Cycling Negros Day 1: Cebu to Negros via RORO

Posted on 15 Jun 2012 by Diane

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.

Cycling Cebu Day 4: The Boljoon Shuffle Tour

Posted on 13 Jun 2012 by Diane

That afternoon, after whale shark watching, I decided to head back down to the only town/municipality left on my list, which was Boljoon (BOL-HO-ON). I cramped earlier in the day and was exhausted from swimming. Since I could barely walk, let alone cycle, and the route from Alcoy to Boljoon was uphill, cliffside and somewhat dangerous for a solo rider, I decided to leave the Brompton at the resort and took a bus down to Boljoon.

Boljoon is by far my favorite of the Cebuano municipalities I visited. With hills as a backdrop, it’s also one of the few towns whose shoreline is visible from the street. No houses dotted it. Entirely too picturesque! In fact, the bus drops you off at Plaza Bermejo, next to the coast.

Boljoon is also one of the few municipalities which has a heritage-trail map for walking tours and WiFi at the plaza. They have an awesome local government who pushes for tourism well in this area. They even have a decent website!

The Heritage trail map. Needs revamping. Faded colors aren’t attractive — it looks like neglect.

For whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Jose Rizal. The church bell tower is a huge square building. Visible on top are 4 bells that are still being used today. They used to be 7, so you can imagine how loud that must be. The lower part of the tower is actually the old town prison. Inside a stone structure while 7 bells clanged above you and echo through the walls? The prisoners probably got deaf or went crazy after enduring Boljoon’s Church Bell Torture.

Facade of the Nuestra Senora Patrocinio de Maria, the oldest original stone church in Cebu. There is a museum next to the church, which is pretty awesome and houses a lot of old Chinese trading artifacts and religious items. Like most structures during that time, the church complex was built as a fortress from Muslim pirates. Walls of all the buildings are extremely thick. The prison/belfry wall is said to be a meter thick!

Behind the red door.

A stoup; the container for Holy Water.

Doors that have doors that lead to the rectory. I wonder what the massive doors were used for though. Shock and awe? Do they have an actual purpose?

This is the Catholic school; originally built in the 1940′s as a Sunday School. The double staircase is a unique feature.

With the heritage trail in mind, I hobbled along the streets looking for the next site. I saw these coconut pickers moving slowly along the road, collecting old coconuts from the trees next to the path. If I’m not mistaken, they’ll be using them for charcoal.

All around are signs of small town life. There was this mango tree with all its fruits wrapped in newspaper to avoid ravage by fruit flies. Covering mangoes up are a hassle.

Not a nasty goat. He gave me the evil eye but he didn’t mind me moving his way.

I even saw bikers! There were a number of them, going north from Boljoon with some taking a break at the local bike shop.

Dr. Dionisio Niere house. Probably scary at night.

Ili Rock in the distance. Beach in the foreground. I should have brought swimwear.

Getting on the bus from the plaza.

Passed by this area on the way back to Alcoy. See the people handwashing clothes? I wonder if there’s a trickle of freshwater somewhere in the area. It wouldn’t make sense to wash clothes in saltwater now, would it?

Sharp turns on a bus that doesn’t seem to want to slow down!

Odd parking lot. Fits canoes and cars alike.

Lastly, spotted in the middle of nowhere, a hamburger joined and a corn field. That’s really fresh corn if you can have it.

This day marks the last of the Cebu leg of my trip. Tomorrow, I would be taking the boat and crossing the sea to get to Negros Island and Dumaguete City. This time, I won’t be alone!

Cycling Cebu Day 4: Oslob’s Whale Sharks — not whale; not much of a shark

Posted on 11 Jun 2012 by Diane

Early morning on my fourth day, I took a bus from my resort to Baranggay Tan-awan (TAN-AH-ONE) in Oslob. Sorry, no biking for me this morning! I left the Brompton back in the resort for the next four hours.

EDIT: If you want to bring a bike or ride to Oslob, don’t worry, you can. Mind you, the pass from Boljoon is hilly on a cliffside and has lots of sharp curbs on a two lane road that you share with buses. Be sure you’re a confident cyclist if you do plan to ride down to Oslob. I think all the whale shark watching outfits will have a place for you to store your bike. I didn’t know this though, that’s why I left mine behind.

The name Tan-awan is appropriate — tan-awan means “view” or “to look” in the local dialect — for the next activity on my list which was WHALE SHARK WATCHING! Whale sharks or tuki in Cebuano (butanding in Filipino), are a humongous species of filter feeder fish. I’ve seen whale sharks before and trust me, they can be as big as buses underwater! Imagine a dinosaur of a fish with its mouth open heading for you in the ocean — aaaaurgh!

Oslob’s growing whale shark tourism industry has been a source of controversy because the local fishermen have begun to handfeed the whale sharks so that they don’t eat the tiny shrimp that they leave behind as bait for fish. It calls for a different experience because tourists don’t have to chase the whale sharks around. In fact, these giant fish follow the fishermen’s canoe round and round while the fishermen feed them the tiny shrimp. Tourism here is relatively new, and is quite orderly given the remote village life. Hopefully they continue to maintain the good practices in the area and do not affect the ecosystem.

If you want to read more about Oslob and whale sharks, check out this extremely detailed article from SharkSaver’s Shawn Heinrich. It presents a conservationists point of view on all aspects of whale shark tourism in this area. Or you can watch his seriously awesome film, Befriending Giants here.

