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Published: February 10th 2008
The first thing we noticed about Manila was the guns. Outside the airport a security man guarded a cabinet where everyone had to leave their guns before entering the airport. Police and security men all carry guns. The next thing we noticed was the God mobile, a long, silver jeep with benches facing each other in the back and purple disco lights flashing and the words, God is Good, emblazoned across the front above the windscreen. They’re called jeepneys and we came across many of them, they operate a bus service all over the place for a cheap price but they don’t all have the same decorations. You never know what you might get.
We took a normal taxi cab to Pension Natividad on M H del Pilar in the Malate area which had been recommended to us. It was a big, family run place with some big rooms in the main building and smaller ones in the adjoining buildings but all clean and the option of ac, although quite pricey compared to what we were used to at $20 a night. We used to phone at reception to book our flights to Boracay island using the airline Asian Spirit
and crashed out. The next morning we took a taxi to the domestic airport and flew out. We didn’t see anything in Manila!
We had come to the island of Boracay to meet Fred, the instructor who worked on Koh Tao in Thailand when we were there in September. He lives on Boracay and was home for the Christmas period as Koh Tao is out of season at this time of year. He offered us a good rate to take our Divemaster program with him at the dive shop he used to work for, Aqualife. When we arrived Fred was waiting for us with the Aqualife speed boat and we jetted across in style to the picturesque island. The airport was tiny but it does accommodate quite a few flights as Boracay is a very popular tourist destination within the Philippines.
We had our first view from the airplane of crystal clear turquoise waters and a never ending white sandy beach. From the boat it was even better with the blue sky overhead and the sun beating down. The speedboat pulled in right behind the shop and the guys carried our bags up the beach for us. We
were introduced to Neena, the secretary, and a few boys in the shop including divemasters Sam and Louie (who are uncle and nephew). Neena walked us around a few places we could rent a room for the month and we settled on Roques Place about a 5 minute walk from the shop and 2 minutes from the beach. We had air con, a fridge and a balcony although we couldn’t see the sea from it. It only cost 13,000 Pesos for the month which was super considering our room for one night in Manila was P1,200.
After settling in to the room we headed back to the dive shop for an orientation with Fred and to get an outline of what we’d be doing over the next few weeks. Fred had organised for a group of Canadians to come around for some beers and a bbq that night as a celebration on them getting their open water certificates and a welcome to us. When the beer dried up we headed to the bar Summer Place further along the beach front to see a live band. All very entertaining.
The course went very well over the next 4 weeks.
We passed all of our exams with flying colours and didn’t come near the pass marks in any of them. There weren’t always customers because of the season but that gave us the opportunity to get through our knowledge reviews and exams without any pressure. As part of our package we got 40+ dives to bring us up to the exit point of 60 so we didn’t need to worry about the lack of customers and as it turned out business picked up anyway. Some of the things we did as part of the training were learning how to map sites, learning how to guide people around dive sites, passing swim tests, supervising students during confined water sessions and on open water dives, assisting in Discover Scuba Diving programs and perfecting how to demonstrate the 20 basic skills for conducting Scuba Reviews for certified divers who haven’t been in the water for awhile.
It was a lot to learn but loads of fun and our diving improved massively over a short period of time as a result. We saw some pretty cool things diving here like our first wreck (it was pretty small but still able to penetrate), Ash’s
first little turtle, cuttlefish, sting rays, lionfish, nudibranches, batfish, clown triggerfish, snappers, titan triggerfish and 4 baby sharks hiding in a crack on top of an underwater wall. We both also got down to 40 meters deep.
Our stay on Boracay was a relatively expensive one even though our accommodation was cheap and beer cost peanuts. The food was pretty pricey as were clothes and any other bits and pieces we needed along the way. Unblocked mobile phones were cheap enough there so we bought one to keep in touch with Fred as he wasn’t in the shop every day and it did come in handy as we can use it now in Australia. Unfortunately, Ash needed to pick up a dive computer while we were out there which cost over $500, the most expensive price we’ve seen for it. Ade picked up the same model, Suunto mosquito, for nearly $200 less in Thailand the month before and apparently it’s a fraction of that price in Singapore. Never mind though, we needed it then so it couldn’t be helped.
We knew then that we were becoming addicted to diving so we bought the underwater housing for our camera
online and had it shipped over although we weren’t able to pick up until all our diving in the Philippines was done. And the final toy we got was the software package for our dive computers so we can view our profiles as graphs and get other ‘useful’ information. As I’m sure you can guess this toy was more for Ade than Ash!
