Ot Travel to the Philippines

Mark · Wed Jan 06, 10 10:18 am **Ot Travel to the Philippines**

Looking for advice on where to go what to see. Diggy can u help? Anyone else? I am looking at going end of Feb.
Thanks in advance
Mark

beefcake · Since 11 Jul 2007 140 Posts Stoked

Boracay is where it's at. Awesome beaches, good trade winds through April. 1 hour puddle jumper from Manila. Oh yeah and cheap once you get there.

http://www.kiteboracay.com/EN/home.php[url][/url]

Mark · Wed Jan 06, 10 2:18 pm

Thanks for the link. Here it is working if anyone else is interested.
http://www.kiteboracay.com

Right now looking at:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Busuanga

Any other ideas?

Ps Gabe if your reading this... I will be in Burma in Feb. Lets see if we can meet up.

pdxmonkeyboy · Wed Jan 06, 10 8:35 pm

Mark, I spent 2 1/2 years there and traveled just about everywhere. yeah, Boracay island is cool and lots of fun but it is also your typical island resort location which in the grand scheme of WOW I will remember that forever..it scores pretty damn low. Kind of the equivalent of going to Thailand and spending the whole vacation in Phuket.

There are not a tremendous places in the Philippines but a couple do come to mind:

Banaue rice terraces - specifically the village of Batad. If your in the PI then you owe it to yourself to take an aircon bus to banaue and get yourself to the village of Batad. You have to take a jeepney and then hike or about 45 minutes too get there but when you crest that first hill, you will be absolutely blown away. 1,000 year old rice terraces hand dug on this hillside, no roads to the village, abso-fucking-lutely spectacular. Its a unesco world heritage site...and that is not an easy feat.

Apo Island. This SMALL SMALL SMALL island is accessed from the city of dumaguette which is a pretty cool place in its own right. There is a small "resort" and this austrialian guy runs a dive operation there. There is also fantastic snorkling (the best snorkeling I have ever done outside KoSurin marine reserve in Thailand). Super chill pplace, great diving (which is hard to come by in the PI).

Maningning Island. This dive spot is off the coast of Boracay. Its about a 45 minute boat ride. And it won't be cheap but its a 200' tall wall with awesome coral and fish and sharks and all the shit that makes diving cool. I know you have dove before so I can tell you that dives around boracay are going to be pretty lame.. like really lame. Trust me, we were doing research dives (40 dives total) so I have seen all the reefs there and there are beat to shit.

Last but not least.. for the true adventure, you can take the roach hotel of a boat to sibuyan island in the romblon province. It is the site of mt. guiting guiting which is by far the coolest mountain in the whole country. I lived on his island for 2 years and it really is a tropical paradise. If you want far flung, get away from it all, and soak up LOTS oof natural beauty I can't think of anywhere else to go. If you are going to go tell me and I'll pave the way for you to kick it with the mayor, go spear fishing at night, play tennis, get drunk and shoot shit which are prime activities. I'll also hook you up with my old neighbor and he'll take ou to the cock fights on sunday. Which I'll tell you what, you get some pesos on the line, a couple beers in you and there is nothing more fun than the cock fights.

So yeah, don't spend your whole vacation in Boracay. At the very least, get your ass too Batad, then go hang out with the sleezy germans and hookers in Boracay.
Very Happy

oh yeah, Palawan island is also very beautiful. The underground river and all that jazz. And some deserted white sand beaches. good stuff

mmac · Since 15 May 2005 93 Posts SC

I'm in Boracay right now. I would have to agree with pdxmonkeyboy. I cannot recommend coming this far for only Boracay. However, if you're going to be in the Philipines anyway it is worth coming here for a week or less. White beach is beautiful for swimming but the rest of the island is not that great. There are way too many people and the place is overdeveloped in a bad way. It's like a giant tourist trap with nowhere to go. I'm staying at Bolabog beach which is a bit more mellow and has the kiting scene but the wind is almost straight onshore and the beach is narrow and lined with trees. The water is crowded and they charge an annual and daily fee to kite. The conditions have mostly been 10-12m with a few lighter days, choppy flat water no waves. I haven't met any americans here it is all Euros and Russians. The Filipino people are polite and honest and the place does seem safe. Boracay is not what I expected and I wouldn't recommend staying here for very long as the place gets old fast. Not trying to be negative, just letting you know what I've experienced. I hope this helps. Pm me if you need more info.