The introduction...
We went with my girlfriend 1 week in Guam during July 2014. I was a bit afraid because the wet season started but at the end it only rained a few times and rest of time was blue sky and sun.
We used United airlines which proposed direct flight from Hong Kong (about 5 hours duration).
UNITED AIRLINES - UA 0180
FRI, 11 9:55PM - JUL HONG KONG, HONG KONG S A R
SAT, 12 4:55AM - JUL GUAM, US PACIFIC IS
UNITED AIRLINES - UA 0179
SAT, 19 6:55PM - GUAM, US PACIFIC IS
SAT, 19 9:55PM - HONG KONG, HONG KONG S A R
The itinerary...
There is no specific itinerary in this trip as we stayed the whole week in the same area (between Tumon and Agana Bay) and drove to different places every day. The island is very small and this was very convenient staying there.
Our first hotel was the "Santa Fe" and the location was great. We could take our breakfast on the beach with an amazing view. The room was just ok with a bad smell of bleach.
Our second hotel was the "Aqua Suite". The room was nice and clean but the location didn't offer anything that the first hotel did (It was 5min drive from Ypao beach).
The video of the trip...
The Story...
... July 11th
This is the day we took off, the flight schedule was convenient as we leave to the airport straight after work. We were suppose to leave at 9h55 but there was 30min delay.
... July 12th
We landed at 5:15am local time. The immigration was really fast. For HK passport holders they just need a VISA that is valid for 10 years. For my French passport I applied for ESTA online (cost 14$) few days before departure.
At the airport, we could only withdraw money from coast 360 ATM (2$ charge per transaction), for some reason our master / visa cards didn't work with others.
With the package we bought, we had a 2 hours tour to start the day to baby sit us until the city wakes up. It started at 6:00am from the airport and a guy called Billy (a Chinese guy living there) picked us up with another HK couple.
The weather was terrible the whole morning as a typhoon recently passed by so we didn't enjoy that much the tour as we couldn't go out of the car.
The first stop was K-mart for 30min as everything is closed before 7:00am. We bought some snacks for our breakfast. Then we went to two lover's point, statue of Liberty, Espana de Plaza and Aguena Fort where we couldn't see much because of the rain.
Then Billy dropped us at 8:00am in our hotel where we could do an early check-in. He told us he could help for many things (book car, portable wifi, water game activities, buffet etc.). I was a bit skeptical that this cost us more money, but after using few of his services I think this was about same price, or a bit cheaper.
The first thing we did once on our own is to have a nap until 12. After waking up, we contacted again Billy to help get portable wifi (50$ for the week) and a car. This would have been cheaper to buy a SIM Card with unlimited internet (about 30-35$ if I recall) but with the portable wifi we were able to connect our 3 devices at same time (2 phones + tablet). The battery life was only 4 hours but fortunately my girlfriend took an external battery loader for her phone which we could use with the portable wifi (otherwise we should have a buy a USB cable for the car to reload when we drive).
For the car a guy picked us up at the hotel to bring us in his shop (Andy car). Guess what ? The owners are a Chinese couple originally from Shanghai :) We had in mind to book the cheapest car (Toyota Yaris) but when I saw we could rent a Mustang (my dream car) I changed my mind. I bargain a little and get a price of 600$ for the week (saturday to saturday) including insurance (1000$ excess). I thought that's about the same price as big rental company as I actually checked online before asking Billy for the car.
We had a very detailed car checking, they were noting on the report every tiny spot that the car had (funny thing is that at the end they spent like 5 sec to check the car when we returned it).
At this time the weather was awesome, it changes so fast. So we decided to go back to most places of the tour and actually enjoy them.
The introduction...
This trip was during eastern holidays and this was not easy to find a direct flight from Hong Kong to Cebu city at a reasonable price. Cathay Pacific was too expensive and we couldn't find anything with Philippines Airlines. Eventually a Filipinos friend advised me to go for Cebu Pacific which we did!
