I went from Paradise to paradise here in the Philippines. I was actually shocked at the beauty here. I arrived on the island of Boracay after a long bus and boat trip. The first time I walked out onto the beach, I actually couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t know that a place could be so beautiful! My soul was filled with happiness and awe.

I walked the length of white beach, which was around 3km. I sat down in a restaurant on the beach wheh I reached the ene and met a lovely American couple my first day, we chatted for hours watching a glorious sun set! For what ever reason I had this feeling of complete happiness. I can honestly say it was one of the best days of my life.

I unfortunately could only spend 3 days there as I had booked a ticket before arriving. (Bad move) I could have spent the rest of my time there! I met a lovely Armenian girl there and her sisters, we hung out for a day and went on a sail boat, did snorkeling and cliff diving. I also got to catch up with a guy I met in Bali which was really cool. It’s nice bumping into people in different countries along the way. My time to leave came all too soon! I had to get up quite early to make the trek to the airport.

Off to Cebu. It was a very quick flight, less than an hour. I bumped into 2 girls I had met on Boracay on my flight! So we decided to find a place to stay. And I will just say that the place we stayed at, Le Village in Cebu was incredible! It is new, clean, staff are incredibly friendly. It was an experience just staying there. We met some fellow travelers there and ended up growing our group of 3 to a group of 6.

We all went to see whale sharks! That was quite an experience. Swimming next to a huge fish like that. Even though I knew I wasn’t their type of food, it was still nerve racking being so close to an enormous 8 meter shark!

We also saw an incredible waterfall. The way the light hit it, just made it look magical.

We all left off for another island at the north of Cebu called Malapascua. It was a decent 4 hour bus ride, but it was worth it! The island was really small and tranquil. Only sand roads. And we stayed at a resort for $9 per night which I personally felt was a pretty darn good deal! The place was called Thresher cove resort.

We went on an over night trip to yet another island which was a very fun experience, singing and playing guitar. A roasted pig cooking on the fire and fresh fish. I met some more lovely backpackers. It was a good evening.

I went for a night dive with a friend of mine, and we saw mandarin fish making love. That was a first! And I also got to see my first sea horse!

I also went our early in the moving to see Thresher sharks! They are a lot smaller than whale sharks but they look like they are not to be messed with.

We all headed off back to Cebu to go our separate ways. It was a pretty sad time. We had all gotten quite close in such a short amount of time. But had a blast over the few days we were together.