Boracay, Philippines: You satisfy all my imaginations of an island

My friend and I set off for Boracay, Philippines, and returned on February 22, 2024. This trip left me with a very good impression of the island, the beach, the food, and the Filipinos, so I decided to write this guide. First of all, I have to say that we signed up for a semi-free trip with the tour group, 1,000 US dollars per person, because we had to get a tail ticket from the tour group, the price was relatively cheap, including round-trip air tickets and hotel accommodation, and the five days on the island were free travel.



Sunset shot outside the hotel

Introduction to Boracay

Boracay is an island in the central Philippines, with an area of ​​10.32 square kilometers and a population of 12,003 (in 2000). Western Visayas, located 2 kilometers northwest of Panay Island, is one of the tourist destinations in the Philippines. Its administrative division belongs to the Aklan Province of the Western Visayas Region. On April 26, 2018, due to serious environmental damage, the Philippine government ordered the closure of Boracay Island for six months to implement environmental protection and infrastructure renovation projects, and reopened to the outside world on October 26. Shaped like a dumbbell. The entire island is only 7 kilometers long, but it has a 4-kilometer-long white sand beach, which is known as "the finest beach in the world."
  
According to my chat with a Filipino brother, 40% of the current tourists on the island are Chinese, 40% are Koreans, and 20% are European, American and Russian. Mainly these three groups of tourists, the number of Chinese tourists is increasing day by day. Indeed, Korean Smecta can be found everywhere on Boracay Island. Sometimes I feel like I went to Korea.
  
Live well

Our flight departed from Kunming at 11 o'clock. After a three-hour flight, we arrived at Kalibo Airport in the Philippines at around 2 a.m. That airport is definitely the smallest airport I have ever seen. All procedures are completed in one large room. I read the guide before and said that the efficiency of the Philippine airport is very low, but I think it is okay. We left the airport in about 40 minutes. . After getting off the plane, we drove for two and a half hours to the pier, and then took a boat for about 20 minutes to reach Boracay Island. Boracay Island is really relatively backward. Roads are still being built, and there are guardrails and exposed walls everywhere. I was a little disappointed when I first saw the mud tiles, but the moment I saw the sea, I felt that everything was worth it.
  

At six o'clock in the morning, when we arrived at the hotel, someone brought us iced drinks

Boracay is divided into three areas, S1, S2 and S3, in the order of development. In fact, this is also the order of hotels on the island from luxury to frugality. S1 is full of very expensive hotels, far from the block, where the main Friday beach is, the sand is as fine as flour, and stepping on it is like having a foot massage; S2 area is the center of Boracay, and people who like to be lively can choose to stay in this area. Pushing the door is the white sand beach, and there are bars and food stores built along the beach; S3 is also on the beach, which can be described as good value for money. Pushing the door is also a white sand beach like S2, but the sand is slightly inferior to S1, but it is already a very good beach, much better than the beaches in Vietnam and Thailand that I have visited before, and it is very close to S2. My companion and I stayed at the Blue Sea and Blue Sky Beach Hotel in S3 (this hotel is very ordinary, with complete facilities, but fortunately the sea is just outside the door, and the price we went there is 60 US dollars/day, you can compare it with other hotels), I think for people who like economical and affordable, the hotel in S3 is good enough.
  
Suggestion: If you like quietness, you can choose to stay in a hotel on the mountain, away from the neighborhood, but the price is high. If not, by all means! Ten million! Ten million! Don't stay in the mountains, like golf hotels, which are also high-end hotels, but you have to take a tutu car for 20 to 30 minutes to go down the mountain. They are far away from crowds and neighborhoods, and the surrounding facilities are not complete. It is difficult to have a meal at noon.
  

Boracay Island Map


This is what we took in the hotel lobby, without filter


Free breakfast in the hotel

Eat seriously

There are many Internet celebrity shops on the island, all in D-MALL, D -MALL is the largest commercial district in Boracay Island. In S2, most of them are food and there are some souvenir shops. We still ate at a few of them. Really, don’t believe the online ranking, otherwise you will be very disappointed. We went to eat at a few other restaurants. Although they were not on the TOP list online, they were definitely at the top of the list in my mind.
  
