Philippines: Boracay

Second Station Beach, Boracay. February 2011

That Boracay Vacation

Chinese New Year was approaching and we wanted to get out of Singapore. I had never been to the Philippines at that point and Brian also had not been in many years. We decided on Boracay and then a few days in Manila. After that I would fly down to Davao (I had more time) for further exploration. Davao had increased its number of direct flights to other Asian cities, so I could hop a flight right back to Singapore from there.

FB reminded me recently (with multiple posts) that booking that trip was a total nightmare. I had a hard time finding flights and the prices kept changing - no doubt due to Lunar New Year, the biggest holiday in the region. I did finally manage to get us flights and hotels and we were on our way. That difficulty in booking our flights was a harbinger of things to come.

Amazingly, I remember details of that trip because it was so singularly bad. We arrived in Manila Airport and had to change terminals. As much as I grew to love the Philippines later, it was doing everything it could to make me hate it on that first trip. The sheer confusion of arrival at Ninoy Aquino Airport with its different terminals spread all over the place was maddening. We DID finally make it to our terminal and changed planes. We boarded a small plane to Caticlan, the jumping off point for Boracay. Caticlan airport is on the very tip of Panay Island just before the jetty to Boracay. Passengers literally step off the plane, collect their bags and get on the boat to the island. We had booked a transfer with the hotel which was wise because, just like changing terminals in Manila airport, the process of deplaning, getting bags, getting to the jetty, getting on the boat, and then getting transport down narrow, little Boracay would have been baffling for first-timers.

We arrived late in the day and just settled into our room. The hotel was small, modern, and pleasant across the road from the beach (on such a small island, who needs to pay more for beachfront?). In line with our bad vacation luck for that trip, the first night an AC breaker flipped, we couldn't find it, and we sweltered in the airless room all night long. Opening the door to the outside would have meant a mosquito fest and the AC window was without a screen. Not the kind of hotel with 24/7 reception, we had to wait till the next morning to get it repaired. The hotel staff were mortified. Since we had lived in the region for years, we weren't even that upset - such things happened frequently in Southeast Asia.

So did the vacation improve the next morning when we woke up to those legendary white sand beaches of Boracay? No. Most unfortunately a freak cold front pushed down from the north and Boracay was overcast and COLD. The locals were freaking out because the daytime temperatures were lower than the normal nighttime ones. Dark clouds, cold wind, and no one swimming -that scene persisted nearly our entire stay on the island.

Add to that, it was Superbowl weekend and on one of the days a lot of drunk Americans were in the bars watching the game and getting very boisterous. The Filipinos were nervous (so was I). Of course the locals understood that it was an important sports match, but they didn't get that it was the SUPERBOWL. It took on a life of its own, especially overseas.

On occasion the sun DID peak out and in those moments we were blinded by the white sand. It was the same effect as "snow blindness" when skiing. I suddenly understood why all these young guys on the beach were hawking sunglasses. It made no sense for most of the cloudy visit, but when that sun broke through - WOW. Boracay was not undersold for its legendary white sand. It was just dazzling. and the water offshore was an incredible turquoise. We did see it - just in rare 10 minute intervals.

However.... this was really not the Boracay we had heard about over the years. I remember decades before my long-time Japanese friend, TM, had gone on holiday to the Philippines and visited Boracay when it was just getting started as a "destination". In those days there were just a few basic hotels on the beach and visitors had all that dazzling white sand to themselves. She said, "go soon, it won't stay this way". Truer words were never spoken, and our visit was many years too late. Boracay had exploded in development that came close to ruining the entire island. The strange thing was that the center of the VERY narrow island was untouched. Just a short distance off the main road were the original homes of the residents. The island was dirt poor - clearly the locals had not benefited from all the tourist income. The difference on either side of the road was like a Grand Canyon of have and have not.

The opposite side of the island had no hotels, the beach was rocky, and it was windier. In fact, I walked there one day and stumbled upon a wind-surfing competition. It was almost like discovering a completely different island and the walk was all of 10 minutes. Boracay was a complex place to say the least.

Due to the tourist boom, "love him or hate him" President Duterte closed the whole island for a year to let it regenerate and to address some infrastructure issues. What he did was needed, but it was hugely unpopular with tourists and locals alike. A lot of people worked on Boracay - a year off?? How were they to make up that lost income? Then just as the island started to reopen, the pandemic hit. In a way, Boracay got a total reprieve of almost zero tourism for three years. I hope in that time it recovered to some degree.

The white sand beach was divided into four sections: White Sand Beach, Station 2, Station 1, and Diniwid Beach. I liked Diniwid because it was set off by some rocks and sat below the only hill on the island (more like a pile of huge boulders). Brian and I found some hotels built up among those massive rocks and realized they were probably the place to stay to get away from the tourist crush yet still have a view of the dazzling white sand. As was often the case with our travels, we found the best hotels while staying at a lesser one and never had the chance to return to enjoy the find.

In a final insult, when we returned to Caticlan Airport, we were told we had to pay extra for our bags because the runway was short and there was a strict weight limitation. Brian posited that our money had some kind of anti-gravitational effect on our bags that rendered them lighter. The runway was short - yes, they had to take care of the weight of the plane - YES!, but how did paying more money for heavy bags solve that issue? I will admit to being nervous on take off.

As we flew back to Manila, the skies were clear (adding insult to injury) and I looked down on Boracay. I realized that there was a string of "Boracay like" islands most of the way back to Manila just waiting to be discovered. Those lovely little white and green dots surrounded by translucent blue weren't off the coast of a major island nor near any airport, but they still had that dazzling white sand. Who knows, they may just be "lucky" enough to be discovered, and destroyed?