Sipping cocktails in the Philippines
My wife Linda and I do a lot of home exchanges, where people from overseas stay in your home and you stay in theirs. We’ve found it to be a fun, inexpensive travel option. But when the offer of a house swap landed in our inbox from Manila in the Philippines, we were sceptical. We didn’t know much about the country and it seemed very far away… But after a bit of research and discussion we thought, why not? Let’s try something different!
Much of the Philippines is what Bali and Thailand were like 20 or 30 years ago – a largely unspoilt place that is only now being discovered by tourists.
Our home exchange was in the capital Manila – remember the Thrilla? – so that would obviously be our first stop. From Manila, we wanted to explore some islands but boy, how to choose? There are more than 7000 islands in the greater Philippine archipelago, and they range widely in terms of development, facilities and attractions. You could say that beaches – and scuba-diving and snorkelling – define the Philippine island experience. Beaches surround almost every island and many are small, isolated and untouched.
In the end, we decided to go to Palawan – a long, thin island south-west of Manila. We’d explore Bacuit Bay on the northern end
