Hey there Boracay - Suggested Itinerary

Our group stayed there for only 2 days effectively (excluding the cumbersome amount of time taken to get into and leave the island) but we were glad to have accomplished a great lot of activities and will be more than happy to share.

You see... Phillipines is an amazing place - the food, the fun and most importantly, the friendship. Everywhere we went, every activity we engaged in, had the emphasis around making new friends and forging new relationships. The hosts made every effort to engage us (sometimes, the group gets as big as 40 pax) and ensure we made new friends. That was the most memorable part of the trip, I must say.

Here are our suggested activities to do within 2 days (if you have the luxury of time, you can stretch it to 3 or 4 days):

Day 0:
Settling your activities
Highly recommend that you settle booking and payment of your activities the evening your land into Boracay. This will give you a peace of mind and also, more time to focus on enjoying the scenary.
We are a lucky bunch to have stumbled upon this guy called "Bling" - in a phrase, we call him our Boracay Relationship Manager. Within a matter of 30mins, we settled all 3 of our activities, which would have taken us 2h if we navigated on our own. He also gave us good and authentic food recommendations which we tried out and felt that the price was right. If you have the VIP card (from the free maps given at the boat terminal), you get some pretty good discounts at almost all places in Boracay.

"Bling", our Boracay RM. You can quote "Amelia and Justin from Singapore" to get better deals with him.

Day 1:
9am - Diving / Helmet diving
The dive sites around Boracay provide a wonderful place for training and getting your Open Water certification. The waters are amazingly clear (visibility 20m in May, better than Bali or Krabi) and the marine life are welcoming. However, if you are a certified open water of advance diver, you might want to do just 1 or 2 good dives - the ship wreck or plane wreck; there are deeper dives up to 40m which unfortunately, my cert doesn't qualify me to go that deep. These wrecks are intentionally sunk off the coast of Boracay and are relatively have less marine life making camp in there (ship - sunken in 2011; and plane - sunken in 2007). Both are about 7min boat ride away from the shore.

We did our dives with Milky's Dive Centre (Station 3)

5pm - Dinner at D'Talipapa
If you're a certified diver doing 2 dives, you should end your session by 1pm. We did 3 dives (the last one wasn't worth it) and ended at 3:30pm. You can go for a massage by the beach after a quick rinse or book your sunset yacht tour after.
Because we ended late, we decided to take a quick shower and head straight for dinner - D'Talipapa. In the area of D'Talipapa, the restaurants with special "cooking services" surround the perimeter of the fresh seafood market. You can purchase live fish, lobster, sea urchin etc. and get the restaurants to cook it for you. Lobsters cost about S$60-70 for 1kg (live) and S$50-60 for the non-live ones. Phillipines is famous for it's Lapu Lapu fish which gives a firmer texture but milder taste than a Grouper. With the help of a local we made friends with while passing by a simple restaurant (F.T.I. Resorant & Cooking), we picked the most recommended ingredients in the market and have the chef prepare it the style we wanted:
Recommended dishes:
- Lapu Lapu done Chinese Soon Hock Style (verdict: YES - for the sweetness in the gravy and freshness of the fish)
- Half lobster done sashimi style & the other half garlic butter gravy (verdict: YES - for both styles!!)
Sea Urchin (verdict: NO - please do not try this unless you're feeling adventurous, the pink meat is barely there and tastes like perfume from a bottle)
- Fried chicken, the famous Filipino style (verdict: YES - this got the nod from the boys)
- Garlic chilli fried KangKong (verdict: YES - the way the chef prepared the dishes with garlic is just fabulous)
All in all, the 5 of us paid about 6,000pesos for all the ingredients and cooking (200pesos for 1kg of each ingredient).

The fresh seafood market at D'Talipapa

Live lobster

The lobster sashimi

8pm - Boracay Pub Crawl

Pub crawls happen every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 8pm starting at bar Tibraz. A yellow shirt is provided to the participants which gives discounts at the participating bars. The event lasted 4h and we visited 5 different bars with discounted drinks (50pesos). Free shots from the hosts were given out along the way when we accomplished a "friendship" mission. The most memorable bars were Wave bar and Epic.

