Getting off Boracay proved to be as complex as getting on the island. Although our flight wasn't until 11:50 am, we still had to get up at around 6 am in the morning to ensure that we will be at the airport on time.
The exact sequence of transportation was repeated, but then in reverse. After getting a tricycle to the pier, we boarded one of the boats. The difference this time was that we decided not pay ridiculous boat ticket price to one of the larger agencies, but do what locals do instead, take the fishing boat.
A whole different experience being on the smaller one, but for the 10 minutes trip it's still a better option, may be feels less safe, but definitely cheaper.
On the other side we had no problems finding a minivan to the airport and 2 hours later we could check in. Our flight was delayed for an hour, but there was an excellent WiFi in the terminal, so we were not complaining.
The flight to Cebu City is about an hour and offers great views all the way there.
When landed, we decided to go straight to the islands and leave exploring the Cebu City for when we will be taking the next flight.
The most visited islands in the area are Bohol and Panglao, and we decided to stay on Panglao, as it was suppose to have better beaches. To get there, we needed a ferry, so we got the taxi to the harbor.
There are several ferries that operate the Cebu City - Panglao route and each of them normally departs from a different terminal. Lucky for us, they were renovating two of those terminals and therefore, all the ferries where leaving from the same place. Glad we didn't have to run from one terminal to the other, looking for the cheaper one.
The downside was that there were huge crowds inside.
After asking around at the tickets office we even managed to find the promo tickets for 50% of the price. Later we learned why. All the other ferries were departing on time and ours announced that they have no idea when the boat will arrive, but it will, they will depart as soon as possible... Very reassuring :-)
At that point it was too late to change the tickets, so we had no other choice but to wait. I was killing time writing the blog and Dima, together with the other passengers, was watching Filipino cartoons. By the looks of it, they were very funny!
About an hour and a half later they finally announced that we can board and the crowd moved from the terminal to the pier outside. It's a good thing we had the seats assigned, because by the time we would have gotten on the boat, we would probably only find some free space on the roof :-)
By the time we got to Tagbilaran, a town, closest to Panglao, it was already getting dark.
When looking for information on where to stay, everybody was saying that a place to be on Panglao - is Alona Beach and that taking a minivan will be the easiest option to get there from the ferry. We asked around about the price, but they were way too high. Another option was to take a much slower tricycle, but we didn't feel happy at the idea being stuck in it for more than an hour.
Not being able to decide, we then saw a couple of tourists loading their diving gear into the van. Out of curiosity, we asked where they were headed and whether they want to split the costs. It turned out that the van belonged to the hotel which was (according to Google) very near to the guest house that we booked a day before, and they agreed to drop us off free of charge.
The whole time we were looking for our place, but saw nothing. So they eventually dropped us off on the main road, a couple of hundred meters before the hotel gate.
It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere; it was pitch dark and no people around. We started walking back along the main road until we finally saw some people. A family was having a party and we asked them if they knew the guest house that we were suppose to stay in. After a 15 minute discussion they managed to figure out what we were looking for, it turned out that we were pronouncing the guest house name wrong, so they couldn't understand where we wanted to go. One of them agreed to take us to the place, which turned out to be very close by. However, because of a huge fence around and not even one sign, we simply passed it twice without seeing.
We were both happy to finally get there, but then we saw "the room". Huge space with no windows, it looked really creepy... We said that there is no way we will be staying here! And we were definitely not the first ones, as the owners didn't look surprised by our very loud "no, no, no", and even didn't try to charge us for the first night, although they had a right to do so.
Alona Beach was about 5 km further away, so we decided to take a chance of finding another place to stay there, at least for that night. The owner charged ridiculously much for dropping us of in Alona, but we were too tired to bargain and were not sure that we will find an alternative way of getting there at this hour.
Once at Alona Beach, we started to ask around for the room, but everything was full. At one point, some local guy heard us asking around and decided to join the search, probably hoping for the tip. Finally, after more than an hour of running from one place to another, we found a room in one of the hotels at the far end of the beach, but only for 1 night.
It was better than nothing, and we figured that we will have a better chance of finding the room the next morning.