Departure: April 17th at 9:40am
Return: April 22nd at 6:20am
The itinerary was as below (Cebu city -> Oslob -> Badian -> Moalboal -> Cebu City):
The video of the trip...
The Story...
...April 17th
We woke up at 5:00am in order to take the bus going to the airport at 6:10am (A22 from Kowloon Bay). We arrived at the airport around 7:00am. We got quickly our boarding passes so we had plenty of time to take a breakfast since we didn't pay an extra with Cebu pacific.
Nothing special in the airport, we took off on time.
2h30 later we landed in Cebu city. We had to wait about 45 min for immigration for just our plane.There were only 4 counters for foreigner passport holders.
First thing we did is to buy a SIM card with data plan. The SIM card cost 150PHP (from SMART) and we took a recharge of 300PHP since we want to get the 5 days unlimited internet pass for 200PHP (internet was so slow, I seldom used it during the trip).
Then we tried to find the Hertz counter where I book a car online. Fortunately I didn't have to pay anything in advance because that was impossible to find. Locals didn't know about it and they would always redirect us to the airport transport counter to get taxi / private car.
After wasting almost 2 hours looking for the Hertz counter and passing useless phone calls talking to local operators saying non-sense (phone numbers we found on Hertz website), we decided to give up the idea of having our own rental car for the trip duration (which was by the way the best thing to do). My plan was to use the GPS thru the phone, but as stated above, the internet was so slow that it would have been a nightmare. And eventually, paying a driver whenever we needed one is cheaper that renting a car and much less troublesome as the traffic was quite intense.
It's about 2:00pm when we quickly grabbed some lunch and paid 3100PHP to the transport counter for a driver to bring us to Oslob where our first night is. The driver was very nice and we asked if it's possible to stop on the way for sightseeing since we originally had in mind to stop in Argao and Dulaguete for the Churches. At the end we had enough time only to see the one in Argao. It was night time when we arrived at Dulaguette. On our own I don't think we could have find this Church in Argao.
Church in Argao
In total it took us more than 5 hours from Cebu city to Oslob (including around 45min to see the Argao church). Night was starting at around 6:00pm and at 6:30 it was pitch black.
It was 7:30pm when we arrived in our hotel (MB's Sunrise View Resort) and we were very hungry. Unfortunately the hotel didn't serve food (except breakfast between 8:00 to 10:00am).
We found a small restaurant few steps away from the hotel but most food was sold out (seems to be late for locals to have dinner). We ordered what's left, meaning fried chicken / egg with rice (for 200PHP each).
Then we went back to the hotel and we found there was no pressured water in our room so we had to use the public showers which is normally for tourists coming to see the whale shark. The water was a bit cold !
The bad news of the day was we only found out that since the day after is a public holiday in Philippines (Good Friday) the whale shark and Tumalog falls are closed attractions. The main reason for coming in Oslob was the whale shark but fortunately we planned 2 nights here in case we couldn't do this attraction on Friday (good call :).
A German couple we met had the same issue and they had to extend their stay for one more night.
Also we met Kent, a young man working in the hotel. He will become our guide/driver/organizer for the next 2 days (he basically helped us for everything, that was awesome).
April 18th...
We woke up at 7:30am in order to take our breakfast at 8:00. The sea view was really nice from the hotel.
While waiting for the food I took out my drone (DJI phantom 2) in order to capture some aerial videos with my Gopro (see my youtube link for the footage on top of the page).
We left at 9:15am with Kent on his motorcycle to go visit the Spanish cartel (Church, old prison, cemetery). It was only about a 10min ride.
I used my drone again to take aerial footage, the view is amazing with the sea side.
We left the place to go to the town center at around 11:00am. We bought some fruit in the market (30PHP for 500g of pineapple chopped and 50PHP for 4 oranges).
