BORACAY = PARADISE. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! What Was The Governmental Shutdown About?

Hey Steemit fam, been a while, my apologies. I feel like my life was a total whirlwind for last 2 months. I admit, I got a bit lost but some say you need to get lost first to find yourself. And so I'm trying.

I left Vancouver in mid December with @gladysmak and we only spent one night in Hong Kong before we took off to Philippines for our long anticipated Christmas vacation.

This year we decided we will have a sunny Christmas, because we spent last two Christmases in my homeland, Czech Republic, which was real nice, but not really warm, as you can imagine:)

So this year we wanted beach, warm turquoise water and sun. And I am happy we chose the destination that we did chose: Boracay.

Boracay is bit of a warzone now. I mean, there is no war or conflict but it looks like it's being reconstructed after a war. Boracay, yes pretty much the whole island, got recently shutdown by Philippine government for environmental reasons. And ya all know it, I am not a statist so not a fan of government at all but I have to say: this was one rare instance they did a great job!! And you won't hear me praising government often, so better believe it.

So what happened in a nutshell is that Boracay was getting polluted big time and real fast. It's one of the best beaches in the whole world so it makes sense that the tourism was just booming too much there. Problem was that the locals didn't care AT ALL about any kind of environmental practices so it was getting bad real fast. Illegal constructions, dumping of shit straight in the ocean, plastic everywhere.

So government, actually the president in person if I heard that right, came over and went from house to house and shut all the non-compliant ones down (basically all of them!). Well you can imagine that the result was brutal- the most popular beach in Asia got shut down. These guys didn't even have sewage system!! It opened up after 6 months of shutdown few months ago but I am telling you, it's under heavy reconstruction.

Many many business on the beach are still closed and busy reconstructing to comply with the environmental law and the sewage system is being dug in the streets. Also, you won't see plastic straws in Boracay anymore. All paper or bamboo. I really like that. I really FUKIN LOVE THAT! They also control the number of tourists allowed on the island which I think is good. We got in no problem so it's prolly not that bad.

You get the wibe? Chillest of the chill!

And guess what, because other popular places in Philippines, namely the notoriously beautiful El Nido in Palawan island, saw what happened to Boracay, they are NOW BEING PROACTIVE and started treating the nature and ocean better cause they don't wanna get shut down, which is a massive financial loss for them. So El Nido and other places are switching to ecological solutions are we speak because of the previous shut down in Boracay.

I say well done brothers and sistas. I travel SE Asia all the time (currenly typing this in Koh Phangan in Thailand) and I am absolutely grieving the destruction of nature here. I just came from Koh Samui this morning and my heart was crying at the level of pollution everywhere. Garbage floating in muddy water, which used to be famous for their clear waters, now is filled with plastic and junk, literally everywhere. Thai still don't care. They just don't get it. They will force 2 plastic bags on you on every plastic bottle of anything they sell, and they put EVERYTHING in plastic. WTFF!!!!

Anyways, I'm getting too emotional here, so I will rather post some of our pictures from Boracay.

I am telling you, I seen hundreds of beaches in my life, but Boracay was the best so far. The sand it as fine as flour and the water is crystal clear. Forget Thailand or Brazil, they got nothing on Boracay.
The downside is certainly that price of nice accomodation. We paid around $140 USD per night for a 4 star resort on the beach and it was still a great deal. But you can get this kinda place for half price in any other place in Philippines. But it won't be Boracay :)

Thank you for reading, upvoting and resteeming
And most of all: FOR AVOIDING PLASTIC AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!<3

Much Love,

Jan
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