Hurray! Boracay!

  Boracay, Visayas, Philippines
Thursday, December 11, 2008

Hurray, Boracay! A very early start on Tuesday morning, the earliest yet I think! We got up at 5.30am to pack up our stuff and hop a taxi to the airport. We had an 8.45am flight to Cataclan on a Turbo propelled jet. There was probably only 50 seats on the plane. It was pretty cool. Everyone getting on the plane had pictures taken of themselves with the plane in the background! Such tourists!

After a short 45 minutes we landed in the tiny airport in Cataclan and jumped in the sidecar of a motorbike (local form of taxi). 5 minutes later we were boarding the boat to the Island of Boracay. The heat was unreal and the heavy rucksacks didn't help. We got another sidecar to the area recommended for budget travelers. We walked around for ages looking for our hostel. After a lot of sweat and locals hassling us to buy sunglasses and stay in their guest houses we finally found the place we were looking for! It's a lovely little resort. The whole building is made out of native bamboo and nipa and has a lovely porch going around the outside. Our room is air conditioned and has a tv. There's free tea and coffee and wireless too!

We spent the afternoon on the beach only 5 mins from our accommodation. It was very hot but the sea is lovely and clear and we both ventured in a few times. We sat having beer and fruit juice and listened to the waves crashing. Paradise after the bustling city of Manila!

In the evening we had dinner in a German-Filipino restaurant and then ventured up the towards the busier area of the beach.
There were many bars and restaurants and most had live music. We eventually stopped at one with good and bad karaoke! We didn't sing but got a kick out of those that did badly! We wandered towards home at about midnight. We were pretty exhausted.

Woke the next day about midday and decided we better book our flights out of here and try find a pass machine that would accept our credits cards (many in the Philippines don't!). We found the mall. Booked flights to Manila next Tuesday afternoon and got some cash. We nearly melted alive walking around the shops, the heat was unbearable. We jumped in a tricycle back to the beech. While Alan went to find a dive school for us to do an open water Padi license course I lay on the beech in the hot sun! Glorious!

Alan arrived back a while later with books for us to study for the course. 250 odd pages long and we have to read it all within four days! We were told to read chapter one before our first lesson so we got to studying! We had dinner and a couple of drinks on the beach before heading home early to finish our "homework".