Weekend in The Philippines

For Chinese New Years, three Canadians and I decided to explore to a bit further location. We flew to Manila on Thursday night but because we had heard that Manila isn't the safest place to travel to we decided to go straight to one of the world's most famous beaches, White Beach in Boracay.

After a few hours of feeling awful in the airport in Manila, we arrived in Kalibo a small airport on one of the islands. From there we took a small bus to the ferry depot and boated over to Boracay island. The whole time we were there we told different ways to say the name, from bor-a-kai to bor-ak-ka to borkay. To be honest I'm still not sure I think it varies by where you are from.

Spider boat ferry

These little boats are called "spider boats" and they have bamboo legs that help them balance. I m sure if you stayed in a nice resort then you could get a nicer ferry, however, this is the more exciting route (public transit). It didn't really matter anyways, its all of 8 minutes across this little bay.

 
 Our Tricycle

When we got there we were eager to find our first night's hostel which was the only night we had booked. We had to take a tricyle ride to the other part of the island first. The whole island though is only 7 km long. The place we booked we didn't end up staying at as we found a place for the same price with two double beds and a single over just a double with two cots for the same price.

 

There are lots of beaches that edge the whole island of Boracay. We spent almost the whole time though at white beach, which spans the whole west side of the island. It is the longest beach I  have ever been to. One day I walked to the end of the beach and back while my friends slept in. The whole beach has beautiful restaurants, cute inns and little stores. There isn't any litter and I felt really safe the whole time we were there.

Definitly a highlight of my trip was the third day when my friends and I went fishing and snorkelling. At the end of the beach there are lots of boats waiting to take you out on various types of excursions such as parasailing and scuba-diving. There are jet skiis and sail boats, but its really nice as the main section of the beach is blocked off for swimmers and to not disturb the view. The boats were so beautiful but ours had a tarp on top, of course they thought we would want to be in the shadow, but no.. obviously we wanted to work on our tans so we asked for it to be lifted off. They thought this was very funny.

 

 Success

On the boat we first attempted some Filipino fishing. Our tour guide gave us water bottles with fishing line around it for us to begin. We each had to put little shrimps on the hooks then unroll the lien into the water. I've been fishing before but never like this. We felt so unsuccessful because although there were weights on the lines I couldn't tell if mine went down deep or far as you didnt cast the line at all. That being said, I caught the first fish on the boat, and then three more as time went on. I felt badly because they were so pretty.

Dedicated and smart salesmen

During the time fishing I noted all the other boats near by that were in the same area. Some locals were very savy and were selling cocounuts and icecreams in their own personal spider boats. I laughed really hard when some said "hey mammm. icecream for you mam.." when we were on the boat. He actually had a cooler with lots of cold icecream out from land in the middle of the sea. Of course we all bought icecream cones...

looking great!

The other part of our boat excursion was to go snorkelling at the reef at the end of White Beach. They supplied the snorkels and equipment. I am lucky enough to have a great waterproof camera so I got some funny underwater shots. It was my first time however trying to figure out the macro settings of the fish so I didn't get any really stunning shots. The reef was also about 10 feet down so each time I wanted something in the photo I had to dive down to it. The ones of my friends and I underwater turned out great anyways.

Our boat took us to another beach, near the marina we started at for a seafood feast. We splurged and I have no idea what a lot of the dishes were but as a newer lover of seafood I found it very "authentic" but delicious. I had to crack open the crab with a mallet and then be shown what I shouldn't eat. The same applied for how to eat our jumbo prawns (the eyes were still there and little whiskers -yuck) and regarding what the meat type was in the kabobs. Of course no one really understood us, so we just ate it anyways. Drinking St. Miguel the local beer and having seafood on a point looking out at KOOL-AID blue water was something I will never ever forget. It was really incredible.

That evening we met up with some other exchange students from Hong Kong. One goes to UWO but is older. We had a great time with them. I learnt a very interesting game where you have to get an oreo (or imitation brand cookie --in the Philippines the closest thing to an oreo i found was a "Bingo" ) from your eye to your mouth. You say eh-uh and blink until it falls into your mouth without using hands. As seen below I didn't want to waste my cookie, so I kept my hands ready to catch my failed attempts.  Our friends from HK seemed to be much better at it than me, but I am definitely bringing this game back to Canada.

The plaques of the countries

Another night with our new friends we watched them do the  "15 shot challenge" at a bar called Cocomangas. Essentially a smart Canadian came to Boracay and realised how many young people love drinking and how he could make a lot of money and have a famous bar. The bar's main asset is that people can attempt to do the 15 shot challenge of 15 various types of shots in however long you need. The draw is obviously the recognition. The whole bar is covered in gold plaques where if you complete it you can have your name posted. The best part is that they tally where the most successful people have been from {the list above}. Canada was in 5th!!!! Not only do you get this plaque and to help the tallies, but you get a tank top with the shots listed on it and the tag line  "do it for your country."

The 180 shots our friends group completed

Our friends were all successful even some ladies, and were able to spell out Boracay. I have to say however, when we first got there they had begun to spell it wrong. I wonder if consuming that much alcohol made it harder to spell...

Although the nights were fun, the day time in the water and on the beach is definitly the selling point of white beach. I tried to capture how beautiful the corals were but you just need to see it yourself.

My favourite drink

After eating residence food in Singapore it was a great change to eat quality food. Everyday I ate really well and had lots of fresh mangos or other fruit. I had at least one mango shake a day. They were really so good and only cost $1 or so. We ate a lot of western food during this time and even met another group of exchange students from HK as well. It was great talking to exchange students from all over the world about why they went and how much they love Asia. I'm hoping with all these new connections I can swindle my way into getting to HK as well this semester now that we have dorm room floors to sleep on.

Coral

One afternoon I also got a $12 full body massage for an hour on the beach. Although you can get nicer ones with private rooms at any of the nice hotels, I really liked looking out at the water feeling like I was in heaven.

The beach front clubs

Here are just some token beautiful pictures. The water really was that blue and clear.  I can't even describe how nice it was to lay in the salty water and just float on your back and look up at the clouds in the sky. It was a perfect vacation. I felt safe and just had a blast every minute I was there.

 

We spent one day and night in Manilla  of which I have no real photos of. The city is one of the biggest in the world and with a city that size, unfortuantly there is poverty. We therefore didn't bring any cameras to the market we went to because we didn't want anything bad to happen. We were being cautious based on what others had told us and although I am glad we did I felt fine the whole time I was in Manila. 

We stayed at an airport hotel and had a taxi driver take us to a mall I had been recommended to by many other travelers and locals. The mall had real stores as well as a market so we saw were able to browse and of course buy lots of pearls, electronics (like i-pads and cameras),shoes, clothes, and purses. Knockoff or stolen goods were everywhere and we were in heaven. I even felt less hassled then I have on Canal street or equivalent being in this environment. The only thing that I didn't like though was that the security guards were everywhere and had huge shotguns with them. Everyone called out to us, "heyy maam, got special price for you mam" which made us all laugh. I have never been called maam before this trip.

I left Manila with three new purses, two wallets and some candy. My friends did some great shopping as well.  We went back to NTU with some new friends, tans, and even more in love with Asia.