What we found wasn't great or cheap, but at least it had a bed and a shower and even a working AC.
The next morning, I found a guest house nearby on booking.com, but after showing up there to check in, we were informed that there was a double booking and they can't accommodate us, despite the official confirmation of the reservation that we showed them.
Clearly, we were not happy with the whole thing and threatened the owner to complain to booking.com and write a very, very bad review. It sounds silly, of course, but somehow it worked. The owner sighed, and then started to call around trying to arrange something.
One of his calls was successful and 15 minutes later we were at the gate of a very nice bamboo-hut motel.
Our hut turned to be quite OK, it had no hot water in the shower, but WiFi was excellent :-)
After picking up our thing from the hotel we stayed in and settling in our charming hut, we went to the beach. After the whole stress of searching for the place to stay that morning, we had no desire but to hung out at the beach all day and just relax.
Alona Beach is very very small compared to the long beaches of Boracay. It has a stretch of sand just 1 km long and on average about 10 meters wide. Just 10 years ago, there were no tourists here at all, and then the place started to get attention. Hotels and restaurants took up almost all of the available space, leaving practically nothing of the beach itself.
Despite the beach being very touristy, it's not at all busy. Most of the people come here to dive and the place is quite empty during the day.
The water here is much warmer than on Boracay and far more clear and blue.
So we stayed at the beach all day until we couldn't swim anymore, because of all the boats that came back at the end of the day and started to park along the shore.
The sunsets here are gorgeous!
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| Click on the pic to see large photos |
On the other side we had no problems finding a minivan to the airport and 2 hours later we could check in. Our flight was delayed for an hour, but there was an excellent WiFi in the terminal, so we were not complaining.
The flight to Cebu City is about an hour and offers great views all the way there.
The most visited islands in the area are Bohol and Panglao, and we decided to stay on Panglao, as it was suppose to have better beaches. To get there, we needed a ferry, so we got the taxi to the harbor.
There are several ferries that operate the Cebu City - Panglao route and each of them normally departs from a different terminal. Lucky for us, they were renovating two of those terminals and therefore, all the ferries where leaving from the same place. Glad we didn't have to run from one terminal to the other, looking for the cheaper one.
After asking around at the tickets office we even managed to find the promo tickets for 50% of the price. Later we learned why. All the other ferries were departing on time and ours announced that they have no idea when the boat will arrive, but it will, they will depart as soon as possible... Very reassuring :-)
At that point it was too late to change the tickets, so we had no other choice but to wait. I was killing time writing the blog and Dima, together with the other passengers, was watching Filipino cartoons. By the looks of it, they were very funny!
When looking for information on where to stay, everybody was saying that a place to be on Panglao - is Alona Beach and that taking a minivan will be the easiest option to get there from the ferry. We asked around about the price, but they were way too high. Another option was to take a much slower tricycle, but we didn't feel happy at the idea being stuck in it for more than an hour.
Not being able to decide, we then saw a couple of tourists loading their diving gear into the van. Out of curiosity, we asked where they were headed and whether they want to split the costs. It turned out that the van belonged to the hotel which was (according to Google) very near to the guest house that we booked a day before, and they agreed to drop us off free of charge.
The whole time we were looking for our place, but saw nothing. So they eventually dropped us off on the main road, a couple of hundred meters before the hotel gate.
It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere; it was pitch dark and no people around. We started walking back along the main road until we finally saw some people. A family was having a party and we asked them if they knew the guest house that we were suppose to stay in. After a 15 minute discussion they managed to figure out what we were looking for, it turned out that we were pronouncing the guest house name wrong, so they couldn't understand where we wanted to go. One of them agreed to take us to the place, which turned out to be very close by. However, because of a huge fence around and not even one sign, we simply passed it twice without seeing.
We were both happy to finally get there, but then we saw "the room". Huge space with no windows, it looked really creepy... We said that there is no way we will be staying here! And we were definitely not the first ones, as the owners didn't look surprised by our very loud "no, no, no", and even didn't try to charge us for the first night, although they had a right to do so.
