Welcome to week thirty-three of the backpacking diaries. I’ll be updating you weekly on where I’ve been, what I’ve been getting up to, and most importantly, how I’m really feeling about this insane decision I’ve made.
As you probably know, I’m currently backpacking through Asia after quitting my job and leaving London for good.
I want to remember every moment of this experience, and document as much of it as I can, just like I’ve documented everything else in my life post-18 on this website.
You can keep up to date with my travels on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube but for now, enjoy week thirty-three of the travel diaries!
If you missed the first thirty-two weeks of backpacking diaries, you can catch up here.
Top tip: for mobile data around Asia, we used the Jetpac eSim. This was super handy and easily installed onto our phones as soon as we arrived in Japan! Get $5 off your eSIM package when you use my referral code: ORLZRLN2.
Day 225: Monday 28th October 2024
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Dear travel diary,
We had a much needed lie-in this morning after yesterday’s travels. Even though we were literally sat down all day, there’s something so tiring about not doing anything and moving from place to place.
Luckily, the hotel we booked in Bangkok was very close to the Asok/Na Na area which means we’re only walking distance from our usual working spot of Central Embassy shopping mall.
We headed straight there and it was almost like we hadn’t left and gone to an island paradise for a week.
We were back in our usual coffee shops and back on our laptops to catch up on work and get ahead of ourselves for the week.
Since we were staying in a hotel nearby, we stayed later than usual until around 7pm, before heading down to the basement of the shopping mall for a cheap and tasty dinner.
Day 226: Tuesday 29th October 2024
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Dear travel diary,
Today was our final day working in Central Embassy – possibly ever! Which is so surreal.
We’ve spent so much time in Bangkok now, and especially in Central Embassy that it’s going to be so weird not going back to our coffee shops and working from there.
Every time we’ve gone on our travels since the summer, we’ve always ended up back in Bangkok for a while and back in Central Embassy to work.
We dropped some laundry off this morning and paid around £20 for it, like fools. But we needed the express service to be able to pick it up this evening, so it was double the price.
Then it was straight to the top floor of Central Embassy to get some work done and schedule as many blog posts as possible ahead of our next trip that starts tomorrow!
As usual, we had dinner on the bottom floor of the Embassy for a very cheap price, and then walked back to our hotel to pack, wash my hair and get sorted for our flight tomorrow.
There was a huge thunder storm that went on for hours until the early morning, but hopefully there’s no rain tomorrow when we leave!
Day 227: Wednesday 30th October 2024
Location: Bangkok, Thailand & Manila, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
We’re headed to the Philippines today! Country number 12 of our travels and I can’t believe I’ve bene invited here on a press trip!
We’ll be spending 11 days touring a few spots in the Philippines with I’m Here Travels on a group trip. It will be my first ever group trip experience and I’m so excited to be travelling around the Philippines.
We had the Philippines on our travel list when we were first planning back in London, but with how our travels have been going, we didn’t think we’d make it.
Since we’ve been staying a lot longer in places than anticipated to really see them, we would have wanted to spend at least a month exploring the Philippines as it has more than 7,000 islands.
But when we were invited on this press trip, we jumped at the chance to spend 11 days exploring some of it, knowing we’d want to come back again some day.
We took our flight from Bangkok to Manila, which lasted around four hours, landing in Manila at around 5pm.
However traffic in Manila is no joke. It should have taken us around 20 minutes to get to our hostel, but it took over an hour so we almost missed the meet-up time in the lobby but thankfully just made it.
We were staying at Lub D Hostel in Makati, which was a really modern spot with beautiful rooms. I’d highly recommend and consider staying in a Lub D Hostel elsewhere in the future.
Around 7pm we headed down to meet the tour group we’d be spending the next 11 days with.
We had some icebreaker games in the hostel lobby before heading across the street to dinner at Barrio Fiesta. A nice unassuming quiet Filipino meal before the karaoke came out and we were treated to the owner dancing his way around the restaurant.
A great welcome to the Philippines!
Day 228: Thursday 31st October 2024
Location: Manila, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
Happy Halloween!
It’s so weird to celebrate holidays or seasons when we’re travelling around Asia. It’s 30-something degrees, I’m getting sunburnt but at home it’s probably raining, miserable and cold, the perfect Halloween weather.
I haven’t celebrated Halloween since I was in university as it’s the one night of the year I really hate going out. There’s something about strangers in masks and costumes that make me feel like I’m in The Purge movie for a few hours, where anything could happen.
We were up early this morning for a walking tour of Manila City, to learn about the history and culture of the Philippines.
