Week 77 - Siquijor, Loboc, Anda, Panglao Island (Philippines)

Tim headed out to dive leaving me and Rhys in bed in our luxurious apartment. It had rained most of the night and was still raining when we woke. After a lazy start, Rhys walked down the road to rent a scooter from one of the hundreds of places on our street. We packed up a picnic lunch and started out with our hand drawn map. Signposts on Siquijor are few and far between and although there’s only one main, 74km long road circling the island, there are plenty of turn-offs and none of the supposed highlights are on the main road. We got delightfully lost in the south of the island, cruising around the villages, stopping for lunch at a small beach, before joining back with the main road and heading to Lazi. Lazi is only a small town but has an old convent and a wood and coral church, nothing mind blowing but pretty. From Lazi it was only a short jaunt to the Cambugahay waterfall. The waterfalls are a series of cascades, not tall but very scenic, surrounded by jungle and forming bright blue pools coloured by the limestone. We ran into the group we’d been drinking with the previous night and Rhys jumped in to swim. 

Rhys jumping into the pools at Cambugahay Falls, Siquijor.

Next, we tried to find Kagasua Beach, after missing the turning and touring a couple more villages we finally found the right track, parked the bike and walked down to the sea. It wasn’t the picturesque bay we’d been led to believe, lots of seaweed and, a bit disturbingly, a couple of men who dived behind boats when they saw us. Feeling a bit on edge, for the first time since Manila, we headed back up to make a quick exit. Back on the main road we headed to Salagdoong Beach, again a bit of a let down, more like a 60’s Butlin’s with extremely bad karaoke at full volume and some broken water slides. We stayed there all of 10 minutes before continuing our loop of the island, trying to keep one step ahead of the rain, to Paliton Beach near San Juan, a nice secluded cove with white sand but again, not the paradise we’d hoped for. Back at our room we found Tim and stopped by the bar. A Dutch couple we’d met on the ferry from Oslob to Dumaguete were there and Rhys arranged to meet them later for a drink at their hostel. Me and Tim decided to make the most of having a nice room and turned in for the night for cups of tea, TV and book reading. Rhys rolled in at 1am having had a nice night with a good group of people and lots of rum.

View of one of the many bays we discovered while out on the scooter, Siquijor.

We woke again to more rain. Tim had enjoyed the diving the previous day despite it being a bit chilly and the visibility not being the best because of the weather, and headed out again. Me and Rhys spent the morning enjoying our huge veranda before deciding to take the scooter out again to see if we could find the dairy where we could buy fresh yoghurt. Failing in our mission we continued until we came across a big, 400 year old tree and stopped for a quick photo. On our way back to San Juan we thought we’d turn off the main road and see if we could make a loop back to the hotel in land. We ended up completely lost, winding our way through the mountains along little tracks cut through the jungle. With the clouds sitting low and the mist swirling around the trees it was quite magical. Despite Siquijor being touted as a centre for witch craft and healers, this was the closest we got to anything remotely mystical. We ended up on the opposite side of the island. Before parking up we made a detour to a road side stall selling fish where Rhys bought a mackerel sized flying fish. After a few drinks on the veranda, Tim gave us a fish filleting lesson and cooked up the fish. 

Sunset in San Juan, outside our apartment, Siquijor.

The ferry to Bohol wasn’t due to leave port until 2:30pm so we had the morning to chill and use the beach. I woke to blue skies and left the boys in bed to snorkel in the sea out front. It was a bit of an error. The tide was a long way out and it was only knee deep for about the first 100m yet littered with seaweed, sea urchins, star fish and jelly fish.

Enjoying a window of good weather on the beach outside our apartment, Siquijor.

Locals preparing sea urchins on the beach in San Juan, Siquijor.

