Cebu

Planning our trip to the Philippines has been some of the most challenging trip planning yet. When you say you’re going to the Philippines anyone that has also been should then ask you, “where?”. Because, unlike Cambodia that has its two main tourist pulls, the Philippines is made up of over 7,000 islands that each have something cool to do or see.

We read several blogs and tried to hit the absolute must sees. Still, on our first dive in Malapascua someone said “you’re not going to Bohol??!” To which I had to reply “we are doing our best!” So when we booked our flight to Cebu we knew we wanted to dive in Malapascua (check) and see whale sharks in Oslob, the sardines in Moalboal, and Kawasan falls somewhere in the middle of the island.

We decided to stay in Cebu City and make day trips from here rather than have to change hotels every night and worry about reaching new places. Cebu city itself did not seem like a nice place but we didn’t explore it at all so we can’t say for sure. Our time on Cebu island was spent on day trips toward the south.

Wednesday, May 4

We were kept awake most of the night from stomach cramps and super loud music playing until way late. Despite barely sleeping, we followed through on plans for a day trip to Oslob with an early start because we are masochists.

We got ready and were in the car by 5am. We hadn’t intended to book a private tour, but that’s the way it worked out and ended up being a nice treat. Carl and I sat in the backseat of a small sized car and slept for the 3 hours until breakfast. We made one stop for coffee and bathroom and our driver told us he is very conscious about stopping when he is tired in order to be a safe driver. We agreed. Then he told us he had been in an accident with a motorcyclist who had been drunk and hadn’t been wearing a helmet and the guy had died. Our driver had spent three nights in jail because of it, and it obviously still wore on his conscious and focused his attention to safety while driving.

We got to the breakfast spot and they served us coffee and sweet sticky rice with banana. I asked if they had any other fruit because Carl is allergic to banana (and our stomachs were bad enough still!) but they said no. So Carl ate just sticky rice for breakfast and I had two bananas. This was just as well because it was about all we could eat. Then they took us just down the road to a dive shop.

In a coastal town called Oslob, about 3 hours south of Cebu City, a group of fisherman discovered that if they fed the whale sharks that pass by, the whale sharks would return again and again in search of this free meal. So, instead of killing the whale sharks, they fed them, and started charging tourists to go out snorkeling and take photos with them.

We had mixed feelings about the morality of this scheme. On the one hand, the fisherman weren’t killing the sharks and were promoting conservation of them through tourism while boosting the local economy. On the other hand, feeding them could be disrupting their natural behavior in ways we don’t fully understand yet.

We debated whether to go to Oslob to see the whale sharks but many people told us it was worth it and we read that they haven’t found (in studies conducted so far) that feeding them has disrupted their migratory behavior. So we decided to scuba dive with the sharks as a way of seeing them but not being with the hoards of tourists that snorkel. We were very happy we decided to scuba dive rather than snorkel because we were the only ones swimming under 5ft of depth.

At the dive shop they quickly outfitted us with some cheap gear (the guide was wearing two different fins) and gave us a super quick briefing before we just walked into the ocean and went underwater. The scuba guide took tons of photos and videos on a go pro and asked for $10 to transfer them to our phone, which seemed like a good deal.

It was really cool to be so close to such big, beautiful creatures. And there were so many! We swam around and our guide was hyper focused on taking photos of us (more focused on photos than dive safety, but it was ok). While the sharks were eating they were right next to the boat and there were tons of people swimming around them.

Occasionally a shark would drop down and swim a lap and that’s when they’d swim RIGHT by us. They couldn’t care less that we were there, holding our breath and using our bodies beside them to try and measure how big they were. There were a couple HUGE ones that I didn’t want to get too near in case it crushed me, but most were about 12 feet long. Their white spots seemed to sparkle under the light of the water.

I still have mixed feelings about the whole operation but I’m selfishly happy that we got to do it and see so many so close to us.

Afterwards we were able to rinse off and change. The tour was supposed to include a trip to some nearby waterfalls. Carl asked if we were going to the falls next and they replied ‘no, sorry, the falls are closed on Wednesday for cleaning’…ok…what? We were annoyed they hadn’t told us this before (and also, how do you clean a waterfall?). But later we emailed the company and got a small refund.

We got back in the car and drove the three hours back to Cebu City. Back at Mad Monkey hostel we asked about day trips for the next day. One staff person, named Rad, signed us up but said we needed to get at least one other person to join to make the cost worth it. He invited us to welcome drinks hour that night (and open bar) to meet people and get someone to sign up. We agreed and went to take our daily nap.

At 7 we went to the welcome hour. We met 3 Dutch girls, 3 French coworkers, and three other Europeans joined later. Rad said someone else had signed up for the tour tomorrow so we weren’t worried about it. We had our free welcome drink, talked to people a bit, then headed out to find some authentic dinner.

We walked to a nearby place called Lighthouse. We ordered pork lechon (slow roasted pork belly) and something from the vegetable menu. We also got two sprites because our bellies weren’t fully recovered. The pork lechon was SO good that I cried a little after my first bite.

The vegetable ended up being deep fried pumpkin chips with a thick cheesy sauce that tasted like someone had taken that cheesy popcorn that comes in a metal holiday tub and put it through a food processor to make it liquid. In other words, it was weird, but still good in a fatty, cheesy way. It was nice to eat almost a full meal again and we felt like we were on the road to recovery.

We went back to the hostel and went to sleep very early again.

