Philippines

First things first... there is only one reason to go to Manila and that is to fly out of it again. Perhaps that sounds a little harsh. But it's true.

The flight from Hong Kong was a good one and arriving into Manila we had a two hour wait in the queue for a taxi (which turned out to be a 10 minute drive!) and thus, set a precedent for our general travel experience in the Philippines. We checked into our hotel for the evening and wandered down the street to a nearby 7/11 for supplies. It is hard to describe the general vibe of the area - imagine being in a down trodden, over-populated, smelly, underbelly of a red light district. Well that's what Manila's streets felt like. We sought refuge back in the hotel and ordered a take-away pizza before the following morning's early rise to get back to the airport and fly out of this overbearing city.

So off to Boracay we went, glad to be out of Manila and looking forward to paradise... it was one hell of a travel day, taxi to the airport, flight to Kalibo, coach to the boat, boat to the Island, mini bus to the air bnb. We roughly set off at 8am (although our flight was delayed in true Manila style - voted one of the worlds worst airports. We know why) and arrived at around 8pm that evening.

What followed has merged into one and much to your joy we did not keep a record of day-to-day activities, because quite frankly, there wasn't much. What we had not realised is that due to it being the Chinese New Year holidays and that the Philippines is fairly close to China there would be A LOT of Chinese tourists. A LOT. So the paradise island was not at all what we expected, but i will get back to that.

Our first accommodation on the island was a room in an air bnb house. The house was a little disappointing, an unusable, tiny outside kitchen area, a freezing cold shower, the bins rarely got changed the sheets certainly didn't. Stuff like that. Although the cat had the tiniest kittens which was a highlight of staying there. Tiny animals are cute. We met a couple of people while staying there that we saw on-and-off around the island.

We tried a few of the beaches on the island until we found one that was right for us. Station 3 beach was quieter but the sea was full of algae. Station 2 beach we avoided, it was crammed full of people and we constantly got bombarded with touts selling selfie sticks and dry bag pouches. Puka beach was lovely, although is was a 30 minute side-car ride away and the day we went was incredibly windy, the sea was too violent to enter and the wind kicked up the sand so hard it was like little needles all over your skin. Station 1 beach - we found it! Station 3 leads into station 2 that then leads into station 1, but it was about a 15 - 20 minute walk down the beach to find the right spot, nice and quiet, hardly any algae and only the odd tout walking past.
It was utter and complete paradise, talcum powder sand and the clearest sea water we'd ever seen. We spent most of our days here, sunbathing, reading, playing bat and ball (We got pretty good at bat and ball) and just generally relaxing to the max. In the evenings we often frequented the 'Local Bar' - a little reggae bar off the beaten track down a side street, where every evening there would be live music and the beer cost £0.70 per bottle.

One day we tried another beach called 'Diniwid' that was a short walk from our usual spot, just around the headland. It was a small and quiet beach that led to Spider restaurant that had a nice lookout point, although very popular with tourists that they like to pack in like sheep. We also had a look at the kite surfing beach 'bulabog' at the opposite side of the island, although we didn't dare to go into the sea at this side, as this is what is know to us back home as 'sewage treatment' enough said. On the way back from bulabog beach we took a wrong turn and ended up in the back and beyond walking through slums where children were playing on rubbish heaps and three men were wet shaving a goat.

For our second accommodation we moved literally 50 steps away into MNL hostel, where we had our very own hot shower and they put on specific nights where we got to chat to other travellers and share our thoughts on the Philippines. The hostel was also even closer to one of the restaurants we went to called 'Los Indios Bravos' where the staff knew us by name and served a delicious grilled cheese sandwich.

On one of our last days in the Philippines we decided to get off our arses and do an Island hopping trip. We went snorkelling, cliff jumping (well Jack did) off 8 meter high ledges and got a free buffet lunch.

The Philippines is undeniably beautiful, scenic and for those that stay in a five star resort, a complete paradise. Although like the experience of bulabog beach, behind the scenes was chaotic, stuffy and extremely dirty. After moving around so much in the lead up to the Philippines, we had wanted to stay in one place for two weeks and chose Boracay for it's reviews and world renowned beaches. However we should have read on, as nothing prepared us for how busy it was and how much money was pumped into the tourism and not into the island's preservation or conservation. We found that the island was greatly lacking in culture and had we more time, would have explored other areas of the Philippines that had not been (for lack of sounding pretentious) inhabited and exploited by the common tourist. Don't get me wrong though, after a few days of feeling like we would never step foot back in the Philippines, we started to get into the swing of life there and thoroughly enjoyed our time together on the island. We left feeling completely relaxed, well until we got back into Manila...