Derek’s Diary

My favourite Boracay breakfast spot is the Sizzling Cafe and Seafood House in d-Mall, a strip mall just off the beach. For just 50 pesos (about CDN$1.10), you can eat a breakfast of chicksilog, longsilog, porksilog, tapsilog, or tosilog. This includes meat, garlic rice, and one egg. After breakfast, it’s off to Budget Mart to buy Yakult, a cultured milk drink that includes live lactobacillus casei, a ‘good’ bacteria that helps digestion and eases stomach troubles; and to eat Ensaymada Monggo bread.

Yesterday, Desiree and I went on an island hopping boat trip that included two stops to go snorkelling, a stop at Puka Beach for a barbecue lunch, a visit to Crystal Caves, and a stop near Crocodile Island for a final swim and snorkelling in somewhat rougher water. Though the barbecue lunch of chicken, pork, shrimp, bangus, rice, vegetables and fruit was very tasty, the rough water during our final tour around the island robbed me of my lunch after I was taken with sea sickness. Needless to say, I don’t have the stomach of a sailor.

This evening’s Boracay sunset on the beach was beautiful. I’ll post photos when we return to Canada.

We’re still in Boracay and today we had planned to go on an eight hour island hopping boat trip, but last night I felt a cold coming on and this morning I did not feel up for the trip. We’ve since postponed the trip to tomorrow and instead, did some shopping in town at the Talipapa (mall). We learned that prices are a bit lower at shops away from the beachfront.

Last night, we had a delicious but expensive meal of grilled King Fish, prawns, vegetables, and salad. Though we thought that the meal would cost only around 600 pesos, to our surprise it cost 960 pesos! We were a bit annoyed that the host had failed to mention that the two salads were not included in the cost of the meal, but were very satisfied with the taste and quality of the food. This was the most expensive meal that we’ve had to date in the Philippines.

You may have heard that there is some political unrest in Manila where the president has declared a state of emergency. We’ll be leaving Caticlan (Boracay) for Manila on February 28 and then on to Baguio City. We don’t plan to stay in Manila, so we hope the unrest will not affect our trip. I leave Manila for Canada (via Tokyo, Vancouver, Montreal) on March 4. I don’t expect that the events in Manila will not affect my
departure, but I’ll be following the news daily to keep current of the political situation in the capital.

Though there is much activity in Manila, nothing has changed in Boracay where the party continues.

We spoke this morning with the owner of Casa Camilla and she kindly returned our money in full, less the charge for one night’s stay.

Yesterday evening, Desiree and I arrived on the beach resort island of Boracay where we’ll be staying until February 27 at the Saigon Beach Resort in a simple, clean, and comfortable little Nipa hut apartment. Saigon is a big relief from the inexpensive, but terrible room (room 11) in which we stayed the first night at Casa Camilla. The room was not very clean and reaked the strong musty odour of mould which built up on the unventillated bathroom ceiling. Returning to the room after a walk, Desiree saw a cochroach on the floor and then I soon found three or four cochroaches in one of our bags. This was only the second time that I’ve seen a cochroach during my stay in the Philippines and the first time we’ve found any in our luggage. Needless to say, we were not very happy.

Deciding that we could not live in this room for a week, let alone one night, we asked the receptionist to refund us for the remaining four nights that we pre-paid in order to get a 30% discount, assuring her that we’d pay the regular rate for one night. Despite our good will, she refused to refund our money (3850 pesos minus 1100 for one night). Now, we were even less happy and determined to find another hotel first thing the next morning. We slept that night with the door open to let in fresh air and with the light on to keep the cochroaches away.

Very early the next morning, we walked down the beach, visiting hotel rooms along the way. We must have seen a dozen rooms at five or six different hotels, narrowing the count to two before settling on Saigon Beach. The Rough Guide to the Philippines recommends Saigon Beach Resort as excellent comfort and value and we could not agree more.

Tomorrow, we’ll return to Casa Camilla to speak to the owner about refunding our money.

Desiree and I are safe and sound in Tagbiliran on the island of Bohol. We did not visit Leyte, an island not far from Cebu where there was a landslide that wiped out an entire town and may have killed as many as 3000 people.

Today, we return to Cebu and then Iloilo and then leave tomorrow for Boracay.

I’m in Iloilo, Philippines and staying at the comfortable Grand Dame Hotel downtown. I’m writing this from Netopia, an Internet cafe in the big and flashy SM City shopping mall.

Iloilo is a busy, but mostly run-down city whose infrastructure is badly in need of repair and development. Iloilo is also a city of contrasts. Though so many houses in Iloilo are mere shacks, hotels and shopping malls are new and flashy while larger and more expensive houses are usually surrounded with ugly wire and concrete fences.

Streets in Iloilo are chaotic and jammed with jeep traffic and exhaust pollution is suffocating. Surprisingly, despite the streets having nearly no traffic lights and signs, there seem to be few traffic accidents.

Tomorrow, my girlfriend and I leave Iloilo for Cebu City by ferry. After spending three or four days in Cebu, we’ll return to Iloilo where we’ll take a bus to Caticlan and from there a ship to the resort island of Boracay.

On Saturday, I leave for the Philippines for a three week, island-hopping vacation! Though I’m excited about my trip, I’m not so thrilled to take the 25 hour flight from Montreal to Manila (Montreal-Vancouver-Tokyo-Manila). When I arrive at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, I will likely have to spend the night there or in the domestic airport while I wait seven hours for my domestic flight to Iloilo City on the island of Panay. I’m not at all looking forward to sleeping in the Manila airport. Fortunately, one of my girlfriend’s close friends should be meeting me at the airport and will keep me company while I wait.

To prepare for the trip, I’ve been reading The Rough Guide to the Philippines. So far, I’m quite impressed. The guide is easy-to-read and packs many interesting facts and practical tips in the first 60 pages alone. For example, did you know that Filipinos send some 200 million mobile phone text messages a day, more than any other country? In the first part of the book, under Basics, there are sections on getting there, visas, maps, insurance, health, money, transportation, accommodation, food, communications, media, festivals, sports and recreation, crime and safety, shopping, cultural hints, living and working, and traveling with disabilities and children. The remaining 470 pages is mostly a guide to all the islands and cities in the Philippines. To date, I’ve read only the section on Iloilo, so I’ve only scratched the surface.

Over the next three weeks, I’ll try to keep you up to date on my travels.