Dressed in yellow tops like Minions for the pubcrawl

Day 2:

10am - Ariel Point Cliff Jumping
We gathered at Ariel's House (Station 3) to fill in the indemnity forms and for the boats to pick us up. It was 45min boat ride to the mainland, Malay for the cliff jump.
Free flow beverages (including beers), free flow adrenaline, laughters and dares ruled the day. At 12pm, an delicious homemade lunch was served at the shack located at the highest level. We also did snorkelling and some of the others paddled with the kayak.
Once again, the most memorable were the jump and friends made along the way.
*word of caution* unless you are an experienced jumper, do not do the 8 or 15m straight away. You can come out with bruises if you enter the water the wrong way.

6pm - Dinner at Shakey's Pizza
This pizza place owns Pizza Hut. Period.
We had the set with Manager's Choice pizza in a large pan but that wasn't enough for 5 of us. The party pan would have been more fulfilling.
Be sure to make a reservation as it is always packed with hungry diners during lunch and dinner.

8pm - Boracay Fire Dancers (beachfront area in front of Hawaiian BBQ Restaurant)
The performance was the highlight of the evening with these ladies twirling with the fiery "nanchuks" while dancing to hip Fillipino hits as well as famous K-pop tracks.
*Beware* The ladies will never fail to entertain the male partners of the tourist ladies ;) A few pesos for the their little personal performance will suffice. (All in the good name of humour and fun, they mean no harm).

10pm - Drinks at Club Paraw
There are 2 big clubs on Boracay Island - Club Paraw (more popular with Fillipinos) and Guilly's Island (more popular with the Western tourists). Both are situated at Station 3, on either side of Ariel's house.
Verdict: GO - the music at Guilly's is slightly better with the vibe (it has 2 levels for dancing / drinking); whereas the drinks were more affordable at Club Paraw.

View of Guilly's from the 2nd level

Day 3:

10am - Lunch at Smoke Resto

It was a short day as it was time for our departure. We had a quick lunch at this what seems to be a family owned restaurant. I dare say all dishes score in our YES verdict range, even though we only ate 6 or 7 dishes. Give this hunt a try if you're passing by. Popular among the locals as well.

A very decent restaurant for a quick and simple meal that costs S$10/pax

After almost 60h from landing into Boracay, sadly we had to depart this gorgeous island. While the views are worthwhile (rain showers don't usually last more than 30 mins on this island) and the weather is mostly perfect, unless you're intending to lounge 1 week on this island, I'd say that 4 days are too short (Sunday arrive, Wednesday depart), but then again anything more than a full 60h on the island wouldn't give more satisfaction, unless you want more beachside massages.

Enjoy vacations!

Cheerios \o/
Ams

Hey there Boracay - Arriving and Departing the Island

A little reflection of my recent trip to Boracay, Malay, Aklan, Phillipines.

This being my first trip ever to Phillipines, I was not sure how the whole transport thing worked, especially to land into one of Asia's most beautiful beaches (which meant hard-to-reach-area as well). I had many questions in my head and despite much research, I couldn't find a particular source to share the details of the trip. So here I am, penning down my thoughts and mini "after-action-review".

I had paid for my flight 4 months in advance and will tell you in all honesty the entire journey so you can get a visual sense of the experience. This post will just cover the coming in and going out of the island. My other post will talk more about the hotel and activities.

[the much gorgeous White Sands Beach] 

Flight and landing into Kalibo Airport: We booked our flights from Singapore to Kalibo via Tiger Airways. It is an approximately 3.5hour flight (10:45am - 2:20pm). Kalibo Airport is nothing like your Bangkok Airport or Bali Airport mind you. It is a tiny place with a maximum of 4 airplanes berthing at any one time. It is hugely in need of renovation and can do better with the 2 immigration makeshift desks. So we alighted from the plane and queued up right alongside the tarmac to enter the small building and get our passport stamped.

