After a week in Boracay we spent a night in Iloilo and then took an overnight boat sharing a room with 240 people and a couple of roosters to Cebu.
Cebu
Our time in Cebu was spent in the city where we visited the Spanish fort, Carbon market, some really good malls and took jeepneys around the city (each ride is only around 9 pence).
Unfortunately we didn't spend any time on the beaches which we later found out are really nice so if visiting Cebu it's probably best to spend your time there. The nightlife in the city isn't amazing but we went to an Irish pub one night where Jen kicked the singers off the stage to perform her own solo and then onto a club, it was massively empty but we met a bunch of really lovely locals so had fun dancing with them.
Dumaguete
If visiting Dumaguete you definately have to stay at Harold's mansion. It has a rooftop area with live singers, the rooms have aircon and TVs and they provide free tea and coffee. Harold himself is really nice and goes out of his way to make you feel welcome, he took us for our first surf lesson one day, we weren't any good but we loved it all the same. There's some nightlife here due to it being a student town, hot springs and it's cheap to learn how to dive.
Bohol and Panglao island
The boat journey from Dumaguete to Bohol goes really quickly as they show films on a big TV. I'm not going to reccomend our accomodation "Paddles up" as we had to wake up every half an hour to brush ants off of our beds and sleep with the light on! It's definately much better to stay on Panglao island which is joined to Bohol by a bridge.
Eduardos place and Alonaland are both really nice places to stay, they both have a pool, nice rooms and aircon. Alonaland is slightly cheaper, closer to the beach and has a TV.
You can do all of your activities in one day and take a public bus between them all. The furthest away is the Chocolate hills which due to the time of year looked nothing like chocolate but worth seeing all the same. A quick bus ride away is the Tarsier sanctuary which takes no longer than 15 minutes to walk through as it is tiny and then you can hop back on a bus to the zip line.
The zip lining here is amazing, you lie on your stomach and fly over the jungle and a river, it was definitely the highlight of our day. If like us you want to avoid going back to your bug infested room, the cinema is only 100 pesos and we joined a gym called "The gym" for a week which cost 1000 pesos.
The food in Panglao island is amazing and so cheap. There's lots of BBQ restaurants including Alona hidden dream where you can get seafood and mixed vegetables for a few pounds. There's also a restaurant called Trudis place which does a 3 course menu for around 3 pounds and best of all they bring out everyone's food at once which is very rare for Asia.
There wasn't a great deal to do in Panglao island (hence why we actually managed to go to the gym every day) however probably the best day i've had so far was spent here swimming with whale sharks. If you are going to Cebu it's best to do it from there to save yourself the 3 hour boat ride.
We set off early in the morning and arrived in Oslob where you have a quick briefing about what isn't allowed when you get into the water (suncream, touching etc.) and then you get taken in a paddle boat out to where the fishermen feed the sharks.
The guys on our boat were really nice. If you hire a GoPro from here (500 pesos) they will take all of your photos for you and help you get the best shots.
The whale sharks are absolutely massive and we didn't expect there to be so many of them. They come up right next to you opening their huge mouths to swallow fish but they're not scary (even when you touch them by accident!). It was such an amazing experience and I would love to do it again. You can also dive here but as the sharks are mostely at the surface I think snorkelling is better.
Manila
As we needed to save time we flew up to Manila which was to be our last stop before Malaysia. Manila wasn't our favourite place and I wouldn't suggest spending a lot of time here but our hostels "Pink Manila" and "Our awesome hostel" were both really good. Staying at both means you get to see both parts of the city which are completely different to each other. We didn't really do anything but eat here (undoing all the hard work we did at the gym the week before!) but in our defence the Philippines has malls filled with cheap, delicious food so it's not our fault we ate everything. Oh and TGI's does bottomless mojitos...winning!
You can do all of your activities in one day and take a public bus between them all. The furthest away is the Chocolate hills which due to the time of year looked nothing like chocolate but worth seeing all the same. A quick bus ride away is the Tarsier sanctuary which takes no longer than 15 minutes to walk through as it is tiny and then you can hop back on a bus to the zip line.
The zip lining here is amazing, you lie on your stomach and fly over the jungle and a river, it was definitely the highlight of our day. If like us you want to avoid going back to your bug infested room, the cinema is only 100 pesos and we joined a gym called "The gym" for a week which cost 1000 pesos.
The food in Panglao island is amazing and so cheap. There's lots of BBQ restaurants including Alona hidden dream where you can get seafood and mixed vegetables for a few pounds. There's also a restaurant called Trudis place which does a 3 course menu for around 3 pounds and best of all they bring out everyone's food at once which is very rare for Asia.
There wasn't a great deal to do in Panglao island (hence why we actually managed to go to the gym every day) however probably the best day i've had so far was spent here swimming with whale sharks. If you are going to Cebu it's best to do it from there to save yourself the 3 hour boat ride.
We set off early in the morning and arrived in Oslob where you have a quick briefing about what isn't allowed when you get into the water (suncream, touching etc.) and then you get taken in a paddle boat out to where the fishermen feed the sharks.
The guys on our boat were really nice. If you hire a GoPro from here (500 pesos) they will take all of your photos for you and help you get the best shots.
The whale sharks are absolutely massive and we didn't expect there to be so many of them. They come up right next to you opening their huge mouths to swallow fish but they're not scary (even when you touch them by accident!). It was such an amazing experience and I would love to do it again. You can also dive here but as the sharks are mostely at the surface I think snorkelling is better.
Manila
As we needed to save time we flew up to Manila which was to be our last stop before Malaysia. Manila wasn't our favourite place and I wouldn't suggest spending a lot of time here but our hostels "Pink Manila" and "Our awesome hostel" were both really good. Staying at both means you get to see both parts of the city which are completely different to each other. We didn't really do anything but eat here (undoing all the hard work we did at the gym the week before!) but in our defence the Philippines has malls filled with cheap, delicious food so it's not our fault we ate everything. Oh and TGI's does bottomless mojitos...winning!
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