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]
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