This week a brand new tax year started, and those in traditional jobs have been running year-end assessments and shuffling spreadsheets left, right and centre. So I thought I’d do some rather taxing assessments of my own and calculate the 10 best things I’ve done this financial year, and their real value – monetarily and of course in […]

If you have only a short time in which to experience Manila you might think that a visit to a cemetery shouldn’t be at the top of your must-do list? But a trip to the sobering and thought-provoking American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila will pull The Philippines’ part in world history sharply into focus and underline how privileged we are to be […]

The Filipino Island of Bohol is best known for two things: tarsiers and what I came to think of as an exaggerated teletubby land known as The Chocolate Hills, a strange landscape of 1,268 eerie and bizarre conical mounds dotted a round the centre of the island…

Think Asian street food and you’ll probably think of stalls selling delicious and mysterious local delicacies cooked up by a smiling old lady on a dirty street corner. Street food can make us feel excited about the thrill to our taste buds and apprehensive about the danger to our tummies in equal measure, but they’ve […]

I’m just going to come right out and say it, Manila’s Fairmont Makati is my new favourite hotel in the world. In fact it isn’t really a hotel, it feels like a destination in and of itself. Manila may not be the first place that springs to mind for a relaxing break, but after a stay […]