My friend Chie and I has just gotten back to Roxas City from Kalibo where we attended the Ati-Atihan festival, when we decided to go to "Baybay" beach, which is located a few minutes from the town and the airport. Baybay beach has a long stretch of powdery sands that rivals Boracay–ONLY it's colored dark gray.
We had our lunch at one of the seafood restaurants located near the beach. Roxas City is known as the "seafood capital of the Philippines" so it would be stupid if we ordered beef nilaga, sinigang or porkchop, so we decided to try "Diwal shells" or "angel wing clams". I first read about it on my friend Journeying James blog found here. While my flight will leave Roxas City around 4:00 pm, I had all the time in this scenic and quiet city, though the same cannot be said of my friend Chie, as her flight leaves much earlier at 11:00 am.
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| Wasay-Wasay shells |
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| Diwal Shells and Scallops |
All my clothes are already packed inside my backpack but the thought of taking a quick swim crossed my mind. I regretted not entertaining it as a swim could really be awesome that sunny morning. There were more than a dozen of people swimming that day, aside from a few other fishermen who were about to sail off to the open sea. A few kids were chasing each other while some were doing somersaults on the fine gray sands of Baybay beach.
The water ain't deep as evidenced by the people from the distance who were only submerged up to their waist. It was also low-tide that time, the person I talked to said the water can reach the breakwater wall during high tide thus covering the fine gray sands with seawater making it a few feet deeper.
Roxas Boulevard - not to be mistaken with the one in Manila of the same name, offers a great place to relax, walk around and smell the clean air emancipating from the sea. The sun was shining brightly but surprisingly it does not produces maximum heat, probably the wind from the beach provides a perfect contrast of heat and wind.
While I was there I imagined the place having rows of hostels on the opposite side of the road and small bars and cafes along the few seafood restaurants. This could be an ideal backpacker's haven right here I told myself. The downtown section of Roxas City as I will blog later on is a very appealing place as well. I was glad that my flight was still at 4:00 pm and it gave me the chance to just bum around this side of Roxas. I looked up at the sky to check on Chie's departing plane but saw none. Later on I found out I was looking at the opposite direction as the airport was just a petty 5 minutes away from Baybay beach south (or north) of where I was standing.
I went back again to the place we had lunch and ordered a bottle of coke, I opened my laptop and chatted with Lauren and Ron (Madame Eileen was conspicuously offline that time) and told them that I had a great view of the sea. Take the color "gray" away and replace it with blinding "white" and this is Boracay already. Regardless of being in Boracay and being here at Baybay beach, some things cannot change. That is, traveling to new places always presents a strange feeling that slowly becomes familiar and whether you are here or there, you'll feel glad you're somewhere off other than the usual places you're grown accustomed (or tired) already.
