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Boracay
White BeachTraveling in The Philippines is challenging. First you have to figure out how to get the place you want to go. It's usually not as straightforward as buying a bus ticket but rather it's a series of pedicabs, jeepneys, minivans and pumpboats. Add unpaved roads, 5 hour waits in nondescript towns and time schedules that aren't accurate and you have a taste on what we've experienced so far getting to the incredible scenic island of Boracay. It's quite the adventure and the scenery along the way is second to none. Also because The Philippines as a whole is pretty much untouristed compared to places like Thailand, we've learned that the majority of people we ask directions from are telling the truth about prices and directions and not just trying to make a quick buck.
We left at 6am from Puerto Galera and arrived in Boracay around 8pm. We were able to score about a 50% discount from our hotel as it's low season right now. There's a couple handfuls of foreigners here and 1000's of local tourists from The Philippines. Exactly how I like it. At night the 3km white soft sandy beach strip is lively and full of seafood
Giant Sandcastles
Freshly made everyday in this little slice of paradise called White Beach, Boracay buffet restaurants, bars and videoke (kareoke) joints. We ate dinner which consisted of meat and rice. I asked for vegetables and they said "Sorry sir, no vegetables here" and looked at me like I was some sort of health freak. In fact it's very difficult to find anywhere that has vegetables on the menu. I'm not a health freak, I just find it weird that the whole country is on the Atkins diet!
The beach during the day is the definition of paradise. Crystal clear layered light and dark blue shallow waters. Fine white sand beaches, and a coral reef that straddles this tiny tropical island. It's been rated by several sources as 1 of the top 10 beaches in the world. Although it's supposed to be rainy typhoon season, we've had days and days of sunshine and 35 degree weather. By far we're not the first to discover this place, but in some ways I feel that we have. At some points during the busiest times of the day we have the beach to ourselves. It's amazing to not be sharing this paradise with 10's of thousands of other foreigners but rather vacationing Filipinos. We didn't do much
Paradise
and warm water here, except take lots of pictures, swim, and eat meat. I changed my flight so that I could spend a few extra days in The Philippines, and Sully changed his flight so he could spend a few extra weeks here. I wish I could stay longer but I have to start making my way to Vancouver on the 17th of June.
Now I need to bring you back in time a bit. Back in Cambodia in the Ankor Wat complex we met some Filipino girls on vacation who were out and about doing the same thing as us, admiring the amazing 900 year old ruins. We spoke briefly before quickly parting ways. We ran into them later at a bar where we chatted a bit and exchanged email addresses. Like so many other travelers we've met along the way I pretty much expected to either not keep in touch or quickly lose touch with them. I have literally dozens of email adresses and although they're all great people it's impossible to keep in touch with everyone, especially because you're highly unlikely to ever cross paths again. Upon arriving in Borocay we surprisingly got this email....
Hello Dave & The Virgin Mary
The Philippines is a Catholic country and there is evidence of their faith everywhere Patrick,
Are you in Philippines now?
I called my sister Oyen today, and told her to accommodate both of you if you get the chance to go to Romblon-our hometown. It's near Boracay or Mindoro. I'm sure you will love our whitesand beaches! I told her to roam you around in the town, in the barrio & to bring both of you in our sister's place & my Mom's place where you can try to eat buko (coconut fruit).You can ask our caretaker to get the coconut fruit for you, or you can climb the coconut tree yourself..hehehe..Just kidding. Don't worry about your accommodation, my family will take care of it. OK. I will also contact my close friend, cos his family has a resort. I'm not sure if he's in Romblon or Manila. Take care....Lyndie
Sully and I were all for it! We looked up where Romblon is in our guidebook. Although in terms of distance it's actually not that far from Boracay, however in terms of remoteness and time to get there it seems so much more distant. I love adventures though, and I'm never one to turn down an offer to rub shoulders with
the local people in a non touristed environment. I did something similar in Indonesia and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever done, this would prove to be the same. We woke up early at 6am, caught a pump boat to Cataclan to find out that the boat to Santa Fe unfrortunatly did not exist. So we caught whatever boat we could to the first island we needed to get to called Tablas. The destination is Looc, however because of the waves we landed in Alcantaran instead. This is all no big deal but it shows that you always have to expect that when you arrange transport you're not guaranteed to get to where you want to go and what time you want to be there. From Alcantaran we took a 3 hour jeepney ride to San Augustin, which got us there just in time to miss the only boat to Romblon. We were lucky enough to be able to charter a boat at an infalted price, finally we arrived at the charming little town of Romblon city, it only took about 8 hours but the adventure is was incredible.
We were welcomed into the family
The Family Cottage
Secluded we had the entire place to ourselves. home as guests immeditaly. Their warm smiling faces made us feel at ease and we didn't feel as akward as we thought we might at first. They quickly served us a lunch of Filipino favorites and let us know our itinerary for the next couple days. We were amazed that they had so much planned for us and we quickly got excited. Oyen showed us around the barrio (neighborhood) and explained the history of the town. She brought us to her very own conveinance store called Friendzter. We just loved that name, and ensured that we did all of our shopping there. We soon after met Lolo, who has got to be my favorite. He didn't speak much English if any, and he was missing half of his teeth which gave him a certain charm. He was always smiling and giving the thumbs up to us, his smile was contagious and always put me in a good mood when I saw him. He didn't need to speak to us, he would just smile and we could tell that he like us as much as we liked him. He drove us in the families pedicab to the family cottage on a
At one of the cottages
Picture postcard perfect beaches all to ourselves, we spent most of the time eating and swimming! secluded white sand and coral beach about 10km or so out of town. At this point we were feeling very spoiled and wondered what we did to deserve so much generousity!
