Week 75 - Cebu, Malapascua, Banyatan, Mabinay, Dumaguete (Philippines)

I was up and in the hotel reception in Cebu at 9am to meet the agent returning our passports along with a new visa and a receipt for our ACR cards. A change in the rules after we’d already made all our plans meant we had to pay £230 to stay in the country past 59 days, good job we love the Philippines and think it’s worth it! Back in the room the boys were stirring, we showered and packed up ready to head out. We jumped in a taxi to the bus terminal and found a bus heading north to Maya, 4 hours away. As we got further north we started noticing the effects of Typhoon Yolanda, something we haven’t seen so far in the Philippines. Buildings missing their roofs, pylons bent in half and palm trees with all their leaves missing from one side of the tree.

Once in Maya we found a boat headed to Malapascua. After agreeing to the price increase the captain was angling for to leave immediately, we set out for the 30 min journey across to the island. As we drew close we knew we’d made a good decision, we were welcomed by a white expanse of coral beach and turquoise waters. Rhys made friends with a local guy on the boat who took us to some cheap beach bungalows and walked us through the village to buy water and arrange diving (for Tim) and snorkeling (for us). After a few drinks on the beach at ours we wandered out to find dinner. 

Bounty Beach, where our bungalow was, is the main beach on the island and the area that has seen the most rebuilding and the new roofs were in stark contrast to the main sand street of the village where the devastation was more evident. The beach is lined with dive shops and resorts, not leaving that much for backpackers but in the village we found a decent little restaurant, Ging Gings. We ate, wandered along the beach, found Rhys a dog with purring/teeth baring issues and turned in for the night.

Tim was up at an ungodly hour to head out on his own private little dive boat to a thresher shark cleaning station, from the happy Tim who came back into the room at around 7am I would assume the diving was well worth the early start and the videos he took only support my view. Thresher sharks are the most amazing and graceful creatures with humongous tails that seem to have no purpose but to look pretty. Me and Rhys had arranged to go snorkeling for half a day. We boarded the boat with a couple of french guys at 9:30am and were back in two hours. The snorkeling was rubbish, possibly the worst we’ve done since we’ve been away, we saw a couple of cool fish but nothing that blew us away and visibility was terrible. It was cheap though so we were still in good spirits when we got back and it was still really cool to take the boat along the island to see some of the little bays and coves and one of the stops was at a Japanese shipwreck and we’ve never snorkeled a shipwreck (although it was more like just a plank of wood or two). 

Me and the Japanese shipwreck, Malapascua.

Back at the bungalow Tim had also cut his diving short. As he was still recovering from his lengthy journey to get to the Philippines he spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach with a good book. Leaving him to it me and Rhys packed a picnic and headed out to explore the island. Lonely Planet had suggested a walk around the island would be a nice 3-4 hour explore but again it was wrong. There wasn’t really a path around the island and after walking through the villages along scorching hot sandy tracks and climbing a couple of hills we dropped down into a cove and ate our picnic at the side of a little hamlet. We walked to the top of the next hill before deciding to call it a day and heading back for a swim in the sea on Bounty Beach. We found Tim and sat out the front of ours while he enjoyed a massage on the beach. That night we ate at a cheap place on the beach before turning in for another early night.

Tim enjoying a sunset massage on the beach, Malapascua.

We left Malapascua the following day. After a lazy start we were on a boat by 9:30am heading back to Maya. Once in Maya we jumped on a bus to Bogo, where we caught yet another bus to Haganay. After a short wait at the port we boarded the ferry over to Bantayan Island. As soon as we stepped off the ferry we were surrounded, it was like a swarm of ants over a honey pot with everyone trying to take us somewhere. We walked to the end of the pier and the boys propped me up in a bakery to look after the bags and fend off the ants while they headed off to find a room. An hour later they returned and we grabbed a tricycle to Tickety Boo, the English run resort they’d found a couple of kilometres away. We settled in, cooled off in the swimming pool and grabbed a beer on the roof top bar overlooking the beach. 

That night we took a tricycle back into town to a Nordic run bar where we treated ourselves to a bit of a feast. We ate so much we couldn’t bear to stay out drinking. We stopped at one place for a quick drink (lovely bar, sandy floor, white floaty curtains and fairy lights), watched all the youngsters dancing and making us feel old before heading back to the room where we intended to have a game of pool before bed. The night watchman wouldn’t open the pool room so we ended up turning in for another early night, me and Tim read while Rhys went to sit on the beach where he failed in his attempt to start a bonfire. 

The next day we wanted to rent scooters to drive around the island. As all the bikes on the island were apparently rented it took until 11:30am for any to be arranged for us and we spent the morning playing pool and using the swimming pool. Tim had a big boy bike with gears while me and Rhys had a scooter. We left Santa Fe, the town we were staying in and headed north to Madridejos, on of the other two towns on the island. As soon as we left Santa Fe and the rest of the tourists behind (not that there were that many to start with outside of the remaining disaster recovery crews and old men with their Filipino brides) we were overwhelmed with the amount of people waving and saying hello, I felt like royalty sitting on the back of the scooter waving and shouting greetings back. It became obvious quickly with the amount of hand painted signs and little gardens with words spelled out in shells thanking Oxfam that the warm welcome had a lot to do with the association they have between white people and the aid they received after Yolanda. It really made us wish we’d done more. Considering Bantayan wasn’t the centre of the storm and it was 4 months ago, the affects still run deep. There are piles of rubble everywhere you look, collapsed fences, missing roofs, chunks of twisted corrugated iron and trees ripped out at the roots. But at the same time as seeing all that you see the happy smiling faces of the people, the Oxfam supported community vegetable gardens and really good quality family sized Oxfam and UNICEF tents that have replaced the fallen buildings and become the centre of new homes with new wooden rooms extending off them. The people here are so resilient and have not only dealt with it but are bouncing back with a smile, it’s very humbling to see.

