Philippines: Part 1

I arrived back safely to Busan two weeks ago after 10 days of relaxation in paradise. I only managed to miss one flight throughout my trip, and only missed it by about 10 hours. You have to be mindful of military time here! I am going to break the blogs up into two parts, since my trip was divided by visiting two different parts of the Philippines. In all I took about 400 pictures throughout my stay, and a lot of them are basically the same boring beach shot, so I will weed out the bad ones and post the good ones on here and the rest of them on Photobucket.

The first leg of my trip was spent in Boracay. I had heard of Boracay, and how amazing it was but I actually never knew where it was until I starting researching vacation spots. I arrived in Manila at midnight on the 16th and my flight to Boracay wasn't until 6.50 am so I had some time to kill. Unfortunately the domestic departure terminal is a 30 minute cab ride away from the city so I realized that actually seeing Manila was out of the question. When I arrived at the terminal, I was immediately befriended by one of the security guards on duty. He was a very nice guy, married with three kids, loves basketball, boxing and Elton John. We drank Coke and coffee and chatted for about 4 hours before I left him to catch my flight to Boracay. The flight left at 6:50am and took about an hour. It was in a tiny twin engine plane that could seat 20 people, and was half full. I met a nice German couple on the flight who were on their honeymoon. After we landed, we had to be shuttled to Caticlan port where we would catch a boat to Boracay. The boat was a traditional outrigger boat that most of the locals use.

After my flight from Manila to Boracay.

On the boat to Boracay Island.

I arrived in Boracay around 9:30am and took a tricycle to where I was staying. A "tricycle" in the Philippines is a motorcycle with a sidecar attached to it that they use in lue of taxis. I had to walk about a kilometer up the beach to find my hotel an along the way I met two locals who I will introduce later but their names were Rolly Polly and Godlee. They both owned boats and would become great people to know later in the week. Once I checked into my room, I promptly crashed for about 5 hours to make up for the all nighter with the security guard.

Tricycle.

Dave's Straw Hat Inn, where I stayed.

The next two days were spent relaxing on the beach and exploring the island a little. It wasn't a big island but there were about 10 different beaches that were all pretty unique. The water was bright blue and crystal clear and the sand was pure white. Since it was the rainy season , there weren't many people on the island, which was both good and bad. Some highlights of those two days below.

Some of the local kids skimboarding.

The sunset on my first night in Boracay.

The water was ridiculously clear.

On my last full day in Boracay, I met up with Rolly Polly and Godlee and they took me out on their boat to go fishing. We fished Filipino style with no rods or reels, just line wrapped around a coke bottle with a weight at the end and three hooks about the weight. We would let it down to the bottom and when we felt a bite, we would jerk the line with our hands and start pulling the fish up. I caught three fish and they were all under 8 inches long. There were two helpers on the boat as well and they kept the fish and were going to eat them.

Rolly Polly.

Godlee.

Boracay was amazing, but it was filled with newlyweds because it's one of the most popular honeymoon destinations in Asia. After 4 days there, I left and travelled to Bohol Island. More on the Bohol leg of the trip to come in part 2. But don't hold your breathe, it might be a few days!