Cebu and Bohol

From Puerto Princesca we flew East to cebu island and it's capital, Cebu City.

Cebu city is one of the largest cities in the Central Visayas. We had been warned it's not a great place to relax and more to use it as a jump off point for the surrounding islands. The traffic was nose to tail almost from the moment we left the airport and was representative of anytime of the day in Cebu. From the surface I can only describe Cebu as unattractive urban sprawl designed around a port. In places this is interrupted by fast food restaurants (mostly JollyBee's), malls and expensive hotels. We had been warned.

When we (finally) arrived at our hotel it was great. Massive pool, welcome drink, lovely buffet breakfast, and great room so we were happy! Of course it had the normal compliment of old American guys with girls young enough to be their grandaughters but we've had to start accepting that that is part of what we'll experience everywhere in the Philippines. Chris chatted to a guy in the pool before the conversation turned to why he was in Cebu; apparently he was having issues marrying his 13 year old girlfriend, and was annoyed that having paid off the judge, the prosecution now wanted cash as well. Chris swam away.

The next day we got a boat to the neighbouring Bohol island, famous for its chocolate hills and Tarsiers. We had read online that Alona beach was a good place to base ourselves so headed there to find accomodation. After an hour of wondering up and down the beach we settled on the cheapest acceptable room we could get...£20 a night. A little rusty and depressing but it was cheap.

This is the view from Alona beach. The boats are either dive boats or fishing boats and are accompanied by an array of dive shacks and restaurants on the shore.

We had agreed before we arrived that if we could we wanted to do our Advanced Open Water in the Philippines so after accomodation was sorted we went to find out if we would be able to do it here. We spoke to all the dive shops to ask about price, equipment, what skills they did etc and ended up going with the first guy we met. He's a French guy called Greg, smokes about one cigarette every five minutes but is just a lovely. We were due to start the next afternoon.

That evening we headed to the beach and had dinner. They served me almost the biggest burger I had ever had but I was hungry so no complaints. This is where we had dinner. Pretty lovely.

At first we liked Alona beach with its simple accomodation and plentiful restaurants but as we walked to and from dinner we began to be harassed by people trying to sell various tours, goods and massages. Groups of children approach the table at dinner singing pop songs and demanding money. It was our first experience since India of this but just as frustrating! I couldn't help wishing they would leave me alone for ten minutes so I could relax.

Dinner over we went to bed and read up on our dive skills for the next day. Day 1 we covered Peak Performance Buoyancy and did our first night dive!!

Night Diving was something I was really scared of before, but Chris and Greg encouraged me gently and I'm really glad I did. Underwater looks very different at night with lots of different creatures coming out. Scorpion fish were everywhere, we saw an enormous lobster and many sets of red glinting eyes looking at us. Plankton becomes fluorescent and crabs are out in full force.

Day two we headed to Balicasaq island which has some of the best coral in the Philippines. It also is home to hundreds of turtles. We saw three....I was ecstatic! First dive of the day was our deep dive. Straight in we descended down a vertical sea shelf and equalised as shoals of fish swam all around us. There were thousands of fish everywhere and they were so beautiful that the dive felt like one of the shortest of my life even though it was 55 minutes long (most dives are 40-75 minutes depending on air consumption).

These are the turtles that we saw....

Dive 2 and 3 of the day were 'Navigation' and a mixture of 'fish identification' and 'search and rescue'. Greg's father-in-law joined us for these two last dives of the day which was great because it allowed me to buddy with him and dive for longer after Chris' air ran out (he always runs low after about 45 minutes and my tank lasts me over sixty so on all the early dives I was returning with a half full tank!)

Anyway we are now proudly 'Advanced Open Water Scuba Divers'.

That night we went for dinner. I had a Swedish massage on the beach for about £5! It was awesome. Chris had a halo halo... A mixture of ice, ice cream, fruit, and smoothie. 

And got hassled more and more...and gave me the below smile to say 'loving my drink but the constant hassling is driving me mad'...I think he nailed it.

The next day we were going to relax at Alona beach...but by lunchtime had become so frustrated with the constant hassling that we decided to do a half day tour to see the highlights and then leave.

So we saw wild chickens (?) Not sure why this always excites Chris so much.

We saw the world famous 'Chocolate Hills'...

We went to a butterfly farm and the largest butterfly in Indonesia landed on Chris a few times...

We saw Tarsiers...

...And learnt that if a Tarsier becomes distressed it commits suicide, so you look from a distance and don't make any sound near them; obviously tough for Chris.

Chris started a conversation with our driver about Manny Paquiau. This turned out to be a mistake when we discovered he was the local vicar and Manny Paquiau has recently changed religions. The consequential rant lasted a 'short' while.

The next day we left Alona Beach and Chris could finally relax hassle free. Smiles all round.

We spent a lovely two days sunbathing in a hotel in Cebu whilst we waited for a ferry to Donsol (to see Whale sharks). Then the day of our boat the port closed down for two days due to 'Hurricane Queenie' and our ferry was cancelled. There was not another ferry for four days, so we spent a day arguing with TigerAir (who are a nightmare), about changing our flight from Manilla to Singapore. They charge an extortionate amount of money for a change, the phone calls were becoming painful, so we actually had to go to the airport to see them!

Finally we flew into Singapore almost a week earlier than expected. The solution...an extra few days in Bali. Not bad.

So in a nutshell my overview of the Phillippines is as follows:

   - one of the most beautiful places in the world

   - clean unpolluted waters and great diving and corals

   - amazing beaches in places

But our experience was tarnished slightly by the difficulty getting between the islands (and consequentially the city stays), the huge number of sex tourists, and unfortunately the frankly rude Philippino people that we encountered. Never an hour went buy that we weren't harassed, lied to, made fun of, scammed or just abused, whether by hotel staff, taxi drivers, waiters, or locals, and that is a huge shame.

Jane (and bits by Chris)