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Published: December 4th 2009
After our first propellor plane flight from Cebu to Kalibo, getting to Boracay from Kalibo was very easy. A minibus from the airport to Caticlan, then a ferry to the island and finally a motorbike taxi to White Beach where we hunted for somewhere to stay. It didn't take very long before we'd found a nice big room with a hot shower and tv for just 800PHP (£10.25) for the 3 of us which we really couldn't grumble about. We dumped our bags and headed straight out to see what (another!) one of the best beaches in the world was like and can completely agree with it's placing amongst the top!
White Beach which is the main beach on Boracay is stunning, probably the nicest beach that we've been to on our travels and it goes on forever being almost 3km long. We'd all discussed what we thought it would be like before we arrived and were all happy that it was even better than we'd imagined. After the crystal clear turquoise water dotted with sail boats comes the clean pure white sand, then the palm trees and then almost hidden from here is the 'main strip' of shops, restaurants,
accommodation and resorts. The beauty here is that it's not built up at all (apart from a few places on the far end of the beach), so there is no developed resort feel and the beach is so big that even when it's quite busy at the weekends it still feels quite empty. Eleanor had hoped to find her paradise on her trip and we think that she found it.. and so did we!
For such a small island Boracay packs in a lot of activities to fill your days, from sailing to diving and quad biking to zorbing you would be hard pushed to be bored if you came here for a 2 week break. Of course the best thing here is the beach and again you'd be hard pushed to find a better one because it is gorgeous and is a million miles away from the overpopulated resorts you find in Thailand. It goes without saying that most of our days were spent soaking up the sunshine and taking dips in the sea during the day, then coming back again to watch the beautiful sunset in the evening over a ice cold beers.. San Miguel here is
as cheap as 44p! There are restaurants from all nations here and although most are quite expensive by our backpacker budget standards we did treat ourselves a few evenings and enjoyed Mexican, Mongolian, Thai and even huge as your head American burgers which were a winner with Dale!
We were walking along the high street one evening and walked into
Donna and Neil. It was a bit of a random meeting after being in touch for a few years now since they helped us plan our journey back in the UK and them
still going over 3 years later! We'd both followed each other's blogs around Asia and talked of meeting up if our paths crossed but hadn't made any arrangements so to bump into two people we'd never met.. and recognise them too was a bit bizarre! We had a lovely evening with them swapping stories over our various travels and getting to know these people we knew so much about yet having never met so thanks for a lovely evening both of you and we hope to see you again soon.. who knows when or where though!
Keen to see the whole of the island we booked a
boat trip for one of our days. We had been torn over whether to go on a group package tour including snorkelling or to go with one of the boat men who constantly hassle you every day as you walk up and down the sandy high street behind the beach. After much deliberation between the 3 of us we went for the sailing boat thinking we'd have a more relaxing time and we'd get more freedom to stop when we wanted along the way if it was just us and the boatmen. We'd had quite a lot of success with boat trips so far so with us imagining sitting on the bow of the boat taking in the sunshine we were all looking forward to our trip and oh what a trip it was.... NOT!!
The mistake we'd made here was not looking at the boat before we booked the boat man, a stupid error that only we can be held responsible for. To be fair to him he had said all along that it was a sailing boat but when we neared the boat that morning we were a little taken aback that this 'boat' was more of
a built up canoe with a sail and outriggers with a 2' strip of netting either side. Our first concern was where we were supposed to sit.. on the netting of course! The next concern was where we put our stuff... in the boxed in bit of the 'canoe' where we couldn't get to it of course! Our last concern, and one we'd even checked on the day before was where we could shelter from the sun in the shade that had been promised us... the sail of course! The men were so nice and smiley and we really didn't want to let them down so we decided we'd try and make the best of it and jumped on the netting.. on separate sides so it didn't tip over and off we went.
To start with it was ok as we went past White Beach perched on the netting, then we rounded the corner of the island and the waves got a little higher so we gripped a little tighter with the girls both mentioning that they were no longer in the shade, had no sun cream on (we'd planned to put it on in the boat!) and were
also getting soaked from the spray of the waves. We got a little more worried when we sailed off towards the mainland instead of following the island round to the other side and questioned where we were going. We still have no idea why this was but think that it was because these boatmen can't turn the sail round whilst they were going along so we had to go in a right angle to the mainland, stop, then turn the sail to go off to the other side of the island. Ok so sailing is quite difficult but this little detour took around 30 minutes all in all.
After this little detour we were back on route and the first stop on our trip was to the main snorkelling & diving area around Boracay which is Crocodile Island. It was immediately obvious why this has it's name as the resemblance to a Crocodile is uncanny, sadly though we haven't got a photo because we couldn't use our cameras on the boat as they would have got soaked so they were kept safely in the canoe box! The boatmen stopped the boat just off the coral and we all dived
Posh dining on White Beach
up the 'nicer' end of the beach!in keen to get our first experience of the sea life in the Philippines. Just where we'd stopped it was quite disappointing with most of the coral dead but as we neared the island it got better and better with types of beautiful soft and hard coral we've not seen anywhere else on our travels. It wasn't the best snorkelling we've ever done but it certainly didn't disappoint and we were pleased that Eleanor got to see such an array of wildlife. There are lots of box & puffer fish here, some of the biggest we've seen and we also spotted a huge sea snake glide past us which made our day as we'd only seen tiny ones up until this point. Eleanor had brought us some underwater cameras as a present and as you can see some of the photos we took have come our really well so you can get to see a little of what we saw that day! The snorkelling here was quite difficult as it was quite wavy, if we got separated it was difficult to see each other again unless you went underwater but we managed ok and stayed in there for a good
few hours until we were all totally exhausted. We even got out of paying the park fee (only 20PHP each but it all helps) after the ranger smashed into our boat breaking the rudder which took another 30 minutes to fix.
