A rather grand introduction to Kalibo!

So after 2 days of moving around metro Manila, it was time to move to our second phase of the journey - Kalibo and Borachay. These cities are on a different island to the Philippines (which is an archipelago - I think that's how you spell it!), so we had to take a plane flight over. Here's the view of the island we went to - the great thing about having so many islands is the abundance of beaches ...



We arrived to an incredible reception. Literally the entire town and its leaders came to greet us, complete with 10 drummers and 9 dancers in festive dress (this sounds like some kind of Christmas carol?!) ...



We were then treated to a beautiful lunch ...



... followed by a performance by the local youth of how this place started up - in particular, intial colonisation by the Malays and then meeting the Chinese, then being taken over by the Spaniards.



Here are some of the other performers, in costume ...



... it was quite a treat! I'm not exactly sure why they put on such a great hello for us (maybe it was our good looks?!), though I think we donated some books and computers or something. Hmmm ...!