1. Recommended restaurant: nonies

Location: It should be in S2 area , it is not in D-MALL, show the store name to the tutu driver and the driver will take you there.
We ordered the classic grilled pork chop, chocolate purple rice dessert, purple rice paella and mango grid. For three people, the tip was included in the meal, and the meal cost about RMB 350. Since it is not on the list of Chinese Internet celebrity restaurants, there are not many Chinese people. Most of the diners are Europeans, Americans and Koreans. The waiters are very friendly and every dish is delicious. This is probably the best restaurant I've ever eaten in Boracay. This is not an advertisement. If you have been to this restaurant, you know that this restaurant does not need good reviews at all.
  


Purple rice paella, and mango grid. I was so hungry that I started eating the other two dishes as soon as they were served

2. I LOVE BBQ

Location: In D-MALL.
It is also an internet celebrity store, but the taste is really good. Just in D-MALL, you need to queue up. If you don't want to queue up, you can make a reservation one day in advance. Most of the diners are Chinese and Korean, and the portions of the dishes are very large. It is best for several people to order several dishes. We ordered four dishes and we were too full. The grilled pork chop is a recommended dish that must be ordered. It comes in S, M, and L sizes. S is enough for 2 people, M is enough for 3 people, and L is enough for 4 people. The four dishes we ordered were paella, fried onion rings, classic grilled pork chop and seafood platter, all of which are worth recommending. If I really have to choose the best one, I think onion rings are the best.



3. Smoke Restaurant

Location: In D-MALL.
The reason why I went to this store was recommended by a Filipino brother who said that it has the most classic oxtail soup in the Philippines. The restaurant is very narrow, I think it is only about 30 square meters. We ordered beef and mushroom rice bowl, water spinach and an oxtail soup, which are all classic dishes in the restaurant. To be honest, I think the taste is okay. It is still far behind our Chinese beef bone soup, but compared with other foods in the Philippines, it is still much better. I didn't take a picture, I found this photo online. If you can't find the store address, just ask where cocomama is. This store is right opposite the famous cocomama.
  


4. Dessert
Philippine ice cream can really be said to be a classic among classics. I think all Filipino ice creams I have tasted are better than Haagen-Dazs, mellow and smooth. This time we went, we mainly ate three desserts. They are cocomama, halomango, and crazy crepes, all of which are particularly famous desserts on the island. If you like mango, you must choose halomango, pure mango ice cream with large chunks of mango pulp. Cocomam is an ice cream made from fresh coconuts. The packaging is a fresh coconut shell, which contains mellow coconut milk, coconut milk ice cream, fresh and tender coconut meat, plus mango and a Filipino crispy rice. I don’t know how to make it, but it’s more fragrant than sesame seeds. What I miss the most is cocomama. Crazy crepes is more beautiful and the ice cream is delicious, but unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures.
  

cocomama


halomango


crazy crepes

Have fun

The Philippines is very convenient, and all the attractions can be booked online in advance. So the attractions we played were mainly group-purchased online, which can be done on Amazon and other places. We chose a very good store. We bought the phone card for Boracay Internet from him before, 4G for $5, and gave us a lot of discount cards for the island, and those discount cards really worked. Later, we chose their store for water activities. The service is simply five-star, and the price is very, very cheap. After all, our tour guide told us that the SPA was $100 per person, and we booked it online for $50. What project do you want to play and what day do you want to book, decide and tell the store owner, and after the owner makes the arrangements, someone will pick you up the next day. The projects we booked online are:

Snorkeling + seafood meal on the island + sea diving + fishing ($50) + sunset sailing ($10) + Helios hot stone spa ($50) = $110

