After a long, bumpy jeepney ride and a short flight we were back in Malate, Manila. Our base. The area where you have to walk down the middle of the road amongst the traffic because there are no pavements (not a problem because they swerve to avoid white people apparantly), where child beggars hit or swear at you if you don't give them money, and where everyone you meet on the street is selling something; but we loved it because everyone had a sense of humour about things.

So 5am the next day we left our base and set off for Mount Pinatubo in Dom's car. The 4x4 offroading was rough, and the hike was long but eventually we made the crater at the top (formed when the top was blown off in 1991), only for it to cloud over and rain. Frustrating at first but the moody dark clouds and heavy rain seemed to make us respect the place more and enjoy the swim in the crater lake. After the return hike we were spoilt with some spa treatments: roasted in volcanic ash, caked in mud and given a local massage.

It was about this point that Raj, a big time Filipino lawyer, decided to show us any Filipino traditions we may have missed thus far - starting with barbequed pig face. Next was Halo-halo ice cream- purple in colour, but flavoured like Uve (Yams). In fact he was so keen to educate us that he gave us a mobile and met us the next day for dinner in Makati (another district of Manila). Here we enjoyed the delicacies of mussels, scallops and squid soup all cooked in very strage ways (in fact the squid was just whole and uncooked, but you just eat the water around it), before moving on to see some live bands and rockeoke (Karaoke with a live band playing the music). It was an amzing night to finish our time in the Phillipines, so to finish in bad Taglish: Thanks couya, Mabuhai and salamat po.