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It was sad to leave Australia… I had a great time and loved seeing all the family! I woke up at 4am on the last morning and the airport taxi arrived at 5:10am. My journey took me to Sydney (1.5 hrs) and then on to Manila (8 hrs).

My time in Manila was quite stressful! In fact, I nearly came back straight to the UK! Let me explain…

The Philippine peso is a restricted currency. This means that you can only bring in or take out a small amount of cash in/out of the country. The last time I was here, it was a $100US worth in local currency (about 4,500 peso’s). I ended up bringing 4,000 peso’s. The restriction is now 10,000 peso’s which I didn’t know.

Knowing that 4,000 peso’s wont get you very far when traveling, I tried to cash in some of my travelers cheques at the airport. None of the banks and currency exchange places wanted to change them!! This got me a little worried and so I tried the ATM, “Sorry cannot contact your branch”! Fortunately, I had $30 AUS which I changed and that gave me an extra 1,240 pesos.

I decided that maybe the banks were closing soon at the airport and they simply couldn’t be fussed to phone up for the approval codes. So I got a taxi which cost of 500 pesos, checked-in into the hotel, showered and went across the road for a pizza and a beer.

During the night I did start to worry that “what if?” nobody would change my travelers cheques? I only had 4,000 pesos. If I continued to Boracay and still couldn’t change my money into local cash, I might not have enough to get back to Manila’s international airport. So I had to find a way to change cash in Manila before leaving for the airport the following day.

I set myself a time limit that if I could not change some my travelers cheques by 10:30am, I’d have to arrange to go back to the UK. The last place you want to be is in a foreign place like Manila with no money! I tried all the banks within a visible walking distance from the hotel (you don’t want to wonder too far in a place like Manila). None of them would change UK Pound Sterling travelers cheques. They would only do US Dollar cheques! My immediate thought was “travelers cheques suck!”… On my way to the hotel the night before I saw a HSBC bank about 1km down the road. I got the hotel to arrange a “safe” taxi… When I arrived at the bank, I had smiles when I asked to change my travellers cheques! Whew! I cannot describe the relief I had!!! Even the cashier commented that I looked tired! Eish! It was 9:45am.

The HSBC bank would change £300 into local currency which was okay with me. I also drew out £260 at the ATM inside the bank which gave me a total of 42,000 pesos. But now wondering around Manila with that much cash gives you a different feeling! You don’t want to be carrying that much cash either! Gees, what do you do? Carry no cash and have travelers cheques which mean nothing to anybody, or, carry hard currency which makes you a target!

I spoke with a British fellow in the hotel who comes to the Philippines once a month. Last week he was in the south and said it was a very dangerous place down there. For those that don’t know… the South of the philippines is not a safe place for any body! That is where kidnappings happen and there are groups of muslim extremists in the region. Anyway, this chap said last week he had to “change a lot of money” at a money changer in the middle of the street where everybody could see what was going on. He said it was not a pleasant experience! I can only imagine… In fact, this guy was going back down south this week… no way would I be doing that!! Eish!!

Getting to the local airport and onto Boracay was plain sailing as they say. I was much more relieved and when I saw the island from the air… well…. I was very excited to be back! I got to change my money on the island with no problems, paid for the apartment and started settling in…

Having not really eaten properly for 2 days, I had a US imported Angus Steak and a beer! Just what I needed! And the following morning, I had a good breakfast and I’m now starting to relax…

The pics below was my walk to breakfast…

I walk past the pool area from my apartment.

The distance to the beach is about a 30 second walk along this path.

The beach is just ahead...

Right on the beach.... I turn right and walk for a while...

The tourist centre is just on the right. This is where I changed my travellers cheques.

Taking photos of just about anything!

The colour of the sea is exactly how I remembered it 😉

Could you imagine being here? 😉 getting some shade from the sun...

Okay.. back to the walk along the path by the beach front.

Getting close to my breakfast place...

This is where I finally had breakfast 🙂 Rumba's...