Visiting Bantayan & Malapascua, Cebu, The Philippines

Bantayan

This was one of our favourite places in the whole Philippines. People in the Philippines are very friendly to start with, but in here we almost felt like 'locals'. :)

We loved that we didn’t have to take a boat trip to see white sand beaches with crystal clear water. They were to be found all around the island. The most popular part of the island is on the south-west, around Santa Fe, the main town. It has the most restaurants and guesthouses, and the nicest beaches are also around there.

You won’t find too many tourists here, and the ones you will come across are mostly going to be Asian and Filipino holiday makers coming here mainly on weekends. That said, book your accommodation well ahead, like everywhere on the Philippines guesthouses fill up fast. It gets fully booked especially on weekends.

We booked a cottage on the beach for 3 nights at this place

We were satisfied with the place except for the breakfast, but you won’t get a good breakfast at most budget places in the Philippines.

Then, because we didn’t book anymore nights ahead of time, we ended up spending one night at this place

It was only 800php for a night at it wasn’t worth more than that.

Things we did on Bantayan:
We hang out on the beach at Kota beach resort a lot. The resort itself is not a budget place, so it wasn’t for us, but we used their beach a lot and loved it.

We had food at the food court in Santa Fe. There are a lot of types of cuisines to choose from, Greek, Mexican, Italian, so you should be able to find something to your liking.

We also ate at the Italian restaurant close to the food court, they have amazing pizza there.

This island has roads (some concrete, some bumpy dirt ones) and you can rent a motorbike to ride around. We didn’t rent one, instead we took tricycles (their version of a taxi) to get to places we couldn’t walk to. We went to Paradise beach with a tricycle for 200php. It’s a nice beach but not as special as you’d think based on its name. There is a 50php entry fee and it closes at 5pm.

We watched the sunset...

We took a boat to Virgin island

It is a half an hour ride from Bantayan. Any boatman will take you there, wait for you and take you to a snorkelling spot nearby for 800-900php for the boat.

Virgin island had the most beautiful beach we’d seen on the Philippines. You'll need to pay 500php per person entry fee on this island, and there are a few cottages where you can stay for the night but they need to be pre-booked well ahead. Ask your guesthouse on Bantayan for help with that.

As Virgin island is so tiny, there isn’t much to do except for swimming, snorkelling and sunbathing but we fell in love with the place because of its beauty. It gets a bit crowded during the daytime due to all the people coming here for a daytrip, so stay for the night if you can.

We stayed on Bantayan for 4 nights, then took a pump boat to Malapascua.

Malapascua

This island is much smaller than Bantayan, but you’ll find many more western travellers here due to the diving community. There are many diving schools all over Malapascua and some great dive sites. Beaches here are scarce, we only found a couple of nice ones here.

There is 1 concrete road through the island, the rest are only sandy ones but people ride motorbikes on them, so you’ll be able to get a ride if you don’t feel like walking, although you can get from one end to the other within an hour.

The most fun thing to do here is taking a boat trip to Kalanggaman islands.

This is the only boat trip offered on Malapascua and it’s so worth doing. Big tour boats go there daily, it takes about 2 hours to get there and the cost is 800php per person plus 500php environmental entry fee. You can also borrow a snorkel for 100php, but there isn’t much to see under the water.

Kalanggaman is a very tiny island with a white sand beach and a long sandbar.

If you take a boat trip here from Malapascua, you’ll start around 9am, get there at 11-11:30am and stay for 2-2.5 hours.

They’ll prepare some lunch of chicken and rice for you on the boat.

It gets a bit crowded here with tourists during the day, but you can still find quiet spots if you walk to the opposite side of the island away from the sandbar.

That’s where you can also rent a tepee style cottage and stay here for the night.

They cost 1000php/night and are only good for hardcore beachgoers who don’t mind a bit of discomfort, as all you'll have in it is a mattress.

There is no fan and the cottage can’t be locked. You can also rent tents here, although all you get is just the tent, no mattress to sleep on. We’d seen quite many people staying in tents. You can get instant soup and some barbecued meat to eat here if you decide to stay.

Where we stayed on Malapascua:

We spent one night at Dano resort for 2500php. We didn’t book anything ahead of time and this was the only place we found. It was ok, the room was nice but we thought it was too expensive or what it offered.

We managed to book Mangrove oriental resort for 3 more nights. This place was 2000php, so not much cheaper than the other place but a much better value for money. It had a private beach, a very nice and quiet area, not very good for swimming but a great place to chill out.

Where we ate on Malapascua:

We had a couple of meals at the public market. The food there was cheap and very average, the bbq chicken breast was quite nice.
We had dinner at the vegetarian restaurant Villa Sandra inside the village.

The place has a cool atmosphere with a unique design. The meals on the menu will sound a bit strange and fancy, but both our meals there were very tasty.

They also offer budget accommodation there

I had my birthday while on Malapascua and we decided to celebrate it in Oscar’s bar and restaurant on the southern side of the island. It’s a bit more pricey there, a meal for 2 came to 700php, but sitting there watching the sun going down over the horizon with my husband was the most beautiful way to celebrate my birthday.

And they also have 2 for 1 cocktails here every day until 7pm.

All in all the few days we had here were awesome. My favourite memory from here is when we were walking in the village and suddenly 3 little kids came running to me, they started hugging me and they wanted to play with us. They just didn’t want to let me go, they were so cute.

We left Malapascua after four days for Cebu City. The boat ride to Maya port takes about 30 minutes and it costs 50php/person. They leave when full, so no real timetable but you’ll be on the boat within an hour.