Oh yeah! The part where my mum was late.. haha on her first day!
The alarm clock blasted at 7am the next morning, unfortunately we snoozed it and continued to sleep for til a quarter past 7! Mind you, registration started at 730am ok. Imagine the craze that went in our rooms that morning.
My mum headed for the bathroom first, got dressed and was anxiously texting her other colleagues while Omar and I were frantically putting together photo worthy outfits in the next room.
Never have I ever gotten ready THAT quickly *awesome daughter. Pats back* haha.
We immediately headed out the door, got ourselves to the main lobby and before we knew it, we managed to flag down a tricycle driver, shouted '300 pesos (30 ringgit). Eco village!' and we were on our way in no time. Happy to finally be on our way but we were anxious about our mode of transport.
Let me not miss out the details of the tricycles in Boracay. The tricycle was made of a small 'kapcai' motorbike, attached to a four seated trishaw with wheels on end. The motor was fairly powered to move a huge trishaw with 3 adults, easily 60 or more kgs on average. It was running at at least 60km/hour. So, imagine the bumps and hurdles we had to go through that morning haha.
The driver could sense our urgency so he was practically speeding his way through the roads. Being a Monday and all, traffic was not very kind. The main road was filled with easily 20 tricycles at a time queuing in a single lane with taxis and vans filled with newcomers in the opposite direction. It was like Bangkok all over again (will tell you guys about my Bangkok trip and its road traffic craze another time haha)
Our tricycle was speeding against cars, slipping between vans, going through small roads and bypassing schools, little shops and locals along the way. Imagine our first time in a tricycle and how
Reflectively, I would glance over to the schools we passed and see the locals walk to their respective destinations that morning. It made me realise everyone had their own place on this earth. We were born in a family, living in a society or country and it was all set. We were destined to live the life we are living and we had absolutely no control over that. Regardless of the minimal life these locals were living, they still seemed so.. happy. So contented and so full of spirit. And that made me feel so #grateful.
After travelling half way across the world, we finally reached Eco Village. From a distance, we were able to see delegates and participants registering at the counter in troops. The environment was so lively. Everyone was dressed in beach appropriate formal wear with striking colours seen across the entrance hall. There was a huge banner written Asia Pacific Orthodontic Conference 2018 (APOC), welcoming the participants to the conference. We dropped mum off at the counter and waved goodbye. We then hopped back onto the tricycle and headed back for our hotel. It was another round of the bumps and hurdles which finally led us back to our hotel, intact.
First stop that morning was the hotel restaurant for our morning breakfast.
I was super excited to finally see the Boracay beach since we overslept and haven't visited the beach since we arrived. We decided to take our slippers off and walked the sands headed to our restaurant on bare foot. As we approached the beach area, we were able to get a closer glimpse of how beautiful the Boracay was. It was spectacular. The crystal sands reflecting the sunlight, the shimmery shades of blue over the sea and the sound of waves coming towards us was simply magical. The first scene we caught of Boracay was beautiful. It's no wonder people call Boracay the islands of Paradise.
As we were enjoying the beach, we got pretty good shots of the scene. A few of ORA shots as well haha. Check it out at *www.oraklstore.com* soon!
We then headed for breakfast and enjoyed the Pork free and vegan section spread.
The food was delicious. We mainly headed to the salad area and the egg station. Every where else had pork and non-halal meat in it, so we settled for the delicious vegan food.
After breakfast, we immediately booked our spot under the huge umbrellas facing the beach. It was a sunny morning, so we decided to get changed and headed for a swim. One of the best beach swims I've had in months! The water was so cool it was almost as if they were welcoming us to Boracay for the first time. The waves were not too vicious so we could float and enjoy the calm waters, the sun was also not too glaring so we could spend a little bit of time admiring the sea, the lighting was superb for good beach shots. We managed to enjoy the beach waters for close to two hours! Then, headed for the dock beds for a quick nap afterwards. It was just a chilled day by the beach for the two of us.
Later that evening, we grabbed late lunch at a nearby Halal Indian restaurant and managed to enjoy well cooked Lamb Briyani! The view facing the beach was spectacular. Full and contented, Omar and I decided to try the Mangoes and the Mango blended drink and desert at Halo Mango. Yummy desserts I must say! It reminded me a lot of the Taiwanese Mango desserts. Check them out on tripadvisor.com.
So we got in line with hundreds others and finally got a chance to taste the well known Mangoes of Boracay! We then walked along the small shops at Boracay's D mall and managed to get some items as souvenirs for family at home. By the time we were done shopping, mum texted me and said that she was taking the shuttle back to D mall and planned to meet us there for dinner with some of her friends. Thank God! No more tricycle rides for the day haha.
So we waited for her at a nearby shop and headed for dinner afterwards.
We were told by one of the locals about a nearby Halal Seafood restaurant, which had their service very unique to other restaurants. The uniqueness about it was that we would have to go to the market nearby, haggle for their seafood (lobsters, tiger prawns, crabs, you name it) and bring those items to another restaurant for your choice of cooking. My mum being the master of haggling got all our selected seafood for less than 500 pesos (that's 400 ringgit).
It was like a lot of food, you guys. The items we bought could cater to 8 super hungry people so that was considered SO cheap! So, my mum haggled her way through, made some new Phillipino friends along the way and we ended the night by having real good seafood by the beach. We're talking Chilli crabs, Butter prawns, Fried squid with Thai Chilli, Baked oysters and some Baked lobsters. I was in Seafood heaven!!
We were in seafood coma by the end of the night and decided to call it a day.
We headed back to our rooms and set our alarms in full blast, hoping to be one of the early birds for mum's conference the next day haha.
It was indeed a good day.
*Burp*
Missing the seafood,
Sarah
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