Entering Boracay
Purchasing van and ferry tickets: Thereafter, there were Van & Boat transport touts stationed a mere 20 steps from the exit of the airport doors to greet you. All prices are fixed at 250 pesos (approx SGD8). This does not include the ferry terminal fee (100 pesos) and another environmental fee (75 pesos). As best possible, pay all these at the terminal itself. DO NOT hand the cash over to the touts. You will need to prepare 425 pesos for the whole journey into Boracay Island. We chose not to use SouthWest tours which was the more popular choice, just to try out how the experience with the touts would go. It was ok actually - we used a mini 10 pax van which was easier to navigate the tight one-lane roads instead of the 25 pax mini bus which was more difficult to move around the traffic.

Journey to Caticlan Jetty: The van operators will fill up all seats of the vehicle before moving off. We waited approximately 20 mins before it was loaded with passengers. Finally, after a 90min ride (no stops in between) from Kalibo Airport, we arrived at Caticlan Jetty. The driver queued up to buy the ferry tickets, but we still needed to pay for the terminal fee (TF) and environment fee (EF) in a separate queue ourselves. We decided to take the smarter choice and queue up and pay the fees ourselves because we heard of horror stories that the operators will take your cash that was supposed to be for the fees and deny that you had paid them upon reaching the Jetty. It was at most only a 5 min wait in line to buy the TF and EF. A total of 3 tickets would be issued (1 EF + 1 TF + 1 boat ticket). Keep all these on hand as you pass through the multiple gantries en route to the boat.

Journey to Boracay and hotel: After all the purchases were made, we had to queue up about 20 mins for the banka boat (looks like a spider boat) from the Caticlan Jetty to Boracay Station 3 (it only alights at this stop). It was a comfortable and short 20min boat ride; they do keep to the maximum number of passengers allowed in each boat so we didn't worry too much about safety. Upon reaching Station 3, we alighted and sourced for a Trike (tuk-tuk equivalent) to drive us to our hotel in Station 2. Unless you are staying at Station 3 (nothing there but villages), I would highly advise you pay 100 pesos per Trike to your hotel. It is really quite a distance if you want to walk. The ride took at least 15 mins to reach our Hotel - Boracay Haven (Station 2).

[taking the banka boat from Caticlan Jetty to Boracay Island]

All in all, the journey from departure at Changi Airport Singapore until we arrived at our hotel took a total of 9 hours. We spent about a total of 500 pesos/person to travel from the Kalibo Airport all the way to our hotel. The breakdown per person is as such: 250pesos for van & ferry + 100pesos TF + 75pesos EF + approx 50pesos for trike ride.

Leaving Boracay
Journey from Boracay Island to Caticlan Jetty to Kalibo Airport: Unless you have the patience to wait for all the transport in between, I highly advise you charter your private van from Kalibo to Caticlan and vice versa. The journey back from Caticlan Jetty to Kalibo Airport was more uncomfortable though. We left the island exactly 4h and 30 mins before our flight and decided to just use a public van to get from the Jetty to the Airport. We paid 250 pesos for the van & jetty ride and this turned out to be the worse decision ever. What was supposed to be a 90 min van ride turned out to be 130mins! This was because the van was not filled up with passengers at the jetty, and it ended having to pick up and drop off people along the road. We figured that this was their version of a "public van service" and that these operators needed to optimise their profits by filling up the van to make the trip worthwhile. I would highly recommend the next Boracay-bound group to charter your own van. You can get everything on the spot, and you just have to pay a little more approx. 400-500peso/person for a minimum of 5 persons in the mini van.

From Boracay Island to Caticlan Jetty and to Kalibo Airport, we paid about 400 peso each. The breakdown per person is as such: 250pesos for van & ferry + 100 pesos TF + 100pesos for trike ride.

The journey with all the waiting in between was indeed an long and antagonising one. Nonetheless, the view of the beach and the activities was worth the patience I suppose. Look out for my next post of the activities one can do there. Cheers!

[the view... priceless]