Holiday 2012

[smudge]

Beat that, without being employed to do it, I should have said! Fair play to you though, you seem to have a dream job.

My last line says more; like I say, missed an awful lot of football.
By the way, the Philippines was a 2 month holiday; fantastic. I turned into a bit of a backpacker, which you need to be really for some of the places. I would recommend El Nido, Palawan to anyone with enough time.

 

[swindonseagull]

My last line says more; like I say, missed an awful lot of football.
By the way, the Philippines was a 2 month holiday; fantastic. I turned into a bit of a backpacker, which you need to be really for some of the places. I would recommend El Nido, Palawan to anyone with enough time.

People are scared to go to the Philippines its to far of the beaten track....but you and I know what they are missing in the likes of Palawan.

Places Like Philippines do not promote themselves enough, it costs just over £500 to get there and back and hotels are cheap. so you will probably spend less than 2 weeks in Benidorm.

Unfortunatly Manila is mostly a shit hole and if you see only Manila you probably will not want to see the PHILIPPINES again so will miss out on Palawan, El nido, Boracay etc.

Info from my Mate manilaseagull...

ps I lived in Philippines for 2 years......(as u know smudge)

 

[zfleas]

I went to a CARAVAN park in newquay for £60 for three nights... total shithole... great fun

 

[swindonseagull]

i went to a caravan park in newquay for £60 for three nights... Total shithole... Great fun

pikey!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kenhead]

This year i did:

Paris in February, visited all the main sites. Effiel Tower, Louve, Notra Dame etc... It reminded me of London with regards to all the nice stuff is centeral but the North and Southern parts where abit of a dump.

Berlin in May. Exellent trip, my favourite of the year. Went to the Olympic Stadium and alot of WW2 related stuff like Check Point Charlie and an Underground Bunker. Also was suprised how much of the wall was still in place. Great value for money.

In July/Aug as had a week off work did a 2 night stay in Amsterdam. First time id been in 10 years so was nice spotting things from the first time around. Did some more of the cultered stuff this time aswell like Anne Frank and Van Gogh bit disapointened with the latter. Also Hinekeen Experiance.

Then did a week in Zante the week just gone but we stayed in a slightly quiter resort of Kalamaki, headed down to Laganas during the day to see if it was worth a visit during the night but having a beer noticed that it was more pricier so didn't fancy being ripped off so just stucked to the bars near where we were staying as they were just as good.


Already got Budapest booked for March next year and Salzburg via a day in Munich in May.

 

[smudge]

People are scared to go to the Philippines its to far of the beaten track....but you and I know what they are missing in the likes of Palawan.

Places Like Philippines do not promote themselves enough, it costs just over £500 to get there and back and hotels are cheap. so you will probably spend less than 2 weeks in Benidorm.

Unfortunatly Manila is mostly a shit hole and if you see only Manila you probably will not want to see the PHILIPPINES again so will miss out on Palawan, El nido, Boracay etc.

Info from my Mate manilaseagull...

ps I lived in Philippines for 2 years......(as u know smudge)

Flying out Nov 8th mate & will be there for Christmas. I will be in Siquijor most of the time, but plan to visit Illigan, Cebu & can't wait to go back to Bohol; just love it there.
Have to spend a few days in Manila, but won't be hanging around long, although it's a fascinating place. It's just that traffic!

 

[Dave the OAP]

This year we did the Algarve, a small village between albufeira and villamore at Easter for a week which was a lovely break but the weather wasn't all that. We hired a car so got out and about.

Our cruise on the exploitative celebrity solstice in August started in barca, on to civitavecchia, Naples, Kotor in montenegro, Venice, Dubrovnik, Malta and then back to barca...12 nights. Although it was a huge ship, it was one of our best cruises ever. Kotor and budva are places we had not visited before and I 100% recommend the places. Full of Russians though, but hey....

 

[Trufflehound]

Unfortunatly Manila is mostly a shit hole and if you see only Manila you probably will not want to see the PHILIPPINES again so will miss out on Palawan, El nido, Boracay etc.

Compared to 20 years ago I think Manila is now wonderful. First time I went there in 1993, years of corruption meant half the country's power stations didn't work - all the maintenance money the government paid out got syphoned off into someone's pocket along the way.

The consequence of that was "brown outs" and no mains electricty 12 hours every day from dawn to dusk (in a city of then 8 miilon). Any business that wanted to stay in business had a cheap diesel generator on the street pumping out noise and choking fumes all day long in addition to all the shit coming out the back of the jeepneys. and there was no airco anywhere all day long.

Watching staff in the Philippines Airlines office work at their computers reconfirming my flights by candlelight was a tad bizarre (their generator couldn't produce enough power to do lighting and computers...).

Went back in 2011, and the traffic is still awful, but at least the lights come on now and again.