Handy map from the BBC on where not to go next:

Guess we’re not taking a boat from Mumbai to Nairobi…

We spent two nights in Iloilo City during the Dinagyang Festival to be as close to the action as possible, but for our last two days in the Philippines—not to mention our last two days with Jeoffrey and Fatima—they booked side-by-side bungalows at a small coastal resort about an hour west so we could all just chill out.

While there, we visited the Miag-ao Church, one of the Baroque Churches of the Philippines, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Panorama of the Miag-ao Church

The church was nice, but what really caught my eye was the design of the local trikes. The sidecars were fabricated to look just like real cars. And not just any generic “car”—actual Hondas and Toyotas (and every other conceivable make), complete with headlights and an actual badge. I couldn’t help myself from taking “a few” photos. Would be neat to import a few of these stateside.

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Meet our “new” Spaceship (and home for the next two weeks):

Whereas Palpatine was a brand new “Beta”-model Spaceship with only 46,000 kilometers, Voyager is one of their original (and well-traveled) “Alpha”-models—with 314,000 kilometers! We knew what we were getting, but it did take some adjusting to. Surprisingly it’s actually a little more spacious inside, but the size of the fridge does leave something to be desired.

We treated ourselves to a hotel Friday night in Christchurch, and started heading towards Queenstown on Saturday afternoon. We decided to stop at the Top 10 Holiday Park in Fairlie, which outside of having an impressive herb garden and excellent facilities for such a small location, also had unusually fast and free wireless internet.