We went to the SM mall on the first evening for dinner, and the Ayala the second night

The SM mall is larger and newer; both have a food court that we went for dinner along with the locals.

Food along most food stalls were remarkably similar. There were deep friend pork, grilled chicken, grilled fish; clam soup, pochero (which is beef broth with other vegetables), cuttlefish, etc.

The one at the SM mall is quite large. There are about 20-30 shops selling a variety of food. About half sells local Filipino food. We bought a grilled fish, a grilled cuttlefish, spring roll, a shrimp tempura, and a beef noodle.

The grilled fish comes with a dark soya sauce which is mildly spicy. It's quite overcooked; a bit dry on the inside. That meant it soaked up a lot of the soya sauce and became quite salty. But it was quite fresh and thus didn't taste too bad.

The grilled cuttlefish was stuffed with rice and vegetables. It was good.

The spring roll and the shrimp tempura were bad choices - they were cooked an hour ago and were completely soft when eaten; supposedly it should be crunchy, right?

The beef noodle was cooked in front of me, it was good but the portion was tiny. We also tried a stuffed crab shell. The shop owner re-fried it before giving it to me. It was ok.

Not much vegetable on the island. That means, there is no vegetable dish. Saw some vegetables in a few soup only; However, we did try some seaweed, which was doused with vinegar and too sour. So much so that we couldn't finish the plate.

I would recommend visiting the shop with the most customers, since the food was all laid out in the front uncovered; more customers meant a faster turnover rate which translated to shorter time left on the display, which meant a lesser chance of a fly sitting on it before you ate it.

Food there was not expensive. Expect about 150 pesos for a meal. But it was a worthy cultural experience.

London to Hong Kong

I have done a lot of travelling in my time, seen a few developing nations as well as the more established gas-guzzlers. I was aware that the Philippines is a developing country and allegations of corruption are rife, no go areas for foreigners, and social unrest on some islands. The flight, even though I had travelled further was the longest single flight I had ever taken (over 13 hours). It was the sign of the times for me, because when I had taken long flights of this nature (6 hours or more) before, it had either been business class or premium economy.

I braced myself for this long flight in economy with my oversize frame and all the problems that brings, to be pleasantly surprised with the ample space I was given on my Air New Zealand flight. It was a flight that was scheduled to depart at 9:15pm for Auckland via Hong Kong, the latter being the first leg of my destination. I was fed, watched a film or two, did the usual exercises walking around the cabin, but after 7 or 8 hours I was getting thoroughly bored with over 5 hours left of the flight which seemed to me like an eternity. I know that if I was in a different environment I would be up to mischief, just to kill the time.

I made the mistake of going to the cinema a few times in the months preceding this trip, so I had seen most of the films they had to offer, but the entertainment package was varied and interesting, but today, it was just not enough to keep me riveted to my seat. It was later on in the flight on one of my trips around the cabin that I decided to look outside to look at the usual white clouds that you normally see, to be astonished that you could see the land a barren flat wasteland on one side of the aircraft and a mountain range on the other. The detail were so good the odd track here the odd settlement there, dried up riverbeds and the land looked thoroughly in-hospitable, this had woken up my senses. Wow! the trip had suddenly to come to life, I had rushed back to my seat, looked at the onboard GPS system, to discover where I was. Not enough detail really, but I soon worked out that I was flying across the Tibetan Plains or plateau on one side and going around the Himalayas on the other.

I was on a high, remembering the captain should have announced this beautiful wilderness, absolutely stunning. I racked my brains as to why we could see so much detail as we were still flying at around 11,000 metres (over 36,000 feet), going back to my high school geography lessons, I remembered that the plateau was over 4,000 metres high and in places over 6,000 metres. This explained the remarkable detail I was seeing and as we drew closer to mainland China the changing landscape. Excitement over, I settled back into my seat, still buzzing from seeing one of the worlds great natural sites.

Hong Kong to Cebu
I arrived at an airport of which I later discovered would put Heathrow to shame. The building, the infrastructure, the plain efficiency of the airport was something to behold, you would not believe they had the same security measures as LHR, the place runs so much smoother.

