You're OK Boracay...

After the amazing experience of swimming with whale sharks, it was now time to head to the tropical island of Boracay, famous for its pure white sandy beaches and crystal clear blue waters. As with most places in the Philippines, it takes quite a bit of time to get anywhere but after after a taxi, a flight, a van ride, a boat and another van ride, we were finally at our beachfront hotel La Carmela in the heart of the island's busy strip. Boracay Island is split into Stations 1, 2 and 3, with Station 2 being the main hub for all the restaurants, bars, shops and clubs, and conveniently where our hotel was located!

Having a whale (shark) of a time...

Last I left off, I was in Boljoon in preparation for my early morning trip to Oslob which is famous for its whale shark tourism. After an early morning swim, I checked out and waited by the side of the road for a bus to come barrelling towards me. For those wanting to go to Oslob from Cebu, you can catch a Ceres Liner bus (bright yellow) from the South Bus Terminal every half an hour. However if you're trying to get there from anywhere else, you'll just have to flag down a moving one from the road. As such, we were on the side of the road for about an hour waiting since the bus had been delayed by traffic (how typical). Eventually the bus arrived and we were soon barrelling down the narrow coastal roads at speeds which made me scared we would tip over on the bends.

My Filipino adventure begins...

Another post means another overseas trip - this time to the Philippines! After over a year of bussing it back and forth between Canberra and Sydney and being subjected to the billboard at Sydney Airport telling me to go to Philippines, I finally succumbed. And what a great time too with the sales on, I managed to score return tickets to Philippines for $320 return from Sydney including checked baggage on Cebu Pacific Airlines. Throw in three domestic flights (Manila, Cebu, Boracay) and I had a solid ten days of travel around the country for $550 total. I went on this trip with friend from work, but given how busy we were in the lead up, we didn't manage to plan much. As such, this was a very last-minute spontaneous trip.

Kakadu and Darwin round out the NT trip...

Day 7

After what was probably the best night's sleep on the trip so far, we reluctantly got out of bed, packed up and began the 250km trip to the town of Jabiru located within Kakadu National Park. The road leading there (Arnhem Highway) was pretty good despite being single-laned, albeit there were stretches of roadwork which forced us to stop for a while. At the 150km mark, we entered the park and the scenery alongside the road changed dramatically. We were now driving alongside bright green forests, but just as quickly as the scenery had changed, it was now blackened burnt forests. As we continued to drive, the road up ahead was getting hazier and hazier, with thick plumes of smoke above the trees. Clearly there was a fire ahead. What was I to do? Keep driving? Turn back? There were no warnings or evacuations occurring so I just assumed it was all ok and drove on.

From Alice to Darwin, and every disco I get in...

Ok so there was no disco, but I'm hoping that some of you out there get the reference I'm making in the title. If not, moooooving on then...


Day 4

We were picked up from our apartment at 6:30am ready for our tour up to Darwin. The company we were with was called WayOutback, and they do all kinds of outback tours. The original plan was to actually hire a car and drive ourselves up to Darwin, but after extensive research, it seemed like too much hassle to have to make that drive up. Besides, on a tour, I could sleep between attractions and have everything organised for me! On the tour bus besides us were mainly Europeans. Out of the 15 of us, there were eight Aussies, two Germans, one French, one Dutch, one Italian, one Belgian and one Canadian.

The Australian outback adventure begins...

Since my last post, I've started a new job and have moved to Canberra. And in the midst of working hard for the money, I began planning my next trip as usual. Obviously nothing quite as long as my usual trips given my job, so it would have to be a domestic trip. The catalyst was Jetstar announcing sale fares to Uluru. Done. Decision made. I planned it so I could fly into Uluru, make my way up through the Northern Territory, and fly home from Darwin, all in eight days (18 to 26 October 2014). In the end I managed to get a few of my colleagues to come along as well.

Europe and Middle East done (but cost me what?!)...

Now that I'm back home, so begins the inevitable tallying up of my expenses of my 80 day trip. I might just say that I'm really pedantic when it comes to this kind of stuff, and I actually recorded my expenses daily in my notebook while travelling, both what it was that I paid for and how much it cost. As such, I was able to transpose that all into an excel spreadsheet, before I could play around with the numbers. Gotta admit, I actually quite enjoyed playing around with my excel spreadsheet. It's just so satisfying when the formulas work and you find out interesting things in your data. Haha I sound like such a nerd. Anyways, because of my pedantic record keeping while on the road, I was able to break down and analyse my expenses according to city, as well as expense type, which was broken down into food, transport, accommodation, sightseeing, entertainment, souvenir, gift, miscellaneous and leftover. Like I said, "pedantic".