A travel guide to paradise: Siquijor island

Would you like to stay in a Hobbit house, with the most amazing view over the island an make trips to the stunning beaches and breathtaking waterfalls? Than you should visit Siquijor island!

Siquijor is a small island in the Philippines. They also call it isla del fuel, which means island of fire. This because of all the fireflies on the island. Not so many people do it but if you drive into the mountains in the evening, you will see them! It is awesome to see, like a natural Christmas tree!
If you want to drive the whole island around while stopping by all the tourist spots, than you need just one day. And that will definitely be one day full of joy and happiness!

There are two ways to go around, by tricycle which you can rent for 1,500 peso or by motorbike which will cost you around 250-350 peso. We decided to go for the last option since we were just two people and it is great to have the ultimate freedom.

We arrived at 4 PM on the island and rented our scooter by the harbor. Since it was the last scooter, they charged us 300 peso equal at 5 euro. In the low season the asked me 250 peso previous time when I visited Siquijor.
We drove to the guesthouse I booked. It was close to Siquijor city, just 10 minutes driving into the mountains. It is called Camp ''Aninipot'' which means fireflies!

When we arrived, we noticed the bad road! It wasn't cemented and very steep up and we were driving with all our luggage, two big backpacks. It was a bit difficult but we managed to go up safely. When we were up, we had to go downhill and my friend, Yva decided to walk down the last minute, maybe a saver option.

Downhill, I saw the small houses they rented out, I was immediately excited! They looked so cool! They had made rooms agains the rocks. The shape is circular at the font what let it look exactly like hobbit houses! Above the door is standing the name of the ''owner'' of the hobbit house the name of a character of the movie, with a story about the character!

Tuga Sam's Hobbit house

I travel now quite a long time, but this is one of the nicest looking places I have stayed! It are just small rooms but the hobbit theme is awesome! The price is also very low, they charge 550 peso for a two persons room and just 150 peso for a campingspot! Of course we choose the hobbit house!

We went to the view deck of the guesthouse to enjoy a nice mango shake (40 peso) while watching the view. A stunning view over the mountains and you can even see the whole coastline and ocean! Sadly, the weather was not so sunny, but on a sunny day it will be breathtaking!

Image here an azure blue sky and a blue ocean, that would look great right?

The view deck, a chill place to hang out

Since we wanted to go already a bit around this day, we decided to go to Paliton beach, one of the favorite beaches of locals. It is not crowded and the blue colored ocean with clear water is a nice location to relax for a while. This side of the island is also a great place for the sunset! The view deck by the guest house would have been great too tough, but on the beach is always better to me!

Yva on our small private beach, in the missle of Paliton beach

After waiting inside a building for half an hour, we went home, to our sweet little hobbit house. We took a hot shower to warm up a little bit. The hot shower was so nice! It has been months since I got my last hot shower! I never expected that I could enjoy that so much in such an hot country!

After we were fresh again, we went out for dinner in Siquijor town. There is not so much choice since it is just a small town. Most good dining spots are along the west coast of the island, by Solangon beach, the beach with the most resorts. But we found a nice restaurant in the town which served good pasta and also Filipino dishes for an reasonable price. One funny thing I noticed is that they had Speculoos iced coffee! Speculoos is a Dutch cookie spread and I have seen it just once before here in Asia! I had to order that one. The taste was great but it can not compete with Mocha.

The pasta I ordered for dinner

The next morning, we started our day early. We took some fruits for breakfast and started driving out scooter to the first spot. We passed by Solangon beach, a beautiful beach, maybe the perfect bounty beach! The locals told me there is even one more beautiful beach, were I also went before, Kagusua beach, a beach I am excited about to show my friend!

Solangon beach

An other great place we wanted to go to are the Cambugahay falls. If you wanna go there from Solangon beach, you will pass by a balete tree first. It is an hundreds years old giant tree, the tree itself is already impressive to see, but they made at its roots a small pond with fishes. Fishes which eat the dead skin off your foots for just 10 peso! It is great to drink a coconut (30 peso) while enjoying the foodspa!

The fishes are making my foots softer than ever!

The hundreds years old Balete tree besides the footspa

A short drive further is the Cambugahay falls already located. After arriving by the startpoint, you need to hike 5 minutes from the road, before you reach the falls. The blue watery falls are counting three waterfalls which are great to take a refreshing dip, and for 50 peso you can play around with the swing. It is a great way to get the most out of your vistit to this waterfall! It is one of the highlights of the island so sometimes there can be quite some people. If you want a quiet place, you can visit the Kawasan falls too. It is a smaller fall but there are barely tourists going there and probably you can have the whole waterfalls just for you alone!

Hiking to the highest level of the waterfall

The lowest fall but not the least!

The waterfall made us quite hungry since our breakfast was just fruit. We had a little bit doubt if we could find some food on the way to our next stop, so we decided to drive back a bit. We saw a very cool looking restaurant with a beautiful garden around and decided to check it out. They serve just simple meals, we ordered rice with scrambled egg and coffee, but it was definitely worth it. Beside the cheap price, it had an awesome garden were we went to to make some pictures until our food was ready! This restaurant might be one of the future tourist spots!

The restaurant we took lunch in

The beautiful flower garden located next to the restaurant

Our next stop would be the most beautiful beach of the entire island, Kagusua beach! I have been there before and the landscape is absolutely stunning! There are big rocks on the beach and barely tourists, only a few locals. I was excited to show this place to my friend until a security guard stopped us. He told us it was closed for visitors since they had lately a problem with thief's! I was so disappointed! But it is a good thing that they try to protect the people of loosing their valuable stuff.. Hopefully it will open soon again cause this place is absolutely worth a visit!

Instead, we decided to go to one of the other highlights of the island, a beach with a slide and cliff jump spot an a big rock which separates the beach in two. The beach is called Solagdoong beach and is very populair by tourists! There is a fee to come here, 25 peso per person and 20 peso for the motorbike but it is worth it for sure! Sadly, the cliff jumping was closed too since it was low tide, but we could still go there to enjoy the stunning island view over the blue ocean. From this viewpoint, you can see sometimes even see turtles swimming if you are lucky!

They even have a slide and two cliff jump spots by Salagdoong beach

The view from the highest cliff jump spot by Salagdoong beach

It started already to be late and we had to bring back our motorbike since we rented it for 24 hours. We went back to the guesthouse, packed our bags and enjoyed a last hot shower and after that our last mango shake on the view deck.

While enjoying our mango shake!

Thank you for passing by, I hoped you enjoyed reading and I gave you some good inspiration for a next trip to this tropical paradise. Siquijor is a great, not to crowded island with great nature! It is in my 8 months of traveling in the Philippines one of my favorite islands with it's divers activity's. Driving around, swimming in the waterfalls, enjoying perfect bounty beaches, Siquijor has it all!

Rice fields we passed by during our trip around

Love,
Sha