I had a few hours to kill (seven) so I took myself off to Hong Kong Island by taxi, big mistake the plain cost of the taxi was not too bad but when they add on the cost of crossing the toll bridges and tunnels, it nearly doubles the price.

Hong Kong, while not under British control, still has part of a British structure; the roads, electricity and the high proportion of people that speak English is remarkably surprising. I had a poke around the shops, pop into a restaurant for something to eat, that was really challenging, then took an express train back to the airport. The underground system was remarkably easy to understand, apart from buying a ticket, no enquiries with members of staff was necessary.

I checked-in to Cebu Pacific Air, a Ryan Air style organisation with a strict 20kg weight limit and the usual no thrills, was about 1hr late from the scheduled take off time, I later learned that was typical, but if you want cheap air travel this is the price you have to pay. I travelled on an Airbus 320 with a seating arrangement more suited to the Asian people that usually travelled on it. Yes, it was tight, but I was glad it was a 2hr flight, anymore would have been a problem. We touched down in Cebu and even though it was past 3am in the morning, there was no mistaking you were 10˚̊ above the equator I began dripping in minutes.

My friends picked me up and took me to my hotel, a godsend really, the gaggle of dodgy taxi drivers, waiting for me at the airport was unprecedented, never mind, to the people that picked me up, you know who you are, a big thank you. When doing my homework on the country I once read not to bother hiring a car for the first two days, see how the land lies for the first two days then assess your requirements and more importantly the way in which they drive, before taking out such a high risk venture. Good advice, the taxi driver taking us to the hotel on the empty early morning streets was a noisy and eye opening affair, you weren’t going to drift off to sleep in this journey. I thought it was a one off, but later discovered this was the norm.

I talked till dawn with my hosts in the hotel room, then decided to have breakfast, not in the hotel but in the street café a couple of hundred yards down from the hotel, we had something called Tapsilog - strips of flavoured beef, boiled rice and a Sunnyside-up egg. This was lovely and I had this for most of my stay with slight variations, sometimes with fish called Bangsilog (milkfish). The cost of this varied from 48-53 Pesos less than 70 pence, great value. After breakfast I made arrangements to meet at midday then retired to bed after a very long day.

Cebu
You see children begging at most traffic lights, you see wastelands turned into what is known locally as squatter areas – makeshift barns with corrugated roofs called homes, peddlers scratching a living every which way they can. Sounds depressing, but you do not have to go too far to find out that all is not as bad as it seems.

Of the many shopping malls that Cebu has to offer, two stick out for a mention: Ayala Mall and SM Mall, walk into these malls, change the race of the people and you could quite easily think you were in Bluewater or the Trafford Centre. With stores like M&S, TopShop and Toys R Us, with the usual array of fast food restaurants that grace any UK high street. This place is not short of money, the top echelons of Cebu society aren’t enough to keep these places going. When you go to the malls and take a short trip downtown around Colon Street you will see that this place is not short of food or water. So you ask yourself, why the big gap between rich and poor, I was only there for two weeks I am not really qualified to answer this question. On one side you see visible growth on the other you see meltdown.

You talk to the locals and see they want to live abroad, not realising that they have a beautiful island and Europeans pay £1,000’s to come to their Islands.

I did a lot of homework before I ventured to the Philippines. Yes, the culture is different, yes, they are amongst the friendliest people you could ever meet on this planet, but now I have been to the Philippines would I live here? The simple answer is yes. There are a few things I would have to get used to: security guards with guns at most stores, police with guns at banks, as a citizen of the UK I am not used to seeing so much armoury. The hills that overlook Cebu are beautiful, that is where I would want to be.

what can i say, everything you need and more, very friendly place, not as busy a Manila, clean air, clean beaches, some excelled hiking.

Hotels are good, internet access is good, strongly reccomend Yeeha Internetan,, very friendly for westerners like me.. plus the had wifi,, so us modern day packers can use our lap tops.

food was great, weather was typical for philippines, suggest the hnging rice,, very nice!

enjoy it,, its well worth a visit,, need at least 3 days.