Manila and Boracay

Right Robyn calm down, I'm back again and ready to tell you about Philip's Jeans so far. The flight from Bangkok to Manila was just shy of 3 hours and I was pretty keen to get there and have a beer with Greg. I arrived in Terminal 2 and Greg arrived in Terminal 1. We had both made pretty bad plans (none) and to be honest I don't think we both quite knew how we were going to find each other. In the end I went to Terminal 1 to meet Greg and Greg went to Terminal 2 to find me. As you can guess we both crossed paths and never ever did find each other at the airport.

All I had on me was the name of the guesthouse we were staying at and I had my doubts as to how well known it would be. The taxi driver assured me he knew exactly where it was and that Greg had misspelled the name of the place I was staying in. Greg had written 'Friendly's Guesthouse' and my driver told me that he was going to take me to Fendy's Guesthouse. An honest mistake I suppose but I knew from the word go that we were not going to the right place. Anyway to cut a long story short, both Friendly's and Fendy's are about 1 km away from each other and I did eventually find Greg.

Our one and only night in Manila was actually quite awesome and we milked the evening for all it was worth. First up as you can guess was a few beers across the street from Friendly's and it was myself, Greg, Greg's mates Chris and Dave, a Scotish dude who Chris had met earlier that afternoon and the Scotish dude's Filipino wife. Beers are pretty damn cheap here in the Philippines, so we had a lot of them. After dinner we headed around the corner to a place where the Filipino wife knew the owners. To say that we ate literally on the street is no under statement and the place was packed to the rafters so they had to get a special table from the back and dump it ominously close to the line on the road that seperates the left side from the right side. For dinner we had clams, mussels, pork kebabs, chicken pieces, garlic chicken fillets and a few other bits of meat along with a portion of rice each and I think the whole bill came to less than 10 pounds or R140, and that was for 3 of us and included beers. Superb!!

After dinner we took a ride in one of the many Jeepneys that cruise around Manila. You just hop on and pass your cash from passenger to passenger and it eventually finds it's way to the driver. The place we were trying to get to didnt' turn out to be our cup of tea so we took a walk back towards the guesthouse. Along the way we were nothing short of bombarded and harrassed by all manner of Filipinos trying to sell you anything from Rolex watches to cigarettes and paintings and all sorts of other stuff that you don't really need. Along with these street vendors you also have loads of beggars tugging at your arms and asking for money. Most of the beggars are little kids and some of these little guys are so cute and you really do feel sorry for them but word on the street is that there's actually a syndicate of these kids who all beg for money and then haul it all back to a house they share, and hand it over to an adult. Anyway, once back in our neck of the woods we decided to enter Coyote in Bed. This place had the same theme as Coyote Ugly but with absolutely none of the class as well as a severe shortage of the hot dancers you might expect to see. So we put that beer down to experience and moved on yet again, this time to the gem of the night. Once again we found ourselves literally sitting on the street but the chaos had subsided a bit and we were treated to some amazing street side live acts. The 3 guys that were playing the live music were brilliant, but what was even more spectacular was the fact that after every 2 songs or so someone from the street would ask if they could either get up and sing or play the guitar to which they were eagerly welcomed. We stayed there til 3 in the morning and it was superb.

The next day we had a flight to Kalibo so had a short morning to kill. We spent it walking around a bit and then caught a ride in possibly the smallest form of human transport ever built. I reckon you're supposed to take one each but it was definitely funnier this way.

After our 1 hour flight it was a further 2 hour bus ride and a final 20 minute boat ride into Boracay. Boracay they say is like the Philippines' Ko Phi Phi. It definitely is as picturesque as Ko Phi Phi but it isn't the same party island as Ko Phi Phi. But it really is awesome. The main beach is about 2 kilometers long and the beach sand feels like you're walking on your mom's baking flour. Without a doubt this is the bluest water I've ever seen and the visibilty of the water is incredible. All along the beach are loads of restaurants and dive shops as well as all sorts of accomodation to choose from. Generally, prices here seem to be a bit cheaper than Thailand and today we found a ridiculously cheap place to have sundowners at. One pound is equal to about 90 Pesos. This place serves ice cold beer on the beach for 25 Pesos, and if that's a bit steep then you can have the rum and coke which comes in at 20 Pesos. It's stupid - and we love it.

Tomorrow we've hired a sailing boat and a skipper who will take us around the island and surrounding dive spots for the whole day. That's 8 hours cruising on the catamaran style boats they have here and I reckon it should be pretty awesome. No noisy outboard engine like on the long-tail boats in Thailand.We did a short snorkel today but didn't see too much but I'm told that all the good spots are off the island so we'll see how that goes.

Then in a day or 2 myself and Greg will head to Peurto Galera where things are not quite so busy as Boracay and apparently the diving is world class.

See you again soon.