That night we lit on bon fire on the beach as we were cooked a dinner of freshly caught BBQ fish and rice along with all the drinks we could drink. We went to bed early as we had a long day travelling and were pretty tired from the adventure. Upon sunrise at about 5:30 am we were awoken by the smell of breakfast being cooked by the family, and the kids playing with the videoke machine. Cheerfully they said Good morning as they layed out a table for all kinds of breakfast goodies. Much more food than we could ever possibly eat, they ensured we were fed well, extremely well! We spent from about 6:30am until noon or so swimming and enjoying this picture perfect retreat all to ourselves.
In western culture this type of generousity is rarely seen except maybe towards family members, and even then I can't really think of any examples. In Asian culture I've realized that it doesn't take someone long to
The crew
Oyen, Auntie and I know that they love you. I've seen countless examples of it, and have had some instant amazing friendships spawn from it. Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own. We were complete strangers to these people but after meeting just breifly they treated us like long lost family! It was absolutley incredible and Sully and I were both touched.
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give. And these people gave to us like there's no tomorrow. And they didn't expect anything in return. Naturally we offered to wash dishes, pay gas money, give gifts to the children.....anything! But they just weren't interested. It was a relief that their were no alternative motives to it. The family in Indonesia that made me dinner were also beautiful and amazing people, but it made it weird that the main goal to have me there is so I would marry their daughter......Talk about akward! That blog entry can be read
here titled "My Indonesian family"
The best thing we could do is show how much we apreciated being with them. And I think that they apreciated the fact that
The family Pedicab
Lolo for the most part was our chauffer! we apreciated them and really I think that's what made them feel good. We did our best to spread the cheer to them as they had to us. I think there are two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take and the larger kind we feel for what we give. It's an overall apreciation for eachother. As muchy as we apreciated what they were doing for us, it seemed they apreciated us just being there.
After having what we thought was lunch we headed to the next place on our itinerary which is an even nicer beach at a resort, which of course was all to ourselves. It's supposed to be rainy and typhoon season but the weather has been perfect everyday, we feel we've really lucked out. Once again we spent the afternoon swimming in the shallow crystal clear water while the family was busy cooking us a large lunch. For some reason we were fed about 5 or 6 large meals a day! We really ate until we could eat no more. We spoke several times to Lyndie who is in Singapore at the moment. She sounded excited that we were having
Relaxing
Sully in the hammock at the resort a good time with her family and we arranged plans to meet up soon in her country. Lyndie arranged for us to have dinner at the cities nicest hotel. All for free of course. Walking around town we went out for a meal before the large dinner and sang kareoke. For the first time ever we sang on the mic, experiencing Filipino culture in it's rawest form. We sang one song each, but didn't go any further as I'm sure the rest of the restaraunt didn't want to hear our terrible singing! We stopped by the Friendzter mart one last time to stock up on food for the ride back to Borocay the next morning. And that night we slept like babies at Aunties house in the room upstairs.
We bought them chocolates as a token of our apreciation, and got the looks like we didn't have to do such a thing! But it's the least we could do. In return we were given gifts of high quality marble sculptures for our Mothers. After doing so much for us they even gave us gifts, it's so humbling. After being cooked a farewell breakfast of more than we could possibly
ever eat, we were driven to the ferry port and they said their goodbyes. We were sad to leave, but had smiles on our faces and I assured them that I would someday, somehow make it back.
Getting back to Boracay once again was an adventure. We rode on the roof of the first boat back to Tablas Island. From there we found out jeep that had no room left to move. We rode on top of the jeep for 3 hours. There's not much to hold on to, and it really is quite dangerous, as you need to be constantly aware of your surroundings and we found ourselvfes ducking quite often to miss the power lines and branches of the palm trees. We made it to Looc once again just in time to miss the boat to Caticlan. For some reason the boat time schedules around the island don't work with eachother. So we were stuck in a small nondescript town on an island in the middle of nowhere. We tried to check into the towns only hotel, it was unlocked and empty. We waited for at least an hour and asked around but noone ever showed up.
The power was out in the city so it really left us with nothing to do except sit there and stare at eachother. After an hour or so of that we set off on a mission to see if we could charter our own boat. We found someone who would do it for 2000 pesos, but we talked him down to 1000 pesos ($25) and it was well worth it as it dropped us off right at Boracay.
Awww Boracay! Wow, what an amazing place. The scenery is absotley stunning, and I could stay here for weeks. It's not just the powdery white sand beaches or the water. It's not the $6.00 seafood buffet dinners on the beach. It's the Filipino people! It seems they're all so polite and gentle. This place has yet to be spoiled by mass tourism like it's neighboring countries. Smiles and "Hello Sir's" all around they all seem so pleased to meet us. We could strike a conversation with pretty much anyone. While walking down the beach I ran into some other travellers who I met at The Gili Islands about 2.5 months ago in Indonesia. To be honest it's been so long and
I've done so much that I forgot that they existed. It's funny to run into someone you met breifly so long ago in a distant land. That night we headed for the long sandy strip on the beach and had a few beers and just felt good overall about being in such an amazing place as we were. There's lots of tourists (mostly local) in Boracay compared to the rest of The Philippines, however it's not spoiled by mass tourism.....yet. Now is a good time to see it!
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Missing you
Babe i think you haven't finished your blog yet, have u? It's like there're something missing. So please finish it =]. It's nice to hear u had a great time there with the nice family from other country ^^ The beach is incredible!! Gosh, are u trying to kill me or something by posting the nice beach here huh? hahaha i wanna go there :P