Panglao Paradise
On the island of Panglao we didn’t stay in the main town area of Alona, but on a residential homestay on the northern part of the island. The place we stayed at, while basic compared to some of our other stays, backed up into a reef flat that we could swim out to at our leisure (and the tides). What that meant is our backyard for 12 days was a spectacular coral reef.
The reefs were the most beautiful and teeming reefs we have ever seen and could ever imagine in our lives. Anyone who follows us on instagram was probably tired of our daily shares of the ocean life (sorry not sorry). It was pure magic. And the best part is it felt like it was all ours. Since we were in a local spot, it was untouched by tourists and way less crowded than the tourist dive spots (we know because we visited some of those too and they just didn’t compare).
Our host arranged a motorbike rental for us so that we could get to and from town and around the island easily. That helped us get food, groceries, and see some of the other spots the island had to offer.
Our days mostly went something like this:
Wake up: An hour or two swim on reefs before breakfast (or after depending on the tides).
Daily excursion: Depending on how we felt, we would plan one outing a day. Sometimes it was to see another part of the island, other times it was just to get food. These could last a few hours or all day until sunset. Some of our excursions included:
Alona beach: This is the main town area of the Island of Panglao. Plenty of restaurants and bars and where you can arrange boat tours at your leisure. We spent a few afternoons enjoying the small beach and people watching.
Boat day: We arranged a private boat day that wound up being QUITE the adventure. We cover THAT story in full detail below. There is one main spot to boat to in Panglao, Balicasag, which is great for snorkeling and turtle watching. They throw in Virgin Beach as well which is a sandbar beach only accessible at certain time dues to tides. There are also a number of other other spots you can visit by boat if you are into scuba diving specifically.
Southern Beaches: Most of the more sandy beaches on the island are on the southern half of the island. You have White Beach and others that make for a nice beach day. We visited the Oceanica Resort which had free entry, all you had to do was purchase a drink. That gave you access to their beautiful beach, which we found was a small price of admission. When we went it was a little busy so we couldn’t procure a nice shaded spot with chairs but we posted up under a tree with our trusty Matador blanket and had a delightful afternoon on the beach people watching.
Napaling Reef: Very close (by motor bike) to our homestay was a popular tourist reef that you could snorkel and dive in. You had to pay an entrance fee and a fee for a mandatory guide who would supervise your visit. This place was a bit frustrating because we saw a number of tourists who were trampling coral because they couldn’t swim, and all manner of other instagram behavior that we abhor, but our guide was kind enough to recognize we knew what we were doing and let us be. He even let us stay out longer since he was eager to get back for lunch. The coral itself was subpar to our daily backyard swim but there was a VERY cool school of sardines we tremendously enjoyed swimming with.
Return home: On our way home we would stop by a fruit or veggie stand, bakery, grocery store, or restaurant depending on the day and time to procure what we would need for dinner (either snacks, takeaway food, or what we needed to cook in our small kitchen).
Evening: Were mostly spent inside our bungalow cooking and recharging for the next days adventure.
We took absolute advantage of our time in this amazing place swimming out to the reefs basically every day, swimming with fish and turtles and just enjoying the island life. This place was magic and everything we wanted.
The most interesting day ever….
The day started at 5:00am when we had to be up to catch our private boat tour at 6:00am. At 5:40 Viv got a text that the weather was bad and we would have to wait for coast guard approval to leave. They instructed us to still meet at 6:00am so we proceeded to the meeting place. As we were driving to the meeting spot…we got a flat tire (kindly pointed out to us in broken english by an old man chilling on a random fence by a stop sign just as we drove by).
We deviated to a tire shop that was of course closed (it was 6:00am). An onlooker from across the street could sense our desperation and came to help (yet another example of how kind Filipinos are). He said that the tire shop might be closed because of a holiday (Festival, which we only knew about because of our Host) but that there was a bigger shop elsewhere on the island and he directed us to it. Thankfully there are only 3 main roads on this island and he gave us all the markers to get to it (no addresses here).
Side note: While we were there trying to figure out what to do, the owner of the house next door got a bound (live) pig out of its car and walked it to the back.,, About 5 minutes later you could hear the pigs squeals and you knew what was coming…Talk about farm to table.
We arrived to the second tire shop as a couple with a toddler was pulling up on a bike. Website said the shop didn’t open till 8:00am (it was about 6:30) but they quickly asked (with gestures and broken english) if we needed help. They jumped into action going to the back to ask the shop owner to open the gate early so the man could take a look at our tire. From what we could gather through context clues (since this all happened in Tagalog or another dialect) the man was a delivery driver who was about to get in his truck which was parked at the shop. The shop was closed but he asked the owner to open up so he could help us. The female partner (and toddler) that was with this man were along for the ride (either to make deliveries with him or just to take the bike back home) and were very hospitable and kind, pulling up chairs for us to wait and doing her best to translate as she was the only one that spoke any English. After meticulously checking out our tire he confirmed it was not a full blown puncture but just a low tire and refilled it for us. The final price 5php (about 10 cents). We gave them 50php (only about a dollar). We were just so grateful for the help.
Late because of the tire ordeal, we sped off to the meeting place. Ry let me off and went to park the bike. I called our contact and immediately a man across the street waved me down. I could only assume this was our contact….
He told us to follow him on our bike to the boat dock. So I called Ry to come back and off we went. Ry had already put the helmets in the bike and because we thought we were going 2 min away we didn’t put them on…we were not going 2 minutes away….
