Puerto Galera Paradise-Deecoded

Right now we're saying goodbye to Tokyo and Jeremy's family and getting ready to head back to Korea. It's been such a great trip with his family seeing as how Jeremy and I dated long distance until our wedding and then moved across the world four months after that. So it's safe to say it's been nice to spend some time and actually get to know my extended family a little bit better. 

Today I have the ever so lovely Dee from Deecoded filling in for me today. She's talking about her trip to a beautiful spot in the Philippines. We've only visited this country once but it's one that once you see it's simplistic beauty, you can't help but want to hop on the next plane out! Don't believe me? Keep reading.

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Hi there, Lost in Travels readers! I am Dee and I blog over at Deecoded. Like Chelsea, I like to travel too, and I thought I'd share one about one of my travel experiences in my own country, the Philippines. Now most people who hear of the Philippines immediately think of one place: Boracay. Who doesn't love the beach, right? I would have loved to go to Boracay every chance I got, but it wasn't exactly cheap to go there. Luckily, I could make do with a place called Puerto Galera, AKA as "poor man's Boracay."

Puerto Galera is dubbed thus because of its white beaches' resemblance to Boracay. But the getting there is cheaper, instead of riding a plane from Manila, you just need to ride a bus to Batangas and ride a ferry from there, and the food, accommodation, etc, is a lot cheaper there too.

Compared to Boracay, Puerto Galera is a lot smaller, but the island is still big enough to have several different "beaches." The one we went to on the first day was called Tamaraw beach and it was so pretty because of all the green foliage and an inland pond.

We bought halo-halo, a delicious and famous Philippine treat made of shaved ice topped with beans, fruits, milk, sugar, custard and ice cream. I know it may sound weird to people who are not accustomed to it, but it's the biggest hit of Philippine summers.

We enjoyed our goodies while lazing on lounge chairs, and when we got a bit bored by inactivity, we decided to do some water sports, of which there are a lot in Puerto Galera too. We decided to rent a kayak as we had never tried that before. It was surprisingly not as easy as it looks!

Behind us you can see a banana boat, I had tried that before, and it's also really fun! The best part is when your banana flips, and you get thrown into the water. You have life savers on so it's totally safe even for people who don't know how to swim.

Later on, we got massages right on the beach at sunset. BLISS.

Later that night we watched a free concert of a famous Philippine singer who happened to be there. See how happening the place is? But before that we stopped at one of the many bars that littered the island and tried a jug of the island's famous Mindoro Sling. The stuff is a sweet cocktail that tastes so good that you don't realize it has alcohol in it, and the effect doesn't hit you immediately, so you drink a lot and suddenly an hour later, it hits you full force and BAM! you're drunk. So drink with caution.

The next day, we continued to enjoy the island and discovered that the best swimming spot was a lagoon that you can reach through a tunnel that's big enough for just one person to crawl through. It was so fun!

And that, dear readers, is the tip of my iceberg. Head on over to Deecoded for more! :)

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