Lazy Days and Long Nights

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I have spent the last week in a little slice of heaven – Boracay. It’s known as one of the best beaches in the world and has earned that reputation for a reason. Perfect sun, perfect warm breeze, perfect sand and perfect water temperature. Combine that with $1 beers and $3 margaritas, and it’s hard to get much better. Combine that with the friendliest service (although I’m not sure if it is by nature or by the desire for tips, I don’t really care either), and you don’t get better. Needless to say, I’ve had a great week. I’m glad I opted for a relaxed trip for the spring festival break and not an intense trek exploring several different places in a limited amount of time. In 3 weeks’ time, when I’m done in Shanghai, I’m going to have months of that.

We spent our days lazing by the beach with a few (ridiculously cheap) water sports thrown in for good measure. Ate too much food, and drank way too much liquor. Boracay has a million small bars, and they have all become very competitive. Happy hour runs from as early as 1 pm to as late as 10 pm, and it's always 2 for 1 cocktails and 3 for 1 beers. 3 beers, $1. I'm not even going to pretend it didn't get messy.

The only bumps in the road on this trip was when we tried to get from A to B. On the way to Boracay, the cab took us to the wrong terminal (I suspect on purpose), so we had to take another cab to the right terminal. He first tried to get us to pay US$35, but through some not so polite arguing we got it down to $3 (still probably more than we should have paid). We checked in with one minute to spare, and barely made our flight. (It was all okay when we saw the beach and had our first mangorita).

Unfortunately, a repeat performance was necessary on the way back Manila. Two of my friends never caught the flight. They had been staying at a different hotel and we had no idea what happened to them. It seems that in their hung-over state, while they made it to the Caticlan airport on time, instead of checking in they decided to go have breakfast. They missed check-in and had to catch a later flight. I've decided to take logistical control for the last flight we have back to Shanghai early tomorrow morning – with any luck my next post will be from Shanghai, but I make no promises.

All in all, it was the perfect "sun vacation". I'm looking forward to more explorative travel, but for now it was exactly what I needed.

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Photos

Boracay 6
A group of about 7 children jumped on our boat while docked at a beach and played all over it until it was pulling out of the cove. Such cute kids.