Views from our boat trip
Views from my sandy home for the week
For May Holiday this year, Labour Day, Chris and I headed to the Philippines! We spent a week on the island of Boracay, which is probably the most popular island in the archipelago. We were hoping to go somewhere a little more isolated, but with only a week it was a bit hard to find flights that fit and avoid doing any 9 hour bus rides. I am happy we went with Boracay though! It was SUPER relaxing, beautiful and HOT!
Where we set up camp each day
We left Dalian on a Saturday afternoon, and we didn't reach Manila until after midnight. We had a pretty long layover in Hong Kong, but that is a massive airport with no end of things to do. Since we had a final connecting flight between Manila and Boracay at 4:00 am, we simply stayed in the airport. But we didn't sleep, as it was really more like a bus terminal than an airport! It was the smallest, sketchiest looking airport I have been to in all my travels of South East Asia! Nonetheless, our plane from 1962 safely landed on the island, and then we took a quick bus and a very short ferry to the hotel. We hadn't slept since Friday night, so we immediately headed to the beach to set up our napping location for the rest of the morning!
Cruising around the island
We spent each day at an isolated spot near the end of the long beach. It was white sand, beautiful clear water, and enough palm trees for shade in the afternoon. I did nothing but swim, nap and read books all day. At about 1 or 2 we would have a smoothy break, and then continue swimming and soaking up sun for the rest of the afternoon. Perfection.
One of the catamarans circling the island
One day we did a boat trip around the island to do some snorkelling. We were able to see a decent amount of fish right by the boat. The stops themselves were a bit crowded, but the views were lovely.
Getting ready for another swim
The island had a lot of great choices for food, so we loaded up on Western treats. We had greek food, great pizza, burgers and wraps and even pancakes. Living in China for two years really makes you crave Western food! It was fun to stroll around and check out the sites on the island once the sun went down. It was a bit too hot to explore much during the day!
Chris is so excited to be in the Philippines!
On Friday evening we headed back to Manila. Everything we read said that Manila is one of the least safe cities for travellers, and that we should go with a tour group if we were to go out and see any of the sights. Since we didn't arrive in Manila until really late Friday night it was too late to sign up for any groups, so we went to the biggest mall in Asia. I know that is really not culturally sensitive, but again, I live in China. We do not have nice stores in China. There are only English movies every couple of months. There are certainly no donut shops. We packed in a little bit of home sweet home into our one day!
Checking out the sunset on our last evening
All in all it was a great trip, and exactly what we needed after an extremely busy (and cold) term. February, March and April were ridiculously busy. We had worked a string of Saturdays, marked a million exams, attended a thousand meetings and were just plain exhausted. I highly recommend the Philippines, and would go back and check out another island anytime!
Sunset sailboat cruises
Our sustenance for the week - smoothies!
Only 11 000 km to home!
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