I had a busy schedule through midsummer and I’m not the type who enjoys crowds, so I decided to get my trip out of the way before the real summer holiday season arrived. The original plan was to use my Kookmin ROVL card and go to Bali, but it turned out Asiana doesn’t fly to Bali, so I couldn’t get a cheap ticket. So I scrambled around searching for somewhere good, and the place I settled on, recommended by plenty of people, was Boracay. Apparently it has the nicest sea of any destination in Southeast Asia. I agonized over how to put a travel plan together, but everything felt like too much trouble, so I just decided to go with a package tour. The package is packed with content, and once you stack up the various discounts there’s almost no price difference from going on your own. (I barely had any occasion to use the cash I’d brought along.) Looking back now, there wasn’t as much to prepare as I’d thought, so next time I could probably manage on my own, but on this trip the package helped me a lot in all sorts of ways. A package isn’t such a bad choice after all.
Kalibo International Airport
Leave Incheon Airport early in the morning and you arrive at Kalibo International Airport in the Philippines around lunchtime. International it may be, but it’s tiny. And for now, apparently the only flights coming in are from Taiwan and Korea. Travelers from other countries take a domestic flight from Manila. From Korea you come straight in on a Zest Air plane, so there’s no transfer, which is very convenient.
Korean-style bibimbap
It’s a package tour, so every meal is provided. The meal came at a restaurant near the airport, and it was decent enough. We stopped by this place again on the last day for dinner and bought souvenirs.
Rest area
From the airport you take a bus to Caticlan Jetty Port, the gateway into Boracay. It took about two hours. If you come on a domestic flight via Manila there’s an airport right next to the port, but there was an overrun incident a few years back -_- so now only domestic flights use it. A direct flight to Caticlan would be amazing, but it looks unlikely for a while.
Shangri-La resort waiting lounge at Caticlan Jetty Port
Shangri-La guests wait in the lounge and then board a boat arranged by the resort that takes them straight there. (There’s one more bus ride in between, though.) They serve drinks and the air conditioning is cranked right up, so this was the moment it finally felt like I’d arrived somewhere on vacation.
The view from the jetty
At this point I still couldn’t tell whether Boracay was all that great.
Boracay jetty
Beautiful ^_^ From here the Boracay trip really begins. The Shangri-La resort sits on the far side of Boracay, so after arriving on the island you have to get on another bus to reach it.
The view of the hotel
We’d been traveling since first thing in the morning, and the hotel is finally in sight. More details next time..