This summer vacation, 3 Canadian friends and myself decided to head to the Philippines for a quick 11-day vacation. We stayed 2 nights in Manila and then we stayed 9 nights on Boracay island. Boracay island has been consistently rated the number 1 beach in the world and after staying there for 9 nights I can understand why. The beach was phenomenal! Powdery white sand with gorgeous crystal blue water that was absolutely perfect for swimming, snorkeling or just swimming around in. But, starting from the beginning..
In the Incheon airport we met a dude from Texas who told us he had a house in the Philippines and being the rubes that we are and doing little to no research before we went we asked him where we should stay in Manila. We took his advice and stayed at a hotel on the street in which he claimed to be the best in Manila…
First off, once we got into the taxi in Manila, it was an immediate culture shock… just some of the buildings, some of the living conditions we saw and all of the prostitution and drugs that were offered to us was just a complete culture shock and quite an eye opener.
So Manila was gross and we were able to dodge the Viagra and prostitutes. 2 nights in Manila felt like an eternity but I’m glad we did it just to get the experience. It also really opens your eyes and makes you realize that it’s out there. Growing up in the Midwest you don’t really come across many situations like that. There were also a lot of kids coming out of the woodwork to beg and pester foreigners for change. That’s also quite eye opening. Kids tugging on your arm, wearing tattered clothes asking for change is quite powerful. I also saw a few mothers, as skinny as a bean pole, breastfeeding in public asking for change as well… powerful stuff.
So we headed off to part two of our trip, Boracay Island. It normally is an adventure getting to anyways, but it was raining at the airport we were suppose to land at so we had to land at an airport on the other side of the island and take a bus to the original airport which ended up being about a 2 ½ hr bus ride which was an unfortunate kink in our plan. Just to give you an idea of what we had to do to get there was we had to take a plane from Manila to Caticlan, except it was raining in Caticlan so we were dropped off at a mystery airport on the other side of the island and bussed to Caticlan, after we got to Caticlan we had to take a taxi, which is just a small motorcycle with a makeshift side car, to the port in which we were then brought to Boracay. Once on Boracay we had to take another taxi to the beach where we wanted to stay.
Once we finally got to the place where we wanted to stay we bargained with the lady at the front desk and got her down to the Paso equivalent of $9 a night, per person. Overall Boracay was beautiful! The beach was phenomenal but there were other aspects of the island that were much less plensent like all of the vendors on the island trying to sell you a jet skiing, parasailing or atv’ing experience which got quite annoying but overall the beach and the entire experience was unforgettable !!!
