With reckless abandon. That’s how I described our trip to El Nido in general. Not much planning was involved. We dove into it even though we had not even found a place to stay. And we pushed through with it even though we were in the middle of a very critical season at work. All we wanted was that feeling [...]

I was still trying to catch my breath when I reached the tour bus parked at Port Klang, Malaysia. The SuperStar Virgo had docked and our group was ready for a tour of Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. It was a long walk from the ship to the bus. “Are we still waiting for anyone else?” asked our Malaysian tour [...]

When my mom learned I would be going to Singapore for the third time, she handed me a list of things I should buy for her. When I looked at the list I knew exactly where to get them — Mustafa Centre. It was not difficult at all to squeeze this quick shopping stint into my itinerary because Mustafa is [...]

Our Day 3 in Singapore started early. We were up as early as 7am. The first item on our itinerary for that day was the Chinatown Heritage Walking Tour, which I was very excited about because I had never been to this part of Singapore before. Note that it is a Do-It-Yourself tour. Even before the trip, I already determined [...]

The night before, we asked Arvee, a Punta Bulata staff, to talk to three habal-habal drivers to pick us up at 5:30am the following day. At exactly 5:30 am, our habal-habal rides were at Punta Bulata waiting for us. The problem was, we had just woken up. The exhaustion from the Danjugan Trip the day before got the better of [...]

The facade and exterior of San Sebastian Cathedral in Bacolod City look stunning. I’m pretty sure its interior looks just as amazing. If only we were able to enter. LOL. That’s probably one of the biggest mistakes we made in this whole trip. On the way to Manokan Country, our jeepney passed by the Cathedral. It was a bit before [...]

Puerto Princesa City may look vibrant today but like many cities in the Philippines, it also has a dark history. This is most evident in a small park in Barangay Liwanag called Plaza Cuartel. Plaza Cuartel looks like your ordinary city park with concrete pavements, towering trees and benches. The ruins of an old garrison and tunnels are proof of [...]

The Baclayon Church, formally known as the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Baclayon, is one of the oldest churches in the country. It is usually the second stop in the Bohol Countryside Tour. (The first stop from the airport is usually the Sandugo Monument.) We initially wanted to follow the usual itinerary and visit this immediately [...]

After visiting Prony the Python and the cute tarsiers, the Poor Traveler’s group decided that it was time for lunch as we all felt a little hungry already. We waited a good 20 minutes for our turn to ride the raft. But it was alright; it gave enough time for us to shop around. There were several souvenir shops around [...]

Next in our itinerary was the Paoay Church. I must say, I had very high expectations. It was one of the places that I was really looking forward to visiting in this trip. I’d seen hundreds of pictures of this UNESCO World Heritage Site and each one of them blew me away. But boy, none of those pictures did justice [...]

When the Poor Traveler and his poor friends were planning a cheap trip to the Ilocandia, we weren’t expecting much. We just wanted to see three things — Vigan, Pagudpud and the Bangui Windmills. We hired a budget travel agency to take us on a road trip to Ilocos for only P3,300 per person and we had no idea what [...]

After our two-day tour in Iloilo and Guimaras, the Poor Traveler and his poor friend decided that it was time to head home. But the flight tickets that we got would have a connecting flight in Cebu City. Our plane would land at Mactan International Airport at 4pm and would depart for Manila at 6am the next morning. But we [...]

“Crowded.” That was the first word that came to the Poor Traveler’s mind upon first step on the church grounds. Perhaps because it was Sunday. Wherever we look we could see many people — lighting candles on one side, attending  the mass on another, or simply taking a walk around the church premises. Viewed 4107 times by 1672 viewers

When The Poor Traveler was in Iloilo, one of the sites we visited was The Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Iloilo, more commonly known as the Jaro Cathedral. It was beautiful and old. There was an ongoing mass and since we didn’t want to get attention taking pictures, we decided to not whip out our camera inside. The [...]

The Poor Traveler’s trip to Guimaras, as narrated in this post, was plagued with a series of unfortunate events primarily because of poor planning. However, because of the beauty of the place, we were able to enjoy our stay in this fabulous island province. But there was more. The kindness of our tricycle driver also gave us a little bit [...]