Boracay: don’t do it.

What’s good

• No difficulty with English
• Everything’s cheap 
• The weather 
• The sea at Puka beach
• Spider house for sundowners and trampoline jumping in the sea 
• Nonie’s and Lemoni’s for good food
• Flying on Kalibo is really cheap. Even with Shanghai’s ridiculous airfares (we paid 2500RMB/€325 for a round trip during the national holidays)
• The fried pork belly
• The dried mangos. You know those green Cebu mango packages. They’re from the Philippines – doohhhhh. So so good and relatively cheap. 

What’s not so good..

• It’s busy
• It’s really busy
• There are a lot of Koreans and Chinese tourists. A lot. With selfie sticks. 
• The local food is “mmeehhh”
• Really horrible music is played on the island.. on all commercialized islands. NTS NTS NTS NTS.
• The beach at station 2 and 3 is dirrrrrtaaaaay because.. it’s so busy (update: I wrote this in 2017, they’ve closed of the beach and it might’ve gotten better now)
• Pizza everywhere. Everywhereee!!
• They like their food fried 
• The airport if you fly thru Kalibo. But then I guess we deserved it for being cheap.

Boracay. Where should I start. Probably we need to start with a “Is it worth to go?” question.. to be frank: “No.” 

You know how some girls fantasize and already know how their perfect man/wedding/house will look like? I have that with countries and food. And although I was warned before that the food is not the best, I have to confirm: the food is not the best. But even apart from the food – in my mind, Boracay was this little paradise, a hidden gem, a little getaway for some rest and peace of mind and where the scenery is beautiful and intimate. Although some parts áre beautiful (Puka beach and Fairway views and Bluewater resort’s private beach), most of Boracay seems to be flooded with Korean and Chinese visitors and just made the entire island too busy to be admired. Half of the time I was beating myself up for not knowing or believing it’s like Phuket but with bad food and instead of Australian students you’ve got the Korean families. 

All in all it was good – I got my sun, my meditation time, my swimming time and my free-from-the-crowd time because we booked a resort on the other side of the island. We discovered too late that Puka beach was really good – they had unicorns, paddle boards, see-thru clear waters and less tourists, also Spider house had a good vibe and food at Nonie’s was really good. 

I rather would’ve gone to Bali – to Gili Air. That’s been my best Asian island holiday up till now. But at least we’ve got this off our bucket list. Bye Boracay. You were good but I won’t be back. 

If you’re still set on going – who am I to withhold you. I might’ve just gone too touristy in a too touristy time and missed all the good stuff. Here are some things I would’ve liked to know and that are my gift to you: 
What I would’ve wanted to know

• Chinese flock to Boracay during the national holidays. There’s no escaping. 
• The Philippines and South Korea are tight. Cheap English education, cheap housing, cheap airfares, good weather – a few of the reasons according to Wikipedia on why there are so many Koreans in the Philippines. 
• There are ferry AND airport fees (ferry 100 pesos to enter and exit and 700 pesos to leave the airport, so don’t use all your cash before entering the airport) (cause that’s something Edgar and I definitely didn’t do… definitely not)
• Transportation from airport to hotel would’ve been for free if I booked my hotel thru Myboracayguide (they’re just a Booking.com affiliate)
• You receive discount at a lot of restaurants with a little booklet from Myboracayguide (this is my inner Dutchie channelling the cheap stuff)
• If you book Fairway views and Bluewater and the reviews tell you that “it’s big” – they mean it’s big as in 20 villas, a golf course, 6 different pools and shuttle buses that drive you to your breakfast. It had its pros (private beach, lot of security, good breakfast buffets, cheap room rates) and cons (long waiting times for shuttle buses, corporate stiffness, too much security checking you)
• There’s more than D’mall. The North of the island has enough to explore. 
• Tricycles are Boracay’s main way of transportation. I never heard of a tricycle before..
• Chicken and pork adobo are the local specialties. I only had it once at Nonie’s and it was good there. 
• There’s a super hip food court called “the Marketplace” at Station X. Nonie’s is just around the corner
• If you get a drink (they start at 300 pesos/€5) at Puka beach you can freely use the bamboo seats, paddleboards, snorkel sets and floating unicorns and flamingos.
• There’s avocado peanut butter ice cream.
• There’s also sweet potato ice cream. Worth the try? No.
• Flights to and from Shanghai are always delayed. Always. Taking a taxi won’t make sense cause you’ll end up in traffic anyway so save the drama, money and the planet and take the metro