Author Archives: Rochelle Urban

White Beach: Beauty and the Tourists

by Rochelle Urban

Boracay, our first and possibly only stop in the Philippines, has delivered on the incredible beach part, but is not a great way to get to know the country as a whole. The island is full of an amazing diversity of tourists, Filipinos from all the other islands, Russians, Japanese, and all kinds of Europeans, (thankfully, not many Americans). The diversity of wildlife meanwhile is mostly limited to drunken tourists and underwater.

The main beach in Boracay is White Beach, stretching about 3km along the west side. Made of the softest sand, it is incredibly calm (at least this time of year). Even now during peak season, there is more than enough space for everyone to enjoy the beach. It would be an idyllic place if not for one main thing – vendors, so many vendors. They tout everything from selfie sticks to boat rides. They are ever present even when you are eating dinner at one of the countless beachfront restaurants.

We’ve been swimming and playing in the ocean everyday. Eugene bought me a waterproof camera for my birthday (well really he bought us a camera). It’s been a lot of fun to use (see the pictures below).

When we aren’t in the water, we are eating or drinking by it. The best beachside drinks were actually well above the beach, over looking the scenery, from atop the Nami Resort at the small beach just north of White Beach, Diniwid. Though the sunsets were quite nice from the beach right next to our own Hotel, Daves Straw Hat Inn.

While Boracay has fulfilled the beach vacation we were hoping for quite nicely, we cannot help but want to learn more about Filipino culture while we are here. More on our quests for a little adventure in the next post.

: A sandbar in the ocean, is a perfectly safe place to put the tripod, right?

: Chilling on the beach before sunset

: Diniwid Beach, which is really still part of White Beach

: Waterproof cameras make playing in the ocean at White Beach even more fun.

: Playing in the ocean, sporting our super practical goggles (Rochelle’s are prescription!)

: Underwater camera fun!

: The view from the restaurant where we have some awesome drinks.

: Volcanic Rocks at Diniwid Beach

: There are a few interesting living things in the tide pools in these volcanic rocks at the north end of White Beach.

: Rocky end of White Beach on a cloudy day

: Waiting for our mango shakes with rum at a restaurant high above the beaches of Boracay.

: Scenic sunset from White Beach with a traditional Paraw sailboat

: Psychedelic sunset at White Beach – those clouds turn incredible colors

: Sailboat takes a wedge out of the sun.

: White Beach sunset with paddleboarder

: We never realized how many colors could appear during a sunset.

: We have been drinking so many mango shakes, which are usually just fresh mango and ice blended. Sometimes they have rum too…

: Nothing like ending a day of doing nothing by doing more of nothing

: A resident puppy of one of the beachside bars we frequented.

The Road to Boracay

by Rochelle Urban

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When we began discussing where to go on our long adventure, I thought we might need an actual vacation first – something with sun and palm trees, maybe even huts on stilts. Tahiti or Fiji seemed like a great place to go, until we looked at the typical January weather, turns out it rains there. After a bit of research, Boracay – a tiny island in the Philippines – seemed a great place to start, as it is also remarkably cheap to get to from SF (a direct flight to Manila runs a few times a week).

To get to the island, we flew an hour south from Manila to Kalibo, spent 2 hours on a bus, and had a quick boat ride. The bus ride was our first (fairly tame) experience of being on Asian roads, complete with tricycles making all kinds of daring maneuvers and discovering why they don’t bother painting the center line in the road. We arrived at the hotel at last and immediately changed from the clothes we’d been in for the last 36 hours to beach appropriate attire.

Though the island itself is a bit more touristy than we usually like, once we had our first meal of grilled seafood and beer right next to the ocean, we were ready to embrace doing nothing by the beach for a little while. We are in Boracay for a week, so I suspect our itch for adventure will creep in soon and we’ll be ready to get to the meat of our trip.

So far we have traveled:
16 hours by plane
5 hours by airport bench
2 hours by bus
15 minutes by boat
10 minutes by tricycle

: Tricycle traffic on the roads of Kalibo.

: Rice field scenery on the bus ride from Kalibo to Boracay.

: Boats on our way to Boracay

: Our first meal and drinks in Boracay.

What have we done?!?

by Rochelle Urban

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When Eugene suggested over 2 years ago that we “sell everything and travel the world”, I had first assumed he was joking. Who does that kind of thing? But he started to tell me about a guy he had worked with long ago who had just come back from spending a year traveling and how much he admired him for it. It then took another year full of wedding stuff and a long European honeymoon, before we really talked seriously about it. This time, I was ready to do it. A year later, we left our jobs, put everything we own in storage, and began our journey.

The night we left, our friends gave us a wonderful sushi send-off (thanks Rose and Andreas!) and brought us to SFO for our last steps on US soil for 5 months. One of our goals is to travel without much of a plan, so we arrived at the airport with a one-way ticket to the Philippines and hotel reservation for the first week. This was immediately the source of our very first travel problem – you can’t check into a flight to the Philippines without having an exit ticket. Day 0, and we already had our first “technology and ubiquitous internet saved our ass” moment when we bought tickets to Singapore while sitting on the airport floor.

In the next 25 hours of travel, we had a lot of time to contemplate what the f we had just done. Eugene had a couple panic attacks and I still don’t really believe that we won’t be back in the US for so long. Can we really fly by the seat of our pants for the next 5 months? Will we get bored or just tired? What happens when a scientist and a crazy engineer explore the world? Stay tuned for updates along the way and our next post from the island of Boracay!