After three fun weeks travelling around and seeing what the Philippines has to offer, we made our way to the holiday island of Boracay for the Christmas holiday season.
We rented an apartment so we could enjoy the comforts of ‘home’ for a while, cook for ourselves, a nice little place inland away from all the noise of the main strip with a nice garden and rooftop and also some puppies to keep us company. We didn’t really come here to be tourists, just to enjoy the wonderful White Beach and live in the sun.
It’s just as well that we did rent a place so we could cater for ourselves. Boracay is really expensive compared to the rest of the Philippines and SE Asia too. Eating basic foods are at western prices which is fine if you are on a two week holiday I guess but not when you are backpacking. In fact Boracay doesn’t really do backpackers and there are not many around, it’s mostly Korean and Chinese tourists taking selfies here, there and everywhere with a few Russians and richer Filipinos coming down from Manilla for the weekend.
White Beach is very crowded at certain points, especially in the middle of its 4km strip, where the Asians seem to congregate, luckily for us we were located down the bottom at a much quieter part.
It’s a strange place Boracay, lots of people living on the poverty line in the most basic of accommodation made from whatever materials they can get their hands on, there is a main road that goes up and down the island which is poorly built, full of dust and diesel fumes coming from the myriad of Tricycles and trucks which is really polluting the air, so the walk to and from the beach wasn’t the most pleasant experience, in fact one road we took now and again as it was a short cut, went through what can only be described as a ghetto.
But once you get there the beach is beautiful and clean, it’s just so strange to see that just a few metres away from all this poverty it’s full of expensive resort hotels with pools etc.
Well, the days passed quickly, most uneventful and peaceful although very loud and awful karaoke would ring out a couple of times a week from the next door neighbours much to our annoyance.
Our typical pattern was have breakfast, go to the beach or the rooftop terrace, read our books then go to the market to buy supplies for dinner and then catch a movie in the evening on the big TV. A bit surreal for us after travelling so much and although we did enjoy it, nearing the end of our five weeks stay, we were starting to look forward to moving on again.
The only eventful thing that really happened was a fire on the Main Road that destroyed about 40 homes/shops on Christmas Eve. We were walking to the market to buy veggies etc when we saw this dark smoke over the horizon so we had to take a look, it was chaotic to say the least but somehow everyone was ok, rushing around trying to save all their belongings and goods. The fire was put out in a few hours.
Within a couple of days, people had started to move back in and set up their shops again in the parts that weren’t quite as charred as others. The whole area would have been condemned in Europe and nobody would have been allowed anywhere near it but this is the craziness of Asia, Health and Safety be damned.
We enjoyed our Christmas meal at home but we didn’t get to enjoy New Years celebrations as we wanted, I woke up on New Year’s Eve with some sort of Gastro so I couldn’t really stray too far from the toilet! It only lasted a couple of days but it was bad timing.
We did get to see the fireworks from the rooftop terrace of our apartment so all was not lost but it would have been more fun to be down the beach, oh we’ll... we did enjoy that last year in Goa.
Our tans now firmly topped up, it’s back to find some adventure away from the beach for a while, next stop, back to Thailand.
Our lasting memories of the Philippines:
A very green landscape.
Beautiful beaches and good diving.
Amazing sunsets, some of the best we’ve seen.
Friendly people, very polite too.
The easiest country to visit in SE Asia if you can only speak English. Everyone speaks it well and all signs etc. are in English also.
A love of flowers and care for their gardens.
Great roast chicken but in general poor food choices unlike other countries in Asia.
Tricycles and colourful Jeepneys, they are everywhere.
Peaceful country roads with not many people around.
Overly busy built up areas and cities with too much traffic and way too much air pollution.
Karaoke, mostly very loud and awful and sung by people who could wake the dead.
Basketball, courts everywhere and about 10 channels on television dedicated to the sport, they are obsessed about it.
Cock fighting, not that we saw any but ‘Cock Farms’ are everywhere which is not so great if you are staying next to one...
Filipinos might be struggling to live but they can always spare a few Pisos for gambling.
At Home
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| One too many beers that night... |
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| Holy Pizza |
The walk to the beach
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| Shame, wanted to buy it as well...! |
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| Gambling |
White Beach
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| Christmas Dinner |
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| Bulabog Beach, the other side of the island, dirty and unhealthy to swim in but lots of wind for kite surfers. |
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| See you in Thailand |
