Bantayan Island - Cebu

Ingredients:
plane ride
bus ride
Ferry ride
Pedicab

Cooking time:

• from Manila get on a 45 to an hour plane ride to Cebu

• take a cab to go to Cebu's North Bus terminal - 20-minute travel time depends on the traffic

• at the terminal, get on a bus going to Hagnaya (Ceres bus; Php 120/head) - travel time is 4 hours

• from Hagnaya port, get on a RoRo 1 hr. and 15 mins. but can take up to 2 hours as travel time primarily depends on the weather condition. (Ferry ticket is Php170/head)

Nutritional Facts:

The Island is small with several Barangays or towns. Sta. Fe is considered to be the popular town among all as it houses the numerous resorts in Bantayan - since it's the town right next to the Beach. Pedicab is the main mode of transportation with a standard fare of Php25/head. Tourists can also rent a motorcycle that they can use to get across barangays or go to Bantayan Public Market where the less expensive and famous Danggits are at.

We planned a 4days and 3 nights stay in Bantayan - but due to inevitable circumstances we spent almost the entire day at the airport. Thanks to Zest Air.

Roro - you may opt to get on a fast ferry to cut down some hours on the travel time as this one moves pretty slow.

We went for a swim the moment that we arrived on the island to compensate for that almost a day waiting for our delayed zest air flight.

I didn't get to ask the owner, pano kung hot water? May bayad din kaya?

Virgin Island - you may ask a local boatman to take you to Virgin Island. For Php500 (good for 2 which includes the guide/boatman and boat rental) we visited the Island and went snorkeling. We bought some seafood from the market for lunch which our boatman cooked on the island.

Virgin Island is just an hour away from Bantayan

A must try! D' Jungle's Eat all you can for only Php295.  EAYC is every Friday from 5:30pm to 9pm.  We highly recommend this to people who eat big.  And by BIG we mean, someone who can make the most out of their Php295.

We were the first customers for the "Eat all you Can" that day.  There are several restaurants in the area that have EAYC but we decided to try D' Jungle's since we heard and have read good things about the owner and the restaurant.

This is not our table.  This is THE serving table but this sweet spot in D' Jungle deserves a better name, let's call it the Seafood Altar!  Need I say why?  These are just 3 of the several seafood served that day.   

Sauteed Crab, Tiger Prawns and Lobster!  We dared to eat from 5pm until EAYC closes ( you can imagine, we were the first customers and we're going to be the last ones leaving the resto!)  But we didn't make it, we only lasted for couple hours. 

St. Peter's Church - oldest in Bantayan.  We rented a motorbike to get to Bantayan's city proper which was approximately a 30 minute-drive.

Bantayan Public Market where we bought our pasalubong - it houses all kinds of dried fish from tuyo, daing, pusit, dilis and the like. I must say, the price is very reasonable but it did not stop me from doing what I do best - haggling! (It's not that I'm kuripot, okay. I just decided to give it a shot. Luckily, it worked! hehe)

Before leaving Banatayan, we spent a few more hours in the water, went on a motorcyle ride and checked out the other resorts to see which one has the best spot on the island.  We stayed at Beach Placid right beside Marlin beach resort.  Accomodation is reasonable, the staff was nice but try not to complain about blackouts/brownouts.  Although Bantayan has improved a lot over the years blackout is still common.  Most of the resorts have generators but not good enough to power the AC whenever electiricity is down.  Well, lucky our room was right in front of the beach so the blackout was not much of a problem.

So vacation is over and we headed back to Manila - back to the four walled cubicle and back to the same old routine but mark our words Cebu... WE shall RETURN!