Since the next leg of my Visayas trip was across the water, I needed to figure out the best way to get from Bodos Bamboo Bar in Alcoy to Dumaguete. There are many ways of getting from Cebu Island to Dumaguete City in nearby Negros Island.

• You can head down to Bato via any Ceres Liner bus heading to Oslob/Bato and take a passenger ferry to Dumaguete from there. — Pros: Many buses head to Bato. Cons: You need to move from bus to pier, pier to ferry, ferry to pier, then pier to some transport that can take you to Dumaguete City proper. No idea which pier this ends up in so I’m not sure if I can cycle to the hotel.
• You can head down to Lilo-an Port via any Ceres Liner bus and take a ferry going to Dumaguete — Pros: Many buses head to Lilo-an/Santander. Cons: Pier is far away from the main road. Don’t know if ferry is for passengers or for vehicles. Don’t know if the Dumaguete Pier is in some other area of Negros Island.
• You can hop on a Ceres Liner bus with a “Dumaguete” plaque plying the South Cebu Road that boards a transport ferry – Pros: I can just wait at the foot of the resort for the bus to pass by. No need to move luggage from the bus. Cons: No idea what time the buses pass by. There are only 6-8 daily buses going to Dumaguete from Cebu in random intervals.
• You can go back to Cebu City and take the Ocean Jet fast craft ferry from there direct to Dumaguete City. — Pros: Direct fast craft. Cons: Requires longer travel and heading back to Cebu City.

I decided to take the third option — because I’m lazy. All I needed to do was wait for the Dumaguete bus to pass me buy and load my things. The next time I needed to unload my stuff would already be the Ceres Bus Terminal which was literally just behind my hotel.

I checked out early from the resort and headed down to wait for the bus next to the main road. It took a while, over an hour, before a Dumaguete bound bus passed me by. Luckily, the guard at Bodos lent me a stool and helped me wait for the bus (Thank you!). He even loaded my pack and the Brompton onto the bus’ luggage storage and told the conductor where to drop me off.

Then we headed off the Ceres Liner’s specific terminal to load our bus onto a ferry. In Pinoy terms, this is known as RORO or Roll-On Roll-Off.

After our bus got onto the ferry, it took a while before we actually left. Some people went out first to eat and do last minute things, like these German guys having a quick brekkie at the pier eatery.

It was nice to see that the water surrounding the pier clean, considering the number of ferry boats that ply this route. There were no oils floating on the surface, and lots of fish passed by. Near the pier are seaside homes, with these guys lazing the day away swimming. Lucky!

Because the bus decided to turn the AC off, I headed to the passenger area of the ferry. It has this view of all the vehicles. The yellow bus is the one I was on.

At a nearby pier is the passenger ferry.

Hello Negros!

The bus ultimately stops at the Ceres Liner Terminal in Dumaguete City. It’s directly behind Robinson’s Place Dumaguete and is near the Go Hotel I was staying at.

I don’t have the schedule of the bus from Cebu City to Dumaguete because I just got on from Alcoy, but I took a note of the schedule from Dumaguete back to Cebu. The bus leaves 8 times a day, and total travel time from the Ceres Bus Terminal to Dumaguete all the way to the Cebu South Bus Terminal in Cebu City took 5 hours or so.