6 Days to Cross the Visayas (part 1)

If the first two weeks in the Philippines were defined as being stationary, then the week that followed could be defined as a triathlon through the country.   We wound up going on a huge a tour around the central Visayas, putting our feet on six different islands in five days and making our transfers via four ferry rides, three bus transfers, two stints in a taxi cab, one flight, and a handful of jeepney trips.  Here's how it went down. 

Sunday

After staying more than a week at Bongo Bongo in Dauin, we realized it was time to go.  We came up with a plan to take a short ferry hop across the sea to the island of Bohol; a place known for it's Chocolate Hills, excellent diving and the paradisaical Alona beach on the adjacent Panglao island.   Sounds nice, right?   

The transfer was painless, with us splitting a private van to the port with another guest from Bongo Bongo, Philip, along with his Thai wife who were also heading over to Bohol.  The van dropped us off at the passenger terminal and after a short hour and a half long ferry ride, we made it to the port of Tagbilaran on the other side of the channel.   From there, we took another private van transfer onward to Alona beach on the island of Panglao.  

 We were riding the relaxed vibes we had in Dauin and were looking forward to more of the same.  Alona beach is one of the main diving hubs in Bohol and is well reputed for its beach idyllic beachfront and clear blue sea.  Sadly though, as soon as we stepped out the van, that feeling dissipated.

As you might recall from my post on Boracay, we're not particularly big fans of mass tourism. There's something particularily souring about paradise being compromised in favor of loud, in-your-face tacky tourism and we realized that we're much happier when we're not in those types of environments. Alona, from what we witnessed, has chosen to emulate Boracay as its way of 'developing' tourism.  

When we entered the town, we were immediately swarmed with young men hounding us to buy a shady tour package from them.  We firmly but politely refuted their offers and headed off to a nearby dive shop to get info not only on diving but also scoop up some intelligence on where to look for a place to stay.  

After being given a few pointers, we eventually found a clean, reasonably priced room (complete with private bathroom and A/C) not too far off of the beach front. We dropped our backpacks off and took a quick shower then headed out to regroup with Philip to book our dives for the next day.   

The rest of the evening was largely uneventful, save for the  terrible Italian dinner we have (quick note:  Italian cuisine does not involve frying every ingredient in palm oil.  On the other hand it does involve seasoning the food).   After 'eating,' we strolled back to our room for the night and prepared for an early diving start the next morning. 

Monday

Sleeping through yet another rooster-filled night (I'm becoming an expert at  this...wait, who am I kidding?  There's no getting used to it.  I think sleeping through rooster crowing is a skill you have to learn from birth), we made our way to the dive shop to load out for our morning excursion.  The trip we booked took us out to Balicasag island so that we could do two dives in the surrounding marine sanctuary.

View from the boat at Balicasag

Unfortunately for me, I must have had something blocked in my sinuses and right after I began my descent, I couldn't equalize and had to abort the dive.  I wasn't too happy about it, but when I got back on the boat, I realized that my nose was bleeding. It was nothing to be alarmed about and happens quite often in the scuba world, but in any case, it was better that I play it safe and bail on the dives. 

Nathalie continued the dives while I spent my time on the surface chatting with the boat crew, sunbathing on the deck and taking in the spectacular beauty of the nearby tropical island.  I guess it could've been worse.   After the two dives were finished, we headed back to Alona.  The dive center was very understanding about my unexpected sinus issues and didn't charge me for the two dives, instead only asking that I pay for the boat ride and the sanctuary fees (I happily obliged).  

We then went back to our room, showered up then ht the beach front in search of a late lunch.  We were aiming for a western-style restaurant and finally settled on a place run by an Australian claiming to be 'the best burger in the southern Philippines.'  As it would turn out, unsurprisingly, it was not.    The serving was small and the food uninspired and overpriced.   

We left, a bit disappointed and a bit hungry, and slowly wondered back to the hotel room.  On the way, we got approached for by the tour pushers for what felt like the 50th time.  We didn't want a boat ride, we didn't need a snorkeling tour, we weren't interested in seeing whale sharks, and honestly, even if we took them up on their offer, they were probably going to rip us off anyways.

Their persistence was impressive and it got to the point where we were giving them ridiculous answers just to mess with them ("Sorry, an international court ruling has expressly forbid me from stepping foot on any seafaring vessel"; "I'm allergic to whale sharks.  Being around them gives me gas." etc...) and more importantly to get the message across.  

We dropped into a convenience store to pick up some water and after trying to small talk the clerk (a cultural courtesy that seems to be the norm here in the Philippines), we were met with cold, indifferent stares.  It was at this moment that it hit us: everyone living and working in this town was miserable.  

None of the waiters at the restaurants seemed to care about their customers.  The quality of food was poor and overpriced.   The tour pushers and the trike drivers lazily sat around, constantly badgering us to use their grossly overpriced services.  In general, the people were generally either depressed or worse: bored.  To paraphrase Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-hour Work Week, 'the opposite of happiness is boredom.'   Not good; and from our perspective, completely out of character compared to everything else we've seen in the Philippines.

