Bantayan Island

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Looking Back: Bantayan Island - Dec. 1996. After Christmas of 1996, my friends and I planned an out of town trip. This was to be the first of the many trips we'll be having. Our first stop was Cebu City, we stayed at my uncle's place. My cousins were our tour guide. the first few days we visited, the Taoist Temple in Beverly Hills; Magellan's Cross across the Sto. Nino Shrine; a beach in Mactan. The food is inexpensive and local cuisine was superb.

We took a fast ferry, Oceanjet 2 of Socor Shipping Lines to Sta. Fe, Bantayan. It is an island north of Cebu mainland. The fare was 300pesos/person and we left the port of Cebu at 5:30am. It was about 3 hours fast ferry ride.

When we got to Sta. Fe, there were a lot of pedicab drivers waiting for passengers. At first we didn't bother to ride one and I overheard a local that Sugar Beach was just walking distance. But we eventually rode the pedicabs. And to our surprise, Sugar Beach was just about 5 minutes from the wharf.

We went from one resort to the other looking for an overnight accommodation. (During those times there were just about three beachfront resorts.) We're glad that we were just in time to get two basic cottages with bathroom but without electricity. After we booked the cottages for the night, we saw other tourist coming in. We were all nine girls travelling together and two of whom are my cousins from Cebu. We were (Manila based group) glad they came along because the locals spoke Cebuano and not much Tagalog. We thought we were in a foreign land because we (Manila based group) didn't speak the local dialect.

We went to Ogtong Resort, where there is a natural underground cave inside. There is a good view of the entire Sugar Beach from Ogtong. The town is laidback. The food service is rather slow for big groups. After dinner, we went to have a drink at the Kota Beach Resort. Then we laid down by the whitesand beach and watch the stars that night.

I don't have an idea what's the name of the resort we stayed in. We took a picture of our cottage. The caretaker was very nice, she provided us with mosquito coil for the night and candle. There was no bed, we slept on the bamboo floor. We were prepared though, we brought along our sleeping bags.

This was a memorable trip because the other girls in the next cottage had a funny story by morning. They were not able to sleep because their bathroom was stinking. The bathroom has no doors except for a wall that divides the room from it.

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