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Philippines Page 2: Cebu
These notes are from our long weekend at a resort on Mactan Island (Cebu) - our first visit to the Philippines, and obviously only the smallest glimpse of the place.
A weekend at the Shangri-La:
For our 1999 anniversary, we took a few days off, tossed our swimsuits in a bag and headed to the Philippines. We are generally not what you'd call resort people, but we chose to stay at the Shangri-La hotel on Mactan Island (Mactan is a small, low island connected by bridge to the large, mountainous island of Cebu). We were looking for an easy, relaxing weekend and had heard good things about the Shangri-La, but we confess it was really their slick commercials (and the package deal on Cathay Pacific) that finally reeled us in.
Getting to Mactan Island was easy enough. Cebu is only a couple of hours from Hong Kong by air, with a great view of the Chocolate Hills (they look like moguls) just before the landing. The bus ride from the airport to the resort is brief (about fifteen to twenty minutes) and gives an interesting glimpse of the colorful local shops and jeepneys. The weather during our stay - at the end of May - was generally sunny with thunderstorms developing reliably every afternoon and often continuing into the evening.
Despite a small six-legged critter or two in the bathroom just to remind us we were still in Southeast Asia, the resort was very good. Staff were friendly and helpful. The five or so restaurants had a variety of cuisines and ambiances, and the food was tasty. We ate mostly at the poolside cafe, which makes a good nasi goreng, and at the waterfront seafood restaurant, which serves (only) a good dinner buffet (pompano, chili crabs, slipper lobster, etc.). The champagne breakfast consists of enough food to feed the entire population of the Philippines for a year.
Anyone who has traveled in Southeast Asia knows that the Philippines keeps the region liberally supplied with lounge bands, but the best of them stay at home. In addition to great seafood, the Shangri-La provided all the Abba one could want with a few traditional Filipino favorites to boot.
The Shangri-La has a huge multi-level pool, but we didn't fly two and one-half hours to frolic in chlorinated water. We opted for sand and salt and spent our water time at the beach. The local coastline is rocky, so sandy beaches like this one have to be man-made, but it looks quite natural. The hotel has also cultivated a "coral garden" just off the beach, for snorkeling and fish feeding. We're not usually fans of training wild animals to beg food from people, not least because of their inability to grasp the crucial difference between food and fingers, but it is an interesting experience to have a bunch of reef fish feeding from your hand just a few inches from your mask. And at least those fish are protected from the dynamite, cyanide, and other damaging fishing methods that plague the Philippines. We were told that it takes about a year to get all the fish to hand-feed; it starts with a few and then spreads by word-of-fish, apparently. But, as a dive instructor pointed out, it makes things a little easier when you feed them scraps from a five-star restaurant. The coral garden itself is actually posted with little floating underwater signs giving the names of various corals. It has a pretty good assortment of both fish and corals. The only drawback is the low visibility that we encountered (we're not sure if that's normal or not).
The Shangri-La has a variety of watersports to try, from snorkeling to kayaks to jet-skis. They even have something called "snuba," which is like shallow scuba diving crossed with snorkeling - everyone is tethered to an air supply floating at the top. They also have a dive shop on the premises, which seemed to have competent staff and good equipment. George, having just been certified, did 5 dives while we were there: a couple of 24-26 meter wall dives, a night dive, and a couple of dives on an all-day trip out to Cebilao Island. Deb was more than happy to relax on the beach while this was going on.
George on the diving:
As mentioned above, I was pleased with the staff and equipment from Scotty's (the dive shop). Both of my divemasters were friendly, seemed to know what they were doing, and most importantly managed to find gear to fit me - no mean feat in Asia. The diving was good at all the dive sites: decent visibility, a good variety of fish and corals, and a few uncommon creatures. I saw batfish, moray eels, lionfish, scorpionfish, pipefish, a school of big chevron barracuda, a frogfish, a cuttlefish, a large and very inquisitive snapper, and plenty of reef fish, shellfish, urchins, anenomes, corals, etc. Unfortunately, we heard some distant dynamite fishing once or twice, too. The night dive was interesting, and there were definitely some different critters out. Perhaps the strangest diving experience of the weekend was coming up from the night dive during a thunderstorm. The people eating dinner at the waterside restaurant looked a little concerned when, in the midst of all the thunder and lightning, the two of us emerged from the waves and clawed our way back onto the pier.
The boat ride to Cebilao Island took about two hours each way on one of the two-outrigger boats that are the standard boats in the area, and was miserably wet and cold (nothing starts your day off like two hours of miserable wet and cold), but did at least provide a glimpse of the Philippines. Not to mention a few schools of amazing flying fish. Mactan Island sits connected to Cebu, facing the large island of Bohol across a wide channel (the high-speed ferry that runs diagonally between the two takes about an hour). The boat ride took us along that channel, providing views of Cebu and Bohol the whole way, as well as the many tiny islands that dot the channel.
Cebilao isn't exactly huge either, and like the inhabitants of the other small islands, the people who live there seem to rely primarily on fishing for their livelihood - that and charging tourists like me for use of their picnic tables. Some kids were fishing a reef while we were diving, using the popular "cover the whole outcropping with a net and beat the coral with sticks to drive the fish out" method. Hopefully, that kind of thing won't cause too much damage to the dive site, which is one of the better-known in the Cebu area.
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