The Philippines - Manila, Boracay and Anilao

I arrived in Manila and met Paulo Campos, a future HBS classmate from the Philippines. He was excited to show a visitor around. We drove to the Mall of Asia by Manila Bay for a drink before heading to the other airport terminal to pick up his other friends who were visiting from Hong Kong. W dropped off our stuff at his apartment and then went to Embassy, one of the top clubbing areas in the city. We grabbed a couple of drinks at the lounge before calling it a night.

The next day, we got the local Manila experience - we hung out at the malls. We grabbed brunch at a local restaurant inside Glorietta, one of the malls, before heading to the mall area near Embassy where we grabbed coffee and massages. That night, we had dinner at Greenbelt, yet another mall, before going to an exclusive lounge called Members Only at Embassy for Paulo's friend's (Carlos) birthday where we tried a ridiculously expensive clear tequila called Petron Silver. Early the next morning, we departed for Boracay.

My first impressions of Boracay was one of disappointment. We stayed at the Boracay Regency, one of Boracay's largest and nicest resorts by Boat Station 2. However, the beachfront is extremely crowded and overdeveloped with hawkers galore harassing you about boats and water sports, etc. We grabbed a delicious lunch at Lemon Cafe at D'Mall, then had drinks of the beach before it started to rain. So we didn't do much the first day. For dinner, Q (Carlos' girlfriend) brough Le Chon (a whole roasted suckling pig) from Cebu. It's a specialty there. We ripped pieces of meat off with our fingers. Rather barbaric but quite tasty.

The next day, Fei (one of January's colleagues who is in Manila on a rotation) and I went to Boat Station 1, where Dawn (another future classmate) and her fiance were staying. Now I could see why people raved about Boracay. The crystal clear water was a beautiful light aqua blue and the soft white sand was the nicest I have every felt. The water is also extremely shallow - you can walk way out into the ocean and the water still barely comes up to your chin. It looked like a swimming pool in the ocean. It was quite simply - amazing.

That afternoon, we got a boat to take us snorkling. Afterwards, we stopped at Puka Island, a tiny island that was completely undeveloped. While the sand was coarse, it did feel like there was just us, the sand, the ocean and the sun. We watched the sun set at Puka Island before heading back to Boracay.

We spent our 3rd day in Boracay at Boat Station 1. I got extremely tanned (I'm so dark I can pass as Filipino right now!). On our last day, we grabbed a late breakfast and then I hung out in the pool.

Back in Manila, I met up with Sabrina. Since she got her work visa denied by the Chinese government at the last minute, she decided to travel with me for a few weeks. We grabbed dinner together at Sentro in Greenbelt mall before meeting with Rico, our dive instructor.

We spent the next day at a pool doing our pool training for our Open Water Scuba Diving Certification. We left for Anilao late that night, where we were heading to a resort called Pacifico Azul to do our Open Water dives. The resort was simple but charming, with little nipa huts all over. Run by Japanese managers - it was clean and efficient. Our meals were tasty meals of local Filipino food. We ate whatever they served us. We did 2 dives a day and then pretty much just ate and slept and studied our diving book. The dives were amazing. We went to 3 different dive sites, all with something different and unique. The first two dives took place near the coral reefs byu Dive and Trek resort, where there were iridescent purple giant clams a meter long. We saw all sorts of fish and coral. We were supposed to go to Bubbles, a dive site thus named for the bubbles that come from an underwater volcano but the currents were too strong. Instead, we went to our second dive site, Twin Rocks, first. There were two huge rocks underwater, with coral all over. We saw amazing schools of jackfish and yellow snapper. And yes, we did see Nemo as well as a bunch of other fish, including blue starfishes. Our last dive site, Cathedral, named for the cross that was placed underwater between two rocks, is one of the most biodiverse in the world. We saw yellow trumpet fish there as well as loads of other types of fish, both large and small. We finally passed our quizzes and exams on the 3rd day. We're now both certified Open Water divers!

One of Sabrina's friends met us in Anilao. Ariana is working for a mapping company in the Philippines for a couple of months. We ate dinner together and hung out for a bit. The next morning, we left for Tagaytay, on a ridge that overlooked Lake Taal and Taal Volcano, one of the smallest but deadliest in the world. We grabbed lunch at Leslie's which had an amazing view of the lake. Then we made our way down to Talisay on the lakefront. Sabrina and I decided to stay here overnight at the Tailsay Green Lake Resort. We got a boat and took it to the island in the middle where the volcano was located. We hiked up the dusty and hot path up to the main crater, where you can see a lake within the crater and a small island inside the lake. The views were absolutely stunning.

Ariana left to go to Batangas City for her work. Sabrina and I watched an awful scary movie that gave us both nightmares. Early the next morning, we took a tricyle to a jeepney to a bus that brought us back to Manila. We head out tonight for Kuala Lumpur. Apparently you can swim with whale sharks and manta rays in Donsol, another part of the Philippines and some of the best wreck diving (both American and Japanese ships) in the world. Definitely need to come back!