Philippines 1995: Part 12

Note: this trip was made at Christmas 1995. In the time since then I'm sure much has changed so it may not be a great idea to treat this as a guide. Treat it as a memoir, which - give or take some editing - is exactly what it is.

Another day another journey. First we took the bus to the domestic airport where we found some keen as mustard airport employees making security checks. I have travelled on many country's internal flights but seen none quite as thorough as these. Every piece of hold luggage was opened and searched. Cabin luggage was also searched and medical kits and toiletry bags subject to close scrutiny. Pockets had to be emptied and the official searching me opened every blade on my penknife.
Once through we quickly boarded the plane where newspapers were handed out with the stern instruction that they would be collected back in before we landed. I glanced through the Manila Bulletin and found an interesting article.
" The fresh wave of bank robberies, kidnap for ransom cases, porch climbing and murder in cold blood at broad daylight has once again dampened efforts to project the Philippines as an ideal tourist destination. As a spokesman for the government put it -
'We have tried desperately to picture and promote the Philippines as a wholesome travel destination but the spate of killings of foreigners and other crimes have done damage to tourism.'"

Reassured, we touched down at Kalibo on the island of Panay where, due to major rebuilding work, the luggage reclaim was a heap in the corner of a field. As we sorted through it I had a growing feeling that something was not quite as it should be. After a while I realised what it was. The sun was shining in the middle of a cloudless sky on a hot dry day. Bemused by this strange and unfamiliar happening we walked across the car park to the bus which took us to Caticlan where a short bangka ride took us over to Borocay. The shallow beach made it necessary to moor some distance of shore and forced us to wade in chest deep holding luggage above our heads. This was no special hardship as the water was calm and warm and the sun was hot enough to dry us off fairly rapidly. Soon we were checking into our cottages at the Summer Place.

Borocay is the sort of place I wouldn't normally go for a holiday. No sir. Not for me mile after mile of gorgeous white beaches, clear warm azure water, beach-side cocktail bars, fresh fish roasting on barbecues. I don't want all that luxury and leisure and lazing about in the sunshine. Give me rain and river crossings, steep treks up rocky mountain paths, sandwiches for lunch and sterilised water tasting of iodine. Give me misery.
Okay I'll admit it - I liked Borocay. The only thing that it could be faulted on at all was that when the sun went down small furry things with sharp pointy teeth could be heard scrambling about under and in the cottages but hey, live and let live, they weren't doing me any harm. Otherwise words like 'tropical' and 'paradise' seem to hang nicely together with 'Borocay'. It had all of the good things I usually travel the Earth to avoid and a whole lot more. Along the beach were every kind of Restaurant your heart could desire, Mexican, Italian, Spanish, Thai and plenty of Filipino Seafood places.
We chose to have dinner in 'Alice In Wonderland's', a fish restaurant where the food was good but the service was slow. After dinner the group split up I went for a moonlight stroll with one of the more attractive single women from the trip. We'd been getting on well and tomorrow were planning to take a bicycle ride to the less populated northern end of the island.
A stroll with a beautiful woman was all that the island had been missing, and now it had that too.