I didn’t know any particular resort or dive outfit to go to so I asked the bus conductor to drop me off at anywhere with a whale shark sign. That wasn’t a worry though, as all the outfits are right next to the road. Once I got off the bus, I saw many whale shark watching tours. I crossed the street to the first one, which was Aaron’s Beach Resort.

A resort guide/fisherman approached me and I told him I wanted to go see the whale sharks (giddiness and excited laughter ensues!). The resort has a separate viewing fee from the local government — you pay for the boat (?) as well as shower usage. For Aaron’s Resort, it was a measly 50 pesos (that’s just S$1.4!). I put all my stuff in a waterproof bag, and hopped on a canoe to the debriefing site. So get this, for 50 pesos, I effectively got a boat, FOR MYSELF! Isn’t that great? I don’t know how other outfit tours charge but I had the best bang for my buck for sure.

Before riding out to sea, a local government official informed us about the rules for whale shark viewing:

Don’t touch the whale shark.
Don’t jump from the boat. — Enter the water slowly.
Flash photography isn’t allowed. — Cameras with no flash are permitted.
Don’t touch or hack the coral.
Don’t take anything out of the sea.
Don’t throw any trash in the water.
Avoid using sunblock or any other chemical based products before getting in the water.
Keep a 5 meter distance from the whale shark.
Lifevests are mandatory while you’re in the boat.
A guide is mandatory as well.

Oh, and motorized boats aren’t allowed but then that’s out of my hands.

After the briefing, I went to pay the viewing fees. There’s an option to just view whale sharks from the canoe which costs 300 pesos (S$9) or snorkel with them for 500 pesos (S$15!!!). Snorkel equipment is part of the cost, and for either choice, you get a life vest as well. Obviously, I chose to snorkel with them.

The guide/fisherman then paddled us out to the rest of the boats. It was the day after a public holiday, as well as weekday, so there were fewer tourists than usual.

The view site wasn’t very far away from shore. Once we caught up with the other boats, one of the guides (I had two), tied our canoe with the rest of the other canoes, effectively bundling us together so we wouldn’t float away.

The viewing operates in a unique way: A single fisherman, with shrimp food, hand feeds a whale shark a little bit at a time, all the while moving his canoe round the tied up tourist boats.

The water was pretty shallow and crystal clear. I think it might have been only around 10-15 feet deep. The water was littered with a bean-looking type of seaweed that when present is said to be a sure sign of jellyfish as well. Sure enough, when I looked, tiny jellyfish the size of a fingernail, were present in the water. DAMN! How disappointing! I happen to hate jellyfish! I decided then that I would remain on the boat instead of getting in the water.

That plan changed the minute I spotted my first whale shark. I saw it swimming by, following the fisherman’s canoe, it’s mouth open and vacuuming huge amounts of water to suck the tiny shrimp in.

That was that. I shrugged off the life vest, put on the snorkel gear, and jumped into the water. Who cares about jellyfish?! I needed to take awesome photos!

That day there were 4 whale sharks in the area, each one being led around on an invisible leash by a fisherman. In fact, they would stand vertically in the water while waiting for food, much like dogs that beg. Isn’t that cute?

Other fish follow the whale shark, hoping to steal little bits of tiny shrimp left behind. They all move alongside the canoe like a posse.

The whale sharks in Oslob are not as big as the ones in other areas of the Philippines. These are juveniles. From the rear, they look more like stereotypical sharks (you know, the ones ala-Jaws).

My guides decided to move our boat to another group, one with a bigger shark. When I got back on the boat, I was talking excitedly about the photos I took and how hard it was to swim faster underwater. One of the guides then offered to lend me flippers. YES!

The new fishermen in the group we moved to was a bit naughty. I was the only person in the water at that time and he purposely kept moving the boat (and the whale shark) to where I was. To stop that, I held on the the boat, always keeping a distance away from the whale shark. Sorry, 5-meters-away-from-the-whale-sharks rule.

Hello giant fishy. I see you. Can you see me?

The whale shark was playful (I really should stop anthropomorphizing these fish). If the fisherman didn’t continuously feed him, he would nudge the boat.

At one point, I wanted to recreate a photo that I saw in the news — the one where the shot was taken under the canoe/whale shark. Good thing I had the flippers. I wouldn’t have been able to do this otherwise.

See? They’re being hand fed. Also, this is my favorite photo of the whale sharks.

After more than an hour in the water, I decided to end the tour. I was on a high, but exhausted after chasing the whale sharks. The guides paddled our boat back to shore.

By the way, this area is great for divers too! Nearby Sumilon Island has a great reef teeming with marine life. It would be awesome to go see the whale sharks in the morning, then continue a dive elsewhere.

And that was the end of my whale shark encounter. I walked back out onto the road and waited for a bus heading to Alcoy.

If you want to go to Oslob from Cebu City, just take a bus from the Cebu City South Bus Terminal (it’s on Google Maps!) going to either Bato/Oslob or Lilo-an/Santander. Tell the conductor you want to be dropped off at Tan-awan, Oslob for the whale sharks. They will know this. The fare for an aircon bus from Ceres Liner from the city is 155 pesos (S$5). Non-aircon buses are cheaper. Travel time takes 3-4 hours.

Unfold and Cycle

Obsessing about anything with two wheels in general, and folding bikes in particular.

Tag Archives: Cebu

Cycling Negros Day 1: Cebu to Negros via RORO

Cycling Cebu Day 4: The Boljoon Shuffle Tour

Cycling Cebu Day 4: Oslob’s Whale Sharks — not whale; not much of a shark

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