Siquijor Island, Philippines

We landed in Manila and within a few hours I had seen a woman pissing in the gutter, rats diving into rubbish, cockroaches scuttling around, whole families begging in the streets, a woman smashing a bottle next to a man, lady boys touting for business, young Filipino girls with old fat western men... The heat and traffic were unbearable. Needless to say our first impression wasn't great. We got out of the city as soon as we could and headed for the tranquility of Siquijor, a little island in the Visayan region of the Philippines. The plan was to spend a week there and then head to another island. We ended up not moving for two weeks!

We stayed in Charisma which had just come under new management and it ticked every box for us, plusI think we had just has enough of moving about! So we actually fully unpacked our bag and got into the routine of doing nothing! It was such a treat to just read, watch the sunsets and not have anything to worry about apart from where we were going to eat (a choice of two resturants!).



Our first impression of Siquijor, much better than Manila!

It takes about two hours to go round the whole island

The pools at Charisma - we got there and decided not to move for two weeks!

The beach

One of the many sunsets we enjoyed

We both read so many books on our little holiday, from books on Salt to the British economy - what happended to the trash i used to read?!

Yes i do have a bikini on!

Fisherman coming in with his catch

The beach just goes on and on!

Sunset time again

Fresh coconut juice coming up

After a week of literally not leaving our little patch of Siquijor we got on a bike and explored the whole island. We found this little beauty spot - Salagdong Beach - which is supposed to have the best beach on the island, unfortunately we were there at high tide and there was no beach!

Salagdong Beach

Off to have a beer and watch the sunset


One of many beauties

Life's a beach