Rhys and Tim on the bikes, Bantayan.

Gratitude to Oxfam, Bantayan.

We grabbed fried chicken in Madridejos, got laughed at by locals putting sun cream on, and continued south to Bantayan Town to use the ATM and to find out about ferries to Negros for the next day. By the time we made it back to Santa Fe it was about 4pm and we were getting tired, we stopped to check out the beach on the otherside of town to our resort (which turned out to be stunning) and the boys swam. Back at the bikes we realised Tim had a puncture so we limped back to ours. After a swim, a bit of chill time and some more pool we caught another tricycle back in to town and ended up eating back at the HR Bar. We’d decided a night out was in order and made our next stop a Polish Karaoke bar (they absolutely love Karaoke in the Philippines, it’s everywhere), where we spent the rest of the night. As the bar was dead we had the Karaoke to ourselves, sang a bit of Tom Jones in honor of it being St David’s Day, roped the bar owners parents into singing with us (who then bought us free vodkas) and rolled home after midnight with a bar bill for the three of us of £8.

Kids playing in the street near Madridejos, Bantayan.

Kids fishing on the pier, Madridejos, Bantanyan.

Sante Fe beach, Bantayan.

Rhys and Tim enjoying the beach, Santa Fe, Bantayan.

Back at the room a group of Filipino’s from Cebu (I think about 8 of them were sharing the same 3 bed room) were sitting outside their room drinking brandy and invited us to join. Tim sensibly headed to bed while me and Rhys stayed up making new friends. Tim made it out of bed about 10:30am the next day, me and Rhys didn’t rouse until gone 1pm. Deciding to stay an extra night as one, we’d missed the ferry and two, the horrific hangover wasn’t conducive to a travel day, we caught a tricycle into town for lunch before heading to the nice beach we’d discovered the day before. A long soak in the sea seemed to help a little and gave us enough energy to walk the 2km home along the beach. After a big lunch we weren’t hungry for dinner so the boys went to the shop at the end of the drive and came back with a selection bag of crisps, crackers, super dense cake and candy covered peanuts and snacked while watching a film in the bar.

Recovered, we were up early with plenty of time to flag a tricycle to take us to Bantayan Town to catch the ferry to Cadiz in Negros. After breakfast at a booth on the main square we headed to the pier and were ferried out to our boat. An hour after it was supposed to leaving we finally set off. The journey was hot and uneventful. The boat dropped us at a pier in the middle of nowhere and we had to grab another tricycle to take us the 4km into town to the bus terminal, with a couple of stops to retie the bags so Tim’s expensive dive gear didn’t end up sprawled across the road. Once at the bus terminal we had to wait for a bus to Bacolod an hour and a half away. Once in Bacalod we had to take a taxi across town from the north terminal to the south terminal where we then caught yet another bus headed to Dumaguete. After 4 hours and a short dinner stop we pulled in to Mabinay, a random town with a huge modern bus terminal but not much else. After trying to get a tricycle to a hotel in the guide book, we ended up somewhere completely different which was so cheap we couldn’t turn it down (we paid £3.50 for a double room!). 

After dropping off our bags and Tim discovering his room didn’t even have a fan, we walked to a nice looking restaurant we’d seen on the way from the bus terminal (there were only two choices on the main road, that or an empty fast food restaurant). Our instincts were right, it was a lovely place with a security guard and tables lit up in a little garden but strangely it only served three different dinners but an immense selection of desserts.

The reason we’d stopped in Mabinay, along with breaking up the long journey south, was to try spelunking in the second largest cave system in the Philippines. We jumped in a tricycle to the visitor centre, were gawped at by everybody we went passed and openly laughed at a couple of times, and discovered yet another Lonely Planet error, from the visitor centre it was only an option to view the beginner caves, no spelunking. As we were already there and it was very cheap we signed in and headed off with our guide to the walk to the first of the three caves. The whole trip took about an hour with the last cave, the Crystal Cave being the most impressive with lots of sparkly stalagmites and stalactites, the odd rhino bat and a few cave scorpions and spiders. Although we weren’t blown away the private tour and being off the beaten track still put a smile on our faces. 

On the way back to the room we stopped at a shooting range to see if we could arrange some guns to play with. After the girl stopped hiding behind the fridge giggling because three white people had walked in, Tim had a phone call with the owner who informed us they needed a weeks notice to organise licences. Back in Mabinay our adventure wasn’t over, opposite our room was the gate to the Mabinay Springs and for 15p entry we couldn’t resist. It was only a small place with a bright blue natural lagoon, a swimming pool and a boardwalk and zipline. Of course, being the big kids we are, we harnessed up and clambered up the zip line tower expecting the ride of our lives for the 300m line. We swam in the lagoon, were videoed a couple of times (I think they think white people are some fantastical mythical creatures like unicorns) and headed back to the room to dry, change and finish packing. We timed a tricycle to the bus station perfectly and jumped straight on a bus to Dumaguete. Once in town we grabbed another tricycle to a huge hostel from the guide book and checked in to an aircon room with hot water and cable TV. After pizza at the rooftop bar and dinner at an Italian on the harbour front we wandered back to the room to watch UFC before bed.