Thursday, May 5

We met in the hostel lobby at 6am. We thought one of the mad monkey staff would be joining us, but Kyle, the other participant, said he knew it would just be us three. So we piled into a car and got started on another long drive, this time to Moalboal. Kyle is from Canada and makes a living creating seals around oil pipelines. He worked on the keystone pipeline. He talked about his taste for buying knock off brand name clothes, like his Crocs tank and matching shorts he was wearing. Needless to say, we had little in common, but he was nice, and ready for adventure, so we were happy to have him on board.

When we got to Moalboal we were directed to leave our stuff in the car and put our clothes on a random rock while a guide went and got us snorkels. He came back, we put the snorkels on, and followed him into the ocean. As soon as we got out to the spot we saw it – the giant swarm of sardines. It was like a moving mountain underwater.

Carls first instinct was to dive right into the middle of them. As I stayed above and watched I saw all the sardines swim away and form a perfect cleft for Carl, as if he had dove into a bowl of rice.

We played around in the sardine stream for a while. We tried to go through them and then under in order to look up and see them in a perfect circle above. Unfortunately, we again had no camera with us but later Rad shared some of his photos, which I’ve stolen for blog readers here to get a sense of how epic this sardine run was.

After a bit the guide directed us over to where a turtle had been spotted. I was worried that so many snorkelers in the water would harm the turtle but this guy couldn’t have cared less. This was an average day of it’s life. We watched it swim slowly around, munching on algae, and occasionally come up to the surface for air. It was so cute!

After this we swam back, got out, and rinsed off using a bucket of water in a random bathroom that seemed to be in someone’s house. Then back in the car.

We next went to an area called Alegria. There used to be a canyoneering tour in a canyon called Kawasan Falls. The typhoon in December 2021 had wrecked havoc on Cebu island and had severely changed Kawasan canyon for the worse. So instead we went to Alegria which was along the same river line. First they outfitted us with life jackets and helmets. We went to an office to pay the environmental fee and then we got on the back of motorbikes to go up the hill. Kyle got on one and Carl and I both got on the back of another.

The hill was steep and at some spots rocky and narrow. The motorbike ride itself was an adventure!! We rode all the way to the top of a steep hill. At the top of the hill we got off and at the same time a guide on the back of another bike pulled up too. He got out and introduced himself as -G something?- and said let’s go! And we followed him down a walking path.

Finally we reached the river and the first jump in spot. The canyon had obviously been damaged by the typhoon with cliffs still eroding, trees and vines hanging over the edge, and large boulders haphazardly placed. The water was a light, bright blue. It looked like glacial melt water and we couldn’t get over how pretty it was! It was like being in a perfect tropical jungle.

The guide jumped in first, showing us where to jump and how to jump in case it was shallow. Then we floated down the water for a bit until the next spot where we had to get out and climb a bit before jumping in again. We repeated this down the canyon. We were the only ones there and it felt like our own jungly paradise playground. We saw hot pink colored dragon flies, green iridescent beetles, blue and green iridescent butterflies, and tons of other weird bugs and spiders.

After an especially tall jump (about 40 feet) we found a little overhang cave area where there were stalactites and stalagmites actively forming. The water came over this overhang from two sides forming a powerful waterfall. We sat under this for a bit and it was the best shoulder massage ever.

At one point we came to a clustering of tables and chairs that had been set up under an easy-up type tarp. For a second I thought they were going to feed us lunch there but then we realized that people were living along the river and this was their dining room. Earlier we had asked the guide where he was from and he said ‘here’ and we said ‘oh, Cebu?’ and he said ‘no, HERE’ and pointed to the river. This interaction plus seeing furniture on bluffs and people washing their clothes and selves in the water made us realize how many people were living in the river and using it for all their daily needs. Seemed pretty cool! But I’d still rather have my bug-less, air conditioned room with WiFi.

Toward the end as we were about to get out of one of the last pools the guide pointed out a string of beads in the water. They were frog eggs! Then we saw lots of tadpoles and a big (dead) frog.

At the end we climbed back up a slope to a road where the motorbikes were waiting to take us back. We were sad to leave as it felt like we’d had a little piece of tropical jungle all to ourselves to explore and play in.

For lunch they took us to a restaurant for a portion of white rice and nicely barbecued chicken. Then it was back in the car for another long drive back to the city.

Back at Mad Monkey we decided to get dinner there to take advantage of their Cinco de Mayo deals. We got nachos that came with a free margarita and both were (obviously) disappointing. We finally had hunger back so we ordered another pork dish that was ok. The mad monkey staff came by and asked us how our trip was and tried to get us to join drinking games. This time we didn’t have the excuse of needing to wake up early. But, we had been out all day and we’re still recovering from being sick so we politely said no and snuck off for another early bedtime.

We were proud of ourselves for still going hard through a demanding itinerary of adventure activities and lots of transit despite being really sick and having very little sleep. We were really looking forward to doing nothing but sit on a beach in Boracay…

Friday, May 6

We finally got to sleep in and it was glorious. We wandered over to a posh area looking for a cafe that served breakfast. We ended up at Bo’s Coffee which seems to be a Filipino chain. The coffee was ok but the winner was the spam and egg sandwich. It was on an English muffin with egg, melty American cheese, and salty spam. It tasted like it would clog an artery and it was so good. Imagine feeling like you’re hungover for 4 days and then waking up one morning, feeling better, and eating the best hangover food. It healed.

As we walked back to the hostel some kids we passed on the street yelled, ‘hello! Where are you from??’ in perfect English. We said ‘US’ and their eyes lit up as they said “we want to go there someday!” It was very cute and genuine. We walked back to the hostel and packed, getting ready to go to the airport.