Off we went again to the far North of the island but this was by far the worst part of the day for the girls. Stuck on one side of the netting we seemed to get the worst of the waves and were constantly covered in water, nearly being swept right off in some places, added to this that we were both in the sun with no shade so all in all we were not having the relaxing sightseeing time we'd hoped for! By this time we'd both had enough and asked if we could go back to the beach but this was not possible because they couldn't turn the boat around so we had to grip on for our lives and cover ourselves as best we could until we reached calmer waters. Dale, who was on the other side of the boat was having the time of his life on the open water managing to avoid the
constant dunkings & enjoying the shade provided by the sail.. typical!
We reached the beach on the end of the island and the girls breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled up and got off for a lunch stop. We'd brought some bread with us which we all enjoyed along with another of Eleanor's gifts.. a pot of marmite and relaxed on the beach for a short while. By this time we were a little burnt from the sun exposure so weren't too keen to do much more. We had only booked the boat for 6 hours so with an hour to go we set off and made one last stop just up from White Beach for a little more snorkelling. Sadly this area was quite awful really, there was virtually no coral alive and only a small handful of fishes so we only stopped for a quick swim round then headed back to White Beach. The journey on this side of the island was actually really nice as the water was calm meaning no dunking. It was a real shame that the whole trip hadn't been like this as it would have made for a much nicer
day but we guess they couldn't help the life of the ocean. Sailing past we also got to see the expensive side of the island in the form of the Shangri-La Resort and another new beautiful cave like resort which has just been built by the boxer Manny.. oh how the other half live!
Needless to say Sophie & Eleanor did not have the time of their lives on this trip which was a real shame as we'd all been looking forward to it, Dale loved every second of it and would definitely recommend it to anyone so we guess it just depends on what you are looking for.. if it's a relaxing sail on a boat round the island we'd just suggest checking on the wave size before you set off!
Eleanor was keen to experience the underwater life a little more so along with Dale she did a discover Scuba course which was a huge hit with them both. Their divemaster was a lovely lady from the UK who'd been calling Boracay her home for the last 14 years and made her feel right at home teaching her the basics underwater. They both spent an hour
Sea snake
he was HUGE! or so in the water just off White Beach seeing many types of fish including some rare types of boxfish and some awesome coral formations. While all this was going on Sophie decided to take things a little easier and enjoyed a massage to kill a few hours so a productive morning all round!
Before we knew it our 5 days were up.. they go very fast when you are having such a fabulous time but we managed to fit in just one more activity on our last afternoon.. zorbing! Sophie had missed out on this when we were in NZ so she was happy to have another opportunity and both her and Eleanor got in the zorb together and rolled down the hill in it filled with water which was real fun. At the start it was a bit like being in a greenhouse as it was so hot & claustrophobic in there but once it got going it was fine and we laughed the whole way down and it made the perfect end to our time on the island.
Despite a few setbacks (in the form of sunstroke with Eleanor and coral cuts with Sophie) we
all had a fabulous time on this island.. we all fell in love with it, so much so that we are planning a return trip early in January to soak it up some more before our return to the UK. Eleanor also loved it but has decided that if she ever returns it will be to the posher end of the beach to experience how the other half live with their private beach beds and candlelit dinners on the beach!
It was another easy transfer by taxi, boat, minibus, plane, taxi to our least favoured city of cities.. Manila! We arrived quite late in the afternoon and after running a few errands we didn't have much time to show Eleanor the 'delights' so after checking into a cockroach infested room (you didn't think we'd let Eleanor get off that lightly!), we made our way to Robinsons and filled our evening with a very cultural experience.. of watching a movie! We were all quite emotional to say goodbye the following morning but as it was now only a matter of months before we have to return home it didn't feel like forever like it has the last few times!
Back to just the two of us and with 4 days to fill before we flew out of the Philippines (for the visa) we were left to motivate ourselves.. something we've struggled with over the past few months, we toyed with a few ideas to trek up various volcanos in the area but in the end we suffered from severe lack of enthusiasm and ended up not doing a whole lot in Manila instead but did manage to catch the all important Pacquiao vs Cotto fight.. of course cheering Manny on all the way to his win!
Well we did manage to fit in a trip to the Chinese Cemetery which was kind of weird. Here there are HUGE tombs made of marble and complete with toilets & electricity. It all seemed a bit of a waste of money to us but again interesting to see how other people do things for the afterlife. The trip back on the tube was probably the worst part of that day as it was cramped and as with most queuing things in Asia it was a nightmare getting on and off as everyone is in a race to do it at the
same time and it's every man for himself as bodies are sent flying in all directions as people try to get on at the same time as others are getting off.
There was however another important event to be marked here in Manila.. that of Dale's 31st birthday which we celebrated with a load of Hobbits! We didn't want to venture too far away from our guesthouse so decided to visit the local Hobbit House, a blues bar which is run by a group of midgets and has been going for over 30 years! It was quite fun in there but also quite empty so the atmosphere was lacking and the beer very expensive so we decided to head out in search of a cheaper alternative. We found this in the form of a couple of open street bars with cheap as chips beers so perched ourselves on the roadside and watched the Manila world go past whilst catting to some of the super friendly locals. Back in our box room we made the most of our room service.. which came in the shape of kebabs.. a perfectly English way to end the evening!
Finally our time had
come to temporarily leave Manila but we'd be back in a week so we wouldn't have to miss it too much, our flight back out was from Clark so we did the Pasay to Clark bus run which is super easy and said goodbye to the Philippines.. until we return next week that is!
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Donna and Neil
Donna and Neil
Helloooo!
We loved meeting and gossiping with you too! Hope we can meet again soon...take care and keep on having fun! xx