CEBU (again)

We left Marielle to fly to Manila from Bohol , and Donna and me took the ferry to Cebu . It was delayed by 2 hours. When we arrived we got a taxi to a place called Moalboal that is good for diving. Unfortunately at first glance it seemed only good for diving but soon we found a nearby white beach that was pleasant about 5km away. We got a room there for 1000 Pesos per night (about 10 pounds). We ate at the one restaurant on the beach. It had rather restrictive opening hours and a limited menu but it was nice enough and cheap. Communication was a little difficult at times because many people here didn’t even speak the Philippine national language and their English was rusty. We sat by the sea for a while in the dark but went to bed early.

Next morning we went for a walk along the beach. I considered swimming but waded a long way out on a rocky bottom that started after the beach finished and it stayed shallow. We then walked in the other direction towards the main town and we had a long stretch of narrow beach to ourselves bounded by rocks made from ancient coral. We walked and walked and eventually decided to go inland and get some sort of transport.

We passed a man with dogs that barked fiercely until he spoke to us. He led us to the road and told us that tricycles would pass. Soon a Jeepney passed and we flagged it down said where we were going and got on. We thought that it was a public bus but it turned out to be a private family vehicle. They didn’t tell us this until we tried to pay our fare. They were friendly and took us to a junction in the right direction. We then got a bicycle taxi (like rickshaw but we sit in a sidecar) that they call a pedicab. He took us about 300m to a place where we could get a tricycle and charged 6 pesos. We could have walked it in the time it took us to pay. We then got a tricycle to the town. Here we had a couple of drinks and a meal right by the sea. While the food was cooking I took the goggles and snorkel and tried snorkelling. It was unbelievable. Coral started almost right by the shore and about 30 or 40m out it went down like a cliff to so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. I swam around looking at the coral and the colourful and patterned fish and down into the deep dark blue sea. It was amazing when I looked up and found that I was in a different world right by the shore. We ate and I had another stint of snorkelling before we walked back to our beach. First we organised a taxi to pick us up very early at 5am the next morning.

We could see our beach from where we sat and so thought that we were not far past where we had given up walking and got transport. We must have gone a long way inland and back again. So we decided to walk all the way back. We found that distances can be deceptive and it took a long time although it was a nice place to walk. We saw only 2 or 3 people in the next 1.5 hours. Lots of weird bendy starfish lived on the rocks and often crabs would sprint into the sea when they saw us coming.

We ate at the same one and only restaurant again and listened again to someone singing karaoke very badly not far away.

Next morning we got up before dawn and the taxi took us to Cebu (the city – the island is also called Cebu ). One of my sandals that was drying outside was missing.

When we reached the city we went a little further to a posh beach resort called Bluewater. We had to pay an entry fee and then went to have breakfast. It was expensive (500peso) but good. Then we went to the beach and sat there for some time before going to the pool for a bit too, where I swam. Early afternoon we left after looking at the sharks swimming around a different pool.

We had time before the flight to finish our Christmas shopping so we got a jeepney most of the way and the asked a taxi to take us to SM (Shoe Mart – a chain of big malls). On the way we saw that traffic was heavy and the taxi driver said there was another smaller SM near to the airport. We decided that it would be OK and so went there. After being dropped off we discovered that this SM was a supermarket called Save More. What was he thinking? That as long as the letters were right it was OK? We wanted a mall not a damn supermarket. Still, we got a few things and ate some food. Then we got a taxi to the airport.