The weather wasn’t great the whole time we were there despite some glorious days. Just before we arrived some pretty serious typhoons passed over nearly destroying Neena’s house and many others and for nearly half of our stay our lane was a mini river. This didn’t affect our diving too much, although once or twice we got caught in a shower after a dive on the boat which was fairly grim as there was no cover and when the speedboat was moving the rain felt like mini darts attacking us. We did witness some spectacular lightning storms and snap some fabulous pictures of the sunset over the watery horizon so it wasn’t all bad even if we did get kept up by the rain pounding on our roof a few times.
We met some great
people on the island too including Eilian from Amsterdam, Laura and Corrie from the UK (we met up with these 3 again in Coron), Tina from Austria, Emilie from Sweden, Susanne and Nikole from Denmark. Some nights there were parties in the dive shop when Sam would cook us up some bbq pork and chicken and everyone brought along some drinks. We’d fill the rinse baths with water and ice to keep the beer cold and put on the mp3 players. On one such occasion we were introduced to Bulat, possibly one of the most disgusting things we’ve ever come across. They were half fertilised duck eggs with the cell networks running all inside the egg and bits of hard tissue and bone. It was truly repulsive although quite popular with the Filipinos and some of the other westerners too.
On Halloween night all the girls decided to dress up and after a few drinks in the dive shop we headed down to the fancy dress competition in Summer Place. We didn’t win but we got to dance around on the stage for awhile which was all we wanted to do anyway. Another night we were in a rooftop
bar after watching the sunset when a big group of Korean couples came in all wearing matching outfits. We found that quite interesting as well. Some locals thought they were a group of honeymooners.
Some of the restaurants we loved on Boracay were; Dos Mestizos for their divine Spanish tapas buffet on Saturdays, Casa Pilar for the morning pancakes and bacon, The English Bakery for the chocolate croissants, Aria for their delicious Italian fare and Nigi Nigi Noo Noo’s for their huge tasty burgers. The Hobbit house was not great for food but did always pull a crowd for their staff of dwarves! Apparently it’s also an Irish bar although we didn’t see what made it Irish. We also hit up Victory Divers and Calypso Divers for their free wi fi and snacks. We watched a few sunsets out on the beach bar at Bamboo restaurant where once a week they bring out a stuffed pig for their buffet. On our last week Ash snapped his photo.
Boracay has a bit of a reputation for sex tourism but luckily we didn’t see too much of this side of things as we stuck mainly to the beach front. There
were plenty of old white men flaunting young Filipina girls on their arms along the beach but we didn’t see the places where they picked them up. One night at the bar we overheard some guys asking where the friendly ladies were and the barman gave him a few bar names without batting an eyelid so it seems it’s still pretty acceptable. Live music is pretty popular all along the beach front with tables and chairs set up after dark right on the beach depending on weather. One song that absolutely everyone felt the need to make their own was Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston it was played non-stop on radio too.
Cock fighting is apparently a big sport over here and Ade spotted it on the tv one night. We heard later that the birds have razors attached to their feet to inflict harsher wounds, which seems a bit much. Boxing is also very popular. One day after we came back from a dive we found a crowd of people around the side of the dive shop watching one of the waiters from next door fighting someone else. There was a referee and rounds as well as gloves
and a cheering crowd to make it feel all the more real. A policeman was there with his dog on the roof to get a better view. The poor waiter was a little out of his depth though and spent half of the time actually running away from the other guy. It was hilarious.
We met a few of the policemen on the island through the dive shop. One guy came to some of the parties in the shop and another two came diving with us. There were quite a few on the island although we normally saw them in big groups hanging outside the police station which was on the same road as our hotel. The large numbers are to protect the tourists and they must do a good job as we saw no sketchy business at all during our stay.
Just to mix things up a bit, Fred organised a mini day trip while we had quite a few customers. We loaded the boat with two tanks each and during our surface interval we hit a secluded beach up near the top of the island. There was a bar with a bucket hanging off a long
string and a board with instructions to write orders on the paper provided and then pull the string. Presumably there was a bell at the top. It was around this time we found out, much to our amusement, that Fred’s nickname was Bing bong!
On our graduation day he met us at the local market where we browsed the various meat and fish stalls as well as vegetable and other shops. To keep the flies away they hang cds on string, apparently their own reflection scares them. Food was so cheap at the market and everybody was calling out to us to buy from them. We were happy Fred was there to make the decisions. That night Sam and Louie set up a monster bbq and all the shop crew came along. Pancho, one of the instructors, brought his cd collection back from the days when he was a dj at one of the bars. It was a great night although a little sad as we knew we were leaving soon and probably never going to see them again. At least we had more diving to look forward to in Coron a few days later and we left with
a lot of happy memories....
(Please note that not all photos are on this page - need to click next page below in order to view the remainder)
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Patricia
non-member comment
I don't know what the HECK Bulat is, but in Tagalog, we called this Balut. LOL! :-)