Today was a different day. Not many people at all compared to yesterday and Saturday. Most Philippines had returned home.

We spent the day at the beach reading, relaxing, swimming, and talking. But today I also spent some time in the sun. It was hot, hot, hot. We want to get used to the sun and the heat before we go on a boat trip.

In the evening we had dinner at Aria again. It is such a nice restaurant with good food and very friendly people working there. The manager gave us his business card and told us to contact him if we needed anything.

At the breakfast today we saw a Korean woman that put a tongue for picking fruits in her mouth and put it back for anyone to use. Then she continued as if nothing had happened. We were so surprised we couldn’t even complain. From then we picked all our things with our hands instead.

The day we spent at the beach again. Reading, relaxing, swimming in the ocean, talking. On our way back to the hotel we checked a small Thai restaurant Salu Thai. It seemed OK and we decided to try it for dinner.

We tried a short cut to get back to the hotel but we ended up in a living quarter. It was just behind our hotel but we still had to go around. Later we found out that we could actually have gone to our hotel that way, we just did not see the way.

At dinner time we went back to Salu Thai but they had no guests so we went elsewhere instead. We ended up at a BBQ place that had coco nut shake. YUMMY!

When we walked down to the White Sand beach this morning (about 5 minutes walk) we found out almost by accident that Paradise Garden had their own chairs and parasol there. With an armed guard. Perfect.

We spent most of the whole day here. I mainly in the shadow of the parasol while Chie was out in the sun. From time to time we went into the water to cool off. The water was clear and refreshing but not too cold. Probably around 25 degrees.

The whole day we heard drums and people shouting further down the beach. It was Philippines celebrating some kind of a national holiday.

At night we had dinner at Manana, a small Mexican restaurant a little bit further away that Aria. The food was nice and the service friendly. But it was hard work to get there and to go home from there because of all the people and the hot and humid weather. Even at night. We decided to have the dinner at the hotel tomorrow and hope that most people had gone back home by Monday morning.

We were both very tired after spending a whole day by the beach. Some part long travel and some part the hot weather. I fell asleep while reading and Chie just dropped dead beside me.

The power was an even bigger problem today. Probably because of all the tourists for the national holiday. Everyone is using AC and it is too much for the electricity system that collapses now and then. Our AC makes a terrible noise just before the power is cut so it was difficult to really have a good sleep during the night.

Woke up early in the morning next to Chie. It took us almost an hour to get to the domestic airport through a chaos of honking cars and people walking. When we arrived at the airport it was a long line… Just to get inside the airport.

Once inside the line split in two for the security check. One for females and one for males. Lucky for us there were no lines for the SEAIR check-in counters. However, we had to wait in line to pay the airport fee before another line for the second security check. Phew, finally we could sit down and just wait for our flight.

The flight to Caticlan took about 35 minutes before we landed on a strip of concrete that was just enough long for the twin engine turbo prop to touch down and screech to a halt.
From the airport it was a short trip by mini-bus to the port where we entered a small boat. Someone more or less ripped the bags out of my hands just to carry them on board the boat. And for that he wanted tip (?!?).

On the other end another porter came and wanted tip for carrying our bags without us asking for it. He carried our bags to a tricycle that brought us almost to our hotel. The last 10 minutes we had to walk.

The room at our hotel – Boracay Beach Chalet – was terrible. Dark, old, and just didn’t feel like a nice room. We decided at once to check for another room. On our journey for another room we found Roberto who helped us. Finally we found Paradise Garden. They reserved a room for us until we checked out from our first hotel and came back with our bags.

However, the manager at Boracay Beach Chalet did not want to let us cancel our room. But our contract clearly said that we could cancel it before 2 pm that day and just have to pay 10% – same as one nights fee – cancellation fee. After 15-20 minutes and talking on the phone with the owner they agreed with our interpretation of the contract… Of course! There were no other ways to interpret it.

Roberto helped us with our bags back to Paradise Garden. Our room here was totally different from that at the Boracay Beach Chalet, bright, clean and nice looking. A place where we could enjoy 10 nights.

We spent some time at the pool before sitting on our veranda enjoying the calm garden outside our hut. Then we had a shower and got ready for dinner at an Italian restaurant located next to the D’Mall and next to the beach – Aria.

The beach walk was crowded with people but in difference to Thailand there were almost no Europeans or Americans. Mostly Philippines and Koreans someone told us. Usually about 75% Koreans but this weekend was a special Philippine national holiday so maybe most were Philippines.

The dinner at Aria was great (salad, beef carspaccio and pizza) but we worried a little about the money. We put most of it in the safety box in our room without thinking about our dinner. But we had enough, it turned out.

After the dinner we walked slowly back to our room. It was only 7 pm but we were tired after traveling both today and the previous day. Besides, canceling our first room was also hard work.

Noteworthy is that we have not even spent a work day at Boracay and I already had 2 mango juice and 1 strawberry-mango juice. They were YUMMY!