Boracay Island Chapter 1 (The Fascinating White Beach & Sea Activities)

Hello Everybody, who run the world!, hihi.

Last 31st October 2014, me and my friend, kak ani (yea i called her that :P ) bought tix for our Philippine tour. My other friend, Asri supposed to come along but he couldn't make it. oh well. We bought RM400 tix AirAsia for KL - Kalibo - Manila - KL. this post is solely about Boracay! TIPS: Airasia promo to Boracay is a must buy!


Boracay is an island in center of Philippines, as we know Philippines are made of hundreds of island. hihi. Our flight arrived at Kalibo international Airport in the morning around 11am. From the plane window you already know you are reaching The Philippines because u can see the islands are scattered everywhere.



the islands of Philippines

The flight from KLIA 2 (finally it completed!, such a big airport!) to Kalibo took 4 hours.  I already did some research on how to go around there. So we reached the airport and when straight to find the Southwest tours Boracay. TIPS: This is the easiest tour company to liaise with, i'd recommend this one as they will arrange your transport from Kalibo airport to your hotel and from hotel to airport.  Good right, mmhmm. From the airport exit, u can already see their banner.

Southwest arrange a van for us, coincidentally all the ppl in van was Malaysian. but, they speak chinese all the time, so we didnt talk at all cos we don't understand..meh..The van drive from Kalibo airport to Caticlan jetty, around 2 hours plus. There were lots of tricycles in Kalibo. TIPS: From KL, its a long journey, so make sure u have a good rest the day before!



Tricycles literally everywhere

the van stopped at a Ibajay rest area for 15minutes, we just buy some water. They sell souvenirs and some light food too. The rest area is for Southwest with their logo, yeah that's how big they are.


See the logo, SouthWest

We head to caticlan jetty and once we were there, they start giving us stickers written our destination on it. We wait at the Jetty for the boat and then the when the boat arrive, the guy incharge start calling everyone, we just followed, cos at that time we kinda have no clue as there was also other boats around.


Caticlan Jetty

But we ended up on the boat, after half an hour. TIPS: there were lots of brochures at the jetty about Boracay, and its free, so take it as your guide :) . The boat ride was about 20minutes, lots of seat upstairs and downstairs.


Our tag

We finally reach Boracay and it was already 6.30PM , the travel to Boracay alone took almost 1 whole day, my god!. But now they are flights to Clark, better take that one to save time, as Clark and Caticlan is very near, easier as u can cut down the travel time. But only MAS go there, with other airlines like Cebu Pacific Air etc.

After we step out of the Jetty, i was looking at my bag and then this one Filipino guy started to carry few bags including mine. Then, he bring it to me and asked for tips 'tips naa' , i was like 'who asked u to carry my bags, nobody right?'..aishh...so i know their game at that point. I gave him few pesos as i dont want him to come at me again. TIPS: Always make sure u got ur bag first as they will carry it for u and its not free.


The Southwest agent started calling hotel names, they will assigned you to van, well not really a van, a tuk tuk that goes there. Our hotel name was called few minutes after 'Luna Rossa, over here mam' that guy said. 


So, we got into the tuk tuk together with other people that stays in the hotel around that area. The tuk tuk drove to the nearest road cos they cant drive to the front as there were no paved roads, our hotel face the beach directly btw. 


Know their game, I took my bag faster and the other guy took kak ani's bag. Tips it is Kak Ani, hahaha. Well at least this time it was worth it, cos they carried it until we reach the receptionist. Kak ani gave em tips and they give a card to call if we want to have any water sport as they also do that, that is great!. TIPS: the fee for Southwest transport service (total) is around 300pesos which is about RM21 at that time, from airport to hotel. 



Our hotel!

We checked in into our hotel, it is quite an old and unique building, Spanish style alike. I like the concept of the building altho the room was kinda suck as the aircond was not really functioning at first and the toilet have a lil leaking.

They fix it after we told em. The hotel cost us about 6000 pesos around RM500rgt for 3D2N . Its very beachfront, like few steps from the hotel, u will reach the beach. The hotel is located in the border of Station 2 and Station 3. TIPS: There are lots of Beachfront hotel and hostels here, so do some googling and diggin to find the one that suits your budget :)


Boracay have 3 Stations. Station 1 is the white beach area, mostly expensive hotels. Station 2 is nightlife area, so it can be quite noisy at night esp if your hotel is near the beach, moderate cost. Station 3 is mostly backpackers hostels. But all 3 stations have great beaches nevertheless. The famous one is obviously The white beach.


So, after we had a lil rest and shower, we went out to have dinner and because we were so tired, we had our dinner at Alla Luna Rossa restaurant just downstairs. 


