I stayed at the Bodos Bamboo Bar Resort on my 2nd to 4th day of my Cebu trip. It was one of the few resorts with a reliable online presence (however archaic their website might seem) and good ratings on TripAdvisor.

I don’t know why, but I had this impression it was across the street from the beach — like, walking distance to the water with only the road separating the two like some of the resorts in Boracay. In reality, the road to the resort was on a sharp turn right after you enter the Poblacion in Alcoy…

Change topic first: When I was younger, I used to wonder why so many municipalities in the Philippines would have a place named Poblacion. For example, if you drive through Southern Mindanao and pass the cities and municipalities of General Santos, Polomolok, Tupi, Koronadal, Tampakan and Tacurong, you’d get confused because they each have a barangay/village named Poblacion. Even in Metro Manila, there are a ton of barangays called Poblacion. It turns out that “poblacion” is the Spanish word for “town”. Go figure! These locations are named as such because they are usually the first settlements in an area. This is why most provincial Poblacions have the big church, the plaza, the central public markets and the main schools while neighboring barangays contend with smaller versions.

Ok, back to regular programming.

The resort itself has no nearby access to the beach and actually sits atop a small cliff  overlooking the seashore. The land between the street and the sea were all privately owned. Oops! No walkable beach for me.

The incline from the main road to the resort was pretty much my bike’s enemy every time I left and returned.

The resort has three kinds of accommodations. There are balcony fan rooms located at the front of the cliff facing east. They are PhP1,490 (S$45/US$35).

The other two rooms are either double or triple capacity aircon rooms and are only eleven Singaporean bucks more expensive at PhP1,890 (S$56/US$44) each night.

There were no issues checking in, although I have to mention that they don’t absorb credit card charges. If you don’t pay in cash, you’ll get charged an additional 5%. Just a heads up!

The staff is very friendly, though they might not be the best to ask information about the local sites and transportation options. I still relied more on Google for local information.

I had booked a double a/c room online so it was a surprise to see that I was upgraded to a triple. Not that it made a difference though, but it was nice to know the Brompton had its own bed should it choose to sleep on a mattress. The room is pretty big!

It’s not any kind of starred hotel so don’t go expecting much. The furniture was mostly rattan material. The TV only had local channels. There’s no closet but it had a open shelf. WiFi is free and the signal is pretty good considering how spread out the resort is. There’s a mini fridge with mineral water, local beers, sodas and canned juices.

The bathroom was huge and family style. Towels and toiletries are provided.

Tacked inside the main door were the resort’s House Rules. The corkage fee for bringing in food bothered me a bit, because I found the resort’s food kind of pricey for so-so dishes. (Exception to this are their handmade calzones and pizzas! Freaking delicious!) These are actually to discourage families/groups who go to the resort to swim and bring truckloads of their own food. Being Filipino, I take it these groups would hold fiesta-like feasts while the resort didn’t make a dime.

There are only a few rooms in the resort. Less than 20 in total I think. Besides the rooms, there’s a wellness spa, a gym, the restaurant with a pool table, the bar, an adventure tours outfit, a chapel, a jacuzzi, the pool and an expansive garden with lots of seating.

The resort’s backdrop are the hills on the west. While on the east, you get incredible sunrises coming from the sea.

I was there during the Labor Day holiday so I expected full capacity. Surprisingly, I found that the resort only had a few guests. On the following days, there were times when I felt like I was the only guest there. There would be one or two swimming in the pool at times, but it was only during dinner at the restaurant, when the seats would fill up that I’d wonder where all the other people came from.

If I wasn’t out exploring the nearby towns, besides holing in my room, I spent a ton of time chilling in the restaurant, whiling time looking at the ocean. The rest of the time, I made like a whale in their pool while still looking at the ocean.