Then we return to the hotel and tried some snorkeling but there wasn't much to see there without the whale shark. And it's forbidden to go in the area where whale sharks are supposed to be.
We had lunch next door in the Aaron beach resort (285PHP for a cheeseburger with fries and a club sandwich).
Thanks to Kent the day before, we book a boat at 2:30pm to go similan island. It's a private island but the shore around is famous for swimming and snorkeling.
We paid 1500PHP and we were the only one in the boat. We realized we didn't even ask if we could join a tour which would have been much cheaper but I guess that's possible because we saw others boats with many people on it.
We were back at 5:00pm in the hotel and had dinner later in Brumini beds beach resort which is at walking distance from our hotel. We were sold by the smell of the grilled fish and chicken !
April 19th...
We woke up at 6:00am to sign up for the whale shark (1000PHP for foreigner including life vest and snorkeling gear. It's 500PHP for locals). There were already a lot of people in the water since the first round starts at 6:00am.
Also there were a lot of people waiting. We boarded in a small boat around 7:15am in order to go to next door first and listen to the rules. Most people were arriving directly at that place.
Then at 7:45am we finally went to see the whale shark !
From the moment we jumped in the water, we had 30 min to enjoy. There was a fisherman feeding the whale shark so it was swimming around and all people could see it in turns.
Since it's a Saturday, 95% of the people are locals and it was really crowded. Plus this day, it seems only 1 whale shark was there so in total we saw it maybe 3 or 4 times in the given 30 min.
I strongly recommend to go during week day and I regret I didn't know about the public holiday on Friday or I would have done the whole trip in a difference sequence.
Then we went back to the hotel and ordered our breakfast. But we didn't wait for it and went immediately to the Tumalog falls so we could eat it when we return to save time.
It's about 8:20am when Kent drove us to the falls. Again it's very close and only 10 min ride.
Entrance fee is 20PHP. And we paid an extra 50PHP for another driver to bring us from the entrance to the falls. We didn't even try to bargain or go on our own as we wanted to save time but you can just walk there, it would take 10 min and it's straight (you can't make any mistake).
The place was very crowded already by locals since it's the week end. It's still very enjoyable and a there is a good atmosphere. The water was very fresh and not clear because of the mud (it's hard to walk in the pool also because it's sticky, I fell a few times!).
We left around around 9:30am but I used my drone once more close to the entrance as the surrounding was cleared of tree. The falls was 500m away from my position! The max range is 1km but I can't see the drone already after 200m. Fortunately with the FPV system I can guide the drone safely.
We were finally back at the hotel around 10:00 am and ate the breakfast we ordered. After chilling for a while and packing, we were ready to leave at 11:45am with our new driver that Kent helped us to book. I'm pretty sure it was one of his neighbor trying to make some extra cash.
Our next destination was Terra Manna resort in Badian. We were sitting at the back of a truck, it was not too comfortable and hot but the view was awesome (but 2000PHP was too much for the trip, I should have ask first for an air conditioned car or bargain the price).
The place was not so easy to find and I couldn't stop thinking how troublesome it would have been for me driving there! Our driver had to ask to about 10 people to make sure we were on the right direction. Finally we arrived, the place was great.
Our bamboo house was not ready yet as the occupants didn't leave so we had to wait outside, it's 1:30pm. Since things were going slow I decided to take out my drone in order to take some footage of the great scenery. This would finish very badly... long story short, the drone ended up in the water due to an error of piloting. This took me 2 hours with the help of the resort owner's nephew (who by chance was watching me). Actually that's the young boy that found it. Of course everything was out of order except the memory card! This is why I was able to make the movie which is linked on the top of this page.
I was pretty sad at this point but we finally ate the food we ordered before I start using the drone. We ordered extra food for the young boy that helped us but he was not hungry. The food was much better than previously but more expensive(~300PHP for a main dish)
The plan of the day was kinda screwed now as we wanted to go to the Kawasan falls. So we just walked in the resort until sunset which was a very enjoyable place.
