Day 95. On a bus, somewhere north of Manila.

Writing this before jumping on a night bus that'll be home for the 10 hour trip to the dramatic rice terraces of north Luzon.

Manila might not be the hippest city in the world, but we've enjoyed our time here, and used the time to sort out lots of boring but important stuff, like changing flights and rethinking our itinerary (heavy flooding in Malaysia has scuppered any thoughts we had of trekking the Cameron Highlands, we're now thinking of taking a flight from Borneo to Rangoon, sitting out what's left of the monsoon, and heading south in a month or so once the decent weather returns). Dunno. We'll see.

Still over a week left in the Philippines though, and looking forward to some cool mountain air in the days ahead.

Bought a nice polyester shirt for 2 quid yesterday. Paul Smith meets Liberace, very understated, very me, very smelly if there's no air-conditioning on this bloody bus.

Day 94. Manila, Philippines. Big, bad City.

How best to describe this metropolis of 11 million people?

Bit of a mess really. No City centre as such, just a ragbag series of non-descript neighbourhoods held together by a perpetual jam of traffic.

It's noisy, dirty, overcrowded and - unless you're staying at one of the vulgar big air-conditioned tourist hotels - extremely humid and sticky.

The place is not without it's charms though, especially at night when the neon lit bars and restaurants burst into life and previously lack-lustre streets start buzzing.

Our digs are little oasis of calm right in the middle of all the craziness. Built in the style of an old Spanish hacienda a 100 years or so ago, it boasts antique furniture, a pretty walled garden and an absolute gem of a swimming pool.

A night's stay at Bianca's Garden guesthouse sets us back a tenner, which was how much I paid for Wend's Mojito last time we were daft enough to have a drink in The Charlotte Street Hotel. Can't recommend the place highly enough.

Special mention should also be made of that most quirky of Philippine icons; The Jeepney.

Half Jeep, half Bus, these smoke-belching kitchmobiles are everywhere. Predominately metallic silver and garish yellow, they are generally festooned with badly painted religious imagery, obscure philosophical quotes and any amount of other random tat.

They look great, especially when fully laden, but we're yet to pluck up the courage to hop on board.

Day 93. Manila, Philippines. A hairy moment.

Had a bit of a close shave this afternoon.

The barber had made such a good job of cutting my hair I thought I'd see how handy he was with a razor.