We had some seafood, fish, prawns and clamp soup. a lil expensive, cost around RM50.00 sort of. The clamp soup even it was simple, it was quite good, out of all Philippines food, that one was the best..for me. 


There were this guy selling devil headwear..hahaha 'devil headwear'..its actually very cheap but we got lied too bcos we didn't know at that time, so we paid around 200pesos, fuck! we realize after that, the selling price is actually just around 50pesos...grrr. TIPS: All this party stuff, u can find it in the center of Station 2 for a very cheap price, so be careful and dont buy it from table to table sellers!!



i look like anorexic kids i know, thats the headgear that cost 200pesos, grr...so devilish!

After we had our dinner, we started exploring the nightlife of Boracay! we walked along the beach. lotss of clubs in station 2 and the decoration was nice since it was Halloween at that time.



one of the decorations

we also check out the souvenirs shop around it, and i cant take my eyes from a white dress, so prettyyy. So, i went to the shop and the owner was a muslim lady. She asked me 'where are u from?' and i said 'Malaysia" and she was so happy, lol. 

Kak Ani asked her about halal restaurant, she said to us 'only seafood restaurants are halal here and also macdu station 2', i was like 'what is macdu' and she said 'Mcdonalds'...lol!!! macdu...hahaha. okay got it. 


I ended up buying that dress btw..hihi. We continued walking until station 1 where lots of fancy hotel are located, fascinating :). we made a U turn back and stop at D*mall. It's a mall with a beach concept, lots of boutiques, souvenirs shop and restaurants. It is located at Station 2. TIPS: Great place to hangout after a day on the beach!



D*mall streets mall
the famous sign in D*mall feat Kak Ani :P

The sign 'I <3 Boracay' is located here as well. We head to our hotel after that as we will explore more tomorrow. Oh yea, we also asked bout tour packages from some tour agents that keep showing us brochures. We took one near our hotel for tomorrow's activity! so excited! . That night we slept well cos we were so tired from the travelling.

Good Morning Boracay!!!!


1st November 2014, day 2, that morning at 8am, our tour agent already waited for us in front of our hotel.



The view in front of our hotel!

He is pretty much like Kak Ani, hihihihi, i mean, the way he talked...hehehe. So, we asked him to take us for coffee first (caffeine needed!) and he took us to D*talipapa..yep all start with D here and i don't know why. 

We bought some coffee, which was the 3in1 coffee in a cup...meh...oh well. We got a lil excited looking at D' talipapa, so we walked for few minutes around here. I really love this place, better than D*mall as the prices here are cheaper.



D*talipapa!

Kak Ani bought a bag, the waterproof bag as we will get wet later, hehe. So, i know where i'll buy my souvenirs from. yeay!. We head to the beach after that and the boat already waited for us. all the boats here are alike. and the yacht too. The only difference is the name, our boat name is Lovelyn, only for us, no sharing..cos kak ani hate sharing boats, high maintenance..kikiki.



still holding the 3in1 cup with Lovelyn behind me

We hop onto the boat and the boy (yea, it was a young boy who navigate the boat) brought us to the Crystal Cove Island. The island was flock with tourist, mostly Korean, and from what i saw, lots of Korean tourist in Boracay during this time of the year.



Crystal cove island

So, we started taking pics, there were this buffalo art statues and also some mini huts around the island. Some info on salt water corals. The water was crystal clear.



Mabuhay Boracay!


View from the crystal cove

We spent bout 30minutes here. After that the boat bring us to an open space area for snorkeling, i am actually not a fan of snorkeling, not that much. But the boy was kinda hurry, so the place that he brought us too was not that good, nothin there beside clear water..


into the sea!
we spend bout 20 - 30minutes there, not really interesting i would say. except for an uncle who pedal around selling icecream, hihi.i admire his courage :)


icecream uncle

and then we went around one island called crocodile island, actually this place is where we are supposed to do snorkeling. but instead we just made one big round and go back to Station 2 beach. TIPS: Choose the tour boat wisely and make sure u know where to do the snorkeling, ask the locals. My recommendation is snorkeling in Crocodile Island, the view is amayyzing!



Crocodile island cos that rock looks like a crocodile

I cannot remember the whole day package cost, but it was cheap though. We met with the tour agent again and he promote to us to do helmet diving at a discounted price to gain our trust again. Why, bcos of course we complained that the tour boat were in such hurry and didnt stop at a good place.

Well, i'd love to try he helmet diving as i never saw this kind of activity before. So, we agreed. it was about 10-20RM per person if i am not mistaken, i am so sorryyy i should've write it down, now i forgot already..aishh..


Okay. so that activity will be done in the afternoon. So we, decided to walk around white beach in Station 1. first, we had lunch, clamp soup still my fav, but at other restaurant in station 2. That was the only think i ate there for 2 days..hahahaha. 


