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Published: January 20th 2012
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The highlight of our second week in the Philippines was our three day trip to Borocay, a small island about one hour by plane from Manila. Before our trip to Borocay we had a few days in Manila, on Monday (9th Jan) we did some shopping at a nearby mall, actually I saw a movie - Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol whilst Eleanor, Rose and Maribel shopped. That night we had dinner with Joy and Guido, friends of Ricky and Rose, their son is a chef and he cooked a lovely dinner for us. They have a very nice house in an exclusive estate and the kitchen was what you'd expect to see in a better class restaurant. We had some nice wines and listened to some classic Beach Boys tunes.
Tuesday morning Eleanor, Mummy, Maribel and me left for the airport for the one hour flight to Caticlan, it's the nearest airport to Borocay. We were met in Caticlan by Rose (not Eleanor's sister) from Il Portico who accompanied us to our accommodation in Borocay. We heard about Il Portico (
http://www.facebook.com/pages/IL-Portico-Boracay/173294809362634) from Sue, it's like a guest house with access to the kitchen, lounge room and internet. Our room was quite
large, even with the four of us there was plenty of space. The only drawback was that it wasn't right on the beach, I think next time I'd like to stay at the Borocay Regency, more expensive but right on the beach with a number of pools and swim up bar etc. Still, Il Portico was only a short walk to the beach and the staff were very friendly, I'd recommend it for a longer stay particularly for those who want to do their own cooking.
Borocay has changed a lot since my first visit in 1984, back then there was still a lot of open spaces on White Beach and no where near the number of restaurant, hotels etc. Now it's the most popular tourist destination in the Philippines, the mall (D'Mall) is very busy as is the walk way along White Beach. The prices there are quite low, drinks during happy hour are inexpensive, less than a dollar for a beer and about $4.00 for two cocktails. The food is also good value, you can get a good meal for 230 pesos (about $Au5.00). There's live music at night either in D'Mall or along the beach or
you can chill out in a lounge bar sipping cocktails whilst listening to a DJ. Massages are also good value at 350 pesos for an hour, my first massage in Borocay was probably the best I had in the Philippines.
We left Borocay on Friday and took a slightly different route home, we got a bus to Kalibo (about one and a half hours) then flew back to Manila. The Kalibo route is good for those who like bigger planes, it's also an International airport with connections to China and South Korea.
Saturday we departed Manila for Darwin via Singapore, we had a 8 hour transit in Singapore and unfortunately we just missed the free city tour, with plently of time on our hands we watched a couple of movies at the airport, had dinner and a few drinks.
We arrived in Darwin early Sunday morning and were able to check into the hotel straight away. Our room at the Holiday Inn had a nice view of the water and a very comfortable bed. After breakfast we had a look around Darwin, it was pretty quiet being a Sunday morning, we walked around the esplanade and had
a look at a few shops, we also investigated the Kakadu tours. We decided to book through NT Standby tours, there price was about $20 cheaper for exactly the same tour that the others we offering. That afternoon we had a rest and caught up on a bit of sleep, we then had dinner at the Top End hotel, I had Barramundi and Eleanor had Lasagna, both were very good. We then moved onto Shenanigans, an Irish Pub, I had a Guiness whilst listening to some live music.
We were up early on Monday morning for our Kakadu tour, after an early breakfast we were picked up at 6.30am, it was an hour and a half drive for our first stop and then another 2 hours till we got to Nourlangie Rock where we saw some Aboriginal Rock art and took a short trek to a lookout. We had lunch at the Yellow Waters Billabong and then enjoyed a one and a half hour river cruise, unfortunately we didn't see any crocodiles. Before returning home we visited the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre and viewed the informative displays depicting the traditions of the Aboriginal people in Kakadu. We arrived back
in Darwin around 7.30pm, just in time for a nice dinner of beer battered Barramundi and salad.
Tuesday was another early start, the airport Shuttle picked us up at 5.20am for our 7.15am flight back to Sydney. Ronald and Chief kindly picked us up at the airport around lunch time. I've been able to get a few waves since returning as I'm still on leave, it's back to work for me on Monday.
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belladonna
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Philippines really a blessed country. There's a lot of beautiful tourist spots.