We planned to go to the falls the next morning and we asked the office to help us arrange transportation.
April 20th...
We woke up at 7:00am and just took a coffee outside on a bamboo table facing the sea. The hotel uses their mini van to brought us to the falls (we left around 8:15am and they charged 200PHP round trip). The driver dropped us at 8:30am on a small road leading to the falls (1km walk).
Some locals tried to convince us to take a guide but we politely refused as we didn't need it. The 10PHP entrance fee had to be paid around 200m after we started walking.We took our time and we arrived to the falls 25 min later.
The place was quite crowded already and there was not much space if you don't wanna pay for a table (300PHP for the day) which we didn't take because we wouldn't stay long.
We continued walking up thru the stairs and saw more of the upstream part.
We didn't go all the way up and returned to the main falls in order to swim a bit and takes pictures.
We left at around 9:35am as we told our driver to pick us up at 9:45am. We walked faster this time and arrived at 9:55am at the meeting point.
Once back at the hotel, we went to the restaurant for breakfast, the buffet was still open and it was very good.
We were ready to leave at 11:30am for our next destination. Office helped again to arrange the transportation with their same mini van (book the day before too). They charged 300PHP to drive us to Moalboal. The time to check-out and load luggage we were on the road at 12:00am.
We arrived in our Moalboal resort at 1:15pm (Quo vadis dive resort). It took longer than expected because the driver made a mistake.
Since the room was not ready yet, we walked around in order to find where to book a boat for Pescador island (Our hotel didn't propose it) ! I read it's famous for the sardines being in impressive group, all very synchronized while swimming.
We found one diving center helping us to arrange the ride thru a local captain I guess. They charged 1500PHP including thins, mask/tuba and 1 wet suit for my girl friend + life jacket (better deal than sumiland island in Oslob). We book for 3pm so we had time to have a drink next door and check-in our room.
We learnt that the sardines actually moved from the Pescador island to the near shore, but we still wanted to go there to enjoy the corals. We would be able to see the sardines anyway when we return.
The hotel room is nice and had sea view.
The place was quite convenient as we just needed to walk along the sea side to find restaurants, bar or shops. We never had to take transportation, everything was at walking distance.
We started our boat trip at 3:15am and the ride took 15min. We stayed on the south side of the island because the corals on other side have been destroyed by recent typhoon. The corals were great and there were many fishes. We saw as well one sea turtle. There were also Jelly fishes so it's better to have something to protect your skin. I was really regretting my gopro was dead because I couldn't take picture nor video underwater anymore.
Then after a while we went back to the shore to see the sardines. There were a lot of them and the corals were also very nice.
At 5:45pm back at the hotel, we decided to book a discovery diving for the next morning (3500PHP each if I remember correctly) before we go back to Cebu City. We book also a car to drive us there (2800PHP).
We had dinner nearby and ordered fresh seafood which was really good (grouper, shrimps and grilled chicken for around 1000PHP).
April 21st...
We woke up at 7:00am and met our instructor at 8:30am. He started with some explanation and then we wear the gears and did exercises in the swimming pool. Finally we went in the sea to enjoy the corals!
We finished at 11:00am and then went for a brunch in a nearby restaurant. We took as well the opportunity to take some last pictures.
We left Moalboal at 1:45pm with the car we book, and we arrived in our hotel located next to the Cebu City airport at 4:30pm (Waterfront hotel). After checking-in, we took a cab to went to the SM mall for shopping time. We spent few hours there and had dinner as well then went back to hotel.Taxi cost around 180PHP one way (avoid yellow taxi to return to airport as they are more expensive)
April 22nd...
We woke up at 4:30am to catch up our flight which was taking off at 6:20am. That was really funny to go to airport walking, that's probably the one time in our life we would do that!
When we left Philippines, we had to pay the departure tax which is 500PHP per person.
