Day 111: To the Philippines!

Time for a new country. Up at 7am for a quick breakfast and shower, before packing our stuff and heading out the door. Our hosts still hadn't returned from their weekend away, so we dropped the keys in the mailbox and walked the few minutes to the station. Back along our well-travelled route to the airport, we arrived in plenty of time for our flight to Kalibo.

Checked in without incident, had some morning tea and then arrived at the gate at exactly boarding time (in AirAsia parlance, "boarding time" is usually about when the aircraft shows up). The flight left about 10 minutes late which is pretty good by their standards, and was only about 2/3rds full meaning that we had the luxury of a three-seat block to ourselves.

Longest flight of the trip (or at least since the Brisbane to Darwin flight), at just on 4 hours. But before we knew it, we had touched down at Kalibo airport on the island of Panay. I was a bit worried that the arrivals card asked if you had been sick in the past 30 days (which I had to truthfully answer yes, due to my cold). But once we were off the plane, the arrivals officer said "why did you say yes?" and I replied "I've got a cold". He nodded and waved me through - I hope the people with Ebola or Zika are as honest as me!!

Although the small resort island of Boracay was our ultimate destination, we'd landed at Kalibo which is about 70km away, and you have to get the rest of the way there via local transport. So we picked our way through the touts at the airport exit, eventually picking one at random with a combined minivan+ferry ticket for 250 pesos each (about $7 - converting pesos to AUD is really annoying since it's an exchange rate of 35:1).

The drive was about 90 minutes during which the ominous clouds that had loomed opened up, though not too heavily thankfully. First impressions are that this country seems like a Catholic version of Indonesia - everything built on the road, ramshackle style, with lots of churches/mosques around, people walking on the road, and so on. Also seemed to be huge numbers of schools - I reckon we drove past close to 100! Certainly much poorer than anywhere we'd been in Malaysia or Thailand.

On arrival at the ferry terminal we were relieved of another 100 pesos each for environment taxes and terminal departure fees, before we boarded a tiny bamboo trimaran and set out across the channel. Thankfully Boracay jetty wasn't too far, and we reached it in probably less than 10 minutes. And the boat was covered, so the intermittent rain spots didn't cause too much drama.

On to Boracay itself, finally! The island is not huge, though certainly larger than Gili T where we'd stayed many months ago. It's about seven kilometres long and not much more than a mile wide, for a total of about 10 square kilometres. It's renowned for having beautiful white sandy beaches, so we were pretty keen to check it out.

First we had to find our hotel by haggling with a taxi driver (in a motor-trike, there aren't many cars here), who gave us a high price but nothing too bad. The drive was a bit exciting, flying down narrow streets in greasy conditions and spotting rain, but we soon arrived at our beachfront hotel. We'd chosen a bungalow for a large veranda with a hammock, but soon realised it was far more "rustic" than we'd realistic. Peeling paint, worn floors, and a general feeling of shabbiness. Plus the hammock is made out of reeds and I'm not sure it'll hold my weight! And to make things worse, the property next door is probably 2 feet away and an active construction site! Oh well, it's only a few days.

By the time we got settled it was going dark (the sun sets very early here as it's right on the edge of a timezone change), so we headed out to check the place out. The main street is actually the beach itself - there's a sort of avenue between the beachfront buildings and the chairs/loungers etc actually on the beach proper, and everything faces into this avenue. Lots of hawkers and touts selling boat trips, cruises, adventure sports, restaurants, massages, pub crawls, selfie sticks, and many more things besides.

It was fairly crowded despite this being the low season - it's actually a national holiday week in China where literally the entire country has the whole week off, so most of the tourists were Chinese. But they weren't on bus tours, and seemed to be mainly well behaved which was nice. After a short walk up and down some of the beach, we decided on dinner at a Filipino restaurant to try some local cuisine. I hadn't heard great things about Pinoy food (tending towards fried and greasy apparently), but the Adobo we had was OK - grilled and fried meat with some dipping sauces and a serve of rice. Surprisingly expensive though - our two plates plus a 2-for-1 mojito put the bill at 900 pesos or about $30 AUD. Close to the most expensive meal we've eaten in a long time! Boracay is generally an expensive place though I think, especially along the beachfront strip.

After dinner we did a bit more wandering and had a drink in a bar with a live acoustic band. The woman sang quite well, or at least the Alanis Morissette songs. Not quite as well when she tried an Adele number! Back to our bungalow where we could hear the faint thumping of a nearby disco bar; not the greatest night's sleep for either of us unfortunately!Read more