Three Weeks in Southeast Asia: Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia

Three countries, three weeks, fourteen days of holiday from work. April 2025. The route: Singapore (4 days) to Cebu and Moalboal (3 days) to Bohol (2 days) to El Nido (3 days) to Coron via a 4-day boat to Kuala Lumpur (5 days). We swam with sardines, looked a tarsier in the eye, slept on the deck of a wooden boat under more stars than we'd seen since Iceland, and ate hawker food until we couldn't see straight.

Days 1 to 4: What to do in Singapore

Stay in Duxton Hill if you can. We were at Mondrian Singapore (£270/night, pool on the roof, breakfast that served as cardio prep for two-meal lunches).

The food brief is its own article (Eating Singapore in 48 Hours →). The headline: Tian Tian chicken rice at Maxwell ($5), chilli crab at Newton ($80 for two), roti prata at Mr and Mrs Mohgan's ($1.20/piece), Zen three-Michelin-star dinner (£140/person, the Sasayama beef course will follow you home).

Beyond food: Gardens by the Bay Supertree Grove light show (free, 7:45pm), Singapore Botanic Gardens at 7am, Little India and Kampong Glam.

Days 5 to 7: Cebu and Moalboal sardine run

Fly from Singapore (£140 each, 4 hours). Drive four hours from Cebu City to Moalboal on the south-west coast.

The sardine run at Panagsama Beach is a daily phenomenon: millions of sardines form a moving, swirling, silver cloud about ten feet underwater, fifty feet from shore. You snorkel, or freedive, and swim into the cloud. The cloud parts around you. It's one of the genuine top-ten experiences of our travelling lives.

Alexander did this with a regulator and an Open Water dive certification (Getting PADI Certified Changed How I Travel →), dropping to twelve metres and watching a million sardines part above and below. Linda freedived from the surface, which is also genuinely extraordinary.

Stayed at a cliff-top Airbnb (£50/night). The host organised the snorkel guide, the Oslob whale shark tour the next day, and the ferry to Bohol.

Days 8 to 9: What to do in Bohol

Fast ferry from Cebu (£18 each, 2 hours). Stay in Panglao (skip Alona Beach, go anywhere else for less crowd).

Chocolate Hills: 1,200 conical hills, brown in summer, green in monsoon, properly otherworldly. Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary: the world's smallest primate, the size of your palm, eyes the size of saucers, about a metre from your face. No flash photography. Genuinely affecting.

Day two: snorkel at Napaling Reef (walk down a staircase to the water, swim out fifteen metres, drop to ten metres of stunning coral).

Days 10 to 13: El Nido to Coron by boat

Fly from Bohol to El Nido (£140). Boat tours A through D from El Nido (we did Tour A for Big and Small Lagoon, plus a private tour to Nacpan Beach, the three-kilometre strand of yellow sand).

The Big Dream Boat Man trip: four days, three nights on a wooden bangka, sleeping under tents on the deck, three meals a day cooked on board, twenty passengers, no Wi-Fi, three or four island stops a day at uninhabited beaches. £450/person all-in. It's the trip we'd pay double for. Full review →

Linda still talks about the second-night beach barbecue on a strip of sand with no light pollution and the Milky Way directly overhead.

Days 14 to 18: What to do in Kuala Lumpur

From Coron via Manila to KL. The KL portion is in the KL Food Diary →. The shape: Petaling Street food walk, Petronas Towers, Batu Caves, Malacca day trip →, last meal at Soong Kee Beef Ball Mee.

How much does three weeks in Southeast Asia cost for two people?

About £100/day per person, weighted by the Mondrian Singapore and BDBM splurges. The Philippines was the best of the three countries. Sorry, Singapore.