it's only really the killing fields people stop by for. 

The killing fields shone light on a subject we all knew little about,

we were given an audio guide as we walked around a marked

field and the story of Pol Pot's regime was told to us.

We probably won't go into detail about the whole story as 

it was quite gory at times and not nice to listen to, however,

I think by the end we all couldn't believe that such a horrific

event happened so recently and managed to go on for so long.

Our final stop in Cambodia was Sihanoukville/Koh Rong.

This is the part when Robyn gets ill. Due to the malaria

tablets she experienced almost every symptom you

could get whilst taking them, to name just a few,

fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, nausea,

lack of appetite (for the first time ever, Robyn said no

to food, but Megan was never far away to clean up any

food Robyn couldn't eat). Anyway, she had most symptoms

and so although the first few days in Sihanoukville just

relaxing it wasn't my favourite time. After Sihanoukville we

head to Koh Rong Samloem. After getting the main boat to the island 

we then had to hop on to another small boat to take us to our hostel 

which was on the other side of the island. 

The hostel had its own private beach with hammocks and swings 

in the water which looked very photogenic when you were

on them but the climb up was not easy, Erin's huge bruise

could tell you that. Our three days there were very chilled, 

as you can probably already guess we spent our days soaking up the sun 

(getting very sweaty in the process), cooling off in the sea 

and lounging around in the hammocks. The second night was my 

(Megan speaking) favourite we spent most of it playing 

different card games with three girls that we met, the hostel put on a 

fire show and we went for a late night swim 

with the light up planktons which was magical I 

(Megan) felt like I was a fairy in some mystical land.

That's pretty much all we have from Cambodia, now we are 

just waiting around for our flight to the Philippines.

Hopefully we'll write soon,

lots of love

Megan, Robyn and Erin

xx