Our tour guide was great and funny, just what you need when you’ll be spending the next six hours listening to him chat about facts and history.
After a long day out exploring within the walls of the city, we headed back to the hostel and had a few hours of chill time before dinner on the rooftop of the hostel.
After dinner, we headed out on the town and it was chaos. Manila really love Halloween it seems, and even though we headed out around 8pm, you would have thought it was 1am in the morning.
The streets were crowded with people, traffic was at a standstill and we arrived at a street party with DJs, street performers and more.
We stayed out until midnight or so as we had a flight to catch the next morning, and we hadn’t been drinking much.
Day 229: Friday 1st November 2024
Location: Manila & Port Barton, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
Today was a travel day to a new island. We met in the lobby at 7.20am and headed to Manila Airport to catch an internal flight to Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan.
Our flight there was absolutely fine, but the minivan to Port Barton was eventful.
We waited a while for the minivans to arrive to pick us up and by this point we were all starving, so we pulled into a McDonald’s drive-thru and loaded up on burgers and fries.
The heavens opened and we were in the middle of a storm.
A few hours into the drive, the weather had cleared up and then we got a flat tyre. We were on the side of the road for about an hour waiting for a new tyre to arrive, so passed the time taking pictures and feeling a bit helpless while the driver worked hard to change and re-change the wheel.
Around 4pm, we were finally on our way to Port Barton again.
We arrived at our hotel which was directly on the beachfront, dropped our bags in our room and headed straight to the beach for happy hour and to watch the sunset.
It was incredibly relaxing and a great spot to chill out and watch the sun going down while sipping on a Mai Thai.
We went for dinner at the restaurant next door, Barton Bistro, who had a power outage but still made very tasty food. Our hotel also had a power outage, so no air-conditioning until the power came back at around 2am.
Power outages seem to be a common thing on this part of the island as it happened quite a few times during our stay.
Day 230: Saturday 2nd November 2024
Location: Port Barton, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
We were exploring the islands around Port Barton today via boat-hopping! The day started with pancakes for breakfast at the hotel and then onto the boat to explore.
When I tell you I have never seen waters like the waters in the Philippines, I am not exaggerating.
The clearest, most turquoise, picturesque waters I have ever seen in my life.
We snorkelled and saw turtles and so much fish on our first stop Twin Reef, before hopping back on the boat to head to Maxima Island Beach for lunch.
We relaxed here for a few hours, got some nice photos, and had a group lunch of fresh Filipino food on the beach.
After some more sunbathing (reading in the shade) and letting our food digest, we headed back on the boat for more snorkelling.
I’m not a huge lover of the sea, since it can be so dangerous, dark and who knows what’s lying beneath, but I could have swam in this water forever.
The water was warm, transparent and the most beautiful colour. Apologies in advance, but I will be talking about the water in the Philippines for a long time to come.
After our snorkelling, our last stop was a sand bar in the middle of the sea.
A random little patch of beach surrounded by the ocean. A very cool spot, and a lot of other tour groups had pulled up at the same time, so it felt somewhat like Spring Break.
Once we got back to Port Barton, we freshened up and headed for dinner at FLOW, who were hosting a foam and UV party, so we had a lot of fun with the UV paints.
Day 231: Sunday 3rd November 2024
Location: Port Barton & El Nido, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
Today was another travel day and we were leaving Port Barton for El Nido.
We pulled up to El Nido and it definitely felt more of a backpacker, holiday destination than Port Barton did.
It was much busier, with a lot more shops geared towards tourists, lots of coffee shops, food spots and people selling wet bags, sunglasses, flip flops and more.
It was chaos, but in a good way. We checked into our new hotel that had a beautiful coffee shop attached on the ground floor that quickly became our local for the next few days.
The hotel was the nicest that we’d checked into so far, very modern and with gorgeous plush beds that I couldn’t wait to dive into.
We had some free time, so myself and himself headed out for lunch at a Greek spot that overlooked the beach and water. The view was stunning.
We shared a gyros and souvlaki that were both very tasty. However, we had to leg it back to the hotel and spent the next few hours in and out of the bathroom with stomach cramps.
Thankfully, it subsided before sunset so we could go out and meet up with the rest of the group at a nearby hostel that had a rooftop pool and amazing views of the water and mountains.
For dinner, we headed to a traditional Filipino restaurant and I got a text from one of my best friends to tell me she was pregnant!!
A night to remember since I’m going to be an auntie in a few months!!
Make sure to check back in next week as we finish up our tour of the Philippines and head to a new island!
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