Alona Beach was about 5 km further away, so we decided to take a chance of finding another place to stay there, at least for that night. The owner charged ridiculously much for dropping us of in Alona, but we were too tired to bargain and were not sure that we will find an alternative way of getting there at this hour.
Once at Alona Beach, we started to ask around for the room, but everything was full. At one point, some local guy heard us asking around and decided to join the search, probably hoping for the tip. Finally, after more than an hour of running from one place to another, we found a room in one of the hotels at the far end of the beach, but only for 1 night.
It was better than nothing, and we figured that we will have a better chance of finding the room the next morning.
What we found wasn't great or cheap, but at least it had a bed and a shower and even a working AC.
The next morning, I found a guest house nearby on booking.com, but after showing up there to check in, we were informed that there was a double booking and they can't accommodate us, despite the official confirmation of the reservation that we showed them.
Clearly, we were not happy with the whole thing and threatened the owner to complain to booking.com and write a very, very bad review. It sounds silly, of course, but somehow it worked. The owner sighed, and then started to call around trying to arrange something.
One of his calls was successful and 15 minutes later we were at the gate of a very nice bamboo-hut motel.
The next day we decided to rent a motorbike and to drive around the island. Our guest house had them for rent and we arranged one for the next 3 days. The plan was to see Panglao first, then explore the Bohol island near by.
There are only a couple of roads on Panglao, so you don't really need a map to get around. There is one road that is making a circle along the island's shore and we decided to start with this one.
Aside from funny little houses, a couple of larger resorts, one church and a huge quantity of palm trees in all shapes and sizes, there isn't much else to see here. This is how the "main square" of the "island's capital" looks like.
Just opposite to the church, they have a small bakery that bakes the most delicious buns and cookies. Somehow, from outside you can't see it, but the tasty smell if fresh bread is everywhere.
The only Panglao place of interest we could find in the guide was the Hinagdanan cave.
The legend goes that some guy accidentally stumbled on the hole in the ground and decided to check it out by throwing a rock into it. He was surprised to hear a splash. Eventually, he found a large cave with the lake inside, just bellow the ground.
He built a ladder to get in and started to charge the local fools money to see the miracle.
Nowadays there are still plenty offools tourists willing to see it. The cave is small but quite nice.
The locals are now exploring the cave's popularity. By the way, Filipinos have a different type of mango here - it's smaller, completely yellow and super tasty!
Dima found his new favorite beer size - 1 liter bottles :-) And it became a steady beverage choice for him at breakfasts, lunches and diners for the rest of our stay here.
There are only a couple of roads on Panglao, so you don't really need a map to get around. There is one road that is making a circle along the island's shore and we decided to start with this one.
Nowadays there are still plenty of
After the cave, we wanted to use the opportunity of having a motorbike to see if we can find a more interesting beach than Alona. It took us just an hour and a half to drive around the island and to conclude that Alona was our only option. We did find a couple of other places, but they weren't impressively looking .
After circling the island we decided to check out Tagbilaran, the town we arrived to on a ferry from Cebu City. It was dark when we were driving through it a couple of days earlier, so we didn't really see much.
Tagbilaran is situated on Bohol island, not on Panglao, but the two islands are connected by the bridge.
The area around reminded of Mekong river in Vietnam with all the houses built on stilts along the shore line.
The town itself is not interesting at all. It has a standard market place,
huge number of ugly shopping malls
and that's about it.
We had an idea of finding a place to eat here, rather than at Alona Beach, but we couldn't... Except for the fast food chains, there were absolutely no other places to eat.
The sun started to set, so we went back as we didn't really want to drive in the dark.
Alona Beach area has a large number of eating facilities.
They have almost identical food, with very little variation in menu choices and huge difference in prices. The ones directly on the beach being most expensive, of course, and the cheaper ones further away. Interestingly enough, the quality of the food also drops as the distance away from the water increases; usually it's the other way around. We found a restaurant that was run by a German lady and decided to stick with it. We did the same in Thailand on an earlier trip and weren't disappointed.
Most of restaurants offer a large choice of fresh fish and BBQ.
The next day we were planning to take the motorbike again to see Bohol, but it turned out that the weather had a different plan of its own.
Next: Bohol
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