We walked along the beach...my god, Boracay is so beautiful, the beaches with white sand, clear blue water and blue sky...i dont know how to describe it, the pics will tell it all. TIPS: If you have extra budget, stay in White Beach!




white beach!
The yacht around station 1, what a view!

The main attractions here is Willies Rock. There were this fruitshake place called Jonah and people flock there because of the good review, they are located in Station 1 too.


Jonah's Shake

So, back to Willies Rock, i love it love it love this place because the water is not deep and u can take lots of pretty pics here...hahahahahah.




willie's rock

me, over the top :P


On top of it is that Virgin Mary lil church. People still pray there. The Filipino in Boracay mostly pray to Mary, u can see lots of Mary idol everywhere. Philippines is a majority catholic country btw. But there were also vast majority of muslim, they don't really involve in the Boracay activities, u can see em selling souvenirs at night.



The virgin Mary idol on top of Willie's Rock

After few amazing (for me la) pics here, we walked along the beach back to Station 2, there was this kids that made sand castle with the words Boracay on it, u can take a pic with it and give em some tips. Now this is the kind of tips that i would say worth it!

The kids asked me 'mam, are u arabia' ...great, im arab now. maybe cos i cover myself more compared to others who wear bikinis...lol! when they heard u are malaysian, the next question will be 'u can speak tagalog?'. like what make em think malaysian can speak tagalog, i really am not sure.




sand castle, do i look arabic? really nvr crossed my mind


Station 2!

So we made our way to back to the tour agent for Helmet Diving afterwards. The boat took us to a 'platform', the place for this water activity. 

They first demonstrate to us the steps, look easy. but being myself not knowing how to swim..hmm..scary, hehe. Our turn come, i put the helmet on, it was heavy hoccayy. i stand at the stairs and the scuba diver grab me and pull me down, haha!.


Somehow, a physic theory applied the water don't get into the helmet..but my heart was 'dup dap dup dap'...the ear sting cos of the water pressure. the scuba diver make sure you are okay with hand sign, if you are okay, they will start giving u bread to give to the fish. The area we dive (dive? hahaha) is a fish sanctuary, so there were lots of fish there. 


I felt like someone knocking my helmet 'ding ding ding' the sound. But it was actually the air pressure, hihihi,silly me. The scuba diver start taking photo and video of us as that was part of the package. The scuba diver asked me to walk around as i was just standing at one spot hihi. I cannot!, i was scared of falling.


I hold the helmet and walk slowly, fine!..i don't understand how some korean girls can walk fast while taking pics, weird..hihihi. The activity maybe not suitable for kids as this one kids came down and after few seconds asked the scuba diver to bring him up cos he cant breath.



helmet diving, walking on the sea

So, yeah after 15minutes, we go back up and i just sat there on the boat cos my ear was still 'ringing' from the pressure. The agent asked me how i feel. I said 'okay, new experience' and then i just smile cos i cant really hear what they say for a while, hahahahah. We head back to the beach and they gave us the CD of the photos and video underwater. TIPS: If you are not afraid of being underwater, this is a great activity of u to enjoy. If you are scared like me, dont, give it a try. Trust me it is a very rare experience! Jus dont fall, hahahahaha

It was almost sunset and Kak Ani wanted to enjoy sunset while sitting on the yacht (katanyaaa).  So, we asked the agent to ask the yacht and we hop into it, again i cannot remember the price. It was around 10-20RM per person. But most activities there are cheap. We enjoyed the sunset with bunch of other people as the yacht surf around the Sulu Sea, it was okay, not very comfortable sometimes a there was no 'seats' ..P . TIPS: Better just stay on the beach and enjoy it with some tea or snack, better!



Our yacht, haha like we own it :P


Sunset in Boracay, on the yacht

We went back to the hotel after the Yacht experience. Rest and that night we went out exploring the night life at Boracay, We saw this huge line of Korean tourists..i was like 'what's goin on'. it was actually the line of waiting for roasted pig, mehhhh, hihi...okay byeee haha!.

We continued walking and that night there was firedance show, yeay...what was more interesting is one of the biggest crowd of firedance was the transwomen group...mhmmm, proud of em!. They were very talented! with madonna song playing. I have a video here for you guys to watch..it was fun!




They then asked for tips from the crowd, the fire dance was perform in one of the beach bar there, but everyone can see it. I gave some tips and said to her 'from a sister to a sister' ..she smiled and say thanks, salamat pok in tagalog. We walked and check out some other bar along the beach and ended up here in Wave.



Wave Bar

we had some drinks here, juices to enjoy the night at the beach. Tomorrow, we already booked the same agent for Mount Luho tour, fun activities waiting for us! back to the hotel for now :)

For day 3&4 click here!


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