beg to differ

#PI: Boracay

This post contains about three days worth of photos, but many of them are ones I am proud of, so please bear with me. I’ll try to keep my commentary to a minimum but there are some things that need explanation and some observations I made about this place I’d like to share.

Waiting at the airport — security here is pretty poor, despite going through two metal detectors, nobody caught the knife in my carry on. Even I forgot.

On the shuttle to board our tiny plane, I already scope KBZs.

Among the rest of the passengers, there are already a decent amount of Koreans and Chinese vacationers.

First aerial shot of the Boracay Islands…

Waiting area for our resort’s shuttle services to take us from our arrival beach to the actual resort.

Here we are… Boracay Regency. It’s been five years since I was last here. Things have changed.

We were given complimentary drinks during check-in…

And here’s the room.

We walked along the strip in search of lunch.

Coconuts here cost roughly two dollars, which is way more than I’m willing to pay. It’s a tourist trap, unfortunately.

We settled for an inasal place, which is like grilled meats on skewers.

I also had a sizzling sisig, but this one was topped with chicharron (pork rinds) and was nearly burnt. Not my favorite.

And we cooled off with a little halo halo here — it looks like coconut ice cream, jackfruit (langka), beans and pinipig (rice crispy). After lunch, we decided to hit the beach for a bit.

It was high noon at this point, so the ocean was a little empty. The view is gorgeous though.

Perfect. It was too hot to stay and we were all pretty tired. We headed back to the hotel for a nap, had some dinner, then strolled the beaches one more time.

Just before sunset, you can see a storm off in the distance. It’s ‘wet’ season so to speak, so rain comes and goes.

I was shooting on my DSLR and on my phone simultaneously when my mom gave me a heads up — this Korean girl who sat next to me while I was in the lobby for check-in happened to make her way back to the beach later that night… she walked right by me, then past me into the water (with her friend~). If I released a kpop album I’d use this as the cover art lol.

I actually saw her again later that night using the wifi in the lobby one couch over from me, with her friend too. I didn’t talk to her.

The next day I discovered the hotel gym at 6am. Herped a derp on the rack and then headed out.

On the way to breakfast for some nutrition…

Helped myself to the buffet. Note the lack of greens! That’s the Philippines for you.

Then we bummed around on the beach in the later morning when it was empty but still not too hot.

I am not much of a beach person, it’s due to a mix of traumatic events in my childhood and growing up near dirty beaches I guess.

The cloud formations here are always crazy.

Some KBZs takin profile pics for their minihompys probably..

It was nice to just watch the clouds change. I went for a dip — just enough to submerge most of my body, but not enough to need to exert effort to survive.

Oh look it’s my KBZ stalker again. I can tell she’s not gangnam as fukk because she stayed at the same resort as me (a mid/high end resort, nowhere near baller though) AND she’s wearing the same bikini two days in a row.

I made sure I got back to the beach after lunch in time for sunset.

The beach gets poppin after dark, really. Way more people walk the beaches, street vendors sell stupid snacks like corn and donuts, and the fishermen display their catches of the day. I was told there are plenty of parties and nightlife to look out for, but of course I ain’t about that life.

The next morning, we headed to the other end of the beach to check out this ‘island’ thing. It was quite a long walk, so we headed back to our resort area and bummed around on the beach once more.

This damn beach is honestly too distracting!

We left for the airport as our stay was up… but it was just in time, as a big storm was approaching.

This guy greeted us at the airport before we made our way back to Pasig.

As for my return to Bora, it was nice but in retrospect it was a little repetitive — eating at the buffet and bumming around the beach, peoplewatching. Three days with a bunch of adults by yourself is not ideal. I’d have liked to done some island hopping, or have a goddamn girlfriend or something just to model for me, as I’d like to have just documented the scenery, as it’s unreal and unlike anything else in the Philippines. Unfortunately, even the natural beauty of Boracay is slowly disappearing as a result of tourism. Filipinos here are mainly service workers to cater to the ethnic majority of Koreans and Chinese. More and more people are filling up the beaches, more and more stores are expanding their shopfronts illegally into the beach. Coconut trees are being uprooted as sand is being manipulated for construction, and litter piles up at their trunks.

I don’t think I’d go back here for what it’s worth, but to me it seems more like the hot spot for rich Koreans and Chinese who have nothing better to do for a weekend. It’s sort of those ‘why not’ destinations. As a Filipino I feel like I need more cultural exposure to make traveling worthwhile, or at the very least, visit some other natural landscapes outside of Manila. I’ll save the rest of this rant for some other posts…