Saturday, September 20, 2008

 

Philippines Vacation, Part One

We were keeping the location of our vacation undisclosed until we got back because the Philippines is not necessarily exactly the best or safest place for US citizens or military to visit, though mostly that's in the far south, but that's why we didn't move around much and went somewhere very touristy. Even so, we were two of the only Americans there. Mostly it was either Australians, Brits, or Koreans. We kept turning to each other and saying, "I thought we left Korea." There was no lack of Korean signs or large groups of Koreans wandering around.

Anyway, we spent a week in Boracay (pronounced like Borac-eye) gettin' some sun, taking some boat rides, snorkeling, eating some good food, and learning how much of a third world country the Philippines is. Paul said it was the most third world country he's ever been to and he's been to several South American countries working with an indigenous tribe in Brasil.

On to the pictures...


This sign was on a meal at the Korean Restaurant at the Gimhae International Airport in Busan. Our flight was at 8 pm, so we didn't get in to Manila until about 11:30 pm local time (1 hour behind Korea). Once there, we grabbed a cab who first thought that when we requested the Holiday Inn we meant that we wanted the former Holiday Inn when our reservation for the night was at the current Holiday Inn. We got a nice tour of a different part of town that way and even got to see the US Embassy, but it did get us in a bit later.


We spent the morning enjoying the view from our room at the Holiday Inn and watching Manila traffic and pedestrians. We met up with my friend Jamie, who I hadn't seen in 5 years, and had a nice chat over brunch with her before she had to head back to work. We then wandered the mall a little where we found one of our traditional souvenirs, a Bible in the local language, which in this case is Tagalog. It's fascinating to listen to because it's a combination of tribal, Spanish, and English.


Later that afternoon, we took off for Boracay. This is not Boracay but an island on the way to the Caticlan Airport.


The Caticlan Airport...the smallest airport I've ever been to. To get to Boracay, you have to fly to Caticlan on the larger island of Panay and then take a jetty boat across to Boracay.


At this jetty port we were loaded into the smaller boats and paddled out to the larger boats waiting off shore. The strange thing is, later in the week we saw those larger boats constantly being pulled up onto the shore and that was not the way we were jettied back to leave, so I'm not sure why it was done that way that day.


Once we arrived on Boracay, we checked in at Dave's Straw Hat Inn, which we found because it was rated #1 on TripAdvisor. We quickly realized why. It's nothing fancy, but the staff is wonderful, the atmosphere is a little oasis tucked away from the rest of the island, it's not far from the beach, and it cost us a whopping $35/night.


Our room was the other half of the cottage behind me. Each room has its own secluded porch and they light plenty of anti-mosquito smokers every night.


The entrance to the oasis of Dave's Straw Hat.


Looking from our porch to the "lobby."


This is basically the lobby...completely open air. The door on the left side of the picture goes into Dave and Janet's home, the owners. They basically welcome you into their home and their family because of this setup.


Our first day was spent wandering around a bit and getting our bearings. The primary mode of transportation on the island is these trikes. Taking one by yourself is about $1 anywhere. If you hop on one that already has people in it, then the cost is well under 50 cents.


D'Mall is one of the main shopping areas, but is more pricey than D'Talipapa. I'm not sure yet whether we got a good picture of D'Talipapa.


Of course we have the obligatory beach picture. There will be more of these. I promise.


This was on the way to D'Talipapa. Paul decided to help this little kid pump some water. After that, he decided to follow us around as we wandered the shops in D'Talipapa (that means "The Market"). Finally we decided to wander back to our hotel before finding lunch because it almost seemed like he was trying to maybe get a free lunch since it was that time of day. On the way back, we walked past where we had picked him up, which was apparently where his parents were, so he didn't go any further than that with us.


This rooster was also on the way to D'Talipapa. The island was full of roosters because apparently cock fighting is very popular.


Lobsters for sale in the "wet market" within D'Talipapa. There also were large tunas, barracudas, red snapper, crabs, clams, prawns, and some I'm sure I'm forgetting. Just across from the fish market was a restaurant that sold no food of its own, merely cooked whatever food you had picked up from the market across the way. One of the days we had barracuda steaks and clam soup for lunch cooked by them.


Up and down White Beach (the main beach), these sculptures are created daily. At night they light candles on the terraces.


We were eating lunch when these two guys with buckets on their shoulders stopped by the restaurant and started selling something from said buckets. At first we thought it was ice cream or something, then we realized it was a drink. Paul decided to try one and it turned out to be some very interesting soy-based drink with tapioca and something white and kind of gelatinous. Actually, Paul just looked it up and it's apparently called taho.


While we were eating, it decided to start raining. We, of course, did not have any umbrellas with us. We waited until it had let up a bit and then started to head back to the inn. It picked up again, so we sought shelter under one of the beach lean-tos that the restaurants put up during the rainy season, which is when we were there. As you can see, everything is pretty much open air and so they have those plastic shields you see in the background that they put up to block the wind and rain.

We finally decided that we had swimsuits on underneath our clothes anyway and had a plastic bag to cover the camera, so we just walked back in the rain. Once back at Dave's, we ditched the camera and wet clothes and headed down to the beach for a little dip in the ocean. After playing around in the ocean in the rain for a bit, we headed back to the room, showered, changed into dry clothes, and headed out with umbrellas for dinner. Where we ended up was the same lean-to under which we took shelter earlier in the day because that restaurant was having a buffet for about $5. We discovered that many of the restaurants have similar buffets and many even have actual beach seating when the weather is nice enough.

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