Snorkeling + seafood meal on the island + sea jumping + fishing is a total of 50 US dollars. We took a flight at 11 pm on February 17 and arrived on February 18. The first day, February 18, was the itinerary of the travel agency, so we set off on the 19th, the second day after arriving on the island. We went to Buffalo Island, because many places where you can jump to the island were closed at that time, so we only chose Buffalo Island. The Taobao store arranged for Xiaohei to pick us up at the hotel at 8:30. Buffalo Island is quite far from Boracay, so the price is slightly higher. It took more than an hour by boat to arrive. It is an island with few people. The water quality is particularly good, like a piece of crystal, and the shore is shining with light blue light. Xiaohei is very nice. It may be that the online store needs to assess his service quality. No matter where he goes, he will take pictures for us and send them over. When we were snorkeling and jumping into the sea, he made seafood meals for us on the island. After it was done, he came to call us to eat on the shore.


Buffalo Island


The residents on Buffalo Island are preparing lunch for us


Meals on the island
  
Don’t think that snorkeling and jumping into the sea is dangerous. There are many lifeguards around. Before snorkeling, I had snorkeled in Nha Trang, Vietnam. The water quality there was really worse than that of Buffalo Island. When I dived into the water of Buffalo Island, there was no turbidity at all and it was completely blue. What was strange was that the corals below were what I saw. Many are dead. Jumping into the sea is something that I feel particularly satisfied with myself. I thought I was not afraid, but in fact, when I walked to the springboard step by step, and looked down, it was I was really scared. I kept telling myself: You can do it, you can do it, I believe in you. Then I jumped down with my eyes closed. Then it jumped again, and again. I enjoy that freedom, the freedom of overcoming fear, the freedom of the buoyancy of the water pushing me upwards, the freedom of knowing that I can do it. My companion only jumped into the sea under my guidance, and I jumped with her. There were even fewer girls who jumped into the sea among the people in the same boat.
  
February 20: Sunset Sailing is a must-do activity recommended for everyone who comes to Boracay Island. The real must-do activity is Sunset Sailing . It’s a sailboat that takes you out to sea at 5:30 in the afternoon to watch the sunset. The sailboat is very slow. You are very close to the sunset. Your feet are soaked in the sea. It seems that everything has slowed down and only the wind is blowing. , a piece of gold on the sea.
  

Sunset Sail

February 21: Sun God Hot Stone Spa, this is also a five-star recommendation. A particularly high-end spa, halfway up the mountain, with many receptionists. As soon as you enter, you will be assigned to different rooms according to different countries. The Chinese guide is Chinese, and the Korean guide is Korean. The masseuses are all Filipinos. The attitude of the waiters is really not too good. After taking a shower, the Filipino masseurs knelt down for us as soon as we came in. Her smile was so sincere and sweet that I mistakenly thought she was coveting my beauty. Yes, hahaha. It was a massage done with volcanic hot stones. It lasted for about two hours. It was so sore and refreshing. After the massage, we were given a placenta massage on our faces. After finishing, there will be various fruit desserts and hot ginger tea, and the clothes you took off before will be washed and dried for you. The most incredible thing is that after this series of treatments, the Filipino masseuse brought over an evaluation form with Chinese characters written on it: Satisfaction Survey Form. There are four or five questions and you have to rate the masseur. Really, even in the Philippines, it is not easy to make a living. Before coming in, the receptionist said that he would give his masseur a tip of 100 pesos, which is only more than ten yuan. Because their wages are very low, they all live on tips. Oh my god, the Filipino boss is simply the stingiest boss I have ever seen. He lives on tips and still has the nerve to be assessed.
  


Because the sunset sailing and the Sun God hot stone spa are only available in the afternoon, we also went to Mount Luho, the highest mountain in Boracay, in the morning these two days. Unfortunately, we spent 150 pesos to go to the halfway point and found that Mount Luho was closed. Then we went to Puka Beach, which is the beach where Fish Leong took wedding photos. There are few people and the sea is very beautiful. We bought some gifts there, that is, shell placemats, which are only 100 pesos each. They are all handmade and very delicate. We bought clothes for Mr. Zhou and a shell clutch for my mother. During the period, we also played water skateboarding. You must not play skateboarding in S1 and S2. I played in S1 and spent 700 pesos. In S3, a Filipino black guy offered us a price of 30 pesos.
  

