Roger and Stephen in Singapore: Boracay and Manila

We decided to spend the Chinese New Year in the Philippines and chose Boracay as the ideal place to have a relaxing holiday. The island of Boracay is about 300 km south of Manila and can be reached from flying from Manila to Caticlan and then catching a ferry across to the island. Caticlan airport is a small airport so we had to board a 72 seater plane from Manila. After checking in our bags which were extremely restricted in weight, we then both had to proceed to a counter so we both could step on the scales to be weighed!
Boracay is known for its lovely beaches with white sand and crystal blue water. Also at the end of the day there were some fantastic sunsets . Boracay certainly did not disappoint in terms of relaxation. The island was extremely busy with tourists from Japan escaping the cold as well as Chinese enjoying the extra long weekend.
The main beach is called White Beach and this area contains many restaurants that are on the beach and was extremely busy at night. The weather was about 28 degrees each day and was not humid like Singapore.
Many of the hotels had fireworks and special buffets for the Chinese New Year adding a real festive spirit to the island .

We had a couple of days in Manila on the way home for work commitments. Manila is certainly not city with many tourist highlights and many of the tourist spots are located quite a distance from the city centre. Traffic in Manila is very chaotic and to travel a short distance can take forever. A 5 lane highway can suddenly become 6 or 7 lanes as cars, buses and trucks don't seen to take notice of the road markings. The taxis had seat-belts in the back but no buckles for you to clip into. Certainly a few times I was convinced we were going to be sideswiped from the constant weaving in and out of lanes.
Security was extremely tight in hotels and shopping centres with bag searches as well as pat downs by security staff. Also the invasion of your personal space in markets and the constant reminders of pickpockets made you very careful to guard your belongings.