We were flown to Boracay on Seair’s 19-seater aircraft, with cheerful Christian Kerr and his co-pilot at the wheel one April day when SARS was still confined to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Toronto, and when it was generally thought that the hot winds on the islands would wither and blow away the dreaded virus, God help us all.
Flying at a low altitude gives us literally a bird’s eye view of the fields and mountain ranges of Luzon, including a remarkable sweep of the Taal volcano within a lake and the stupendous Mt. Pinatubo crater. We land on Seair’s airstrip in Caticlan 50 minutes later. Bigger planes would have to land in Kalibo and from there Boracay-bound passengers would have to take a land vehicle for the one-hour trip to the new Caticlan port terminal.
At the terminal a boatman loads us and our bags in his outrigger for the 20-minute ride to Boracay, and then helps us down the gangplank to wade thigh-high (take care of your cameras!) to the shore where pretty girls from Fridays Boracay await with leis and frosty welcome drinks. And so the wonderful Boracay summer experience begins.
Fridays (earlier than and no relation to the Manila wannabe) treats our media group to a memorable lunch of classic minestrone broth of tomato and vegetable, followed by Yapak (after a barangay on the island) yellow-fin tuna carpaccio and a platter of char-grilled salmon, prawn and blue marlin adorned with pumpkin and spinach risotto. The unintended treat is that the girls in our group fall in love with the chef in toque and shorts Thomas Hines, who is as adorable as his inventive dishes.
After checking in and blissfully resting for an hour in the pleasant rooms of the Paradise Garden Resort Hotel, we take the dusty road to Baling Hai Beach Resort on the northern part of the island, two coves away from the main white beach, and perched on a cliff 40 meters above the sea. Baling Hai (echoes of Bali Hai, that Broadway song) would be your expectation of a resort whose artist-owner has more imagination for idyllic settings than funds for airconditioning.
Not surprisingly, it took owners Otik Macavinta and his Swedish wife Julia (who, like the romantics in the movie The Beach, discovered Boracay and have never wanted to go back home) 15 years to create Baling Hai. When funds ran out, and they could only offer basic amenities, like an electric fan in the bedroom, a refrigerator in the kitchen, and fresh coffee and tea every morning, they said, Heck, let them see the starry skies and listen to the sounds of a tropical night.
Artists, honeymooners and sports enthusiasts have been buying that and are having the time of their lives. Our group has an unforgettable sunset dinner on the beach, with a long table set with papaya leaves and hibiscus and candles lambently burning in holes scooped out in the sand. Orchestrating the buffet of the most scrumptious grilled mussels, chicken and fish, aubergine fritters, an original mango salsa, and Julia’s famous pastries, is a long-haired hunk wearing a short sarong with the most fascinating beads your ever saw adorning the neck, arms and ankles and who taciturnly answers to the name "Bangaw."
Back in town – meaning that stretch of beach marked Station 1 and 2 where the after-dark entertainment in bars and restaurants happens till the wee hours of the morning – after the pig-out served by Bangaw and the beddy-bye comforts of the Paradise Garden Resort Hotel beckoning, many of us choose to hit the sack.
The next morning, we have breakfast at the sunlit verandah of the Paradise Garden’s Palace, beside the imposing Roman column, where a lady plays light classics on an electronic piano. This American lady, who plays wherever guests are taking their meals, was pianist of a big band on a cruise ship who jumped ship when it reached Philippine shores and has never wanted to go back home. It looks like Boracay harbors many interesting characters like her.
The verandah is a step away from the pool (a swimming pool in Boracay? Yes, it’s meant for kids who need supervision and adults who don’t fancy a sunburn) and right across it the original Greenhouse Villa whose rooms are named after Thomas Adam’s favorite singer. Ours is named Edith Piaf; the Adams stay in Freddie Aguilar. You wonder at the wide range of their musical tastes. Above the rooms, and on the roof, is the Chinese teahouse and garden, built from memory by Thomas Adam who had spent several years in China during his work with Berlimed (Scherring).
