There’s an old age saying that hell is other people, I disagree with that statement, hell is in fact Manila Terminal 1 on the eve of the worst pandemic to hit earth in our lifetimes.
The first stop on the bus ride from Clark to Manila was about to haunt me for the next twelve hours, coming into view as the sun finally set was a brand spanking new terminal, modern, clean and elegant, not the sort of thing you expect to find in the centre of Manila. By this point, all I had eaten since I left El Nido…
I don’t know what the weirdest place you’ve ever booked an international flight in is, but I’m not sure any of them can beat sat outdoors in 35-degree heat; queuing for a bus that may never come, with 300 hundred other desperate travellers, all the while an open sewer runs down next to you.
First, though I need to back up a little bit…
I had just touched down at Clark, the gateway to Angeles City, not to be confused with the city of angels, Los Angeles. The only stars you’re likely to find here is a heavy doss of…
As you’ll know by now if you’ve read Part 2, I was now sat in the back of a tricycle being bounced around to El Nido airport.
At this point everything was up in the air, I couldn’t put my hand on any single solid bit of news, and countries were closing their borders so fast it was giving me whiplash. As far as I could make out, not a single country in Asia was now accepting travellers, apart from Taiwan, which is where my friend was hoping to make it to.
I quickly went through all my options, Malaysia…
There’s a strange disorientating feeling about waking up stone-cold sober after a night of moderate-ish drinking. Staring at the ceiling of my BNB with the air conditioning worming away on full blast I contemplated the news I had received the night before, the fact the island of Palawan had gone full Lord of the Flies on me. Again, I double-checked the news but could see nothing confirming it, so pulled on some clothes and headed down to breakfast, maybe the staff would know something.
Everything seemed to be ticking over like normal; I don’t know what I expected, to be…
In March 1942 General Douglas MacArthur made his escape from the Philippines on board a fleet of US Navy PT boats. 78 years later it was my turn to follow in his steps, except this time it wasn’t the Japanese I was fleeing but some weird virus that at that time was mainly used as a punch line for a joke.
First off, let me set the scene, by this point I’d spend a week in the Philippines, exploring the bi-polar city of Manila and the adorable port town of Puerto Princesa, where I hopped a bus up to the…
A couple of months back I had a conversation that I just don’t seem to be able to get out of my head. I was sat on a bus heading from that collective hell hole known as Siem Reap — where Cambodian culture goes to die, (the town, not the beautiful temples). And I was heading towards the much, much nicer Battambang, when bored by the passing scenery — Cambodia is an eerily flat place — I struck up a conversation with my seatmate. “Been in Cambodia for long?” “A… A… a couple of days.” He shrugged. “And… what do…
Now, if you’ve read any travel blogs at all, (traitor) plenty of people seem to believe that Podgorica is basically Dante’s fifth circle of hell, a place so devoid of personality, you may as well spend your holiday inside a vacuum. Though, to be honest I think they’re being unfair, as, for a city of 150,000 people, it’s got a surprisingly lot of things going for it.
Let’s get something out of the way first through, it hasn’t got a beautiful, well preserved historic center, old cathedrals, or a street lined with so many bars, you’ll be throwing up before…
This is going to be a short-ish essay on the issues I have with charity, and how people giving more and more is not necessarily a good thing, how charity can have unintended consequences, and how we can maybe solve them.
Now, I am going to start this short essay with an often-quoted passage which has his roots in ancient China ‘give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ …
Some people find travel milestones a big deal, whether it is their first time on a plane, to their six years they’ve been on the road, personally, I didn’t give it much thought, until I touched down in Budapest.
I arrived back in Budapest for a quick one night stay, after flying in from Sarajevo on my way to Bucharest, as I touched down in the city, I realized it was pretty much two years to the day, that I had left (I know others like to say ‘quit’ their jobs, but that sounds all terribly dramatic to me,) my…
Travelling the world solo can fill some people with a sense of dread, how am I going to meet new people? What if I get murdered? What if I get lost? How am I going to deal with night buses? These are all valid questions, so sit back relax, and let me help you out.
Meeting People
The most common type of worries I hear is how am I going to meet people? Apart from the fact, people are literally everywhere, this one always seems to crop up first. If you’re young, or even old, and you’re staying in a hostel, especially…
Callum Sanders
Irrelevant travel writer at The Winding Trail, trying to bring a bit of happiness into the word…
