When it comes to beach sojourns, the typical Bali, Phuket and Krabi options will come to mind. Maldives is often referred to as THE beach destination for honeymoons and the playground for the rich. Pardon my far flung analogy but Maldives is like the evil step sister and Boracay is Cinderella - understated, but absolutely gorgeous nonetheless.
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| Off we go! |
Our decision to go to Boracay was a spontaneous one, Tiger had a deal and the four of us snapped us a $180 return ticket for a five nights trip half a year later. In that six months, Philippines encountered the typhoon but that kinda did not stop us from venturing to Boracay. It's common knowledge that Boracay was hard to get to, and the new Tiger route would make the trip more convenient and accessible. However, the trip was still relatively long and arduous.
Travelling
Travel time to Singapore from Kalibo is approximately 3.5 hours, followed by a 2 hour bus ride, 15 minutes ferry ride and a half hour van transfer to the accommodation. We were at the airport at noon for our flight and by the time we got to our accommodation, it was around 9pm. So yeah, 9 hours to get from Singapore to the beautiful paradise of Boracay.
Tiger partnered with Southwest Tours so when you book your Tiger flight, you have the option to purchase the bus + ferry + transfer. We bought a one way trip on board, costing us 500 pesos ($15 SGD) each. Buying the ticket via Tiger was so much more convenient as it was an all-in price and we did not have to worry about forking out a separate amount for their terminal and environmental fee. If Tiger ran out of Southwest tickets on board, fret not as they have a booth outside the airport which you can still buy your tickets from. In retrospective, we should have gotten a return ticket instead, as when we purchased it separately from our hotel on the way back, we paid about $10 more per person.
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| Beautiful view of Boracay greeted us enroute the bus ride |
After we got on the bus, there was quite a bit of waiting around as the tour buses needed to be filled before it could embark on the journey towards Boracay. The 2.5 hour trip also included a pit stop for a toilet break in between. I was extremely extremely impressed by the Southwest service as they had service staff with our name list at every single destination point guiding us where to go to and which ferry to board. Boracay has several Boat Stations ferries can call at, depending on which Boat Station your hotel is nearest to. Once we reached our Boat Station, they split the entire tour bus into smaller vans according to the location of our hotel so getting to our accommodation was more efficient. The whole transfer from one point to the next was easy, and surprisingly very orderly.
Accommodation
I've several colleagues from Philippines so we seeked their opinions on where to stay at - recommendations included Discovery Shores, Two Seasons and Blue Mango Inn. These hotels must be really popular as it was all booked out, even six months before our trip! Perhaps it could be because it was nearing the Valentines Day period or China's Golden Week. The possibility of the latter option was very high, as there were throngs of Chinese (and Korean) on the beach.
Eventually the four of us decided on Tanawin Resort and Luxury apartment, on top the hills of Boracay. Granted the beach was not at our door step, but the amazing view made up for it. We spent five nights at Tanawin, and moved thrice, so we stayed at three different rooms. The first night was in a two-bedroom apartment, the second was in a one-bedroom and the rest of the trip was in another two-bedroom apartment.
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| Breakfast with a view? Yes please! |
If you're worrying about transportation from the beach centre to Tanawin, don't worry as they have an hourly shuttle bus between the hotel and Budget Mall. The Budget Supermarket at D Mall is like THE meeting point for all hotel's shuttle buses to drop off and pick up passengers. One of the hotel's shuttle buses which came every few minutes was Fairways and Bluewater Resort - can't imagine how big the hotel is!
Activities
One of my favourite parts of the trip was the water activities! There are so many adventure tour guides along the beach, and we were lucky to meet Rey Plemones.
Name: Rey Plemones
Number: 0910-360-1689 / 0917-309-9560
Email: rplemones@yahoo.com
We split up our activities into two days. For the first day, we did ATV and Parasailing and the next day we went island hopping and did Helmet Diving, Scuba Diving and Cliff Jumping. In total, we paid approximately SGD $170 per person, which included a buffet lunch cooked by Rey's wife. They also run a food catering business.
The ATV ride was really quite meh and skippable in my opinion. It was very safe, and different from those terrain style ATV adventures you would imagine. We rode very slowly from the top of the hill (just in front of our hotel actually) to this theme park which had an optical illusion museum. That seemed more exciting in my opinion.
Parasailing! This was my second time doing parasailing, with the first time during our company offsite trip to Phuket. The feeling is extremely exhilarating, but i felt safe with the seat harness!
Helmet Diving was my favourite activity! We could breathe normally with the pressure from the helmet and I didn't feel any discomfort breathing at all. Though the weight of the helmet was really quite intense on the shoulders. We were so close to the fishes and corals, it felt rather surreal. I've always wanted to learn diving, but the thought of being underwater made me feel rather claustrophobic.
Loved that the dive master helped us take photos and videos underwater, which Rey helped to burn and send it to our hotel the very next day.
Ariel's Point is renowned for being the cliff jumping spot in Boracay, but we opted for Magic Island instead. The locals told us that the view at Magic Island was similar to Ariel's Point and it wasn't as crowded.
Here's me trying to be very brave. Looking down really scared me and the trick is to look ahead, not think, and just jump! And this really reminded me of this gorilla advertisement by Strip - rather uncanny resemblance!
The best and most unforgettable food experience during the trip was at the wet market where we handpicked our dinner for the night. We chose lobsters, crabs and oysters and brought it to a stall where they helped cooked our dinner!
Another must-try food is the Yellow Cab pizza - it was just so delicious and we had it two days in a row!
Boracay, you were lovely and I can't wait to see you and your clear waters and sandy beaches again!