Adam joins us at breakfast together with the hotel’s president, Jochen Buskowitz, a German national who has gone from furniture manufacturing in Cebu to leisure-promoting in Boracay. He takes pride in having guested in the luxurious Royal Suite of the Palace no less than Prince Faisal of Riyadh, who donned shorts and enjoyed the most expensive liquors with his bodyguards at the pool; and such regulars as the wealthy Pellippenko couple from Moscow, who own a large chain of restaurants and beauty salons.
Stories to awe you to death if not for the down-to-earth presence of Adam’s wife, the tanned and beautiful Gigi, nee Piit, who our colleague from another daily thought may have been a Manila society belle who figured in his column’s left-to-right captions. Not so. Gigi looked the part alright, but she was actually a hardworking career girl in sales who had no time for Manila’s parties and in that high-power much-traveled circle met Adam in Hong Kong.
Gigi and Tom have a little boy named Alex, born in paradise, with an innocent’s ignorance of the other half of the planet. In the morning he plunges into the pool in a wetsuit and fins, because he thinks that’s what he’s meant to do and in the evening before his bedtime he goes to the Cocomangas bar. He has friends his age there, and a kuya who looks after them while their parents sip their drinks and make small gossip.
Paradise Garden has 64 rooms in 10 bungalows, along with the aforementioned Palace and Greenhouse Villa and an Oriental Villa (for reservations, e-mail pgrh@pacific.net.ph or pgrh@boracay.i-next.net) on an 11,000-square meter property that also boasts a growing number of different species of tropical palms, vines, shrubs, creeping and flowering plants. Tom is in the process of cataloguing them, aided by his diligent browsings on the Internet, sometimes with the help of guests who can tell him about bromeliads and fiery caballeros.
Our three-day visit to Boracay was a breathless blur of hedonism. It was the weekend before Holy Week, which can allay your religious scruples; on Holy Week itself Boracay crawls with pleasure-seekers, and they say you can’t see the beach for the bodies. During our visit we had gastronomic feasts in between delirious moments of swimming, snorkeling and beachcombing, and the obligatory shopping at the tiangge for the t-shirts and scarves and trinkets of beads.
Truly decadent was the picnic on the beach of Buniogan provided by Caribo – Aklan grilled dishes with a Mediterranean flair and sophistication, served on mats spread out on the sand under the shade of the coconut trees. The lunch was the delightful oeuvre of a young and talented native chef who was so self-effacing and modest, you thought he was a waiter who was just smart to know what sauce went with what dish.
Another dinner a la homecooking-with-flair, which included a to-die-for mechado, was prepared by Louie Cruz at the new Elizalde mall in Station 2. You should remember him: The off-the-shoulder lifestyle columnist of the (now defunct) Manila Chronicle? The controversial manager of the (now defunct) Giraffe bar in Ayala Center? Well, he has reincarnated as the stellar attraction of McSandro, a restaurant he operates at this mall with his young boyfriend Sandro who used to be manager of a McDonald branch in Manila. Louie had luscious tales to tell, but this will make for another article.
On our last day, we had lunch prepared by the Pearl of the Pacific in its restaurants on the beach. Maybe it was too anticlimactic, maybe it was too pretentiously nouvelle to fit into the lush surroundings, but it was okay, nonetheless. After the lunch, we were whisked away to the Caticlan airport and here something unexpected awaited us, resulting in some of us having to climb on the boat back for Boracay for another day. Why? This is yet again another interesting story, but suffice to say that Boracay does not let go of its visitors too easily. Boracay, and Seair, would want them to stay, or keep them coming back, to this island paradise.
The allures of Boracay are truly irresistible: the powdery sand beach that’s always cool to the feet, the sea beckoning in indescribable gradations of blue, the great food and the throbbing nightlife and – when you’re done with that or you don’t care for that – the relaxing comforts of Paradise Garden. Just don’t be around in the morning in Paradise Garden when the chubby and reckless Alex takes his plunge in the pool and his doting parents squabble over whether they should drag him out of the water.
In Boracay, nothing can drag you out of the water.