We proceeded on the main road towards the other side of the island, then turned off on some of the bumpiest, graveliest, crazy turning “roads” imaginable, which we rode through for about 10 minutes. And then it started raining…
These back roads were more like driveways and family plots and we had no idea where we were going. Just following this guy (that I didn’t even 100% verify was the guy we were supposed to be meeting). The guy had to stop like 3 times for us to catch up since the roads were so bad (we are newbies to motorbiking, with a recently flat tire, but he also had a dirt bike), and it was raining, and we had no helmets on.
After getting through increasingly narrow and backwoods areas we arrived at a small gated plot with open huts that looked to be where boaters staged before launch and when coming back from the ocean. There were 5 guys in all, all waiting as it rained.
We had no idea who was who and what was what but were invited to sit and wait. After about 5 min the person we met said to wait there as he went to check with the coast guard…right after he left another one of the guys said, “ok let’s go I will take you to the boat now”.
We looked at each other like WTF do we do. We didn’t want to assume this was a bad situation but we didn’t know what was going on. So we proceeded with caution. We took it slow gathering our things and mentally running through scenarios. We slowly walked with this guy to a boat and Ryan casually asked, “what happened to the other guy”. All the guy said was “he is coming”.
So we got on the boat.
He gets to doing things on the boat to prepare it for launch and we just sat there while it rained (we were covered). I decided now would be a good time to let Ry know that I hadn’t actually verified that the person we were following was the right person. So we decided to probe a bit more. I calmly asked the guy his name and if he was the captain. I got his name, but no answer on the captain status. So we just continued to wait. Thankfully the initial guy returned and him and 2 other guys that were waiting with us got on the boat. We still weren’t quite sure what was going on but could only assume the Coast Guard gave the go ahead..
We push off on the boat and our guide (who we found out was the actual captain) goes to start the boat, and it won’t start. The 4 guys collectively spent just under an hour trying to fix the boat. Eventually 2 guys bailed and jumped in the water, walking to what we gathered was their boat (from what we could tell they were trying to hitch a ride on our boat to their boat which was anchored off shore but when our boat didn’t start they had to walk it instead).
Our two guys continued trying to fix the boat, while simultaneously trying to call people to see if they could help, all the while it was still raining (but somewhat clearing up). Eventually he got ahold of someone who was not using their boat and they lent it to our guy (maybe because it was a holiday). Of course all this happened in another language so we can only infer. So we were technically pirates as we commandeered a boat and we don’t actually know if we had permission 😉
So we transferred boats and were finally off.
The swells were big because of the rainy weather, but as we started sailing you could see the sun rising and noticeably burning off all the clouds. By the time we finally arrived at our destination the clouds had spectacularly broken and skies were clear and sunny. It was absolutely beautiful.
Our tour included Balicasag and Virgin Island (we will let the pics do the talking). I think 25 words were spoken with the guys the whole trip.
So we get back and they let us off the boat and say bye. One problem. We have no idea how to get back from that winding path we took in the morning. So we have two options. Plug our destination into the notoriously questionable Google maps, or try and find our way back from memory. We opted for Google maps because we felt it couldn’t be worse than the path we took in the morning. Famous last words.
The journey started off promising with us immediately being on one of the only fully paved roads around. And then it dead ended, and Google said to take the left “road”, which wasn’t a road but a small path cut out from some tall grass. Still not trusting our other option we drove down this path (you could see tire marks so clearly this had been done before and recently). The path continues to get more and more narrow and we even pass a rocky area that we have to get off to maneuver over…until the path reaches a 3 ft concrete wall. We could somewhat make out a “path” that continued parallel to this concrete wall (except for a few displaced stones, tire tracks, and a cut down tree it couldn’t really be called a path).
We stop. We don’t know if we can go forward. If we continue on the same “path” we see what looks like someone's backyard ahead (with people and animals and a farm and a fence). On the other side of the concrete wall there is a bonafide/paved path but no indication of where it leads to. Are we supposed to teleport to the otherside of the 3 ft concrete wall (wouldn’t be the first time google thought we could teleport) or proceed through this family’s backyard.
Coincidentally, as we are debating our next move, a motorcycle rider (on one of those large long distance travel bikes) arrives on the other side of the concrete wall a few dozen yards ahead, clearly not sure about the path either. By this time we had already precariously turned the bike around to head back to plan B. As we watch him investigate his path towards us, we see him cross a threshold we couldn’t see from our vantage point. In doing so we learned that there was a break in the concrete wall that was just large enough for us to get through, except for the passing through people’s backyard.
Deep into this mess and 2 bike turnarounds later we decide to press on. So I start walking towards these people chillin’ in their backyard. They don’t react negatively at all and just ask if we are ok or need help (we would have been approached with guns in Texas…). I explain we are coming from the boats and trying to get to the main road. They of course act graciously and tell me yes the main road is just ahead. They had no problem or issue with us coming out of the thick woods onto their property and acted very casually as if this happens all the time. A short while later we reached the main road and were never more happy to see pavement.
There were several times this day that we could have assumed the worst. And we were certainly skeptical at times. But we continued to keep an open mind and trust people and ourselves. What resulted was quite the adventure and a story to tell.
Our moral was that sometimes you have to suspend judgment and approach situations with an open mind. Based on everything we are taught growing up in the States, our instinct was initially danger but based on everything we knew about traveling through the Philippines and the kindness and good nature of the people we have experienced, we knew better than to let fear take hold.