perfect vacation

i never knew why people loved going to boracay. i thought, "it's just a beach. white sand and great nightlife. and so?" even my colleagues from the other apac offices who have been to boracay can't stop raving about the island. and so, finally, i had the chance to go there this week and see for myself what magic charm this little island has that's got everybody keep wanting to go back.

me and my girl friends went there on the 27th - we flew via ZestAir (big mistake - cheap flights but flights were delayed). Our 11.50 am flight became 3 pm. From Kalibo airport, we had to take another 1 1/2 hour van ride to Caticlan, then rode a boat for 10 mins to the island and another 20 mins ride via multicab to get to our hotel. We reached White House Boracay almost 6.30pm.

white house boracay is in the middle of Station 1, where all the fancier and more expensive resorts were situated. (white house happened to be the least expensive among the rest - hehe). Overall, the hotel wasn't bad, but it wasnt good either. Reception is fast - i guess our nagging and constant requests paid off coz for the rest of our stay, most of the reception staff knew us and easily responded to our questions and requests (well except for the dvd player and the blow dryer but that's ok since they gave us a big electric fan in lieu of the blow dryer). unfortunately, all of the beachfront rooms were fully booked so we ended up staying at the rooms across the street, which wasn't bad but the beachfront rooms looked better than our room. Well, the room was pretty standard, nice queen sized bed and extra beds, quite roomy for 3 persons, we had a small tv with cable (and cai loved that there's PBB 24/7 installed). the room was clean (except for the a part of the ceiling which looked ugly). we booked 2 rooms - the room which i shared with cai and nina had an awful bathroom (specifically the shower was really really bad - the cold shower was broken so it would take us minutes to make it work while we were suffering from the hot hot hot (!!!) water). lea and benz's room's shower was much better - hot/cold shower was working fine and they even had a counter top for the sink - though i heard lea complaining that the shower head looks like it's about to fall off anytime. another bad thing about our rooms - we had a difficult time locking the sliding doors!

so now the beach.. station 1 was not crowded, the sand was really fine and white. water was really clear. we had the chance to pass by station 2 during the 4 days we were there and.. we're glad we decided to stay in station 1! the beach area in station 2 was the exact opposite - dirty, crowded and sand is not as fine and clean. station 2 looked too commercialised and the people looked "jologs" (sorry if i sounded mean and snobbish). the crowd in station 1 were mostly older, families rather than friends/couples, and looked like they had a lot of money (now, i'm admitting that in station 1, we were the one who looked "jologs" - hehe)
since we went to boracay to chillax - station 1 was the perfect place for us to stay - it was quiet and we can just lounge around the beach or swim in the waters and do nothing all day. on the other hand, at night, it was sosy - we had a sumptious dinner buffet at seawind on the first night (where they served mongolian rice/noodles and grilled seafood) and on the following night, we decided to splurge a little, wore our best clothes and dined at the buffet at discovery shores (food was ok - the expensive price was due to the ambience and the name of the resort). around 11pm, everything in station 1 is closed and there were barely people hanging around the beach, so we ended up going to station 1 for some night life.

some of our friends recommended bombom bar, guilly's island and hey jude. so each night we tried to go to these areas but i guess it's because it's december so there weren't many people in the bars. guilly's and the bar right beside it had an upbeat club music blasting but we didn't see anyone in sight or even dancing! we headed to bombom bar - it was crowded with nice live acoustic music - we couldn't get a table but luckily we got one at the next bar (creek bar) and our table were right beside the live act. we stayed there until 1am - a lot of people were there just drinking and chatting in their own tables and it got quite boring.

during lunch time, we headed to d' talipapa and had crabs and shrimps for lunch. yummy!!! we also tried the tuna omelette and sandwiches in real coffee (we confirmed with the wait staff that this is where anne curtis and aga muhlach shot one of the scenes from the movie when love begins)

so, in boracay, all we did were - eat, sleep, walked along the beach, swim in the waters - that's it. for 3 days. we just relaxed. no pressure to follow an itinerary or do any water sports. just pure laziness and conversations with my girl friends. it was the perfect vacation for all of us. we loved it. and we plan to come back next year.