When we left for the port we had a line of tricycles waiting to pounce on us, we jumped in one and headed back to Siquijor Town. The ticket buying process was convoluted involving a long queue and scraps of paper but before long we were onboard and on our way. The sea was pretty rough and the first hour of the journey, back to Dumaguete was so rough it felt like we were on a roller coaster, Rhys gets sea sick so stayed outside on deck holding on for dear life while we and Tim got thrown about inside whilst watching horrifically bad movies.

We pulled in to Tagbilaran, Bohol, 45 minutes late, after dark. As we didn’t want to waste too much time faffing about finding the bus station and working out the right bus, we found a minivan to take us directly to Loboc, to Nuts Huts (or Muts Nuts, something like that). After dropping us at the main road we had to walk a kilometre down a very rocky track and descend hundreds of stairs before we found out it was fully booked. The kind lady at reception called ahead to another spot and arranged a motorbike to collect us. As we were there we stopped for dinner before lugging our bags back up the stairs to the awaiting bike. One by one we climbed on, with our luggage and headed to Hill Top Cottages. With the darkness and the bad state of the track it was a pretty rough ride and we were glad to make it to the main road safely. Although Tim’s bed was only a thin piece of mattress on the floor, the room was decent and there was a pool. 

The next morning we’d arranged for motorbikes for the day. After Tim gave Rhys a quick lesson on riding a semi-automatic, we headed out. We pointed our bikes in the direction of the chocolate hills and sped along to the main view point. After winding up to the carpark we walked up the stairs to the peak. The chocolate hills are a bizarre quirk of nature where coral deposits from millions of years ago have pushed up to form peaks which were then eroded to their present appearance. The 1,268 hills spread out as far as the eye can see, an impressive sight. Back at the bikes Tim realised his keys were missing. He started to retrace his steps to the view point when one of the guys offering motorbike rides called over having found them. Relieved, we returned to the bike, Tim put his camera away in the compartment under the seat and closed and locked the lid, just to realise the key was missing again, this time it had fallen off the keyring and was in the locked box under the seat. A bit of muscle power and Tim worked out he could prise the seat open enough for me to get my arm in and retrieve the key. All up, a tense 10 minutes. 

The chocolate hills, from the main view point, Bohol.

Rhys and Tim on the bikes in the chocolate hills, Bohol.

Back on the bikes and laughing at Tim’s stupidity we headed off again to complete a loop that would take us back in the direction of the Tarsier Sanctuary, winding through the chocolate hills. We continued through the rice paddies nestled at the base of the hills to Sagbayan Peak, a weird park with dinosaur statues, a small tarsier sanctuary and a tiny butterfly enclosure that we skipped. It was very odd and just before we went in I managed to do the Asia backpacker special of burning my leg on the bike exhaust. Out of the park we continued until we hit the coast where we rode on to Tagbilaran, a much longer ride than we’d anticipated, stopping on route at the Punta Cruz Watchtower before racing back to Loboc in search of the famous Tarsier Sanctuary. As Bohol, like Siquijor, lacks signposts we ended up missing the turning and before we knew it, were back in Loboc with bums too sore from a day on the bikes to continue any further. 

Tarsier, Bohol.

Tim enjoying his ride around Bohol.

One of the most striking things we noticed while exploring were the effects of the earthquake. Unlike the typhoon that destroyed the mostly wooden buildings in northern Negros and Cebu, knocking over trees and electric cables, in Bohol it was the concrete buildings and infrastructure that saw the most damage. The earthquake of October 2013, hitting 3 weeks before the typhoon, recorded a strength of 7.2 (releasing energy equivalent to 32 Hiroshima bombs) with the epicentre 6km south of Sagbayan, the area we were riding around. Everywhere we looked we could see cracked and collapsed walls. The viewpoint for the chocolate hills was in ruins and pretty much every church we passed had caved in with the pews moved outside for services. The rear of the church in Loboc itself had completely turned to rubble and there were cables strewn up to hold up the elevator to take you to a bridge over the Loboc river. Although there still seemed to be an incredible amount of damage, you didn’t see it in the same way as in northern Cebu, there were only a few UNICEF tents around and I got the feeling that the area was far wealthier and managed to recover with less outside intervention. Luckily the typhoon didn’t directly hit Bohol.

