Our Trip To Mactan, Cebu, Philippines

My husband, Robert, and I vacationed in Cebu, Philippines, in November of this year.  We spent 3 weeks on a busy little island called Mactan. I am in the hotel business in the San Francisco area and many of our staff is Filipino.  Quite a few are from Cebu and they are such nice and hospitable people that I have wanted, for years, to visit there.  So we did.

Before we flew out, we did quite a bit of homework on the internet, and decided to stay away from the fancy resorts designed to suck our purse dry. We made that mistake already, going to Mexico a few years back.  Those places lock you up inside their compound and tell you how dangerous it is outside while they charge you ten dollars for a beer and twenty for a burger. What’s the point in going, if you can’t get out and see the country and mingle with the local folks?

We lucked upon a grand place to stay on Mactan Island.  Mactan Bed and Breakfast. My husband and I visit the Napa Valley frequently and have always enjoyed staying in a B&B. We had all the comforts of a B&B, but much more.  We had our own private suite, nestled inside a romantic tropical garden.  There was a coconut tree just outside our door!

Did you know the coconut is a seed?  I didn’t.  Not before our trip.  There were coconuts everywhere in our garden!  Sprouting trees from the nut!  Forgive me if I am the only person alive who didn’t know this….. but I found it fascinating.

We stayed there three weeks and had a wonderful time.  The use of a free motorbike was included with our stay, and we explored virtually every inch of the island.  I had some wonderful shopping excursions at a Mall called Gaisano Grand, located not even three blocks from our B&B.

We bought masks and snorkels at the mall, and enjoyed the beaches frequently. We rode the local ferry from Mactan to Cebu, and caught a Taxi from there to a huge mall called SM. Who would have thought that a Giant Mall such as this would be located in Cebu!

One day we even caught a ferry to a small island called Olango and took along our motorbike.  Olango has a bird sanctuary.  We took  a bottle of wine and lunch which the Mactan B&B prepared for us, and rode our motorbike to the bird sanctuary and spent a few hours watching the vast varieties of  exotic birds that pass through the island. I highly recommend this trip.

Another bit of excitement we had was renting a pump boat and going island hopping.  Neal, the American owner of the B&B, had told us that we could hire one of the locals to take us island hopping, and to let him know if we were interested, and he would help us negotiate a good price.  Unfortunately, for us, we didn’t take him up on his offer and found a local with a boat, on our own, and negotiated our own excursion, supposedly complete with a meal, for 5 thousand pesos. The trip was fun, but the meal was inedible, and the boat owner had invited many of his friends along, calling them lifeguards. They seemed to enjoy the meal, however. Regardless, we did enjoy some good snorkeling that day, in some very pretty locations. When we told  Neal that we had gone, and what we had paid, he said that he could have gotten us a trip for about 2000 pesos and without the boatman's guests.... Oh well.

The B&B has a native style restaurant located in its front garden. It is called the Banana Moon Cantina.  It seems to be the popular place for westerners on the island. Nightfall usually finds the Cantina full of expats from around the world. We met people from England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Canada.  Cantina serves Mexican food, and I have to say, being from California, their Mexican Food is as good as any you could ever wish to find!  They order their Masa flour and their beans from El Paso, Texas. There is another Mexican Restaurant at the mall, and their food was definitely not Mexican.  No comparison.

Another interesting thing at the Cantina is their hostel.  Being an American, I didn’t know what a hostel is.  A hostel is a place where backpackers stay.  Cantina operates a hostel, and we met some wonderful people who were backpacking their way around the world!  One young woman was 24 years old and was from England and had been traveling for nine months already, seeing the world on a shoe string, with a heavy pack on her back, and a smaller pack on her front!  Such a courageous young thing she was.  She confided in me that she was quite smitten with a young man she had met in Columbia.  Good luck to her, as she had invited him to come to England and meet her parents.

During our stay at the B&B, we met two American men who where staying there also.  (They were not staying together.) Each was staying there as they searched for house or an apartment to rent. They were both moving to the Philippines.  Each of them was recently retired.  One of them had met a lady on the internet and was planning marriage.  He was from Indiana.  The other was a lifelong bachelor from Florida whose mother had recently passed away and he had decided to move to the Philippines and start anew.  Both of these men felt that their social security would go much farther in the Philippines, and were also fed up with the way things are, politically in the USA.  Neal, the owner of the B&B, told me that he has had a lot of guests recently who are fleeing the politics and high prices of the USA.  Before we left, both of these men had found houses.  It seems that the Cantina serves as a meeting place for expats and they congregate there to help each other out.

Three weeks went by much too rapidly, and now we are back in the rat race in the USA. And believe me, we have pondered whether of not we might throw the towel in, and retire to the Philippines ourselves.                                    Rhonda Wright