Europeans and Americans like to read on the beach


Puka Puka


Tutu car, usually 150 pesos
  
While basking in the sun on the S3 beach, I had a conversation with a Filipino guy who rented a wakeboard next to me. I learned that the Philippines is a polygamous country. The Filipino guy has 5 wives, and the maximum number of children they can have in one family is 12 children, because they mainly believe in Catholicism, abortion is not allowed, so although the Philippines is not large, it now has a total population of more than 100 million. The guy I was chatting with had been to Shanghai, China before, and he kept saying: China is expensive. And what I never expected was that the game that Little Hei was playing was Honor of Kings, and he kept asking me to play against him. I think about it, forget it. Hahaha. Of course, he also has his confusion. He said that with the increase in the number of tourists, their income has increased, but many people are throwing garbage on the beach and in the sea, which makes him confused whether the economy is more important or the ocean is more important.
  

Sign language communication


Addicted to King of Glory

February 22: It was also a travel agency itinerary. Hahaha, we entered a latex museum, which was full of Chinese people. I didn't buy anything, but I chatted with them enthusiastically. There was a girl who was of Chinese-African descent, 24 years old, and her father came to the Philippines. Her father was from Jieyang. There was a girl who was pure Chinese, very beautiful, and her grandfather came to the Philippines to do business. He was from Fujian. In order to maintain the purity of his bloodline, his grandfather also required the family to find a Chinese for marriage. Her family was very wealthy and had a large villa in Manila. I asked her how much the house price in Manila was, and she said it was about 30,000 RMB. I asked her if it was easy to find a boyfriend in the Philippines. She said it was easy, and there were a lot of Chinese in Manila. Now 10% of the Chinese hold 70% of the wealth in the Philippines. When she finished this sentence, I was still very shocked. She said that the current president of the Philippines is also of Chinese descent, and her grandfather was also from Fujian, so the Chinese are very respected in the Philippines. I asked them if they would like to return to China in the future. They both said no. They said that the pace of life in the Philippines is very slow. Although they sell latex, there is no performance evaluation at all, and they never work overtime. They have a holiday almost every week, which is very happy. Well, when I heard that they never work overtime, I was a little envious. On the evening of the 22nd, we returned to Kunming. When we leave, we must prepare the 700-peso departure tax.

Note: The Philippines is a country of tipping. When you get off the ship and get on the car, there will always be a black guy who will enthusiastically carry your luggage for you, etc. Generally, a 20-peso tip is enough. The same goes for cleaning the room.


Cigar making, ten yuan each


Facing the sea, drinking alcohol


Vegetables are very expensive. They are all imported

During this trip, we also caught up with a festival on Boracay Island. I don’t know what festival it was. A little boy led a drum group and walked around the beach, beating instruments. The little boy was holding a musical instrument made of shells. It sounded very nice when played, like the sound of the sea. When I heard it, I was very moved. Maybe it's their love for the sea.
  

Starfish on the beach


A coin purse made of cans. 20 a


Shell placemat


Facing the sea, looking at the beautiful women

When I went back, there were a few Filipino female students singing on the beach , the singing is intoxicating, and the beach is so beautiful. In the restaurant next to our hotel, everyone danced to the music. The waiters, chefs, Koreans, Europeans and Americans, and strangers swayed to the singing. Even my companion was invited, but he was just a stranger. People come up and say: could you dance with me?

I like this kind of life. Watch the sea and sunbathe during the day, drink and dance at night. Simple and luxurious. Actually, I really want to post the music played by the little boy, the video of dancing, and the video of the Filipino girl singing on the beach, but unfortunately I can’t insert the video.