Day 25 – Off to Bantayan

On our last full day on Malapascau we met a couple, Sylvia and Philip who was going to travel by private boat to Bantayan where they lived in Atop-Atop. We stopped at Virgin Island for a quick swim and continued on. It was a fine ride, saw a sea snake and some skimming fish – pretty cool. Very loud boat – earplugs!!!

Boat to Bantayan from Malapascau

We got to Sylvia and Philip house and they explained that they would make us lunch and then drive us to Bantayan town which was about 20 minutes away. Sylvia’s sister, neice and brother in law live on the property and basically served us. Lunch was bitter greens, banana salad with chicken, fish soup, leftover pizza, rice and dried fish, followed by tea/coffee and chocolate. They offered to let us stay there, and as nice as the house was, we were ready to be on our way.

Lunch of dried fish

Philipe and Sylvia's house in Bantayan

The only ATM on Banatyan was in Bantayan Town we got a ride with Sylvia’s brother in law there and then caught a jeepny/scooter to Santa Fe. It was a scooter but it had a mini jeepney on the back that would easily hold 6-8 people. I wonder how long the little motorcycles last carrying WAY more weight then they probably should be. Philipe recommended the Blue Marlin Hotel and we took his advice and checked in.

Our mini jeepney - attached to a motor bike

I wanted to check out some other places I had heard about so we hired a pedicab and went to Tickity Boo (porters recommended it to us), Beach Placid (heard about it on a blog) Yooneek (saw it on bumper stickers) and all had pluses and minuses and seriously considered moving but after seeing them all we decided we had it pretty good, comfortable beach, there was a lightning storm coming in and we enjoyed watching that and were treated a pretty cool rainbow. After that we found a restaurant to eat at – Blue Ice, I had the sizzling pork which was really good. We also met a solo traveler, Karen from England, and we made plans to meet up with her the next day.

 

Day 26 – Sick Day

Both Chris and Karen weren’t feeling well so we took a pretty chill day. We checked out Ogtong Cave Resort. Cost was 100p to get in and we took a 20p/each pedicab ride. It had a pool, a small cave, pretty bay, little cave and that was about it.

Taken from Ogdon Cave resort. See the shark?

 

Chris in a tricycle

We still have 2 1/2 weeks scheduled for the Philippines and Typhoon Songda is scheduled to hit exactly where we were planning on going. We started debating on if we should go somewhere else in the Philippines, stick to our original plan or just head to a completely different country.