Earthquake damage, the ruins of the church, Loboc.

Having had our third mishap of the day when we discovered the spare helmet that was too huge to fit anyones head (it would have been too big for a giants head) dangling off the back of one of the bikes had got scuffed up and cracked hitting against the chain, we parked up at our guesthouse. The boys swam, we chilled for a bit, then headed out with the bikes for dinner in the main plaza. It was a great atmosphere, a Saturday night with everyone milling about and rock music being blared out from the band stand. 

The next day we left the guesthouse to wait outside for a bus into Loay. The first bus was packed and drove straight past. The next was a full jeepney that we somehow managed to clamber on to the roof of, and cling on for dear life, for the 15 minute journey hoping the rain wouldn’t get any worse. Once in Loay we barely paid the conductor before our next bus rocked up. For some reason the driver dropped us off in Jagna, halfway to our destination rather than at the Guindulman junction and we ended up negotiating with a tricycle driver to take us the rest of the way rather than waiting an hour for the next bus. It was the longest tricycle ride of my life and did nothing for our sore bums from the ridiculously long bike ride the day before. 

Finally we arrived in the centre of Anda, a tiny little fishing community, more popular with locals than backpackers, with a gorgeous stretch of white sand beach and a massive tide that went out over 100m to leave exposed little rockpools full of sea slugs, more starfish than you can ever begin to imagine (it was impossible not to tread on them), and awesome little blue crabs that we watched run off en mass into the seaweed to search for dinner. After a dip in the pool at our hotel, we left Tim on the balcony and wandered on to the beach for a walk. After about 30 minutes we came across a group of kids who were very excited to have their photo taken with us, before we headed back to meet Tim and order a tower of rum and coke, 1.75 litres of the stuff. We had a horrendous dinner at our hotel while streaming the football, after having an equally horrendous lunch there, before the boys bombed in the pool from the balcony and ran into the bed room freezing.

Anda beach with the tide out.

When we woke, the weather had changed and it was pretty overcast. We rolled out of bed and walked in to the village for a humongous lunch on the beach. Leaving Tim in the room to chill me and Rhys walked the other way along the beach to marvel at yet more starfish and sea slugs. Later, while Rhys relaxed in the room, me and Tim sat on the balcony overlooking the beach, listening to jazz while Tim treated himself to a cigar, how very backpackery! A game of dice with a Slovenian girl and we headed out to a quiet little restaurant for dinner before a movie in bed.

We left Anda the next morning and after an hour wait, the bus to Tagbilaran rocked up. We squashed in to the minuscule, Filipino sized seats, music blaring and windows open. Tim had a seat right over the bass and spent the whole 3.5 hour journey with his bum vibrating. The bus dropped us north of town by the jeepney terminal and we climbed aboard for the short, uncomfortable and cramped journey to Panglao. We checked into Alona Garden, great little Korean run cottages set around a central garden and, after a shower, walked down to the beach for a pre dinner drink and to browse the few stalls and souvenir shops. Dinner was delicious BBQ on the beach followed by way too much rum in another beach bar. Tim headed back to get some sleep before his diving the next day while me and Rhys stayed out, managing to get completely lost on our way home in the pouring rain. 

So far our opinion of Alona Beach is pretty good, it gets a bit of bad press and Lonely Planet doesn’t seem too keen, but to be honest, it’s just like being at a quiet Thai beach resort. There are more white people here than we’ve seen in the last 2 weeks put together so you don’t get the waves and the laughs and you get hassled a bit more with people offering you boat trips and scooter rental, but that’s actually a nice change for us and it’s novel to be back somewhere with all the tourist infrastructure to make things really easy.