We've grown to dislike certain travellers and we met two of these on the boat back from Camiguin. When they asked where were going next and we told the it was Boracay they said "ooh really, I wouldn't." This really annoys us as we'd like to make our own minds up and would never dream of telling someone that the place they are going to is crap, that's just our view.

Anyway it was a long day, we worked out pretty quickly that it's a nightmare to get around here, everything takes so long. We started with a 5 hour boat journey back to Bohol, then a two hour taxi ride to the other side of the island to get another ferry to Cebu which took 3 hours. Suffice to say we are flying the rest of the way to our next destination otherwise it would have taken another two days of boats and buses! We had to stop over in Cebu before catching a flight to Caticlan and a boat over to Boracay.

When we arrived at the port in Boracay and we did something we never normally do; we went with a woman advertising hotels. We couldn't afford any of the ones she was advertising but she said her aunt had a cheap place so we jumped in a tricycle and went and had a look. We jumped out and took a walk down some stairs, past a dishevelled basketball pitch with loads of boys hanging round and made our way through a maze of shacks to this woman's house. We were really expecting a dump and thought of how we could get out of there quickly. The owner said she had two rooms, a basic one and a much nicer one for a couple of pounds more, it wasn't far from the beach, free laundry, free water and a TV. The nicer room was amazing, we couldn't believe such a beautiful room could be in an area like this. She said we would be safe here as it was a family home. We snapped it up and headed down to the beach and it was lovely. The golden sand seems to run for miles, lined with palm trees and restaurants with a sandy footpath, there was even a McDonalds and a Starbucks on the beach. Lots of travellers don't like anywhere that's touristy but we have come to find that these places are touristy for a reason. We found a nice beach bar for drinks, watched the live music and had some dinner before heading back. When we returned the whole family were sitting outside so we joined them and drank their brandy and ice tea and chatted about all sorts of things, the lady is now Kates best friend on Facebook.

Our days here mostly consisted of searching for somewhere that does good muesli, sitting on a lounger on the beach sipping mango shakes (the Philippnes has the best mango's in the world), beer and live music in the evening and a good meal. We find it funny here as you can hire sun beds from some of the resorts, you just have to speak to the security guard who cleans the bed for you and puts the brolly up. But these same guards who carry hand guns are also waiters, it's hilarious.....waiters with guns!

One night we were laying in bed and a huge thunderstorm started thumping outside. The electricity quickly went and both the fans stopped, we laid sweating in the sweltering room and had to open the doors and windows only to find a tiny kitten crying outside, he must of only been a few days old, then we found another round the corner, both crying we offered them water but they didn't want it, we couldn't find any milk so Pete mixed up some coffee whitener for them. We don't think they liked it! The electricity came back on and we managed to cool down and get some sleep. When we woke up they were both outside feeding off their mother, thank God.

Another evening when we were walking along the beach we saw the dancing chefs. There is a huge restaurant under a marquee which has a very nice (and very expensive) buffet, there must be 30 chefs working there and they suddenly all stop and started dancing to Gangnam Style, they were brilliant and very well practiced. Michael you would have loved it.

Overall we loved Boracay, I think we came the right time of year as May is a holiday period for Filipinos and many other Asian countries and as they don't like being in the sun we pretty much had the whole beach (4km of it) to ourselves.