Our day of departure should've been a smooth one. I mean all we had to do was get up at 4am, board the E22 bus from our campus doorstep to the airport, ride a plan to Manilla, take another flight to Kak-whateverthenameis-aboo and then board a ferry to Boracay. EASY RIGHT!? what's a story without a little suspense.
We awoke at 4am on the 23rd and met downstairs at the entrance of our dorms. The six slowly trickled down, all but one. We got anxious and started calling her. She turned off her phone. We called her again, phone was still off. Andrew and I ventured up to her room and when we knocked, we found her just out of her bed with a reason of, "my phone was off." She told us to go ahead of her, "I'll take a cab to the airport."The five of us ran to the bus stop to wait, wait, wait. Only after 20min of us being at the bus stop, she emerged. Our 6 boarded the bus, then the airplane, then another plane that I swore was way too small for safety standards - Cebu Pacific's the bomb(!) - , then the ferry, and after close to 12 hours of traveling (4am - 4pm) we arrived at our resort.
Besides getting to our hotel at Happy Hour and having a private section of White Beach to ourselves, the real events starting hitting when we finished our dinner and went to the local hang out, Coccamanges, to ...... dance(?). I personally wasn't feeling the place - too shady, too westernized, too many old British expats with 17 year old Philippino girls, blahhhh. We left. We boarded a little tryke, a motorbike with a side compartment that can fit around 3 people - we somehow managed to fit six in one. We heard there was this big party happening on the beach in this secluded part of Station 1 (White Beach is divided into three stations). We arrived at the Full Moon Party.
To put it bluntly, I've never seen such a place before. The lightening that was happening on the other side of the Indian Ocean added to the place's natural beauty. The venue for the Full Moon was a splayed out bar that had a dj booth in the centre. The bar had all its usual poisons, but no one really comes here to drink. Everyone comes to be part of the experience. The experience of seeing the fire dancers, the experience of drumming on djembes with a group of 20 other percussionists, the experience of losing oneself.
We ended our night at 4am. Yes, that is a 24 hour day.
The 24th saw us recovering from last night's festivities. In the afternoon we went jetskiing and at night we went to D'Mall to get dinner. That night got us to the Full Moon again, but we didn't stay for too long - too many jerks, not enough people, etc. Note to self when traveling in the future: never think you can relive an amazing experience by going to the same location - if it winds up sucking on the second time around, your amazing original experience might be ruined.
On the last day of our adventure, we went to SandBar to catch a fire dancing show. Free of charge, the only charge were the cheap drinks that you voluntarily bought. That was the night our crew met Carla, one of the fire dancers. I really don't want to go into much detail about her, but I never want to hang out with a person of whom I have to constantly negotiate within myself whether she's a boy or girl. Her cat calls to me of: "Hey cute Canad-jian boy!" and "you so cute" got me...uptight. Our gang partied with the cast of fire dancers from SandBar for a bit until we thought of the great idea to go swimming in the Indian Ocean back at our hotel. We left for our hotel. After changing into our swim gear at 4am, we ventured into the ocean and swam our way onto the many tourist boats that we shouldn't have been on. We were Captain Mordachai, Jack Sparrow, Jonah - we ventured on those boats like raiders and swam from one to another all while watching the sun slowly coming up.
It's an odd experience having to reflect on this trip because in all honesty, we didn't do much. We were philanderers in a foreign land - taking their food, consuming their souvenirs, drinking their alcohol, etc. Did I add anything of value to the island? My consumption probably helped their GDP. Did I improve my character? Maybe I'm a bit more careful now.
Trips in the future include Malaysia, Cambodia, and Shanghai.
Thanks for reading!
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