With this revelation, we decided that our best course of action was to get the hell out of town as quickly as possible.  A week earlier, we had booked a return flight from Siargao back to Cebu in anticipation of our return flight back to Kuala Lumpur.   However, we needed to a way to get to Siargao from Bohol and we spent the next couple of hours solving this problem.  

The Few, The Proud, The Belgians.

We were able to find a reasonably-priced flight leaving from Cebu on Wednesday.  This was about the earliest we could fly due to the 'no fly time' mandated from our Nathalie's diving earlier that day.  The next step was getting from Alona beach to Cebu.    As it would turn out, there's a handful of daily ferries running between Tagbilaran city and Cebu city.  In particular, there was a high-speed boat leaving at 11:30 the next morning.  We made it our goal to be on that one.  

We booked our flight and prepped our bags for the departure the next morning.   This included finding a trike driver and arranging our transfer up to the port in Tagbilaran.  We were able to secure a reasonable fare as we weren't looking to leave on the spot.  Additionally, this was guaranteed income for the driver so he was more than willing to be flexible and bend a bit on his prices.  We had dinner at a small Belgian restaurant (go figure) and called it a night.  

Tuesday

After yet another night of getting woken up at three in the morning by the rooster farm next door, we checked out and met the trike driver in front of the hotel.  The transfer to the port was easy and we were able to get tickets on the ferry we had planned on taking.   After paying the terminal fee plus the port tax (this is very common in the Philippines), we entered into the passenger waiting area of the pier complex.  At the front of the hall was a large painting depicting a scene out of the bible. This served as a backdrop for a band playing Christian music wishing us all a safe trip.  Interesting; should  this be a cause for alarm? 

The Streets of Cebu

We loaded into the boat, and once the doors were closed, the crew played a safety video on the TV screens.  Before the safety demonstration could begin though, there was a prayer read out on the displays. "Great...this boat is going to sink," we thought to ourselves.  At least if it did, the roosters in the back wouldn't have much to crow about.   As it would turn out, these fears were completely unfounded and after a quick two-hour boat ride, we made it to Cebu's main passenger port a bit after one o'clock in the afternoon. 

During the boat ride in, we booked a hotel room in the city center.  We initially planned on taking a cab in from the port to the hotel as they are metered in Cebu.   The cabbies at the dock on the other hand wanted us to believe otherwise.  Once we stepped out of the port, we were surrounded by drivers asking us where we were going.   

We told them the name of the hotel and tell them we wanted the meter turned on.  They would then give us some exorbitant flat rate (somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of the ticket cost for the ferry) ignoring our request to play fair.   Too short-sighted to realize that a) they were losing out on making any money at all by trying to rip us off and not taking the metered fare and b) we had smart phones that gave us instant directions on how to get where we needed to be, we opted to take the 25 minute walk to the hotel.   We got good exercise and the cabbies got a lesson in economics.     

A Jeepney in Cebu

As an added bonus, we also got to walk through downtown Cebu.  In all honesty, there's really not too much to say about it other than it being a sun-soaked, run down big city.  There is some charm underneath the rustic outer layer, but otherwise there's really nothing spectacular to see.   

Case in point:  we checked into the hotel and after resting up for an hour, headed out to the commercial district.  In there was the main shopping mall in town complete with grocery store.  We restocked on essentials like peanut butter and grabbed a meal to eat at the food court.  We spent the better part of the afternoon there, walking around and taking advantage of the air conditioning (remember, we're in the tropics.  It gets hot during the latter part of the day).  There was really no other sights for us to see at that point and the shopping center was the best option we had.

TGI Fridays in Cebu.  

The mall itself showed us yet another side of the Philippines.  We have spent almost our entire stay in the country side and were getting well versed in rural, coastal life and what a more 'traditional' Filipino lifestyle looks like.   The mall, by contrast, was the definition of  western and modern.

Packed with both European luxury brand stores and American restaurants and shops, we got a first hand look at where the new middle class and wealthy Filipinos are steering their cultural identity.  It's not the first time we've seen this on our travels (there was even a Louis Vuitton store in Hanoi). What was more impressive to us was how closely the Filipinos looked towards America for their consumer identity.

Among all the shops and restaurants we found a: Payless Shoe Source, TrueValue Hardware Store, TGI Fridays, Sbarro, Kenny Roger's Roasters, a Toys'R'Us and a Crocs Shop.  There were also dozens of local restaurants selling burgers, tex-mex and hot dogs styling themselves on American interior design and operations management.  The grocery store inside the mall looked like a supermarket straight out of North America.

The rest of the day was uneventful.  After spending a few hours at the mall and having a late lunch/early dinner, we made our way back to the hotel.   We used the rest of the evening to relax on the bed, watch TV and enjoy not having to deal with roosters for the first time in nearly two weeks. We called it an early night as we needed to be at the airport by 09:30 the next morning and had to give ourselves enough time to deal with rush hour.

To be continued...