Santa-Fe - Bantayan Island - The Philippines

May 12th - 14th, 2016

After much deliberating and indecisiveness caused by lack of access to current information ie. No websites and unhelpful tourist desks, we eventually decided to go to the island of Bantayan for a couple of nights to relax and regroup before the next part of our adventure. Once our minds were made up it was a simple process to get to the Northern Bus Terminal and buy tickets to Hagnaya, the little town where you catch the onwards ferry. We wanted to buy our return also, but this isn't possible, everything is done on the day on a first come first served basis meaning we would have a 4am start on our trip back to Cebu for our flight to Kuala Lumpar.

The bus journey was tedious, as all other transport over here; it left late, then went to the compound to refuel and check the wheels...clearly they couldn't do this before we set off, meaning it was nearly 45 minutes before we got underway and a further hour before we got out of Cebu due to the terrible traffic congestion! When we finally arrived at Hagnaya 4 hours later we fought our way off the bus through the throngs of people trying to get on for the return journey, collected our bags and made our way to the ferry terminal to get our tickets. We paid the obligatory Terminal fee (still no idea what these are for or why each terminal has a different price) and got on board for the hour long crossing, which, yes you guessed it, left late! A pretty journey from one island to another with salty breezes and colourful locals to entertain along with the views, I particularly liked the little boats they use here, many different shapes, sizes and colours all sporting outriggers, a bit like the stabilisers you used to use on your bike when you were a kid.

When we arrived at the port in Santa-Fe, instead of fighting it, we accepted a ride on a bici taxi and really got our money's worth, sending him up and down the town looking for affordable accommodation until we settled on somewhere right by the beach with aircon. As we've found before, when handing over the money to pay for these rides, if you dont have the exact amount you have to fight for your change which really pisses me off, the one in Bohol I actually took his mobile phone from him until he gave us our money, no wonder we dont like using them!

After settling in to our tiny room inside the main house, as opposed to most rooms which were in kind of chalets, we donned our swimming stuff and found ourselves a nice bit of beach a short walk away and slipped into the clear, luke warm waters with a sigh of relief...finally we could relax for a while. When the sun started to sink we reluctantly got out and went back for a shower before making use of the kitchen facilities and cooking up some noodles for dinner, we didn't have the energy to go out looking for somewhere to eat and instead got an early night. What we'd hoped to be a good night's sleep was rudely interrupted by a stream of ants swarming all over the bed and attacking us at around 2 in the morning! We spent the next hour or so dousing them with washing up liquid and squishing them with a sponge, these being the only weapons we could find, before tentatively going back to sleep.

Due to the previous night's exertions we got up rather later than planned and instead of taking a boat to Virgin Island for some snorkelling, went in search instead of Sugar Beach, a 15-20 minute walk away, at the recommendation of the owner of our accommodation. It is so called because, unlike the beach we went to previously where the sand was quite course, the beautiful white sand here was as soft and fine as icing sugar and stretched a long way before disappearing into the depths. Although we were clearly on a beach outside a resort, think bamboo bar and cabanas dotted around, we were the only tourists there, the other inhabitants being a group of local children having a fantastic time jumping into the water off of a floating platform and a group of men playing some kind of volleyball in waist deep water. Neither group took any notice of us and we spent the rest of the morning swimming, floating and generally being lazy before putting our towels in the shade of some palm trees to lie on whilst we dried off.

We went back to our room for a siesta, more to escape the hottest part of the day than because we were tired and only ventured out again at about 4.30 for a final dip in the sea at the first beach we went to before returning once more for a shower and to start packing. That done, we went out to find dinner and ended up on a cool little street with loads of restaurants to choose from, full of locals and tourists alike, all enjoying the balmy evening. We chose a place that had a good selection of value meals, basically set meals that come with a drink and rice, then sat back and enjoyed the vibrant atmosphere until our food arrived. Feeling satisfied and content we strolled back to our room, via a quick side trip to the beach once more to look at the stars and the many boats bobbing serenely on the water, before going to bed, praying for no more ant attacks!