BORACAY ISLAND, PHILIPPINES
On February 17, Rodger and I caught a 4:30 pm flight out of Taipei, connected in Hong Kong, and landed in Manila sometime later that evening. We spent the first night in a small, stuffy room in Manila, then caught an early flight out the next morning. Because the Philippines is a series of islands (7,107 to be exact) they’ve got pretty good air and sea travel options. But this was Chinese New Year, and the whole of China- and Koreadom had emptied out for the long vacation and many of them headed south to this country. We tried to catch a domestic flight to El Nido, the access point for Miniloc Island, which I’ve had my eye on, but that was booked full. Boracay Island, which is far more popular, was not, oddly enough. So at 8 am we were shuffling shoeless through several security checkpoints, paying various taxi and airport fees, and then loaded onto a prop plane headed down to Boracay Island, the single hottest tourist destination in the Philippines. We hadn’t planned to come to this place until later in the week, but spending four days there was far from disappointing.
